37:1  When King Hezekiah heard it, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and entered the house of the Lord.

that’s the report-- so, they reported back to him-- “he rent his clothes”-- so he did the same as they did because it was an evil report, or a report of evil that happened to them, and it was a great trial for the king because he was responsible for the people’s protection. It was a test of his loyalty to God. He could capitulate to the Assyrians, as his father Aha had done, then there would be protection. It’s true, their people would be dislodged from their homeland, but they would not be killed. So, basically, when you look at it, King Aha failed the test of loyalty, and Hezekiah passes the test of loyalty. Now, you look at the two tests and they are basically the same test; Are you loyal to your covenant Lord? And as in Hezekiah’s case, yes, under duress, of course. And in Ahaz’s case, no. And then we see the results, in each case. Historically, those two events were separated by a whole generation, of forty years. This happens forty years later. But in Isaiah’s seven part structure they are a contemporary event. They are synchronous ideas. Does that make sense?

In an end time scenario when this whole thing fulfills itself a second time, we will have an Assyrian siege in the end time. We’ll have an Assyrian siege of the Promised Land, and of the people of Zion, or Jerusalem, where God will intervene, as He did in this case. And, we’ll read of the loyalty to the King and loyalty to the people. We will also have a case of a rebellious, or disloyal, descendant of David who will capitulate to the Assyrians, with disastrous results. We will have those two individuals living at the same time. Not forty years apart. There are royal families in the world, today, who trace their lineage back to king David. Some very prominent ones, in fact. And when that world threat repeats itself, or the Assyrians come again, using Assyria as a code name for a modern super power, as we use Babylon as a code name for a modern spiritual entity. Isaiah defines Babylon as the world and its wicked inhabitants,
as we saw in chapter thirteen. He defines Zion as the elect group of the people of God, a repentant people of God. Those are code names. Assyria is a code name in that case. And so is Egypt a code name for another great super power of our day that’s in decline that has “vast forces of chariots and horsemen to which the smaller nations will look as protection against an Assyrian invasion, an Assyrian conquest of the world. So, when that situation starts repeating itself in an end time scenario, there will be an Aha who will be disloyal to the Lord and a people will be disloyal to their King. And there will be a Hezekiah, using those names as code names too, who will be loyal, and a people loyal to their King .

Chapter 37, “When King Hezekiah read it, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and entered the house of the Lord.” So, he goes and reports back to his Lord, as the king’s servants had reported back to their lord.

37:2  And he sent Eliakim the overseer of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the elders of the priests in sackcloth to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz.

Because Isaiah was the Lord’s prophet and his messenger, he was following proper protocol. Yes, he did pour out his heart and pray to God directly, and that was proper, but he also acquiesced to the prophet’s authority with God. He was doing everything in the proper way, here.

37:5, 3  And when King Hezekiah’s servants came to Isaiah, they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah: This is a woeful day, a day of reproof and disgrace. Children have reached the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.

They’re representing the king, they’re messengers from the king, so they said, “thus says Hezekiah.” “This is a woeful day,” meaning a cursed day, or a time of cursing. The curses of the covenant are coming upon us, because of transgression. Just like whenever we read, Wo this or wo that, it is a form of pronunciation of a covenant curse. This is a cursed situation. The unfortunate thing is, that it was not Hezekiah’s fault. It was because of the transgressions of a previous generation; “The iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation.” It’s not the guilt that’s passed on, but the effects of sin, or transgression that are passed on from one generation to the next. In this case it’s a very dramatic example of that.
‘This is a woeful day, a day of reproof and disgrace. Children have reached the point of birth but there is no strength to deliver them.” They speak so beautifully, in metaphor, in this imagery, that they weave some life around them. In our western culture we just too far from that. There were various points in Israel’s history, including this one, when Israel was in travail: “She is like a woman in travail.” It happened during the time of Egyptian bondage; Israel is described as a woman in travail, and the Jews called the “birth pangs of the Messiah.

And they regard Hezekiah as a Messiah. The rabbis say, “we don’t need another messiah; we had him in the days of King Hezekiah.” And they’re just speaking tongue-in-cheek; they still hope for a Messiah. But, Hezekiah was just such a person that they would like to have again. The Jews called the birth pangs of the Messiah when the whole nation goes into travail because of some calamity or other. And then, usually if the people are loyal to the Lord, the Lord sends a Deliverer, as He did in Moses’ case. “ And there was an exodus out of Egypt and a bondage and they were delivered out of Egypt.” And, that was the birth of the nation of Israel. So a deliverer was born, and when a deliverer is born, he delivers the people.

And you have the same thing in chapter 56;7,8 in the book of Isaiah: It says, “Before she’s in labor she gives birth. Before her ordeal overtakes her she delivers a son.” Now, notice the sequence, because in the next verse it talks about a nation being born. “Who has heard the like, or has seen such things? Can the earth labor but a day, and a nation be born at once? For as soon as she was in labor, Zion gave birth to her children.” So, first the son is born, and then the nation is born. Just like out of Egypt. First the Deliverer is born, and then the people are delivered by the Deliverer, through his mastery, through his stewardship. His job is to deliver the people as Moses delivered them.

And we saw them in King David’s case, also. At the time when Israel chose a king, the whole nation was in travail. The Philistines were about to wipe Israel out, and the Lord gave them a deliverer, the King of Israel: first, Saul, and then David. And you often wonder, why? Why Saul, why didn’t the Lord choose David right off the bat? David was the one who delivered Israel from the Philistines. In fact, David reversed the entire situation, where Israel was about to be wiped out. Israel blossomed at that time, and Israel’s golden age commenced and Israel became the world power at that time. King David, and king Solomon, his son, were emperors of the ancient near eastern world. Now, why Saul? Because Saul and David were contemporaries, remember? And Saul was trying to kill David.

Now, what do we have here in Isaiah? In this structure it super imposes the book of Isaiah upon the end time. We have two contemporaries. A rebellious king, and a loyal king. And king Saul and king David, who were contemporaries, are also types of that scenario, of an end time scenario. So, we have to have a Saul, as a historical type, if nothing else, of a king who was disloyal to the Lord. And so this is the third time in the history of the Lord’s people where we have the whole nation in travail; they’re about to be wiped out by the Assyrians, as they were by the Egyptians, and by the Philistines, earlier. And here we have a Deliverer, king Hezekiah himself. And it is to his faithfulness, as we’ll see here, that the Lord delivers the people.

37:4  It may be that the Lord your God has heard the words of Rabshakeh, whom his lord the king of Assyria has sent to scorn the living God, and will rebuke him for the things the Lord your God has heard, were you to offer up prayer on behalf of the remnant that is left.

Now, Hezekiah has a perfect understanding of how things work. How one man is intercession for others--if that man is high on the spiritual ladder, if he is a Savior-type person, and as all rungs high on the spiritual ladder are those of saviors of one kind or another. We’ll see that Hezekiah himself is a savior, but Isaiah functions on a higher level than he does, spiritually, and has more power with God. He’s a greater intercessor than Hezekiah is.

37:6  And Isaiah said to them, Tell your lord, Thus says the Lord: Be not afraid because of the words with which you have heard the king of Assyria’s subordinates ridicule me.

that is, tell King Hezekiah. The messages from the king have come to Isaiah, and given him that message and now he sends them back to the king. “Thus says the Lord, “or thus says Jehovah, “be not afraid because of the words with which you have heard the king of Assyria’s subordinates ridicule me.” It’s very similar to what Isaiah said to king Aha, a generation earlier when they were threatened with the Assyrian invasion from the north. He said, “Don’t be afraid. The covenant is intact. If you’ll be loyal.” And the protection clause of that covenant must see to it that the Lord will protect you.

37:7  See, I will give him a notion to return home upon hearing a rumor, and will cause him to fall by a sword in his own land.

So, there’ll be in-house intrigues and conspiracy that will cause him to fall. And he’ll get spooked somehow and act in a confused way that will lead to that. And the Lord can do that; he can enlighten people. He can also take away their enlightenment.

37:8  And when Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found him fighting against Libnah.

37:9  Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah king of Cush had set out to fight against him.

Cush was upper Egypt and was allied with Egypt. As Egypt is a great super power today--it’s not Egypt of the ancient near east, at all. The names are only code names--it’s the word that Isaiah assigns to the powers that determines who they are. It would be like another country adjoining that super power that resembled it in some ways, an ally. Isaiah prophesies against them as two allied entities.

37:9–10  And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, telling them, 10 Speak thus to Hezekiah king of Judah: Let not your god in whom you trust delude you into thinking that Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Now, this is kind of a repeat of the same situation. It’s like another threat, another demand. for surrender. And it’s kind of a parallelism; it’s like a double witness of what happened just now, what we’ve been talking about. “Let not your god in whom you trust delude you into thinking that Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

37:11  You yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done, annexing all lands. Shall you then escape?

Remember the Germans during World War II, how arrogant they were? As they conquered nation after nation they seemed to have a power given to them. They were so confidant they could do all of this. And, at that time the Assyrians did, too. Remember, as we discussed before, that the Assyrians rise to power, as a world power. It was in direct proportion to Israel’s decline into apostasy. There was a direct relationship like that. And that goes back to the Sinai covenant, in Deuteronomy 28 ,where Israel is promised a covenant blessing that she will be the head of the nations if she keeps the terms of the covenant. And if she does not, she will become the tail, and other nations will become the head. And now that has happened, in this case.

37:12–13  Did the gods of the nations my fathers destroyed deliver them? Did they deliver Gozan and Haran, Rezeph and the Edenites in Tel Assar? Where are the kings of Hamath and Arpad and the kings of the cities of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?

37:14  And Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and unrolled it before the Lord.

So, we have basically a repeat of what we saw beforehand. A parallelism, or, a double witness.

37:15–16  And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, who sittest enthroned between the cherubim, thou alone art God over all the kingdoms of the earth. It is thou who madest the heavens and the earth . . .

That is, Jehovah of Hosts, “ God of Israel, who sittest enthroned between the cherubim,”...And that, of course, the ark of the covenant, symbolized that which stood in the Holy of Holies in the temple where Hezekiah prayed. I’m not sure he went into the Holy of Holies, but he was praying in the temple. And he was referring, of course, to the heavenly throne of God. “Thou alone art God over all the kingdoms of the earth. It is thou who madest the heavens and the earth.”

Although he was living in a culture that accepted the plurality of gods, he does not. It’s firmly in his mind that this God is unique. This is the God over all things. The others are no gods, really.

37:17  O Lord, give ear and hear; O Lord, open thine eyes and see. Listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.

The “Living God”, because all the others are dead gods.

37:18–19  O Lord, the kings of Assyria have indeed destroyed all peoples and their lands, committing their gods to the fire. For they were no gods, but mere works of men’s hands, of wood and of stone, and so they could destroy them.

The first time in the history of the ancient world where somebody did that, .”committing their gods to the fire, for they were no gods, but mere works of men’s hands, of wood and of stone, and so they could destroy them.” It’s interesting that Isaiah uses the words “wood” and “stone” as common metals and materials, semi- precious, and precious, to distinguish categories of people. And so they could destroy them because they were no gods.

37:20  But now, O Lord our God, deliver us out of his hand, that all kingdoms on earth may know that thou alone art Lord.

Just like you did at Egypt. Or, just like you did in the days of King David. All kingdoms on the earth, recognized at that time, that the God of Israel was different. That he was unique. That he had greater power than their gods.

37:21–22  Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is what the Lord has spoken against him:

Even while Hezekiah was praying Isaiah got word from the Lord, or the Lord sent word to his people, through his prophet Isaiah, in response to Hezekiah’s prayer.

37:22  The Virgin Daughter of Zion holds you in contempt; she laughs you to scorn. The Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head at you.

Just as a woman jilts an unwanted suitor, this guy is trying to date her or trying to go out with her, and she just shrugs him off. And that’s what Israel is doing here--or God’s people who are symbolized by the “Virgin Daughter of Zion, or the daughter of Jerusalem. But those names, Zion and Jerusalem are used in a special sense, by Isaiah. He’s the God of Israel, right, in verse twenty-one. And he starts talking about Zion and Jerusalem in verse twenty-two. So, what’s the difference?

The difference is that in Isaiah’s scenario, in Isaiah’s theology, there is a spiritual ladder, and the category of Zion or Jerusalem is one category that’s higher than that of Jacob or Israel. So this verse is saying an awful lot. It’s saying that these people are loyal to me. As such, they reject the king of Assyria’s overtures. They’re not in the mood to capitulate to him at all. They’re going to jilt him, shrug him off, laugh him to scorn, even, shake their head at him. They’re going to reject him and accept me, the Lord, for their husband, or their spouse. In the face of that horrendous pressure that the people are under, it implies that the people have passed the test. The Assyrians have a vast army surrounding the city, or at the city’s gates, and in the book there are two armies, there. The king of Assyria has one, and his general has another. And, militarily, the Judeans are no match for the Assyrians. The Assyrians have conquered all the nations of the world, or are in the process of doing so. And yet, they don’t capitulate to him. They trust in the Lord their God. And they’re loyal to their King. So, they have passed the test of loyalty, the covenant loyalty to their God. In so doing, they’ve been valiant. And so He calls them by these exalted names, Zion, or Jerusalem. As against Israel or Judea, or Jacob.

37:23  Whom have you mocked and ridiculed? Against whom have you raised your voice, lifting your eyes to high heaven? Against the Holy One of Israel!

That is, the king of Assyria has mocked and ridiculed. And that’s what the evil one is doing In ---------? They always mock and ridicule and scorn. That’s the mode that they operate in; they mock and ridicule that which is good. In this case, he’s mocked and ridiculed the God of Israel himself, because he keeps saying, Don’t trust in that Jehovah of yours; he’s not going to help you! None of the other gods helped them; why should He, why could He? “Against whom have you raised your voice, lifting your eyes to high heaven against the Holy One of Israel.” The Holy One of Israel, or the Sanctified One of Israel--we have discussed that the Holy One is a title of God, in the book of Isaiah, where the attribute of holiness, God’s holiness is paradigmatic, or it serves an exemplary purpose for God’s people. He’s holy, and they should also be holy; They should become holy. He’s valiant; he’s called the Valiant One of Israel. And so should they be. These are attributes of God that they should emulate. As they do so, they ascend the spiritual ladder.

37:24  By your servants you have blasphemed the Lord. You thought, On account of my vast chariotry I have conquered the highest mountains, the farthest reaches of Lebanon.

Of course mountains is a metaphor for nations, in the book of Isaiah. So, he’s conquered the elite, or the loftiest nations, with all of his armies of chariots and horsemen. “The farthest reaches of Lebanon. “Lebanon”, throughout the Old Testament is a figure for Israel, elite Israel. And, in fact, he took away the ten tribes, captive--or his forefathers did. And he now has conquered Judea as well, virtually all of Judea. I think there were forty-two cities mentioned that, in the Assyrian annals that they conquered in Judea. I remember my teacher in Toronto, professor Roland K. Harrison, talking about the two she bears that killed-- I think it was forty-two children. They tore them to pieces because they were chiding Elishah the prophet, saying, “Go up baldy! Go up baldy!” “Go up” means ascend, or to progress spiritually. It also means to go up to Jerusalem, or it’s sometimes what prophets said to a king, “Go up to battle.” So, they were mocking Elisha. He called them sons of Belial. Which is an interesting terms because Belial is a construct of two Hebrew words: beli, means “is not,” or, “ without”, and ya-al which means “to ascend”. So, they were unable to ascend, or progress. Ascend means progress, in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, too. And so, they were unable to ascend, that is to go up, spiritually. They were condemned to state of non-progression, or, under condemnation. In other words, they were damned. Two she bears came and tore those children to pieces. And my professor in Toronto said that these two she bears were types of Assyria and Babylon that would come and destroy the cities of the people of Israel. And in this, case, the Assyrians certainly did that. He’s boasting here, in verse 24:

37:24–25  I have felled its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses. I have reached its loftiest summit, its finest forest. I have dug wells and drunk of foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all Egypt’s rivers!

Of course he’s speaking in metaphor. The mountains are nations, Lebanon is Israel, cedars are people. As in chapter ten, he’s called the ax. In chapter fourteen, he hews down people like trees. The loftiest summit, of course, is Jerusalem which was tan exalted city. Forests are cities, in Isaiah. Isaiah establishes all of these ideas by synonymous parallelisms. We’ve seen quite a few of those already. So, he’s now boasting that he’s actually conqueror of Egypt as well. Rivers represent rivers of people, and he’s really boasting of his conquest of Egypt. And in a military confrontation, in Isaiah, yes, that’s true. The Assyrians do, in fact, conquer Egypt. And that serves a typological purpose for an end time scenario. And in the end time scenario, the militaristic world power from the north, a modern version of Assyria, will, in fact, conquer and destroy the other great super power, the one that people use to rely upon against the Assyrians.

37:26  Have you not heard how I ordained this thing long ago, how in days of old I planned it? Now I have brought it to pass. You were destined to demolish fortified cities, turning them into heaps of rubble,

This puts things in perspective: “Have you not heard how I ordained this thing long ago? How in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass.” Of course the modern re-enactment of this scenario was planned from of old. Ancient Assyria is a type. One of the keys to the book of Isaiah is that all things, which he predicts have been and shall be. Isaiah prophesies new versions of old events. New exodus, new wandering in the wilderness, and in this case, a new Assyrian invasion, and world conquest. Whatever set a precedent anciently, in Israel’s history became a type that Isaiah uses for the future. A type of something that will repeat itself. And so, in that sense, it kind of gives more meaning to this verse that what happened anciently is a type for the latter days.

“ Now I have brought it to pass. You were destined to demolish fortified cities, turning them into heaps of rubble.” That was his job. Pretty gruesome job to be commissioned by the Lord, or to be destined by Him to cause such utter destruction. Isaiah, therefore, characterizes him as a power of chaos, and, in fact, it says in chapter ten, verses 5 and 6, “Hail, the Assyrian, the rod of my anger; he’s a staff, my wrath in their hand. I will commission him against a godless nation, appoint him over the people deserving of my vengeance, to pillage for plunder, to spoliate for spoil, to tread underfoot like mud in the streets.” He calls him an ax, in verse 15, of chapter ten, that hews down the wicked, and a saw, and a rod, and a staff. And his purpose is to annihilate and exterminate entire nations, in verse seven. He does all of those things. And it was ordained of God. Why? Well, at a certain point, the Babylonian world, or the Babylon level of existence, comes to an end. and the earth itself ascends and assumes a paradisiacal glory. How is the previous world , then, to be done away? It’s done away when the people of the world ripen in iniquity. And those who fail the test of loyalty are wiped out, and those who pass the test of loyalty are delivered and live on into that Millennial time of peace. And somebody has to do that horrible job of destroying. The king of Assyria does, because they chose him, basically. They rejected God and chose him instead. And he actually becomes a false god, as we saw, the god of this world, in chapter fourteen. In direct opposition to the God of Israel. But he’s not a true god. He’s not a god who creates life. He’s a false god who destroys life, wipes out entire nations, wipes out all the wicked inhabitants of the world, or nearly all of them. Many are also destroyed by other calamities, but he’s the main one that does that. “You were destined to demolish fortified cities, turning them into heaps of rubble…

37:27  while their timorous inhabitants shrank away in confusion, becoming as wild grass, transiently green, or like weeds on a roof that scorch before they grow up.

So what kind of people is he destroying? Weeds, wild grass, not fruitful plants, not vegetable, or herbs, or fruit trees. He’s destroying that kind of people. People who are symbolized, here, by weeds and wild grass that never really mature. Remember, in chapter five the parable of the vineyard, there? People are like Beecham ?? They’re like fruit that rots before it ripens. They never come to maturity. They wither before they ever come to anything. Then they are destroyed in the vineyard. The vineyard is invaded by the Assyrians. So, that’s another way of seeing it.

37:28  But I know where you dwell, and your comings and goings, and how stirred up you are against me.

Remember all of these terms and these ideas, and this imagery all has linking places throughout the book of Isaiah. The cross reference there, chapter five verse three, for example, talks about the sea being stirred up. And, sea and river are two names of an ancient near eastern power of chaos that Isaiah applies to the king of Assyria. It’s a linking verb-- “he stirred up”, against God’s people, and against their God. Just like the sea is stirred up, the sea in commotion, and the river in flood that we have seen that characterizes the king of Assyria.

37:29  And because of your snortings and bellowings against me, which have mounted up to my ears, I will put my ring in your nose and my bit in your mouth and turn you back by the way you came.

so he likens him to a horse, or a bull--” which have mounted up to my ears”-- enough of that! Like Hitler and his famous, or infamous speeches; he was ranting and raving. And every dictator does that. It’s inspired by Satan. Satan gives him the words to speak, empowers him. Or, the Lord allows him to be empowered in that way when the condition of the world is one of wickedness. So, he allows the wicked to rule and to gain power, as a way of chastising his people and causing them to repent. And so he’s doing the same thing. He’s full of propaganda and arrogance, spouting off against God. “And because of your snorts and bellows against me, which have mounted up to my ears, I will put my ring in your nose and my bit in your mouth and turn you back by the way you came.”

37:30  But to you this shall be a sign: This year eat what grows wild, and the following year what springs up of itself. But in the third year sow and harvest, plant vineyards and eat their fruit:

“But to you”, that is, now speaking to God’s people, as represented by their king, “But to you this shall be a sign;” It’s interesting that in chapter seven, Isaiah offered king Aha a sign from God and he rejected it. So, we have a parallel situation, here. The Assyrian threat, a loyal people, and a sign that everything’s going to be okay. “This year eat what grows wild, and the following year what springs up of itself. .But in the third year, sow and harvest, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.” So, there’s going to be a time of scarcity. There’s going to be a time of upheaval, when things won’t be normal, because of the Assyrian threat. And that threat happens because of the transgressions of the previous generation. So it puts the present generation into an awkward situation, and uncomfortable situation. Is that good or bad? Isn’t that unfair? We’ve been good. We’ve kept covenant. Why should we have to put up with all of that from our forefathers? But, whatever situation presents itself can be turned to good. These people are actually reversing the curse. And that’s a wonderful thing that you can do. These people have a higher calling, or able to respond to a higher calling. They’re able to turn a cursed situation into one of blessing, again. And that’s not easy. It’s much easier to turn a blessed situation into a cursed one. It takes extreme loyalty and valor to be loyal to the Lord in a time of great pressure and crises. But in so doing, you can turn it around, just like Abraham turned it around from the iniquities of the fathers on the heads of the children, to the blessing of the fathers on the heads of the children to the third and fourth generation. Abraham’s father was an idolater; he had inherited covenant curses--the famine. He turned it around, by his life, and then it became the blessings on the heads of the fathers: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph--to the third and fourth generation. It doesn’t really matter what you are born into; it doesn’t matter what happens to you that’s anybody’s fault. You don’t look at life that way. You say, “What can I do under the present circumstances? What’s God’s will? How can I express my loyalty toward God? He will turn a bad situation to a good one, eventually.

Also, this fulfills what we saw earlier in chapter seven, where the Son Immanuel will be eating cream and honey. Who is this Immanuel, if not Hezekiah, himself? Historically, that is. Immanuel is also a code name. Chapter seven verse fourteen says: “Therefore will my Lord, of himself, give you a sign.” That’s the sign which was given that they rejected. “The young woman shall give birth to a son and name him Immanuel. Cream and honey will he eat by the time he has learned to reject what is evil and choose what is good..” And then, in verses twenty- one and twenty-two of the same chapter, chapter seven, it says, “In that day a man will keep alive a cow and a pair of sheep, and because of plentiful milk, they will eat the cream. All who remain in the land will feed on cream and honey.” Well, cream and honey were the fare of nomads, in times of emergency when the people had to go back and dwell in their tents, for a time. They revert to the nomadic lifestyle of their ancestors. It’s enough to live on, but it’s not luxury. If you didn’t have enough to live on, it would be a covenant curse. It would mean that you were guilty. These people are righteous, so they live adequately. They have sufficient for their needs. They have adequate supplies to eat and to drink. But, it’s a time of emergency. The whole land is going to revert to wilderness because the context here is that the Assyrians are going to come in. “The Lord will bring upon you and your people and your fathers’ house a day unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judea; the day of the king of Assyria (verse 17 of chapter seven).

So, we have that situation now, being fulfilled, as I said earlier, in chapters thirty-six, thirty-seven, and thirty-eight. So, this is the time of emergency. When things will not be following the norm, when the Assyrians are invading the land and people will have to rely upon their food storage and upon things that grow wild, and upon a young cow and a pair of sheep. Those animals that we can keep alive during that time will provide a little bit here, a little bit there, enough to eat. And how long will this time last? Three years. And that ties in with chapter twenty, also, where Isaiah prophesies for three years against Egypt and Cush. And it ties in with Babylon’s three year “lease” of time in which to repent. And both of those things imply three years of warning and three years of fulfillment. In the book of Revelation it’s three-and-a-half years. So, also in the book of Daniel. But in Isaiah’s scenario it’s three years, probably three of the three-and-a- half years. It’s basically the same scenario. Isaiah defines it more the three years than the three- and-a- half.

“But in the third year sow and harvest, plant vineyards and eat their fruit:” Things are going to straighten out again by the third year. The danger will be gone. And it will be, again, a permanent situation. There’ll be fruit. “Fruit” is a wonderful word. It’s a liking word in many parts of Isaiah, such as to chapter eleven, verse one, for example, where the tree that no longer bore fruit springs forth a shoot, and then there’s a graft and it bears fruit. It means a lot of things. It refers to the mission of the Servant, and that there’ll be fruit again in that day, as well as the idea that things will be okay with the people of Israel. It also implies that the people are righteous, that they’re bearing fruit.

37:31  the remnant of the house of Judah that survives shall once more take root below and bear fruit above.

Remember, on the other hand, the Babylonians, inhabitants of Babylon, were cut off, root and branch. They had nobody. For example, in chapter fourteen, verse 22, “ I will cut off Babylon’s name and remnant, its offspring and descendants.” In other places where it talks about them being cut off and perishing, they don’t bear fruit.

37:32  For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and from Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish it.

That take us back again to chapter seven, and, in other places, chapter ten, chapter twenty eight--all of them that talk about a remnant-- the Lord’s people-- it’s a linking word. The remnant is identified with Zion or Jerusalem, again. In fact, they’re not synonymous entities, necessarily. They are, as a spiritual category. Zion and Jerusalem is a spiritual category .in the book of Isaiah, of people who repent, who pass the test of loyalty, as in this case. But, also, they are places. Zion is both a people and a place. So is Jerusalem. And they’re not the same place. They are not synonymous. When you take the word “Jerusalem” all the way through the book of Isaiah, and the same with the word “Zion”, you will see that there are differences between the two. Also, in Mount Zion there is protection, as in the cross reference there, chapters four verses two to three. The Lord’s cloud of glory rests upon the people of Mount Zion and protects them, there, during the time of the destruction by the Assyrians. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts--Zeal is a metaphor, describing the Lord’s Servant. He’s the one who accomplishes this. Just as Moses accomplished the deliverance. King David accomplished deliverance. Hezekiah does, through his intercession with the Lord, through his righteousness. And so will the Servant in that latter-day time period.

37:33  Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He shall not advance against it with armor, nor erect siegeworks against it.

37:34  By the way he came he shall return; he shall not enter this city, says the Lord.

37:35  I will protect this city and save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.

That’s in direct disagreement with what Rabshakeh had said. He said, “Your God’s not able to save you” And here the Lord says, “Yes, I will save this city, this people.” But it’s interesting why He does so--”I will protect...” The protection comes with covenant keeping, always. There’s no protection without covenant keeping. It’s a clause in the Lord’s covenant. There’s a protection clause. And he gives the reason why: “For my own sake, and for the sake of my servant, David.” Meaning that both are keeping the terms of the covenant; the Lord does his part when his Servant does his part. In this case, it’s king Hezekiah. In the end time scenario, it’s a latter-day David. In king David’s own time it was David, himself. And in Moses’ time it was Moses. In a Davidic covenant, that’s the case. The king stands in for the people, and the king intercedes with god on behalf of the people, as Hezekiah does, to deliver this people. And when the king keeps God’s law. And the people keep the king’s law. Then their protection is assured. Then their protection is in place. He keeps God’s law. They keep His law. And then their is Divine protection. It never fails. All the way through the scriptures wherever we have threats, dangers, when you have that formula, there is protection. It harks back to the terms of the Dravidic covenant, or the Lord’s covenant with king David. And that’s what this is referring to. “For my own sake and for the sake of my servant, David.” Whenever you see that expression, “For the sake of...” somebody, it also implies that that servant is an intercessor with God. In fact, He says so. “This city” mentioned three times.

“Because you have prayed to me, concerning Sennacherib king of Egypt, this is what the Lord says.” In a latter-day context you would say that an arrow might be a missile. Now, he’s not going to shoot a missile into the city. Bomb it; that’s a possibility. When this scenario repeats itself, in a latter-day context, one arrow would not hurt very much, today, but missiles would. Now, this city is also a term-”he will not enter the city”. He says it twice. It’s also a term in Isaiah that characterizes the Lord’s people; it’s a metaphor. In Isaiah there are two women that represents God’s people. In other Hebrew prophets, it’s mostly one. God’s people are characterized as a woman who has a covenant relationship with her husband, the Lord. And the way she keeps the covenant defines her loyalty or disloyalty to Him. And Isaiah turns that into the idea of two women. One who is loyal who turns adulterous, is cut off, one who was cut off, anciently for adultery, and who is now received back So, we have two entities of God’s people that Isaiah talks about, represented by the two women. And they can be identified as ethnic Israel, which was cut off, anciently, and is received back in the end time, according to Paul’s allegory of the olive tree, in Roman’s 11. And, we have those who have been God’s people, the Gentiles--as He calls them--who are then cut off because they become adulterous, as the others had done, earlier. And He does the same with two cities. In Isaiah there are two cities. One representing those who are loyal to the Lord, the city of God, the city of Zion, the people of God, and one, the wicked city, the elite city that’s cast into the dust and destroyed by the king of Assyria. And there are also two covenants. The covenant of life and the covenant of death. So, Isaiah has this dichotomy all the way through his book. When he’s talking about this city, he’s talking about the city of God, or the people of God who will be protected at that time.

37:36  Then the angel of the Lord went out and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. And when men arose in the morning, there lay all their dead bodies!

It’s not clear, sometimes, who the angel of the Lord is. Whether it’s the Lord, himself, or an emissary of the Lord, because, very often, in the Old Testament when a prophet is speaking with God, he’s speaking with the angel of the Lord. “Then the Lord said this, then the Lord said that...” But he’d been speaking to the angel of the Lord. So, who’s he speaking to? The Lord, or some emissary? It’s not clear, at first. “Then the angel of the Lord went out and slew a hundred-and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp, :” Now, whether they all died of some plague of some kind or were smitten through some Divine intervention. “And when men arose in the morning, there lay all their dead bodies!” Or, another way of translating this, “when they all got up in the morning they were all dead.” And of course all these men were carrying the spoils of war from throughout the countries that they’d conquered. And for the labor of burning the corpses the Israelites, in this case, the Judeans, who were “enriched” with the spoils of war.

37:37  So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. And he returned to Nineveh, where he dwelt.

Because basically his power was broken, at that time. His huge army was destroyed. And so it will be in the latter days when this scenario repeats itself. That’s the Armageddon. That’s where this huge army of 200-million men, in the Book of Revelation, will perish. Now, 200-million men of the end time are the equivalent of this 185,000 in Isaiah’s day. .In those days that was a huge army, just as 200-million would be huge army, today. And this is actually the historical type of Armageddon. Everything has type; everything that happens in the latter days has a type somewhere in the past. Because that’s how Isaiah prophesies. That’s how all the prophets prophesy. Isaiah prophesies nothing really new that’s going to happen The future is a re-run of past events, a mirror of the past. It’s a chiasm of the past, sometimes. A chiasm of history. When that destruction happens that breaks the back of the Assyrian power. And from then on, in the end time scenario, we have the re-conquest of the world. The Assyrians have spread out their armies all over the world and all of the places they have conquered. Just as Hitler had his garrisons in every nations of the world, that he’d conquered.

And in so doing, his forces got pretty thinly spread out. And he didn’t have the military forces at his disposal for actual battles, because he had to maintain all those places that he’d conquered. Re-conquering those places, once the main armies are wiped out--In Isaiah they’re wiped out by Divine intervention, as in this case, and also in a great military victory, in two distinct ways. In chapters thirty and thirty-one. After those two great armies are destroyed, re-conquering the world will be quite easy. And the Lord’s servant does that. Cyrus is his type, in the book of Isaiah. Cyrus is his type for conquering the world on behalf of the Lord, releasing all the peoples that are left alive, from bondage to the Assyrians.

37:38  And as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer slew him with a sword and fled to the land of Ararat. And his son Esarhaddon succeeded him as king.

That was the end of him. Now, that’s historical. In an end time scenario I don’t know what that would refer to. Because, in an end time scenario the Lord’s servant, a descendant of David, puts down the king of Assyria, like David put down Goliath. It’s a David/Goliath type of confrontation. So, I don’t know where this fit it. But I’m sure it does somewhere, because everything in Isaiah has a second fulfillment. There could be another great leader that’s involved.