20140624 Tuesday, June 24 2014
2 Kings 19: What Did Isaiah Do During The Siege Of Judah?

by Wayne Blank
See also 1 Year Holy Bible Reading Plan

"Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me"

When the Kingdom of Israel became irreparably corrupt, the LORD (Who was and is Jesus Christ - see Genesis 1: In The Beginning Was The Word and The Kingdom Of The LORD God) had the Assyrian Empire conquer and take them away into exile (see Israel In History and Prophecy: The Lost Ten Tribes; also Jonah: Three Days And Three Nights).

The Assyrians did not however stop at what the LORD enabled them to do as agents of His Wrath; the Assyrian army then turned from Samaria (see The Origin Of The Samaritans) and invaded the Kingdom of Judah (see Sennacherib's Turn From Israel To Judah). When King Hezekiah of Judah saw the Assyrian horde arrogantly violate his people's God-given sovereignty (see The Boundary Law), he appealed to the LORD to stop them.

"19:1 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD. 19:2 And he sent Eliakim, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz. 19:3 And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. 19:4 It may be the LORD thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left." (2 Kings 19:1-4 KJV)

The prophet Isaiah is most well-known from the amazing prophetic book that is named after him (see the Fact Finder question below). Isaiah is however also recorded in the Book of Kings when "the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah" to seek his help to stop the Assyrian onslaught. The Assyrians had escalated their rhetoric from insulting the people of Judah to blaspheming the LORD.

"19:5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 19:6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 19:7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

19:8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

19:9 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, 19:10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. 19:11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered? 19:12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar? 19:13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivah?" (2 Kings 5-13 KJV)

King Hezekiah then prayed to the LORD for deliverance from the militarily-powerful heathens who were inviting the LORD's wrath upon themselves with their Satanic mouths: "LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God."

"19:14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. 19:15 And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. 19:16 LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.

19:17 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands, 19:18 And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them. 19:19 Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD God, even thou only." (2 Kings 19:14-19 KJV)

The LORD then answered Hezekiah through Isaiah: "I will defend this city, to save it, for Mine own sake, and for My servant David's sake."

"19:20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. 19:21 This is the word that the LORD hath spoken concerning him;

The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. 19:22 Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. 19:23 By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel. 19:24 I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places.

19:25 Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. 19:26 Therefore their inhabitants were of small 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 corn blasted before it be grown up.

19:27 But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me. 19:28 Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

19:29 And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof. 19:30 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 19:31 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.

19:32 Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. 19:33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD. 19:34 For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake." (2 Kings 19:20-34 KJV)

The LORD then annihilated the 185,000 Assyrian troops that had flooded across the border into Judah. The Assyrian king Sennacherib was allowed to survive long enough to see his military power rendered into "dead corpses." He was soon thereafter assassinated by two of his own sons in the heathen temple of the Assyrian god that Sennacherib had used to blaspheme the LORD. Sennacherib was given the dying thought that his "superpower" nation had a super-nothing god.

"19:35 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. 19:36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.

19:37 And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead." (2 Kings 19:35-37 KJV)

Fact Finder: What was the amazing amount of detailed information that the prophet Isaiah knew about Jesus Christ? What did Isaiah know about the yet-future time?
See Isaiah: Visions Of The Messiah