2 Kings 19:20-37--Isaiah Prophesies Sennacherib's Fall

2 Kings 19:20-37
English Standard Version

Isaiah Prophesies Sennacherib's Fall
20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. 21 This 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.

22 “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!
23 By your messengers 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;
I felled its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest lodging place,
    its most fruitful forest.
24 I dug wells
    and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
    all the streams of Egypt.’

25 “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 turn fortified cities
    into heaps of ruins,
26 while 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 before it is grown.

27 “But I know your sitting down
    and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
28 Because you have raged against me
    and your complacency has come into 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.

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

32 “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. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

35 And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. 37 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

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We see that Isaiah has now become the principle prophet in Judah.  The Word of the LORD came to Isaiah to deliver an answer to Hezekiah's prayer concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria.  The LORD told Hezekiah through Isaiah that the people of Judah, especially Jerusalem, would wag their fingers and heads at him when he would be brought low and would tell him that this is what happens when you mock the Holy One of Israel, the Lord (notice that this Adonai, and not YHWH, which is interesting since we usually thing of Adonai as referring to Christ, the second person of the Trinity).  It seems clear that the LORD identified Sennacherib's intentions as not just being against the people of the LORD, but more specifically as trying to destroy the people from whom the Messiah was promised.  God's plan to save His people and the world through Jesus would not be hindered by any king or nation.

It didn't matter how many notches Assyria had in its belt to brag about because all those victories came to them because the LORD was in charge and would make them like an animal that had a hook in its nose and a bit and bridal in its mouth so that the LORD would turn them around and lead them (in a painful way) in the way He wanted them to go.  They would not attack His people.

Notice all that prophecy is offset because it is all poetic.  The whole book of Isaiah is like this too.  This is the way that the Spirit of the Lord often spoke to and through His prophets.  Now we return to the part written in prose.  The LORD tells Assyria to enjoy what they have for now because in three years time the LORD is going to make Jerusalem and all Judah with her flourish and it will be the end for Assyria.  The zeal of the LORD will accomplish this.

Then the LORD speaks a warning to Sennacherib to not try to attach Jerusalem, not even with ranged weapons like archers, and that he should simply turn back around go home by the same way that the came.  There is nothing for him there in the Land belonging to His people.  The LORD Himself would fight for the City of David and for the people that belong to Him because of the covenant that He made with David (that a Messianic King would come through the line of David and that He would reign forever and ever).  The fulfillment of this covenant was of utmost importance to the LORD.  Even if the people of Jerusalem and all Judah with her were wicked and deserved punishment, He would not let the Assyrians destroy the line of the Messiah.

That night, the angel of the LORD (that is Christ) went out and destroyed 185,000 Assyrians in their camp.  This was enough evidence for Sennacherib to realize that he shouldn't mess with the LORD or the LORD's people, and he turned tail and ran back home to what he believed to be the safety and security of his homeland and the capital city of Nineveh.  However, as he went to worship in the temple of Nisroch, the god of the Assyrians, two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, came and struck him down with the sword.  These two sons escaped into the land of Ararat (where Noah's Ark had landed in the book of Genesis--so we haven't heard that name for a while).  Therefore, Esarhaddon, another son, probably younger than the two that murdered their father, reigned in the place of Sennacherib.

We will see much of this text repeated in the book of Isaiah when we get there.  We won't see much else about Nineveh other than the story of Jonah (which was historically before this point) and then the prophecy against Nineveh about their destruction in Nahum and also in Zephaniah.  The LORD would send many warnings to the people of Nineveh and give them a chance to repent before destruction would come upon them, but they will refuse to listen and will be so utterly destroyed that for many years the skeptics mocked saying that a city as large as Nineveh as it was described in the book of Jonah should certainly have left some archeological artifact for us to find.  It has only been recently that archeologists have found the remnants of Nineveh and it experienced exactly the kind of catastrophe that was prophesied in the Bible in the book of Nahum.  Do not let the skeptics take you down the path of saying that God must present them with the evidence that they demand, for even when they are presented with such evidence, they simply move the goal posts and come up with the next issue because they do not want to admit that God's Word is true.  For, if it is true, then it is authoritative not only in matters of history, but also of morality.  That is the real sticking point for nearly every atheist and skeptic--they want to be like God deciding good and evil for themselves (the original temptation in the Garden of Eden).  Man is still rebelling against the LORD, His Word, and His people today.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  (See Ecclesiastes which tells us that there is nothing new under the sun).