When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come (Isaiah 37)

I was considering taking a break for a few days before Isaiah chapter 37, but then I figured I should do it while the previous chapter was still pretty fresh in my mind, since this is just more of the same story. I was talking with Steve Wells about Rabshakeh's claim that God told the Assyrians that they could defeat Judah, and we both agreed that it was strange, however it seems from this chapter that he was bluffing.

So king Hezekiah rends his clothes, puts on sackcloth, and goes to the Temple, where he sends for Isaiah. Isaiah sends word back that Rabshakeh was blaspheming, and God is still with Judah. God promises that the king of Assyria will die by the sword in his own land. Rabshakeh returns to Assyria to find that the nation is at war, and he hears that the Ethiopian army is coming. He sends a message to Jerusalem saying, don't think we won't be back to defeat you; we've defeated a lot of other nations and your time is coming!

Hezekiah gets the letter and puts it before God and prays. The wording of the prayer prompts the SAB to ask Who is the Lord of this world? which I actually addressed in Ruth chapter four, where the answer is complicated. Hezekiah points out in his prayer that all the nations that were conquered by Assyria were idolatrous nations, whose gods were only pieces of wood to be cast in the fire, but the God of the Jews is different, and can deliver them from Assyria. Isaiah sends word that his prayer will be answered and God says to the king of Assyria that all his conquests were really no big deal compared to the power of God. God predicts that the Assyrians won't even come back.

So, God kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers while they sleep, and when the remaining soldiers wake up, obviously they are rather alarmed. This is a lot of killing on God's part, but remember this is an army that was threatening Judah, and had already killed who knows how many in destroying all the kingdoms mentioned previously in this chapter. At least they died in their sleep. So Sennacherib the king, who sounds like he was present at this event, goes back home to Nineveh, where his children assassinate him as he's praying. Yes, that's pretty cold, but does the wording of verse seven imply that God made Sennacherib's sons do this? I think it's likely that they intended to do this all along, and God just sent Sennacherib home so it happened sooner rather than later, but you can interpret it as you want.

But Rab-shakeh said unto them (Isaiah 36)

Isaiah chapter 36 doesn't sound like a prophecy, but rather a straightforward telling of an event in Judah's history. King Sennacherib of Assyria sends an army with a message, which boils down to, "Don't ally with Egypt; ally with us, because your own God has told us that we can destroy you." King Hezekiah's representatives ask Rabshakeh, the messenger, to speak in Assyrian so the inhabitants of Jerusalem won't overhear him, but he repeats his message louder and in Hebrew so everyone can hear it.

Rabshakeh prefaces his repetition with what is perhaps some coarse language about eating dung and drinking piss, hinting at the likelihood of a siege against Jerusalem. This prompts the SAB to ask Is every word of God pure? First of all, I suspect the word "piss" was not considered so crass in the 15th century as it is today; the word "piss" or "pisseth" appears eight times in the KJV, but never "urine" or "urinate" which we in modern times would consider more neutral language. Thus, in addition to this verse being something a foreigner said, I don't think "piss" or "dung" are particularly vulgar. However, there are other verses to deal with here. More generally, I have to ask what is meant by "pure"; I mean, this claim is being made particularly by Proverbs 30:5, but does it really mean there's nothing ugly in the Bible? I mean, really, if you wanted to, the list in the second section could be made much longer, and I assume the author of Proverbs 30 (Agur the son of Jakeh, apparently) was familiar with the scriptures. The Hebrew word behind "pure" in Proverbs 30 and Psalm 119 has the essential meaning of being refined by fire, like a metal such as gold. The Hebrew word for "pure" in Psalm 12, however, has the connotation of being ceremonially clean. While I think the latter comes closer to the kind of purity I think the SAB is trying to imply, I believe in general the idea is that the Bible is unadulterated by falsehoods, and that still not to say that there's no instance of lying in the Bible, but that there's no lying by God. I don't know if this is right or even if it totally makes sense, but I don't think there's any clear contradiction here nonetheless.

I don't know if there is any real need to comment on the existence of a nearly identical passage in 2Kings 18; I don't think there is anyone who would claim the Bible is free from repetition.

Behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice (Isaiah 10)

Isaiah chapter ten has almost no notes, and really, there's not a lot going on here, but I've got some comments and then I'll babble a bit to fill out the post. The one thing the SAB notes besides calling most of the chapter boring is to call the first two verses good stuff. Isaiah calls out leaders who make unrighteous laws, and people who deny help to the poor, widows, and orphans. The thing that needs to be said about the book of Isaiah as a whole is that this sort of stuff, along with other evils, is why Judah is being punished, so it's a little hard to understand why the SAB says that, "Woe unto [people who do all this evil stuff]," is good, but actually having these people suffer is bad (that's what "woe" really means, after all).

The other thing I find notable about this chapter is that starting in verse 12, God deals with the king of Assyria. God does this sort of thing elsewhere, but this is the first time I've seen it where God specifically says outright that once he has used Assyria as his instrument for justice, he's going to turn and deal with Assyria. He emphasizes that Assyria is just a tool in his hands ("Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith?") and if the king tries to take personal pride in his military accomplishments rather than giving God the glory, the same sort of bad things that came upon Israel and Judah will come upon Assyria.

Now for my general rant that I figured I'd put here although it's entirely likely nobody will ever read this post. I find it interesting that (at least it feels like it) most of the prophets in the Bible were rather akin to Cassandra of Troy, who was given the gift of prophecy along with the curse of never having her prophecies believed. A lot of the prophecy in the Bible seems to be saying, "Here's a bunch of terrible things that will happen to you unless you repent; however I also predict that you're not going to repent, in fact, you're going to completely ignore this prophecy until after all the bad stuff happens. Sucks to be you." In any case, that seems to definitely be the sort of stuff that Isaiah is dishing out here. Prophecy is a strange thing, in that prophecy that predicts the future almost always only means something to people after that future has become the past.

They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us (Isaiah 7)

Isaiah chapter seven should be interesting, as it has a prophecy supposedly about Jesus, although there is some controversy, which the SAB brings up, and we'll discuss when we get there.

So, in the time of king Ahaz of Judah, Israel (the northern kingdom, separate from Judah, often called "Ephraim") tries to attack Judah with the help of Assyria. Ahaz finds out that Israel is getting help from Assyria, and is troubled. God tells Isaiah to go and talk to Ahaz and reassure him that they won't prevail. The SAB notes that in 2Chronicles 28, Ahaz is actually taken captive by Israel and Assyria, so is this failed prophecy? Well, I'd want to look into whether these nations defeated Judah as a whole, which they did not in the end, although that surely was no consolation for Ahaz; the whole of 2Chronicles 28 goes into detail about the sins of Ahaz, and how he turned to the gods of Assyria for help instead of the God of Israel. But back to our current story... Isaiah tells Ahaz that in 65 years, Israel/Ephraim will be destroyed.

God challenges Ahaz to suggest a sign, pretty much saying "The sky's the limit!" but Ahaz declines to choose. So God tells Ahaz that the sign will be that a "virgin" will conceive and give birth to a son named Immanuel. This prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 is quoted in Matthew 1:23 as a prophecy of Jesus's birth. Now the SAB has some notes about this prophecy that are worth reviewing. First of all, there is some dispute about the word translated "virgin" here; despite what the SAB says, "עַלְמָה" is an ambiguous Hebrew word that can mean either "virgin" or "young woman". So how do we know which was meant? Well, long before Jesus's time (nearly 300 years), Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and translated this ambiguous Hebrew word "עַלְמָה" into "παρθένος", which definitely means "virgin", so it's actually not the fault of the KJV translation team (it's also "virgo" in the Latin Vulgate, which was likely one of the sources used). There are very few Bible translations that render this word "young woman" although many have a footnote saying it's a possible meaning. As the SAB itself points out, a prophecy of a "young woman" conceiving isn't much of a prophecy, as that happens every single day. But let's talk about the second point, which is that Jesus was born hundreds of years after Ahaz, so it's not much of a sign anyway. I'm pretty sure I have mentioned that sometimes prophecy has multiple times it's fulfilled, and this prophecy is apparently one with that quality. There must have been a woman who was a virgin who conceived and had a child named Immanuel in Ahaz's time. This may have not been miraculous; perhaps she was a virgin at the time of the prophecy, but conceived in the normal fashion, thus giving a time frame for the sign: about nine months. Yes, as the SAB points out, there's no mention in the book of Isaiah of this birth actually happening, but that doesn't personally bother me; it was a private sign for Ahaz, so perhaps Isaiah himself never saw it. Third point on this prophecy is one that many people point out; Jesus was never called Immanuel other than in Matthew 1:23 where the prophecy is quoted. However, it is quoted there with a note in the Greek; it says, "...they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." No, Jesus is never called by the name Immanuel/Emmanuel, but being God in human form, he definitely was known as "God with us." The rest of the prophecy talks about the boy eating "butter and honey" which prompts the SAB to ask about dietary restrictions, which I addressed in Genesis chapter nine, but I don't think this verse really is an issue with the topic, nor do I think Jesus was a vegetarian, because it probably would have been mentioned somewhere in the gospels.

At the end of the chapter, it says essentially that God will send insects from Assyria and Egypt (bees and flies respectively) which somehow seems to add to the desolation. It also says the people will shaved by the king of Assyria on their beards and feet; feet don't have a lot of hair, but the SAB suggests "feet" is a euphemism for genitals, which is entirely likely. It sounds like finally, there is some restoration of the keeping of livestock, but not agriculture, and people will largely live on butter and honey.