234
Prophets and Kings
“Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient
times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou
shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore
their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and con-
founded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as
the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.
“But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and
thy rage against Me. Because thy rage against Me and thy tumult is
come up into Mine ears, therefore I will put My hook in thy nose, and
My bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which
thou camest.”
2 Kings 19:20-28
.
The land of Judah had been laid waste by the army of occupation,
but God had promised to provide miraculously for the needs of the
people. To Hezekiah came the message: “This shall be a sign unto
thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in
the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year
sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof. And
the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take
[361]
root downward, and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go
forth a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount Zion: the zeal of
the Lord of hosts shall do this.
“Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He
shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before
it with shield, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by
the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the
Lord. For I will defend this city, to save it, for Mine own sake, and for
My servant David’s sake.”
Verses 29-34
.
That very night deliverance came. “The angel of the Lord went
out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore
and five thousand.”
Verse 35
. “All the mighty men of valor, and the
leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria,” were slain.
2
Chronicles 32:21
.
Tidings of this terrible judgment upon the army that had been sent
to take Jerusalem, soon reached Sennacherib, who was still guarding
the approach to Judea from Egypt. Stricken with fear, the Assyrian
king hasted to depart and “returned with shame of face to his own land.”
Verse 21
. But he had not long to reign. In harmony with the prophecy
that had been uttered concerning his sudden end, he was assassinated