37 Hezekiah Seeks Isaiah’s Help

37:1 As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. ²And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. ³They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. ⁴It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”

⁵When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, ⁶Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me. ⁷Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”

⁸The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. ⁹Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush,[1] “He has set out to fight against you.” And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰“Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction.[2] And shall you be delivered? ¹²Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”

Hezekiah’s Prayer for Deliverance

¹⁴Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: ¹⁶“O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. ¹⁷Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. ¹⁸Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, ¹⁹and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. ²⁰So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.”

Sennacherib’s Fall

²¹Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, ²²this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:

“‘She despises you, she scorns you— the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you— the daughter of Jerusalem.

²³“‘Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel! ²⁴By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon, to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest. ²⁵I dug wells and drank waters, to dry up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.

²⁶“‘Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins, ²⁷while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted[3] before it is grown.

²⁸“‘I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me. ²⁹Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.’ ³⁰“And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that. Then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. ³¹And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. ³²For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. ³³“Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. ³⁴By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. ³⁵For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” ³⁶And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. ³⁷Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. ³⁸And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

[1] Probably Nubia [2] That is, setting apart (devoting) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction) [3] Some Hebrew manuscripts and 2 Kings 19:26; most Hebrew manuscripts like a field

38 Hezekiah’s Sickness and Recovery

38:1 In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.”[4] ²Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, ³and said, “Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: ⁵“Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.[5] ⁶I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and will defend this city.

⁷“This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that he has promised: ⁸Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.[6]

⁹A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

¹⁰I said, In the middle[7] of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years. ¹¹I said, I shall not see the Lord, the Lord in the land of the living; I shall look on man no more among the inhabitants of the world. ¹²My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent; like a weaver I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom; from day to night you bring me to an end; ¹³ I calmed myself[8] until morning; like a lion he breaks all my bones; from day to night you bring me to an end.

¹⁴Like a swallow or a crane I chirp; I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my pledge of safety! ¹⁵What shall I say? For he has spoken to me, and he himself has done it. I walk slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul.

¹⁶O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these is the life of my spirit. Oh restore me to health and make me live! ¹⁷Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back. ¹⁸For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness. ¹⁹The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day; the father makes known to the children your faithfulness.

²⁰The Lord will save me, and we will play my music on stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the Lord. ²¹Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.” ²²Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?”

[4] Or live; also verses 9, 21 [5] Hebrew to your days [6] The meaning of the Hebrew verse is uncertain [7] Or In the quiet [8] Or (with Targum) I cried for help