AP

Isaiah 36:10, 18  “Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land without the LORD?  The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’  … … Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’  Have the gods of any nations ever delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?” 

Sennacherib, King of Assyria, is one of the many examples in Scripture of human pride pitting itself against the one true God.  His boasting here is a powerful warning to all of us of the futility, and the danger, of thinking that we can succeed in resisting the outworking of God’s sovereign will in his world.  As Sennacherib lay seige against the LORD’s Holy City in 701 BC, he used psychological bluff, and his track record of recent victories over the surrounding nations, to undermine Hezekiah and his people’s confidence in their God.  He even used the ploy that many use today to gain support for their personal agenda by claiming the Lord’s leading.  ‘God spoke to me this morning’ is an effective way of manipulating other people!  However, in spite of all his confident talk, the next morning Sennacherib would discover that during the night 185,000 of his invading army had died in their sleep, and he would have to retreat.

Back in the olden days (Pre-Google) when I was in 5^th Class at Hurstville Public School (1951) we were required to commit to memory classic poems by the old English poets.  One of these, by Lord Byron (1815), was “The Destruction of Sennacherib”.  No one could have convinced me, back then, that this was a useful exercise, but I can still recite it in full 75 years later, and every time I read this chapter in Isaiah I find myself warmly moved by its powerful message embedded in my head and heart.  This is what Byron wrote:

“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold and his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; and the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, when the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.  Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, that host with their banners at sunset were seen; like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, that host on the morrow lay withered and strown.  For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, and breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; and the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, and their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!  And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, but through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; and the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, and cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.  And there lay the rider distorted and pale, with the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail; and the tents were all silent, the banners alone, the lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.  And the widows of Ashur [Assyria] are loud in their wail, and the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; and the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!”

This is how our Scriptures report the outcome of Assyria’s boastful plans: “That night the angel of the LORD went out and put to death 185,000 in the Assyrian camp.  When the people got up the next morning -there were all the dead bodies! [I prefer the mischievously ambiguous way the KJV uses personal pronouns in its translation of this sentence: ‘and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses”!]   So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew.  He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.” (2 Kings 19:35-36).

Why don’t I trust this sovereign God with a more child-like, believing faith?!

– Bruce Christian