Isaiah Chapter 37

Hezekiah Seeks Isaiah’s Help

¹ When Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, put on burlap, and went to the Temple. ² He sent Eliakim, Shebna, and the senior priests to the prophet Isaiah. ³ They went to him and said,

“Hezekiah says, ‘This is a distressing, discouraging, dejecting day. Babies have come due, but there’s no strength to deliver them. ⁴ Maybe the LORD your God has heard the Rabshakeh that the king of Assyria sent to mock the living God. Maybe he’ll reprove him for it. Pray for the remnant that’s left.’” [ ⁵ ]

⁶ Isaiah said,

“Tell your master the LORD says, ‘You don’t need to be afraid of what the Assyrian king’s messengers have blasphemed. ⁷ I’ll make him believe a rumor and go back home. He’ll fall by the sword there.’”

Is 37:1-7

⁸ Meantime, the Rabshakeh went back and found the king of Assyria fighting Libnah, because he’d heard he’d left Lachish. ⁹ The king had heard that Tirhakah [Taharqa], king of Nubia, had set out to fight him. When the Rabshakeh heard it, he sent ambassadors back to Hezekiah:

¹⁰ “Don’t let the god you trust in deceive you into thinking Jerusalem won’t fall. ¹¹ You’ve heard that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries. Are you going to be spared? ¹² Did their gods deliver Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, the Edenites in Telassar? ¹³ Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Hena, Ivvah, or the city of Sepharvaim?”

Is 37:8-13

¹⁴ Hezekiah read the letter, then went up to the Temple and unrolled it in the LORD’s presence. ¹⁵ He prayed,

¹⁶ “LORD of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubs, you alone are God over the kingdoms. You made earth and sky. ¹⁷ Incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see. Listen to what Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God. ¹⁸ Assyria’s kings have devastated all the nations and their lands. ¹⁹ They’ve thrown their gods into the fire because they were just hand-made pieces of wood and stone. ²⁰ But now, LORD our God, deliver us from the one that destroyed those kingdoms so the world can know that you alone are God.”                      Is 37:14-20       

Isaiah Predicts Israel’s Deliverance

²¹ Then Isaiah sent word to Hezekiah,

“The LORD God of Israel says, ‘Because you prayed to me about Sennacherib,

²² I have this to say to him:  

      “The virgin daughter of Zion

                  despises you and laughs at you;

            the young woman of Jerusalem         

                  shakes her head as you flee,                                

Is 37:21-22

      ²³ “Who’ve you been mocking and blaspheming?

            Who’d you raise your voice at

                  and roll your eyes about?

            The Holy One of Israel!

         ²⁴ You mocked the Lord through your messengers:

            ‘I came up

                  to the highest mountains with many chariots,

                  to the most remote parts of Lebanon;

            I cut down its tall cedars, its best cypress;

                  I reached its highest peak, its deepest forests.

      ²⁵ I’ve dug wells and refreshed myself with their water

            and dammed up the rivers in Egypt with my feet.’

Is 37:23-25

     ²⁶ “Haven’t you heard?

            I decided that very thing long ago;

            I planned it ages back;

                  now I’m letting you do it

                  so you’ll turn fortified towns into piles of rubble.

      ²⁷ That’s why the people in them are

                           so weak, scared, and confused;               

            they’re as weak as plants in a field,

                  as grass sprouting on housetops

                        that’s scorched before it’s grown.

      ²⁸ I know when you sit down,

            when you come and go,

            when you rage at me.

      ²⁹ Because you raged at me

                           and I heard your arrogance myself,

            I’ll put my hook in your nose,

                        my bridle in your lips,

                  and turn you back the way you came.”               

Is 37:26-29

³⁰ “Hezekiah, I’ll show you what I mean: this year you’ll only eat what volunteers, next year what volunteers from that, but the third year you’ll sow and harvest, tend vineyards and eat their fruit. ³¹ The surviving remnant of the siege in Judah will again take root down and bear fruit up. ³² A remnant will go out of Jerusalem, survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will make it happen.”

³³ The LORD says, “The king of Assyria and his army won’t come into this city or shoot an arrow here. He won’t approach it with a shield or throw a mound up against its walls. ³⁴ He’ll go back home the way he came. ³⁵ I’ll save this city for my sake and my servant David.”

³⁶ The angel of the LORD went out that night and struck 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. When people got up early the next morning, the Assyrians were all dead. ³⁷ So Sennacherib went home to live in Nineveh. ³⁸ As he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrock, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon succeeded him.                           

Is 37:30-38