Isaiah Chapter 37

From The Open Bible Project

37:1 It happened, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh's house.

• (a) In sign of grief and repentance.

37:2 He sent Eliakim, who 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.

• (b) To have comfort from him by the word of God, that his faith might be confirmed and so his prayer be more earnest: teaching by it that in all dangers these two are the only remedies to seek to God and his ministers.

37:3 They said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah, 'This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth.

• (c) We are in as great sorrow as a woman in labour who cannot be delivered.

37:4 It may be Yahweh your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.'"

• (d) That is, will declare by effect that he has heard it: for when God defers to punish, it seems to the flesh, that he knows not the sin, or hears not the cause.
• (e) Declaring that the ministers office stands not only in comforting by the word, but also in praying for the people.

37:5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

37:6 Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, 'Thus says Yahweh, "Don't be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

37:7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him and he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."'"

• (f) Of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, who will come and fight against him.

37:8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

• (g) Which was a city toward Egypt, thinking by it to have stayed the force of his enemies.

37:9 He heard news concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, "He has come out to fight against you." When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

37:10 "Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, 'Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, "Jerusalem won't be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."

• (h) Thus God would have him utter a most horrible blasphemy before his destruction: as to call the author of all truth a deceiver: some gather by this that Shebna had disclosed to Sennacherib the answer that Isaiah sent to the king.

37:11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered?

37:12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

• (i) Which was a city of the Medes.
• (k) Called also Charre a city in Mesopotamia, from which Abraham came after his fathers death.

37:13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?'"

37:14 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh's house, and spread it before Yahweh.

37:15 Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying,

37:16 "Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, who is enthroned among the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

• (l) He grounds his prayer on God’s promise, who promised to hear them from between the Cherubims.

37:17 Turn your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and behold. Hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God.

37:18 Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land,

• (m) Meaning, the ten tribes.

37:19 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.

37:20 Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, even you only."

• (n) He declares for what cause he prayed, that they might be glorified by it through all the world.

37:21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,

37:22 this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him. The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

• (o) Whom God had chosen to himself as a chaste virgin, and over whom he had care to preserve her from the lusts of the tyrant, as a father would have over his daughter.

37:23 Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

• (p) Declaring by this that they who are enemies to God’s Church fight against him whose quarrel his Church only maintains.

37:24 By your servants, have you defied the Lord, and have said, "With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field.

37:25 I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt."

• (q) He boasts of his policy in that he can find means to nourish his army: and of his power in that his army is so great, that it is able to dry up whole rivers, and to destroy the waters which the Jews had closed in.

37:26 Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to destroy fortified cities, turning them into ruinous heaps.

• (r) Signifying that God did not make his Church to destroy it, but to preserve it: and therefore he says that he formed it of old, even in his eternal counsel which cannot be changed.

37:27 Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown.

• (s) He shows that the state and power of most flourishing cities endures but a moment in respect to the Church, which will remain forever, because God is the maintainer of it.

37:28 But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me.

• (t) Meaning, his counsels and enterprises.

37:29 Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

• (u) Because Sennacherib showed himself as a devouring fish and furious beast, he uses these similarities to teach how he will take him and guide him.
• (x) You will lose your labour.

37:30 This shall be the sign to you. You will eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

• [this] year such as groweth of itself; and the
• (z) second year that which springeth of the same: and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
• (y) God gives signs after two sorts: some go before the thing as the signs that Moses worked in Egypt, which were for the confirmation of their faith, and some go after the thing, as the sacrifice, which they were commanded to make three days after their departure: and these latter are to keep the blessings of God in our remembrance, of which sort this here is.
• (z) He promises that for two years the ground would feed them of itself.

37:31 The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

• (a) They whom God has delivered out of the hands of the Assyrians will prosper: and this properly belongs to the Church.

37:32 For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go forth, and survivors will escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.'

37:33 Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, 'He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.

37:34 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city,' says Yahweh.

37:35 'For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake.'"

• (b) For my promise sake made to David.

37:36 The angel of Yahweh went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

37:37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there.

• (c) Which was the chiefest city of the Assyrians.

37:38 It happened, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.

• (d) Who was also called Sardanapalus, in whose days ten years after Sennacherib’s death the Chaldeans overcame the Assyrians by Merodach their king.