1 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard [it], that heIn sign of grief and repentance.tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.
2 And he sent Eliakim, who [was] over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, toTo have comfort from him by the word of God, that his faith might be confirmed and so his prayer be more earnest: teaching by it that in all dangers these two are the only remedies to seek to God and his ministers.Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.
3 And they said to him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day [is] a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: for the children are come to theWe are in as great sorrow as a woman in labour who cannot be delivered.birth, and [there is] not strength to bring forth.
4 It may be the LORD thy God willThat is, will declare by effect that he has heard it: for when God defers to punish, it seems to the flesh, that he knows not the sin, or hears not the cause.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: whereforeDeclaring that the ministers office stands not only in comforting by the word, but also in praying for the people.lift up [thy] prayer for the remnant that is left.
5 So the seruants of the King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
6 And Isaiah sayde vnto them, Thus say vnto your master, Thus saith the Lorde, Be not afrayd of the wordes that thou hast heard, wherewith the seruants of the king of Asshur haue blasphemed me.
7 Behold, I will send a wind upon him, and he shall hear aOf the Egyptians and Ethiopians, who will come and fight against him.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 againstWhich was a city toward Egypt, thinking by it to have stayed the force of his enemies.Libnah: for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.
9 He heard also men say of Tirhakah, King of Ethiopia, Beholde, he is come out to fight against thee: and when he heard it, he sent other messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest,Thus God would have him utter a most horrible blasphemy before his destruction: as to call the author of all truth a deceiver: some gather by this that Shebna had disclosed to Sennacherib the answer that Isaiah sent to the king.deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
11 Beholde, thou hast heard what the Kings of Asshur haue done to all lands in destroying them, and shalt thou be deliuered?
12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, [as]Which was a city of the Medes.Gozan, andCalled also Charre a city in Mesopotamia, from which Abraham came after his fathers death.Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who [were] in Telassar?
13 Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the citie of Sepharuaim, Hena and Iuah?
14 So Hezekiah receiued the letter of the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went vp into the House of the Lorde, and Hezekiah spread it before the Lord.
15 And Hezekiah prayed vnto the Lorde, saying,
16 O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, thatHe grounds his prayer on God's promise, who promised to hear them from between the Cherubims.dwellest [between] the cherubim, thou [art] the God, [even] thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made heaven and earth.
17 Encline thine eare, O Lord, and heare: open thine eyes, O Lorde, and see, and heare all the wordes of Saneherib, who hath sent to blaspheme the liuing God.
18 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, andMeaning, the ten tribes.their countries,
19 And haue cast their gods in ye fire: for they were no gods, but the worke of mans hands, euen wood or stone: therefore they destroyed them.
20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, thatHe declares for what cause he prayed, that they might be glorified by it through all the world.all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou [art] the LORD, [even] thou only.
21 Then Isaiah the sonne of Amoz sent vnto Hezekiah, saying, Thus sayth the Lord God of Israel, Because thou hast prayed vnto me, concerning Saneherib king of Asshur,
22 This [is] the word which the LORD hath spoken concerning him; TheWhom God had chosen to himself as a chaste virgin, and over whom he had care to preserve her from the lusts of the tyrant, as a father would have over his daughter.virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised, [and] derided thee; 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 thy eyes on high? [even] against theDeclaring by this that they who are enemies to God's Church fight against him whose quarrel his Church only maintains.Holy One of Israel.
24 By thy seruants hast thou railed on the Lord, and sayd, By the multitude of my charets I am come vp to the top of the mountaines to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut downe the hie cedars thereof, and the faire firre trees thereof, and I will goe vp to the heightes of his top and to the forest of his fruitfull places.
25 I have dug,He boasts of his policy in that he can find means to nourish his army: and of his power in that his army is so great, that it is able to dry up whole rivers, and to destroy the waters which the Jews had closed in.and drank 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,Signifying that God did not make his Church to destroy it, but to preserve it: and therefore he says that he formed it of old, even in his eternal counsel which cannot be changed.that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fortified 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 grain] blightedHe shows that the state and power of most flourishing cities endures but a moment in respect to the Church, which will remain forever, because God is the maintainer of it.before it is grown up.
28 But I know thy abode, and thyMeaning, his counsels and enterprises.going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.
29 Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come up into my ears, therefore I will put myBecause Sennacherib showed himself as a devouring fish and furious beast, he uses these similarities to teach how he will take him and guide him.hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thouYou will lose your labour.camest.
30 And this [shall be] aGod gives signs after two sorts: some go before the thing as the signs that Moses worked in Egypt, which were for the confirmation of their faith, and some go after the thing, as the sacrifice, which they were commanded to make three days after their departure: and these latter are to keep the blessings of God in our remembrance, of which sort this here is.sign to thee, Ye shall eat [this] year such as groweth of itself; and theHe promises that for two years the ground would feed them of itself.second year that which springeth of the same: and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
31 AndThey whom God has delivered out of the hands of the Assyrians will prosper: and this properly belongs to the Church.the remnant that hath escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward:
32 For out of Ierusalem shall goe a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeale of the Lord of hostes shall doe this.
33 Therefore thus sayth the Lord, concerning the King of Asshur, He shall not enter into this citie, nor shoote an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a mount against it.
34 By the same way that he came, he shall returne, and not come into this citie, saith the Lord.
35 For I will defend this city to save it for my own sake, and for my servantFor my promise sake made to David.David's sake.
36 Then the Angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the campe of Asshur an hundreth, fourescore, and fiue thousand: so when they arose early in the morning, beholde, they were all dead corpses.
37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt atWhich was the chiefest city of the Assyrians.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: andWho was also called Sardanapalus, in whose days ten years after Sennacherib's death the Chaldeans overcame the Assyrians by Merodach their king.Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
