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Story telling returns. And what incredible detail. I guess we can thank Shebna the scribe and Joah the recorder.
Did this actually happen or is it a parable? Regardless, the king of Assyria is pretty cocky. Will Hezekiah win the LORD's favor? Why would God want to help now?
Anyway, he sends an angel to kill thousands of Assyrians. They all wake up the next day and they're dead!
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37:36 Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
How come we don't know anything about the Assyrian god Nisroch? I like the name and he/she looks pretty cool. Not as commanding a name as The LORD though.
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Isaiah predicts (?) that Hezekiah will die but the king cries about it and God gives him 15 more years of life. God can be a soft touch sometimes.
God REALLY likes Hezekiah because he reverses the orbit of the Earth to prove he's on the level, adding 2.4 hours to a single day. Almost like Superman!
The last bit confuses me;
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39:7 And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
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39:8 Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days
Any ideas?
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Bruce, you might find this interesting:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/81-wccF3SqCa3GqpDKk3rg
(Sorry, for some reason it doesn't want to put in a pretty link)
A History of The World in 100 Objects was a joint project between the BBC and the British Museum, and I really recommend it. This episode, the Lachish Reliefs, was, I thought, one of the best ones. That's Lachish, as in Isaiah 37.8 and Sennecharib the king. It's worth downloading the audio file as well as reading the text and viewing the images. Lord Ashdown, who is one of the commentators, has been a politician, a diplomat, a serving Royal Marine, and for a time he was High Representative for Bosnia and Herzogovina and a prosecution witness against Slobodan Milosevic, and has been heavily involved in relief operations and work with refugees. I think he's interesting, as neither a religious leader nor an historian, on the human costs of what we're reading about.