2 Chronicles 32:9-19--Sennacherib Blasphemes

2 Chronicles 32:9-19
English Standard Version

Sennacherib Blasphemes
9 After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria, who was besieging Lachish with all his forces, sent his servants to Jerusalem to Hezekiah king of Judah and to all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem, saying, 10 “Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria, ‘On what are you trusting, that you endure the siege in Jerusalem? 11 Is not Hezekiah misleading you, that he may give you over to die by famine and by thirst, when he tells you, “The LORD our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria”? 12 Has not this same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, “Before one altar you shall worship, and on it you shall burn your sacrifices”? 13 Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands at all able to deliver their lands out of my hand? 14 Who among all the gods of those nations that my fathers devoted to destruction was able to deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand? 15 Now, therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you in this fashion, and do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to deliver his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand!’”

​16 And his servants said still more against the LORD God and against his servant Hezekiah. 17 And he wrote letters to cast contempt on the LORD, the God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, “Like the gods of the nations of the lands who have not delivered their people from my hands, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver his people from my hand.” 18 And they shouted it with a loud voice in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, in order that they might take the city. 19 And they spoke of the God of Jerusalem as they spoke of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men's hands.

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For the pagan kings, their wars with Israel and Judah (especially Judah) were less about land and resources than they were about clashes between their gods and the LORD.  The war that was fought on the battlefield was only a shadow of the war that the pagans imagined was being fought in the heavenly places (we see a picture of some of this in the book of Daniel where Gabriel and Michael the archangels together fight a principality known as the Prince of Persia).  Sennacherib blasphemes the LORD when he has the walled city of Lachish surrounded.  He tells the people inside not to even try to cry out to the LORD because the LORD cannot save His people. 

Sennacherib was only familiar with how the northern kingdom of Israel "worshiped the LORD," by worshiping the idols the Jeroboam had made--the two golden calves-- and how the people of the northern kingdom made their sacrifices in all of the high places and "worshiped" like the pagans did.  Sennacherib sees that Hezekiah has destroyed the idols and the high places and imagines that the LORD would be angry with Hezekiah and the people for destroying the places where Sennacherib thought that the LORD wanted His people to worship Him.  Little did Sennacherib know that the only place the LORD's people were to worship Him was in His holy Temple.

Then Sennacherib turns to his long list of military victories.  He tells of how he has defeated many other nations with many other gods and none of those gods were able to save their kings and their subjects (we think to ourselves "Of course, because the LORD is living, unlike those idols of wood, stone, iron, brass, bronze, silver, and gold--and anything else they could make an idol out of).  However, Sennacherib is putting the LORD on the same level as the demons that were behind those gods.  Sennacherib does not realize that the LORD is not only the God of Israel and the Living God, but He is the only true God.  All other gods are dumb, deaf, blind, and have no strength compared to Him.

Sennacherib and his messengers tried very hard to make the people afraid and make them trust in his strength instead of the strength of the LORD.  They spoke to people in Hebrew so that they understood the boasts and taunts without the need of a translator.  How will the LORD respond to Sennacherib and the challenge of putting the LORD up against the false gods of Assyria?  We'll see next time.