Latest / Faith by annm2705 / 726. Bible Study: Isaiah 36 & 37 (God responds to pride and insults from Assyria; Israel (Hezekiah) seeks God and is protected)

Transcript

726. Bible Study: Isaiah 36 & 37 (God responds to pride and insults from Assyria; Israel (Hezekiah) seeks God and is protected) · Faith by annm2705

• 0:00
  This is chapter 36 of Isaiah of the book of Isaiah.
• 0:05
  Dear God, please be with us as we read through this and help us
• 0:09
  to gain understanding as we read through these these words that
• 0:14
  you've given to Isaiah that are documented by Isaiah.
• 0:17
  We ask for this in Jesus name, Amen.
• 0:21
  In the 14th year of King Hezekiah's reign, Santa Cherub,
• 0:24
  king of Assyria, attacked all the fortified cities of Judah
• 0:29
  and captured them. Then the king of Assyria sent
• 0:32
  his field commander with a large army from Lakish to King
• 0:36
  Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the commander stopped at
• 0:40
  the aqueduct of the upper pool on the road to the launderer's
• 0:43
  field, Ileakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna
• 0:49
  the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to
• 0:54
  him. The field commander said to
• 0:56
  them, Tell Hezekiah, This is what the great king, the king of
• 1:01
  Assyria says. On what are you basing this
• 1:05
  confidence of yours? You say you have counsel and
• 1:08
  might for war, but you speak only empty words.
• 1:12
  On whom are you depending that you rebel against me?
• 1:15
  Look, I know you are depending on Egypt, that splintered Reed
• 1:18
  of a staff which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it,
• 1:23
  such as king, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who depend on him.
• 1:27
  But if you say to me, we are depending on the Lord our God,
• 1:32
  isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah
• 1:36
  removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, you must worship
• 1:40
  before this altar? Come now, make bargain with my
• 1:44
  master, the king of Assyria. I will give you 2000 horses if
• 1:49
  you can put riders on them. How then can you repulse one
• 1:53
  officer of the least of my master's officials, even though
• 1:57
  you are depending on Egypt for Chariots and horsemen?
• 2:02
  Furthermore, I have come to attack and destroy this land
• 2:06
  without the Lord. The Lord Himself told me to
• 2:09
  March against this country and destroy it.
• 2:12
  Then Eliyakim, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander,
• 2:17
  Please speak to your servants in Aramaic.
• 2:19
  Since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew in
• 2:23
  the hearing of the people on the wall.
• 2:26
  But the commander replied, Was it only to your master and you
• 2:29
  that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the
• 2:32
  people sitting on the wall? Like you will have to eat their
• 2:36
  own excrement and drink their own urine.
• 2:40
  Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, Hear the
• 2:44
  words of the great king, the king of Assyria.
• 2:48
  This is what the king says. Do not let Hezekiah deceive you.
• 2:53
  He cannot deliver you. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you
• 2:57
  to trust in the Lord, when he says, the Lord will surely
• 3:00
  deliver us. This city will not be given into
• 3:03
  the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah.
• 3:08
  This is what the king of Assyria says.
• 3:10
  Make peace with me and come out to me.
• 3:12
  Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree,
• 3:16
  and drink water from your own cistern, until I come and take
• 3:20
  you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a
• 3:23
  land of bread and vineyards. Do not let Hezekiah mislead you
• 3:28
  when he says the Lord will deliver us.
• 3:31
  Have the gods of any nations ever delivered their land from
• 3:34
  the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and
• 3:38
  Arpod? Where are the gods of Sepharbim?
• 3:41
  Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?
• 3:44
  Who of all the gods of those countries have been able to save
• 3:47
  their lands from me? How then can the Lord deliver
• 3:50
  Jerusalem from my hand? But the people remained silent
• 3:55
  and said nothing in reply because the king had commanded
• 3:58
  them to not answer him. Then Ilya Kim, son of Hilkiah
• 4:02
  the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son
• 4:06
  of Asaph the recorder, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn
• 4:10
  and told him what the field commander had said.
• 4:13
  That's the end of chapter 37. Six.
• 4:16
  So we'll read 37 also. But I'll go through the
• 4:19
  questions and answers from the Study Bible on chapter 36.
• 4:24
  So let's see in the 14th year of the reign of King Hezekiah,
• 4:29
  Isaiah 36 one through through 39 eight is nearly identical to the
• 4:35
  material found in second Kings chapter 18 verse 23 through
• 4:41
  chapter 20 verse 19. There are three views on the
• 4:44
  relationship of the two accounts.
• 4:46
  Number one Isaiah adopt adapted his material from second Kings
• 4:52
  are two the author of second Kings adapted his material from
• 4:56
  Isaiah. Both writers borrowed from a
• 4:59
  third, unknown source. Why the sudden change of poetry
• 5:04
  to narrative? Up to this point, the writing,
• 5:06
  the writing style has been mostly poetry.
• 5:09
  Suddenly it changes to prose, a straight narration of history.
• 5:13
  However, the events narrated in chapters 36 through 39 parallel
• 5:19
  the prophecies just given. In many ways, these chapters
• 5:22
  provide a transition between the backdrop of the Assyrian threat
• 5:27
  and that and that of the more potent Babylonian threat, which
• 5:32
  begins chapter 40 but is hinted at in chapters 36 through 39.
• 5:38
  Assyria threatens Jerusalem, so it gives.
• 5:42
  There's a map actually in the study Bible that shows the, I
• 5:48
  don't know, it's just, it just shows, threatens Jerusalem.
• 5:51
  So it shows, I guess they came up from the north near Samaria
• 5:55
  and down through Gath and down to Lakish and then up to
• 6:00
  Jerusalem in the land of Judah. It gives a pathway that they
• 6:04
  traveled. So what fortified cities did
• 6:07
  Cena Cherub capture? During Cena Cherub's invasion of
• 6:10
  Judah in seven O 1 BC, he claimed to have captured 46 of
• 6:14
  Hezekiah's fortified cities, as well as numerous open villages
• 6:18
  to have taken 200,150 of the people captive.
• 6:24
  Then he laid seeds to Lakish, a critical city about 30 minutes
• 6:28
  southwest of Jerusalem that guarded the main approach to
• 6:32
  Judah's capital from that quarter.
• 6:34
  Cena Cherub said he made Hezekiah a prisoner in
• 6:38
  Jerusalem, his royal residence like a bird in a cage.
• 6:43
  But he did not say he took Jerusalem.
• 6:47
  How did Hezekiah rebel against Assyria?
• 6:49
  Perhaps Hezekiah resisted the Assyrian invasion and did not
• 6:52
  surrender quickly and completely.
• 6:54
  Or he may have contemplated recruiting Egyptian assistance.
• 6:58
  Finally, Hezekiah said Sinocherub, a sizable Finally,
• 7:04
  Hezekiah paid seen a cherub, a site a sizable tribute, hoping
• 7:08
  to appease the Assyrians. The Assyrians, however, were not
• 7:12
  bought off so easily was Hezekiah depending on Egypt as
• 7:16
  charged, Judah, along with its neighbors, had begun
• 7:21
  negotiations to enter into an alliance with Egypt.
• 7:24
  Based on Isaiah's previous statements, it is probably safe
• 7:28
  to assume that an agreement had been reached.
• 7:31
  What did Hezekiah? Why did Hezekiah restrict
• 7:35
  worship? The Assyrian commander was
• 7:37
  referring to the time when Hezekiah removed all the high
• 7:40
  places and altars where the people of Judah worship God.
• 7:43
  What the commander didn't say was that these high places and
• 7:47
  altars were also often used by people to worship false gods.
• 7:52
  Unable to understand this, the Pagan commander assumed God was
• 7:55
  angry and would not help someone like Hezekiah who engineered the
• 7:59
  destruction. Why does Cenochero claim to be
• 8:02
  following the Lord's direction? Such a claim would have struck
• 8:05
  terror in the hearts of the people of Judah to think that
• 8:08
  this enemy was actually following the Lord's command.
• 8:12
  It's true that the Lord did use Assyria to punish the people of
• 8:15
  Israel and Judah, but the Assyrian commander didn't
• 8:18
  realize Assyria itself was about to feel the heat of God's
• 8:21
  judgement. Why would the people of Judah
• 8:24
  have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?
• 8:27
  This was an expression to describe the desperate things,
• 8:30
  including becoming mad with hunger, that people did when an
• 8:34
  enemy besieged the city. The field commander was warning
• 8:37
  the people of Jerusalem that if they didn't surrender to him,
• 8:41
  they would experience the desperation that accompanies
• 8:43
  starvation. Was this propaganda effective?
• 8:49
  This was military propaganda at its finest.
• 8:52
  Fortunately, Hezekiah's people didn't take the bait.
• 8:56
  So now chapter 37, when King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his
• 9:01
  clothes and put on sackcloth and went to the temple of the Lord.
• 9:05
  I think that's important for us to see that the first thing he
• 9:09
  hears this threat and he goes to the temple of the Lord.
• 9:12
  He's going to God, which is a good thing.
• 9:15
  He he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shobna the
• 9:20
  secretary, and all the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth,
• 9:23
  to the prophet Isaiah son of Amos.
• 9:26
  They told him this is what Hezekiah says.
• 9:29
  This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace as when?
• 9:36
  As when children come to the moment of birth and there is no
• 9:39
  strength to deliver them, it may be that the Lord your God will
• 9:43
  hear the words of the field commander whom his master, the
• 9:45
  king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and
• 9:49
  that he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has
• 9:52
  heard. Therefore pray.
• 9:55
  So first he goes to the temple, then he brings others and they
• 9:58
  pray. So I think this gives us a good
• 10:03
  solution when we face things that you know, it's, it's always
• 10:07
  good for us to pray on our alone.
• 10:09
  But if we can gather other believers with us and pray
• 10:12
  those, it says wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I
• 10:15
  will be with them. So it's something to remember
• 10:17
  here to 1st seek the Lord and pray and bring other believers
• 10:21
  with you to pray. Therefore pray that for the
• 10:25
  remnant that still survives. Then King Hezekiah's officials
• 10:30
  came to Isaiah. Isaiah said to them, Tell your
• 10:33
  master, this is what the Lord says.
• 10:35
  Do not be afraid of what you have heard, those words with
• 10:38
  which the underlyings of the king of Assyria has blasphemed
• 10:41
  me. Listen, when he hears a certain
• 10:44
  report, I will make him want to turn, return to his own country,
• 10:48
  and there I will have him cut down with the sword.
• 10:52
  When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria left
• 10:55
  Lakish, he with withdrew and found the king fighting against
• 11:00
  Libna. Now Sinochera received a report
• 11:03
  that Turhaka, the king of Kush, was marching out to fight
• 11:08
  against him. When he heard it he sent
• 11:11
  messengers to Hezekiah with the word say to Hezekiah king of
• 11:14
  Judah. Do not let the God you depend on
• 11:17
  deceive you when he says Jerusalem will not be given into
• 11:20
  the hands of the king of Assyria.
• 11:22
  Surely you have heard what the king of Assyria has done to all
• 11:26
  the countries, destroying them completely, And will you be
• 11:29
  delivered? Did the gods of the nation that
• 11:31
  were destroyed by my predecessors deliver them The
• 11:34
  gods of Gozen, Haran, Rezef and the people of Eden who were in
• 11:38
  Tel Asar? Where is the the king of Hemeth
• 11:42
  or the king of Arpad? Where are the kings of Lair,
• 11:45
  Sarfarbium, Hina, and Eva? Hezekiah received the letter
• 11:50
  from the messengers and read it. Then he went to the temple of
• 11:54
  the Lord and spread it out before the Lord, and Hezekiah
• 11:58
  prayed to the Lord. Lord Almighty, the God of Israel
• 12:03
  enthroned between the cherubim. You alone are God over all the
• 12:08
  kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
• 12:13
  Give ear Lord, and hear. Open your eyes Lord, and see.
• 12:17
  Listen to all the words Sina Cherub has sent to ridicule the
• 12:22
  living God. It is true, Lord, that the
• 12:25
  Assyrian kings have laid waste all these people and their
• 12:28
  lands. They have thrown their gods into
• 12:30
  the fire and destroyed them. For they were not gods, but only
• 12:33
  wood and stone fashioned by human hands.
• 12:36
  Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the
• 12:40
  kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are the only
• 12:44
  God. Then Isaiah, son of Amos, sent a
• 12:47
  message to Hezekiah. This is what the Lord, the God
• 12:51
  of Israel says, because you have prayed to me concerning Cena
• 12:55
  Cherub, king of Assyria. This is the word the Lord has
• 12:59
  spoken against him. I'm going to wait there.
• 13:02
  This is really interesting to me because Isaiah sends a word to
• 13:06
  Hezekiah and Isaiah knows apparently from God, I don't
• 13:12
  know because he says, because you have prayed to me.
• 13:15
  So this is amazing, like how Isaiah hears from God and in
• 13:21
  this kind of this just really is interesting to me the level of
• 13:25
  detail that he hears from God and this is just amazing.
• 13:29
  So this is the word the Lord has spoken against him.
• 13:32
  Virgin daughter Zion despises and mocks you.
• 13:36
  Daughter Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee.
• 13:40
  Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed against?
• 13:44
  Whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride
• 13:49
  against the Holy One of Israel? By your messengers you have
• 13:54
  ridiculed the Lord, and you have said, With my many Chariots I
• 13:59
  have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of
• 14:02
  Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest
• 14:05
  Cedars, the choicest of its junipers.
• 14:07
  I have reached its remotest heights, its finest of its
• 14:11
  forest. I have dug wells in foreign
• 14:14
  lands and drunk the water here. There, with the soles on my
• 14:19
  feet, I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.
• 14:23
  Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it.
• 14:27
  In days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass
• 14:31
  that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone.
• 14:37
  Their people, drained of power, are dismayed and put to shame.
• 14:42
  They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots,
• 14:46
  like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows
• 14:49
  up. But I know where you are and
• 14:52
  where you come and go, and how you Rage Against me because you
• 14:58
  Rage Against me, and because your insolence has reached my
• 15:02
  ears. I will put my hook in your nose
• 15:06
  and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way
• 15:11
  you came. This will be the the sign for
• 15:15
  you, Hezekiah. The year.
• 15:18
  This year you will eat what grows by itself on the second
• 15:22
  year, what springs from that? But in the third year, sow and
• 15:26
  reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit once more.
• 15:31
  A remnant of the Kingdom of Judah will take root below and
• 15:34
  bear fruit above, for out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
• 15:39
  and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
• 15:43
  The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
• 15:46
  Therefore, this is what the Lord says concerning the king of
• 15:49
  Assyria. He will not enter the city or
• 15:53
  shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with
• 15:57
  shield or build a siege ramp against it by the way he came.
• 16:02
  He will return. He will not enter the city.
• 16:05
  I will defend the city and save it for my sake and for the sake
• 16:09
  of David my servant. Then the Angel of the Lord went
• 16:14
  out and put to death 185,000 in the Assyrian camp.
• 16:20
  So pay attention to that. This is after the prayers.
• 16:23
  The the king of Assyria, his messenger is blaspheming God
• 16:29
  God's really it's personal now to God and then God takes care
• 16:34
  of this supernaturally with an Angel went out and put to death.
• 16:39
  185,000 in the Assyrian camp going back to Isaiah, when the
• 16:45
  people got up the next morning there were there were all dead
• 16:52
  bodies. So Cena Cherub, king of Assyria
• 16:55
  broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and
• 17:00
  stayed there. Nineveh's in Babylon, by the
• 17:03
  way. One day while he was worshipping
• 17:05
  in the temple of his God Nisrock, his sons Adramalek and
• 17:11
  Sherezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the
• 17:17
  land of Arat. And as hireden, his son
• 17:22
  succeeded him as king. And that's the end of chapter
• 17:27
  37. So I'll read the questions and
• 17:29
  answers and then we'll wrap it up.
• 17:31
  There's not a whole lot that I can add to these because it's
• 17:33
  just historical documentation. So in chapter 37 it starts Why
• 17:41
  did King Hezekiah tear his clothes?
• 17:43
  Tearing one's clothes and wearing sackcloth as well as
• 17:46
  ashes were universal signs of intense grief in the ancient
• 17:49
  Near East. Sackcloth made of goat or camel
• 17:52
  hair was probably worn because it was black and coarse and
• 17:56
  uncomfortable and therefore a sign of mourning.
• 17:59
  As a prophet, what role did Isaiah play in government?
• 18:02
  Isaiah had no official role in government.
• 18:04
  Technically, he was merely a private citizen.
• 18:07
  Nevertheless, King Hezekiah recognized Isaiah as a prophet,
• 18:11
  one who spoke for God. Hezekiah sought Isaiah's help
• 18:15
  because he hoped to receive direction from the Lord.
• 18:19
  What was this report true? Sina Cherub received a report
• 18:23
  that Egypt was coming to the aid of Judah.
• 18:25
  Some think Sina Cherub may have pulled back to the north to
• 18:29
  prepare to meet the Egyptians. Whether or not the two army
• 18:32
  armies actually engaged in battle isn't clear.
• 18:35
  At any rate, the report made Sina Cherub even more eager to
• 18:39
  capture Jerusalem. Why didn't Hezekiah consult
• 18:43
  Isaiah as he had previously done?
• 18:46
  This is the second time he went to the temple, but he went by
• 18:51
  himself. Isaiah may have been
• 18:54
  unavailable, or perhaps the perhaps there wasn't time.
• 18:58
  What is significant is that Hezekiah was able to approach
• 19:02
  God directly. Since he had a relationship with
• 19:06
  God himself, he didn't need a prophet to act on his behalf
• 19:10
  when he faced troubles. Did God base his decision on
• 19:15
  Hezekiah's prayer? God clearly wanted Hezekiah to
• 19:18
  know that his prayer would be answered.
• 19:21
  We also know that God had already promised to deliver his
• 19:24
  people. Some say that God may change his
• 19:27
  methods in response to prayer, but that he never alters his
• 19:31
  purpose. Others note that God makes both
• 19:34
  absolute decrees that are unchanged regardless of what
• 19:38
  humans do, and conditional decrees that invite and are even
• 19:44
  dependent on human interaction. Either way, God's character and
• 19:49
  purpose never change. How could grass grow on a roof?
• 19:56
  Houses were made of clay and had flat roofs of earthy material on
• 20:00
  which blown seeds or seeds dropped by birds so it spread.
• 20:04
  Sprout quickly after a rain, yet with without deep roots the
• 20:08
  grass would wither in the hot sun and the wind and die.
• 20:12
  That was an image of the nations destroyed by the armies of
• 20:15
  Assyria's king Suna Cherub. What do a hook and bit refer?
• 20:19
  They refer to cruel treatment. The cruel treatment the
• 20:23
  Assyrians often inflicted on their captives.
• 20:25
  Sometimes they placed rings through the captives noses and
• 20:29
  ran a rope through the rings so 1 soldier could lead many
• 20:34
  captives. God was about to give Sina
• 20:36
  Cherub a taste of his own medicine.
• 20:38
  The king of Assyria would become completely under God's control.
• 20:43
  Why wouldn't they plant every year?
• 20:45
  Sina Cherub had apparently either destroyed or confiscated
• 20:49
  the entire harvest that had been sown the previous fall.
• 20:52
  The people would only have use of the latter.
• 20:56
  The second growth that came from seeds dropped by the previous
• 20:59
  year's harvest and then in the second year they would only be
• 21:02
  able to eat that which came up from the roots of the previous
• 21:05
  plants. As Cena Cherub's departure would
• 21:08
  be too late in the fall for new crops to be planted for the
• 21:13
  coming year, the the routine for sowing and harvesting could be
• 21:17
  observed in the following year. How did the Angel kill thousands
• 21:22
  of soldiers in one night? We are not told, but some
• 21:25
  suggest it was a plague, possibly the bubonic plague.
• 21:28
  Whatever happened, it was obvious that this was a direct
• 21:31
  punishment from the Lord. Why didn't God do this for
• 21:35
  people in other Old Testament battles?
• 21:38
  There are many examples of God miraculous, of God's miraculous
• 21:42
  deliverance of His people in war, but when the purpose of a
• 21:46
  war was God's judgement on His people, He allowed their enemies
• 21:50
  to have success against them. What was Cena cherub's?
• 21:55
  What? When was Cena Cherub
• 21:58
  assassinated? About 20 years elapsed between
• 22:02
  Assyrians retreat from Judah and Cena Cherub's assassination.
• 22:07
  So that ends chapters 36 and 37. We'll start with 38 next time.
• 22:14
  And it continues on with more of the narrative of the of the
• 22:17
  story of the account.