Yahweh's Reply. The King of Assyria Is But Yahweh's Tool And Will Be Dealt With Accordingly (Isaiah 37:26-29).
Yahweh's reply to Sennacherib is to point out what He has accomplished in the past. He wants it to be clear that Assyria is not the only one that can cite prior victories, and that indeed Assyria are the new boys on the block.
‘Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Now I have brought it about that you should be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. That is why their inhabitants were of little power, they were dismayed and confounded. They were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and as a field before it is grown.'
Yahweh points out to Sennacherib that he ought rather to recognise that he himself is but a recent phenomenon. Let him therefore now consider what Yahweh has done. Who was it Who formed the world in the first place? It was He, Yahweh, who set up the world and shaped it, and Who is Lord of fruit and water. And Sennacherib should recognise that it is only because it is within Yahweh's plans that he has even been permitted to make ruins out of defenced cities. That is the real reason why the peoples have been so easy to deal with. It is because Yahweh has brought it about. In that he had spoken truly (Isaiah 36:10).
‘That you should be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.' Bringing cities into a condition of ruin has already been shown to be part of God's final purposes (Isaiah 17:9; Isaiah 24:10-12; Isaiah 26:5; Isaiah 27:10), Sennacherib is thus but helping on God's process.
‘They were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and as a field before it is grown.' That is, they were temporary and passing (Psalms 37:2; Psalms 103:15-16; Psalms 129:6), soon withered and struggling to survive. Note the fourfold description which is a prominent feature of this passage, pointing to universality.
‘But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your raging against me.'
Again the fourfold structure. God wants him to know that He knows everything about him. He may try to hide his movements and his plans from men, but he cannot hide them from God. He knows all that he does. He knows when he sits down, He knows when he goes out, He knows when he comes in, and He is privy to every word he speaks. And He is especially aware of his diatribes against Himself. ‘All things are open to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.'
‘Because of your raging against me, and because your insolence has come up to my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.'
God wants him to know that He has noted his words and his insolence and will therefore deal with him for what he is, a recalcitrant. The picture language expresses the reality of what is happening. He may think that he is going back to Assyria of his own volition, but it is actually because God is ‘dragging' him there. The hook in the nose was, as monuments reveal, Assyria's regular bestial way of controlling prisoners, and the bridle was especially for guiding and holding back the horses of which he was so proud. So, as Sennacherib's master, Yahweh will drag him along towards his homeland, in the same way as many prisoners have been dragged, and, as Sennacherib's rider, He will pull on the reins and direct him back to where he came from. Yahweh would accept Sennacherib's offer of horses to ride on so contemptuously made. He will use the king himself as a horse to ride on. Sennacherib's contemptuous offer has rebounded on him (compare Isaiah 36:8).