Hezekiah’s Prayer

      14Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. 15Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said, “O LORD, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 16“Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 17“Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands 18and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. 19“Now, O LORD our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.”

God’s Answer through Isaiah

      20Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you.’

21“This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him:
         ‘She has despised you and mocked you,
         The virgin daughter of Zion;
         She has shaken her head behind you,
         The daughter of Jerusalem!

22‘Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
         And against whom have you raised your voice,
         And haughtily lifted up your eyes?
         Against the Holy One of Israel!

23‘Through your messengers you have reproached the Lord,
         And you have said, “With my many chariots
         I came up to the heights of the mountains,
         To the remotest parts of Lebanon;
         And I cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypresses.
         And I entered its farthest lodging place, its thickest forest.

24“I dug wells and drank foreign waters,
         And with the sole of my feet I dried up
         All the rivers of Egypt.”

25‘Have you not heard?
         Long ago I did it;
         From ancient times I planned it.
         Now I have brought it to pass,
         That you should turn fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

26‘Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength,
         They were dismayed and put to shame;
         They were as the vegetation of the field and as the green herb,
         As grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.

27‘But I know your sitting down,
         And your going out and your coming in,
         And your raging against Me.

28‘Because of your raging against Me,
         And because your arrogance 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 which you came.

      29‘Then this shall be the sign for you: you will eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 30‘The surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 31‘For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion survivors. The zeal of the LORD will perform this.

      32‘Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, “He will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield or throw up a siege ramp against it. 33“By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he shall not come to this city,”’ declares the LORD. 34‘For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’”

      35Then it happened that night that the angel of the LORD went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead. 36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh. 37It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
When he heard them say concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, "Behold, he has come out to fight against you," he sent messengers again to Hezekiah saying,

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Now, Sennacherib heard that King Tirhakah of Sudan was coming to fight him. Sennacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

King James Bible
And when he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against thee: he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah, saying,

Douay-Rheims Bible
And when he heard of Theraca king of Ethiopia: Behold, he is come out to fight with thee: and was going against him, he sent messengers to Ezechias, saying:

Darby Bible Translation
And he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he has come forth to make war with thee. And he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,

English Revised Version
And when he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against thee: he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah, saying,

Webster's Bible Translation
And when he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Cush, Behold, he hath come out to fight against thee: he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,

World English Bible
When he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, "Behold, he has come out to fight against you, he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,

Young's Literal Translation
And he heareth concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, saying, 'Lo, he hath come out to fight with thee;' and he turneth and sendeth messengers unto Hezekiah, saying,

Cross References

2 Kings 19:8 Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish.

2 Kings 19:10 "Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah, 'Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you saying, "Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."

Isaiah 18:1 Alas, oh land of whirring wings Which lies beyond the rivers of Cush,

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 8-19

Rabshakeh, having delivered his message and received no answer (whether he took this silence for a consent or a slight does not appear), left his army before Jerusalem, under the command of the other generals, and went himself to attend the king his master for further orders. He found him besieging Libnah, a city that had revolted from Judah, ch. 8:22. Whether he had taken Lachish or no is not certain; some think he departed from it because he found the taking of it impracticable, v. 8. However, he was now alarmed with the rumour that the king of the Cushites, who bordered upon the Arabians, was coming out against him with a great army, v. 9. This made him very desirous to gain Jerusalem with all speed. To take it by force would cost him more time and men than he could well spare, and therefore he renewed his attack upon Hezekiah to persuade him tamely to surrender it. Having found him an easy man once (ch. 18:14), when he said, That which thou puttest on me I will bear, he hoped again to frighten him into a submission, but in vain. Here,

I. Sennacherib sent a letter to Hezekiah, a railing letter, a blaspheming letter, to persuade him to surrender Jerusalem, because it would be to no purpose for him to think of standing it out. His letter is to the same purport with Rabshakeh's speech; there is nothing new offered in it. Rabshakeh had said to the people, Let not Hezekiah deceive you, ch. 18:29. Sennacherib writes to Hezekiah, Let not thy God deceive thee, v. 10. Those that have the God of Jacob for their help, and whose hope is in the Lord their God, need not fear being deceived by him, as the heathen were by their gods. To terrify Hezekiah, and drive him from his anchor, he magnifies himself and his own achievements. See how proudly he boasts, 1. Of the lands he had conquered (v. 11): All lands, and destroyed utterly! How are the mole-hills of his victories swelled to mountains! So far was he from destroying all lands that at this time the land of Cush, and Tirhakah its king, were a terror to him. What vast hyperboles may one expect in proud men's praises of themselves! 2. Of the gods he had conquered, v. 12. "Each vanquished nation and its gods, which were so far from being able to deliver them that they fell with them: and shall thy God deliver thee?" 3. Of the kings he had conquered (v. 13), the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad. Whether he means the prince or the idol, he means to make himself appear greater than either, and therefore very formidable, and the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

II. Hezekiah encloses this in another letter, a praying letter, a believing letter, and sends it to the King of kings, who judges among the gods. Hezekiah was not so haughty as not to receive the letter, though we may suppose the superscription did not give him his due titles; when he had received it he was not so careless as not to read it; when he had read it he was not in such a passion as to write an answer to it in the same provoking language; but he immediately went up to the temple, presented himself, and then spread the letter before the Lord (v. 14), not as if God needed to have the letter shown to him (he knew what was in it before Hezekiah did), but hereby he signified that he acknowledged God in all his ways,-that he desired not to aggravate the injuries his enemies did him nor to make them appear worse than they were, but desired they might be set in a true light,-and that he referred himself to God, and his righteous judgment, upon the whole matter. Hereby likewise he would affect himself in the prayer he came to the temple to make; and we have need of all possible helps to quicken us in that duty. In the prayer which Hezekiah prayed over this letter, 1. He adores the God whom Sennacherib had blasphemed (v. 15), calls him the God of Israel, because Israel was his peculiar people, and the God that dwelt between the cherubim, because there was the peculiar residence of his glory upon earth; but he gives glory to him as the God of the whole earth, and not, as Sennacherib fancied him to be, the God of Israel only, and confined to the temple. "Let them say what they will, thou art sovereign Lord, for thou art the God, the God of gods, sole Lord, even thou alone, universal Lord of all the kingdoms of the earth, and rightful Lord, for thou hast made heaven and earth. Being Creator of all, by an incontestable title thou art owner and ruler of all." 2. He appeals to God concerning the insolence and profaneness of Sennacherib (v. 16): "Lord, hear; Lord, see. Here it is under his own hand; here it is in black and white." Had Hezekiah only been abused, he would have passed it by; but it is God, the living God, that is reproached, the jealous God. Lord, what wilt thou do for thy great name? 3. He owns Sennacherib's triumphs over the gods of the heathen, but distinguishes between them and the God of Israel (v. 17, 18): He has indeed cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, unable to help either themselves or their worshipers, and therefore no wonder that he has destroyed them; and, in destroying them, though he knew it not, he really served the justice and jealousy of the God of Israel, who has determined to extirpate all the gods of the heathen. But those are deceived who think they can therefore be too hard for him. He is none of the gods whom men's hands have made, but he has himself made all things, Ps. 115:3, 4. 4. He prays that God will now glorify himself in the defeat of Sennacherib and the deliverance of Jerusalem out of his hands (v. 19): "Now therefore save us; for if we be conquered, as other lands are, they will say that thou art conquered, as the gods of those lands were: but, Lord, distinguish thyself, by distinguishing us, and let all the world know, and be made to confess, that thou art the Lord God, the self-existent sovereign God, even thou only, and that all pretenders are vanity and a lie." Note, The best pleas in prayer are those which are taken from God's honour; and therefore the Lord's prayer begins with Hallowed be thy name, and concludes with Thine is the glory.

Links

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