Isaiah 38:1-25

BOOK 4

JERUSALEM AND SENNACHERIB

701 B.C.

INTO this fourth book we put all the rest of the prophecies of the Book of Isaiah, that have to do with the prophet's own time: Chapter s 1, 22 and 33, with the narrative in 36, 37. All these refer to the only Assyrian invasion of Judah and siege of Jerusalem: that undertaken by Sennacherib in 701.

It is, however, right to remember once more, that many authorities maintain that there were two Assyrian invasions of Judah-one by Sargon in 711, the other by Sennacherib in 701-and that Chapter s 1 and 22 (as well as Isaiah 10:5) belong to the former of these. The theory is ingenious and tempting; but, in the silence of the Assyrian annals about any invasion of Judah by Sargon, it is impossible to adopt it. And although Chapter s 1 and 22 differ very greatly in tone from chapter 33, yet to account for the difference it is not necessary to suppose two different invasions, with a considerable period between them. Virtually, as will appear in the course of our exposition, Sennacherib's invasion of Judah was a double one.

1. The first time Sennacherib's army invaded Judah they took all the fenced cities, and probably invested Jerusalem, but withdrew on payment of tribute and the surrender of the casus belli, the Assyrian Vassal Padi, whom the Ekronites had deposed and given over to the keeping of Hezekiah. To this invasion refer Isaiah 1:1; Isaiah 22:1. and the first verse of 36.: "Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them." This verse is the same as 2 Kings 18:13, to which, however, there is added in 2 Kings 18:14 an account of the tribute sent by Hezekiah to Sennacherib at Lachish, that is not included in the narrative in Isaiah. Compare 2 Chronicles 32:1.

2. But scarcely had the tribute been paid when Sennacherib, himself advancing to meet Egypt, sent back upon Jerusalem a second army of investment, with which was the Rabshakeh; and this was the army that so mysteriously disappeared from the eyes of the besieged. To the treacherous return of the Assyrians and the sudden deliverance of Jerusalem from their grasp refer Isaiah 33:1, Isaiah 36:2, with the fuller and evidently original narrative in 2 Kings 18:17. Compare 2 Chronicles 32:9.

To the history of this double attempt upon Jerusalem in 701-Chapter s 36 and 37 - there has been appended in 38 and 3 an account of Hezekiah's illness and of an embassy to him from Babylon. These events probably happened some years before Sennacherib's invasion. But it will be most convenient for us to take them in the order in which they stand in the canon. They wilt naturally lead us up to a question that it is necessary we should discuss before taking leave of Isaiah-whether this great prophet of the endurance of the kingdom of God upon earth had any gospel for the individual who dropped away from it into death.