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land, a land of corn and wine, delivered their land out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

a land of bread and vineyards. 18 Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The LORD will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

20 Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have

21 But they held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not. 22 Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and to.d him the words of Rabshakeh.

LECTURE 1141.

That we ought not to listen to the solicitations of sin. Isaiah here begins to relate the remarkable history of the invasion of Judea by Sennacherib, to which many of his prophecies refer. In the Second Book of Kings we find the very same account of Sennacherib's invasion, and of Rabshakeh's mission, and of the words which he used, as well as of his speaking purposely in a language which the people on the wall could understand, and of the resolute silence on the part of Hezekiah's officers and people, with which his awful speeches were received. See 2 Kings 18. "They held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not.” This will often prove a rule of useful application in our intercourse with men of the stamp of Rabshakeh, who speak proud swelling word's in defiance of God, or smooth deceitful words in order to beguile God's people. To answer would be likely to provoke further wrong, or to open the way to fresh artifices, on their part, and thus would expose ourselves to fresh risk and annoyance. And therefore unless it be according to our age, station, or calling, to rebuke with authority, we shall do better on such occasions to put in practice the figurative precept of our Saviour, that we cast not our pearls before swine. See Matt. 7. 6. And further we may apply Hezekiah's words, as a maxim for our conduct, when Satan tries to tempt us into sin, by tempting us to consider, calculate, and weigh, the pleasures and advantages of sinning. Let us conceive that we hear our King commanding us, "Answer him not." It is dangerous even to listen. If we hesitate we are lost. We may often avoid temptation by flying. When tempted we must manfully resist. But let us never parley with our foe. Let us resolutely shut our ears to all he has to say of the safety of sinning ever so little; and so be safe from all the risks which we should run in replying, by never so much as listening or hearing at all.

Hezekiah applieth to Isaiah, and prayeth to God.

1 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD. 2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the houshold, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, unto Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

3 And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

4 It may be the LORD thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left.

5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say unto your master, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. 8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

9 And he heard say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia,

He is come forth to make war with thee. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered?

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

13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?

14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up unto the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

15 And Hezekiah prayed unto the LORD, saying,

16 O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made heaven and earth.

17 Incline thine ear, O LORD, and hear; open thine eyes, O LORD, and see and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God.

18 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and their countries,

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.

20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD, even thou only. LECTURE 1142.

The end of our calling is that we glorify God.

This appeal of the good king of Judah to Isaiah, and the encouraging message which the Lord sent him by the prophet, and this second mission of messengers from Sennacherib, as well as the devout manner in which Hezekiah laid his troubles in prayer before the Lord, are all taken, like the last chapter, from the history of the Second Book of Kings. Probably that portion of the history was written by the prophet Isaiah, who lived and prophesied during the reigns of at least four kings of Judah. See cb. 1. 1. When we consider how often Isaiah had foretold this very calamity, and the marvellous deliverance with which it would be followed, we shall the more readily understand Hezekiah's applying straightway to the prophet, for his prayers and intercession with the Lord. The tone of Sennacherib's defiance, and the topics of Hezekiah's own fervent intercession, serve to explain the great importance attached to this one amongst many instances, in which God signally interfered to protect his people from their enemies. It was a manifestation of his almighty power, as compared with the feebleness, or rather the nothingness, of the gods of the heathen. This great king of Assyria supposed Jehovah to be the God of Jerusalem alone; such as were the false gods of many other cities over which the Assyrians had triumphed. And because he knew that Hezekiah put his trust in the Lord, see ch. 26. 7, therefore he asked, "Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed?" This was a test of the truth of the true God, to which Hezekiah, as his faithful servant, was glad to appeal. And there is nothing more remarkable in Hezekiah's prayer, than his earnest supplication not so much that Jerusalem might be saved, as that the Lord might be glorified in the saving of it. This shews how well he understood, and how fully he entered into, one of the chief objects, for which his nation had been set apart from all the rest of mankind; namely, to testify to the one almighty God of heaven and earth in the midst of a world wholly given to the worship of false gods. Let us remember, that our calling is not unlike to theirs in this respect, as well as in many others. Let us cherish this for one of the first desires of our hearts, to glorify God through Christ. And in praying for any benefit, deliverance, or grace, in our own behalf, and for our own advantage, if we would have the things we ask for, let us study to ask for them, and practise to desire them, out of an unfeigned regard for the honour of Him, whose we are, and whose name we bear, that He may in us be glorified.

Isaiah assureth Jerusalem of safety.

21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Whereas thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria:

22 This is the word which the LORD hath spoken concerning him; The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.

23 Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.

24 By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord, and hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the height of his border, and the forest of his Carmel.

25 I have digged, and drunk water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.

26 Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps.

27 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the

grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.

28 But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.

29 Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

30 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.

31 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward:

32 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.

33 Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it.

34 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD.

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

36 Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hun

dred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.

38 And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia: and Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.

LECTURE 1143.

God is omnipotent to save or to destroy.

In this prophecy of Isaiah, it is evident that the discomfiture of Sennacherib is decreed as a judgment on him for reproaching the Lord, and thinking, and boasting that he could overthrow the Lord's people, as easily as he had defeated the worshippers of them that were no gods. Jehovah, the true God, would have all his creatures know, that it is He who rules in all the kingdoms of the earth; He, and not they who suppose themselves the authors of their own success; He it is who brings it to pass that they succeed; and He, who to manifest his supreme power, often makes the most successful amongst them, in the midst of their triumphs, signally to fail. And that his people might know that the disaster of their enemies was his doing, He here gives them by way of sign a promise, that they should be supplied with food for two years running by the spontaneous produce of the country; it having been probably one year uncultivated, owing to the invasion of Sennacherib, and the year next after that being probably the "sabbath of rest unto the land." Lev. 25. 4.

It is not likely that there was any considerable interval of time, between the delivery of this prophecy to Hezekiah, and the miraculous mortality in the army of Sennacherib. When the word of the Lord had gone forth to assure his people, " then the angel of the Lord went forth," to smite and to destroy their enemies. Upon that most awful judgment, Sennacherib fled away to Nineveh; where afterwards he was slain by the hands of two of his own sons, when worshipping in an idol temple; a signal proof, that such gods as his were of no avail to save. And in the meanwhile Hezekiah and his people had gone forth in peace and safety from their walls, to reap for two successive years a plenteous harvest from an untilled land; a striking evidence that the God in whom they trusted could preserve as well as destroy, could according as He pleased either kill or make alive. May He manifest in us his power by his grace! And may He prove Himself the God of all mankind, by bringing all in his good time, to believe his word, and to obey his Gospel, through Jesus

Christ our Lord!

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