2 Kings 19:14

And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers.

The history of a letter

How easy to say, “the letter”; and yet, how much the words may mean! The postman, as he goes his rounds, would become the most melancholy of men if he thought much upon the budget he carries. To some houses joy, to others misery,--nay, to the same house joy treads on the heels of sorrow. We don’t know what to-morrow may bring us; the postman’s knock may be the knell of doom or the signal for peals of joyous laughter. What a letter was that which Hezekiah received! In form it would be very different to our ideas of a letter. The Assyrians did not use paper, or even skins, but did their writing on clay. You may see, in the British Museum, a conveyance of land, written, not on parchment, but on clay, and then baked hard. So it is very likely that the letter was a tablet of terra cotta. It has been thought by some that Rabshakeh was the writer of these railing letters. This was trouble, but it was trouble that might have been prevented. Hezekiah ought never to have paid tribute to Sennacherib. When first the demand was made, he should have called on the name of the Lord. Let us learn to never submit to the claims of sin. We can never satisfy it. Much will have more. Sin, like Sennacherib, will take all you will give, and then come for more, and when it has got all it will come for you. The devil has no right to a penny of our money, or a moment of our time.

I. What did Hezekiah do with the letter? He did not send a hasty answer. Many a quarrel might have been prevented if men would spread disagreeable letters before the Lord. Many a family feud would never have been brought about but for the want of this. If you get letters that give you pain, before you pen a reply send a message to God, and He will teach you to indite what may turn away wrath. He did not send to Egypt; he was cured of that now. If some one who reads this is in trouble, let me counsel you to remember what is a command as well as a promise, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble.” Far too many of us treat God as though He had no existence. We try everybody else before going to the Lord. “He went up into the house of the Lord.” Where was he so likely to find God as in His house? There is much force in the promise, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.” It is a model prayer; not like many, which must try the patience of God, going all round the world, instead of fastening upon the thing needed, and asking for that. If our prayers were more like telegrams we should have speedier answers. The prayer of the pious king appealed to God for the sake of His honour--“that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God.” How the Almighty is touched by an appeal of this sort. If we thought more of God’s honour in our prayers, we should be more often answered.

II. Was the letter ever answered? Yes, for Jehovah answered it Himself. He did not trouble Hezekiah to do it; and the answer is worthy of the Lord. There is a postscript to God’s answer (see 2 Kings 19:35). “It came to pass that night--they were all dead corpses.” Fancy if you saw in the newspaper to-morrow “Sudden death of 185,000 soldiers!” What a stir it would make! What a sight the camp must have been next morning. There has been much discussion as to how it happened. There is no mention of it in the Assyrian record. They were ready enough to boast, but when Sennacherib crept back to his palace, he did not instruct the historian to chronicle his disgrace. Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians, against whom Sennacherib was then at war, ascribed the destruction of their foes to the power of their gods. There has been considerable discussion amongst the learned as to the cause of the destruction of so large an army, and it is generally understood now to have been the simeon. Cambyses, king of the Medea, lost 50,000 men by one of these dreadful winds. But whether the wind was the messenger, or whether an angel had the wind in his power, it matters not; we read of “stormy wind fulfilling His word.” God willed it, and nature hasted to do His bidding. (T. Champness.)