It may be Jehovah thy God will hear the words of Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which Jehovah thy God hath heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that is left.
The king of Assyria's officer had just stood outside Jerusalem and mocked Judah's God. Hezekiah does not argue back. He asks for prayer. His words sound unsure — "it may be" — yet they name what matters: the Assyrian has mocked the living God, and only a remnant is left to plead. (Older translations read "reproach the living God" where the ESV has "mock.")
Hezekiah says "the LORD your God" to the prophet, not "my God." That small word measures his faith.
If Hezekiah's faith had been stronger, he would have been able to say "my God" instead of "your God," but despite feeble faith, God answered, for the feeble faith was in a strong and powerful living God. What encouragement there is for us in this. Our faith may be very feeble, like Hezekiah's. It is not the strong faith of a Paul, who could write, "And my God will supply every need of yours" (Phil. 4:19). But "the faintest, feeblest cry we raise will reach the Saviour's ear."
Hezekiah grasps one thing. The insult went past him and struck God, so the quarrel is God's to settle.
But one thing is enough for the afflicted remnant, and it ought to be enough for us. The Lord is there. It is He, not ourselves, who has been defied. So let us say like Hezekiah: perhaps the Lord will hear the words of the one who reproaches the living God, and will punish the words He has heard (v. 4). And the Lord will answer us.
Hezekiah does two things at once. He prays himself, and he sends his men to the prophet.
He goes to the Lord; he sends them to the Lord's servant. This was right. He looks in prayer to God Himself, and he expects an answer through His servant… And the answer is immediate.
Hezekiah asked for prayer because the attack was beyond him. That weakness is not unique to him.
A crisis comes that finds God's people pitifully weak against the attacks of the enemy. What is their resource? Only the grace of God. So Hezekiah asked Isaiah to pray that God would rebuke the words of the Rabshakeh. He asked that God would preserve the small remnant of Israel left in the land (v. 4).
Hezekiah asks for prayer for "the remnant that is left." He will not claim a bigger name than that.
He spoke of them as "the remnant that is left." He recognised the unity of all Israel. The ten tribes had now gone into captivity. He did not fall into the trap of assuming that the two tribes he ruled were more than a "remnant," left by the mercy of God. Today the enemy has carried much of the professing church away from its true place and portion. So let any who have escaped this, and who remain true in any degree to their original calling, never forget one thing: they have no other standing than a remnant of the whole. They are not re-formed as a separate body.
Small is not the same as empty-handed.
Did they have any resource, this weak "remnant that is left" (v. 4)? Yes, indeed! They still had the Lord's temple, His beloved city, Mount Zion, the son of David and his throne, the prophet who carried the word of God. They still had far more than David himself had in the cave of Adullam! The flesh might become discouraged; faith could not. In the middle of this indescribable disaster, faith had everything that gave it firm assurance — Immanuel, God present with His people.
The reply came back through Isaiah at once. It dealt with the insult first.
Even if Hezekiah's faith was small, the Lord answered his cry. The glory of His Name was in question. So we have the divine reply to the king: "Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him… and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land."
- Small faith. "It may be" and "the LORD your God" show a weak grip. Yet that feeble faith rested on a strong, living God, and the faintest cry still reached Him.
- Not your fight. The taunt was against God, not really against Hezekiah. It is He, not we, whom the enemy defies.
- Two directions. He went to God in prayer and sent to God's servant for the answer. Asking others to pray admits the crisis is too big for you.
- Remnant honesty. He claimed no more than "the remnant that is left." Those left today have no other standing either.
- Rich in ruin. Stripped of everything else, the remnant still had the temple, Zion, the son of David and the prophet. That was more than David had in his cave. And God answered for the glory of His Name.
And the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
Isaiah 37:5 records one step in a national crisis: Hezekiah's officials reach the prophet. What matters is the message they carried and the answer they carried home.
Hezekiah did not send men to Isaiah instead of praying. One commentator notes the double action behind this short verse:
He goes to Jehovah; they are sent to Jehovah's servant. This was right. He looks in prayer to God Himself, and he expects an answer through His servant... And the answer is immediate.
One writer notes what Hezekiah did not do first:
He did not call a council of his advisers or a meeting of the captains to talk the matter over. He did not send first to the prophet. Faith knows a better way than that. He went straight into the presence of the LORD, and the sending to Isaiah was secondary. Many of our failures as His people happen because we do not go to the LORD first.
The distress behind this errand was not unique to Judah. One commentator sees it repeated:
Similar distress has been often repeated in the history of the Church. A crisis comes that finds the saints of God pitifully weak against the attacks of the enemy. What is their resource? Only the grace of God. So Hezekiah asked Isaiah to pray. He asked that God would rebuke the words of the Rabshakeh and keep the small remnant of Israel left in the land.
What Hezekiah left out of his message says as much as what he put in:
And equally beautiful is his message to God's prophet. He does not mention himself in the danger of Jerusalem. It is the honour of Jehovah which is at stake; the honour of the living God is at stake. The Assyrian had defied the God of Israel. Yes, Hezekiah's comfort was that Jehovah had heard it all and knew it all.
Another writer adds that the answer did not depend on the size of Hezekiah's faith:
Hezekiah was not a man of great faith, but he saw that the godless king of Assyria was not only challenging him — he was reproaching the God of Israel... Even if Hezekiah's faith was small, the Lord answered his cry, for the glory of His name was in question.
The answer Isaiah sent back named what Jehovah would do with the Assyrian:
His clothes torn, the king covers himself in sackcloth and goes to the house of Jehovah. There he asks the prophet. The prophet returns Jehovah's answer: they were not to fear the words of blasphemy. Jehovah would take the matter in hand and send the Assyrian back to die in his own land.
The remnant looked to have nothing left. One writer lists what they still had:
Did they have any resource, this weak "remnant that is left"? Yes, indeed! They still had Jehovah's temple, His beloved city, Mount Zion, the son of David and his throne, and the prophet who carried the word of God. They still had much more than David himself had in the cave of Adullam! The flesh might become discouraged; faith could not.
One writer reads the whole episode as a pattern for a later rescue:
Isaiah 36-39 relate the history of the invasion of Sennacherib, its result... These chapters instruct the remnant on how to wait on the Lord. In substance, this deliverance is a picture of the one that will take place with the Assyrian in the last days.
- Pray first. Hezekiah went into God's house before he sent anyone anywhere. Going to advisers, or even to the prophet, before God is where failure begins.
- Then send. The king looked to God in prayer and expected the reply through God's servant. The reply came at once.
- Admit the weakness. The same crisis returns in the history of the Church. When God's people are that weak against the enemy, their only resource is the grace of God.
- Name God's honour. Hezekiah left himself out and put the honour of the living God in front of the prophet. God answered his small faith, because the glory of His name was at stake.
- Count what is left. The remnant still had the temple, the throne of David, and a prophet with God's word. That is more than David himself had in the cave of Adullam. It also points ahead to a greater deliverance still to come.
And Isaiah said to them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith Jehovah Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
Hezekiah did two things at once — he went to God in prayer, and he sent his men to God's prophet. One writer calls both steps right, and notes how fast the answer came:
He goes to Jehovah; they are sent to Jehovah's servant. This was right. He looks in prayer to God Himself, and he expects an answer through His servant. … And the answer is immediate.
The message told Hezekiah not to fear "the words" — and words were the weapon. Rabshakeh, the Assyrian officer, built his speech to break the city's nerve:
Rabshakeh is sent from Lachish to insult king Hezekiah, to blaspheme the God of Israel, and lure the people into unconditional surrender to his master. Mixed in with this insolent, deceitful and irreverent abuse there is also some truth; for there were those (not Hezekiah) who did look to Egypt for help. But the aim of it all was to drive the Jews to despair and to accomplish the designs of Assyria. So the king's very piety, his zeal for Jehovah in pulling down the altars of false gods, is cunningly twisted into a charge of robbing Jehovah of His honour. … The enemy knows how to give a religious gloss to his own wicked schemes as easily as he can blacken the most faithful of God's servants. What a mercy to have the unerring standard of His word to test and be tested by!
God does not say that Assyria's men insulted Hezekiah. He says they insulted Him. That lifts the weight of the crisis off the people under siege:
But one thing is enough for the afflicted remnant and ought to be enough for us: the Lord is there; it is He, not ourselves, who has been defied. So let us say as Hezekiah did: perhaps the Lord will hear the words of the one who reproaches the living God, and punish the words He has heard. And the Lord will answer us.
Hezekiah's faith was not strong. That did not decide the answer he got:
Hezekiah was not a man of great faith, but he saw that the profane king of Assyria was not only challenging him, but reproaching the God of Israel. So he sent a message to Isaiah, the prophet of Jehovah … Even if Hezekiah's faith was small, the Lord answered his cry, for the glory of His Name was in question.
"Do not be afraid" was not a general rule for every emergency. It was the path marked out for that hour, and it worked. One writer sets it beside a later crisis, when safety lay in the opposite course:
In Hezekiah's time they were told, "In quietness and in trust shall be your strength." They were also told that the Assyrian would not even throw up a siege mound against Jerusalem. They were to stay perfectly calm and firm; and the host of Assyria was destroyed. But when a certain time of judgment had come, in Jeremiah's time, the man who went out of the city to the Chaldeans, their enemies, would save himself.
One writer reads the rescue of Jerusalem as a picture of something still ahead, and reads these chapters as a lesson in how to wait on the Lord:
Isaiah 36–39 relate the history of the invasion of Sennacherib, its result, and the sickness to the point of death of Hezekiah, which came before it. They are an instruction for the remnant on the way to wait on the Lord. This deliverance is, in substance, a picture of the one that will take place with respect to the Assyrian in the last days.
Hezekiah in sackcloth is read the same way — as a sample of a later people in the same trouble:
Hezekiah, too, covered with sackcloth, may be seen as a sample of the righteous remnant in the last days, crying for deliverance from the hand of the mighty oppressor.
- Words: the attack was verbal before it was military. It aimed to drive Judah to despair, and it twisted Hezekiah's reforms into a charge against him.
- Whose: God calls the insult blasphemy against Himself. Assyria defied the Lord, not the frightened people.
- Where: Hezekiah prayed to God and sent to God's prophet — and the answer came at once.
- Why: the reply did not rest on the strength of his faith, which was small. It rested on the glory of God's name.
- What then: "Do not be afraid" meant stand still. The same pattern reaches forward, a picture of how a later remnant will wait on the Lord.
Behold, I will put a spirit into him, and he shall hear tidings, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.
Assyria's spokesman had mocked the God of Judah with boasting words. Hezekiah then sent his officials in sackcloth to ask the prophet Isaiah to pray. The reply is not advice. It is a sentence already passed on Sennacherib, the Assyrian king — and it turns on one repeated phrase: his own land.
Hezekiah did not choose between praying himself and asking for a word from God's prophet. He did both, and one writer says he was right.
He goes to Jehovah; they are sent to Jehovah's servant. This was right. He looks in prayer to God Himself, and he expects an answer through His servant... And the answer is immediate.
What Isaiah sends back is a promise that God will take the whole affair into His own hands.
They were not to fear the words of blasphemy; for Jehovah would undertake the matter and send back the Assyrian to perish in his own land.
Isaiah's answer names no army and no battle. God will work out of sight, and a report will do the rest.
God would work behind the scenes, causing the king of Assyria to hear a rumour to drive him back to his own land, where he would suffer death by the sword among his own people (v.7). His own sons killed him (v.37).
Later verses identify the rumour. It was military news, and it hit Sennacherib right where his ambitions lay.
The word of the Lord is fulfilled to the letter. Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, had seized Egypt. News came that he was advancing against the Assyrian king, whose own goal was the conquest of Egypt. So the Assyrian left at once to meet him.
Translations differ on the opening phrase. Some read that God puts a spirit in the king. Older versions read, "I will send a blast upon him." Either way, the cause is unseen, and it is God's.
God speaks about a foreign emperor in the same settled tone He uses about His own people. One writer draws the wider lesson:
This was God's decree. Even with His enemies God is just as final, and governs just as fully, as among His friends. It is not man that governs in any case, but God... It is not a question of which side has the most strength or the most wisdom.
The promise had three parts: a turning back, a journey home, and a violent death there. The chapter records all three.
The king retreats in dismay. He returns and lives in Nineveh. But as Jehovah had sent a blast upon him in Palestine, so now he must fall in his own land. "As he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword"... So every word of Jehovah came true.
His boast is worth setting beside the place where he died.
He had said to Hezekiah: The Lord will not deliver you; and behold, his god Nisroch was incapable of delivering him when he worshipped before him.
That collapse is read as a pattern, not merely an episode.
Such will be the end of all those who exalt themselves against the Lord and His people.
- Words heard. Assyria's boasts were aimed at God, and God took account of them. He tells the messengers not to be afraid of words He has already answered.
- Spirit sent. God's means is unseen. He puts a spirit in the enemy, and Jerusalem's rescue starts there, not on a battlefield.
- Rumour spread. News that Tirhakah of Ethiopia is advancing pulls the invader away. God works behind the scenes, and plain military news is His tool.
- Land reached. He goes home, exactly as promised. The proud campaign ends in retreat, not conquest.
- Sword fallen. In his own land, in his own god's temple, his own sons kill him. The god he trusted could not save him, and every word spoken through Isaiah came true.
And Rab-shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.
Isaiah had just told Hezekiah not to be afraid. God would put a spirit in the Assyrian king, so that he would hear news and go home — and verse 8 is where that promise starts to move, as the officer who had shouted threats outside Jerusalem packs up and returns to his master.
One writer traces the retreat straight back to the promise. The news that turned the Assyrian king around came out of the very country he had planned to conquer.
"Do not be afraid," said Isaiah, "because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled Me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumour and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land." The word of the Lord is fulfilled to the letter. Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, had seized Egypt. Now news came that he was advancing against Sennacherib — whose own goal was the conquest of Egypt. That news made him leave at once to meet him.
Rabshakeh's departure lifts the pressure on Jerusalem. But it lifts only so far. Another battle front, not surrender, drew the Assyrian king away, and the relief lasts a short time.
God would work behind the scenes. He would cause the king of Assyria to hear a rumour that drove him back to his own land, where he would die by the sword among his own people (v.7). His own sons killed him (v.37). So Hezekiah had relief for a short time, when the rumour caused Rabshakeh to leave Jerusalem, because the king of Assyria had another front of battle with Libnah (v.8).
Verse 8 shows the great king away from Lachish and fighting at Libnah. One writer weighs the three accounts of these events in Scripture and draws a firm conclusion.
The three accounts in Scripture are clear as light, each true to the divine design of the book it stands in. The great king never besieged Jerusalem. He was content to send his servants and a large part of his force from Lachish. That is where Hezekiah had sent his confession, and also the heavy fine imposed on him. The Assyrian commander (Tartan), the chief chamberlain (Rab-saris) and the chief cup-bearer (Rab-shakeh) did come to Jerusalem, where the last of them insulted Hezekiah, threatened the worst horrors of a siege in the hearing of those sitting on the wall, and blasphemed the LORD as if He were powerless like other gods. It is no less clear that Rabshakeh returned to his master, who had moved from Lachish to Libnah.
Look at how God did it. A rumour was enough to move the king who had come to crush Hezekiah, and the man who tried to humble him ends up humbled at home.
What a humiliation, and yet how simple! First a rumour in his own land, after the blast that the LORD would send in His land. And last of all, he himself was kept for a fate beyond comparison more humiliating, in front of his own subjects in his own land.
Why does Scripture give Hezekiah's reign so much space? Commentators point past Sennacherib to a rescue still to come.
Hezekiah's life is given at length, because in his reign Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem foreshadowed a still greater deliverance from a future king of Assyria. God so controls the evil and the passions of men that He makes it serve His purpose: to give a hint of what He will yet do for His own glory.
The same writer who says Sennacherib never besieged the city looks on to a later Assyrian who will do more than threaten it.
Jerusalem is not only to be surrounded but taken in part by the Assyrian of the last days. But on his second attack, after a gap, to finish the capture, he not only falls but is fittingly punished by God stepping in. So the history supplies by inspired wisdom exactly what is needed: evidence of the highest kind, which lets us tell apart what has already been accomplished from the still more important things to come.
- Word first. Isaiah spoke the promise first. Verse 8 is that promise beginning to happen, fulfilled "to the letter."
- Rumour next. God's instrument was news of Tirhakah advancing from Egypt. No army marched out of Jerusalem — a report turned the Assyrians around.
- Relief, not rescue. Rabshakeh's exit gave Hezekiah only "a short time." The Assyrian king had another battle front at Libnah.
- Never besieged. Sennacherib sent his officers from Lachish and never came to Jerusalem himself. He threatened the city but never besieged it.
- Rehearsal last. Sennacherib's fall foreshadows a greater rescue from a future king of Assyria. The record lets us tell what is already done from what is still to come, with God bending human evil to serve His own glory.