Bible Commentaries

The Distress of Hezekiah

Isaiah 37:3). There are hours, as we have often seen, when prophets come to the enjoyment of their fullest influence. Isaiah had been despised and derided, but now his hour has come, and he stands up as the one hope of Judah. The question was, What can you, Isaiah 37:6-7).

This was the message which the Lord sent through Isaiah to King Hezekiah. A terrible thing is it for the Lord to determine to send a blast upon a man. The better rendering Isaiah 37:16-20).

The tone of sublimity which marks this address cannot be overlooked. In Psalm 80:1 we have an expression like that which Hezekiah uses when he says "that dwellest between the cherubims"—an expression which is supposed to refer to the dark thunderclouds of heaven. In this case the reference is supposed to be to the glory-cloud which was the symbol of the divine presence, and which rested when it manifested itself between the cherubim of the ark—figures which symbolise the elemental forces of the heavens. Rabshakeh had spoken of "the gods of the nations," but Hezekiah speaks another faith—"thou art the God, even thou alone." We must never forget that monotheism was the faith of Israel. Never was Israel allowed to suppose that God was many and not one. The majesty of the Lord lay in his unity, and not in his divisibleness. This may be called the majesty of simplicity, in contradistinction to the majesty of number, variety, and complication. Now Hezekiah cast the whole difficulty into the hands of the Lord, his plea being that if God would defend Judah, and deliver his chosen Israel, all the kingdoms of the earth would know that God was the Lord, and there was none beside him. It is curious to observe how, by a kind of necessity, we all endeavour to give motives to the Divine Being which may direct his action and account for it. God does not disallow this worship of what may be called suggestive ness. Properly viewed, can anything be more out of reason and out of place, than that man should supply not only a prayer which expresses his necessity, but should suggest reasons on which God himself should act? Throughout the whole commerce of heaven and earth God continually reveals himself to us in condescending forms, and permits himself to be treated in many cases as if he were open to suggestion and reason and eloquence on our part. This is one method of the divine education of the world. Men are driven to find reasons for themselves and to suggest reasons to God, and the whole process may end in mental enlargement, or in intellectual illumination, or in the proof that it is not in man to find reasons but in God to supply both the motive and the end of his actions. Hezekiah's prayer is in some respects a model petition. He lays the whole case before God, and then speaks aloud concerning it. He reviews the history of Assyrian gods; he has seen them one by one cast into the fire: for they were no gods but the work of men's hands, yea, gods that could be destroyed by the very hands that made them; but now Hezekiah's heart rises in a sublime appeal to the eternity which cannot be shortened, to the infinity that cannot be diminished, to the almightiness whose energy can never be modified. The very making of such an appeal stirs and ennobles the heart and brings every faculty to its highest temper and power. This, indeed, is one of the best uses of prayer, namely, the enlargement of soul which follows it, the glow which makes the whole heart glad, and the sense of divine nearness which inspires timidity itself with invincible courage.

Now Isaiah the son of Amoz sends a message unto Hezekiah, and his message constitutes probably the last of Isaiah's recorded utterances, which is undoubtedly one of the sublimest bursts of eloquence attributed even to his inspired lips. It would seem as if the Lord replied to Hezekiah's prayer through the instrumentality of Ezekiel 38:4, we read:—"And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords."

"And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself; and the second year that which springeth of the same: and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof" ( Isaiah 37:30).

In this verse the prophet turns to Hezekiah, and offers him pledges sufficiently near to assure him that all the prophecies of larger scope were perfectly literal in their intent. It is supposed that the time of the address was autumn, probably near the Equinox, which was the beginning of a new year. The best historians tell us that the Assyrian invasion had stopped all tillage in the previous spring, and the people had to rely upon the spontaneous products of the fields. "In the year that was about to open they would be still compelled to draw from the same source, but in twelve months" time the land would be clear of the invaders, and agriculture would resume its normal course, and the fulfilment of this prediction within the appointed limit of time would guarantee that wider promise that follows." Thus the providence of the Lord confirms itself. Sometimes we have a remote promise stretching far away beyond the ages, and which the living men can never hope to see fulfilled, but in order to assure their faith and brighten their hope, something is promised to them which they can immediately realise. Thus from point to point, and from day to day, we are drawn forward, we are drawn forward by the good hand and the living Spirit of God.

The prophet says, "The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this" ( Isaiah 37:32). It was not to be done by human energy, but wholly accomplished by divine wisdom and power. We may so look at prophecies of a large significance as to be overwhelmed by the range of time through which they had to pass, and thus we may blind ourselves and actually overpower our own faith; whereas we ought continually to look at the living God, and the eternity in which he dwells, and to feel that everything is in his hands, and that how great soever the time required it is as nothing compared with the eternity in which he lives.