Canter Bridge

Isaiah’s 37th chapter puts on display the subtle interplay that is prayer in the moment of crisis.

The threatening king of Assyria may be a cartoonish villain. Nevertheless his shadow casts over little Judah the power of extermination. The Assyrian tyrant is, in a word, invincible. The carcasses of nations that once were, lying with their scorched gods by the side of empire’s highway, bear mute testimony that Assyria and its king are unstoppable.

Judah trembles for good reason, for it would seem that its final hour has come.

As soon as King Hezekiah heard (the threat of the Assyrian emissary), he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. They said to him, ‘Thus says Hezekiah, “This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.”‘

The vestige of King Hezekiah’s scrawny hope lies in two realties. First, the prophet may know what to do. There are, as they say, no atheists in foxholes.

Second, there is the hint here that YHWH might be roused if he is properly reminded that Assyria’s threats fly in the end towards YHWH’s own reputation. Yet it is only a hint. There is little suggestion that the ‘day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace’ that Hezekiah laments brings such calamity to anyone other than Judah. Hezekiah’s concern is in the first instance solidly about Judah and her imminent extinction. It is only in the second instance, not the first, that YHWH is seen as the primary object of Assyria’s arrogant loathing. Hezekiah’s tentative wish-prayer says as much:

It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.

Curiously, the rest of the chapter treats Assyrian sarcasm as though it is directed only at YHWH. The divine reputation comes into play as the main thing, at least from the perspective of the prophetic book that bear’s Isaiah’s name. Judah’s future becomes a result, a byproduct of YHWH’s rising to assert his own sovereignty.

It is, as can be said of almost any human experience of prayer, a matter of point of view. We pray in the main because we are worried about our own circumstances, at least when the matter at hand is a crisis and prayer is plea. Yet we are saved, from the perspective of heaven, when YHWH rises to defend his reputation against people and circumstances that would bring it to ground.

Once the chapter’s theological artistry has been glimpsed and articulated, the reader sees the sustained fact of it detail after detail of the narrative.

The prophet does indeed know what to do. He also transmutes his king’s anxiety about the nation into a plea that YHWH take action about the reproach that the Assyrians would bring upon him.

Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: ‘O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.’

One portion of the Assyrian claim is that no other gods who have stood in empire’s path have been able to save the nations who cried out to them. YHWH takes the claim seriously, but asserts that this time is different.

YHWH’s prophet understands this better than his peers. The contest is chiefly about YHWH’s uniqueness among the so-called gods. The rescue of his people is, again, a consequence. An important consequence, but no more.

So now, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the LORD.’

YHWH’s response endorses Isaiah’s assumption. Prophets, thank goodness, do indeed know what to do.

Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: “She despises you, she scorns you— the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you— the daughter of Jerusalem.

Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel! By your servants you have mocked the Lord …”‘.

We must not overstate this delicate dialectic. YHWH promises his Judah some energetic head-wagging at Assyria’s expense. But he does so chiefly because in mocking Judah, Assyria has stopped into a minefield from which there is no escape. The petulant little tyrant—the ancient world’s unstoppable emperor—has mocked YHWH himself!

Judah prays because a powerful enemy is at her gates and there is nothing else to be done.

Aided by the mediation of his prophet, YHWH hears their self-interested prayer, transposes it into a key of far greater gravity, and promises the Assyrian king the shameful death that rightly awaits all tyrants who tear the flesh of YHWH’s little ones without realizing that they have spat upon the reputation of YHWH himself.