Week 17 Isaiah
Halfway through his book Isaiah launches into the story of the Assyrian threat against Jerusalem.
The Assyrians began with a bit of Bronze Age psychological warfare – a long public address telling Judah why they should surrender. The Rabshakeh offered several reasons-to-give-up. His last one was: don’t let Hezekiah mislead you by saying ‘the Lord will rescue us!’ Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim?…What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? Name just one!
His argument was…
a) states depend on their gods for protection
b) Assyria had conquered every state
c) Assyria had therefore bested the local gods, and
d) the Jerusalem-god would fail too.
If he had quit after point (c) the Rabshakeh would have been on safe historical ground. But he went on to predict that what happened before would happen again.
Hezekiah thought it was a convincing speech. He was petrified.
Isaiah was less impressed. He told Hezekiah: do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me (i.e. against the Lord).
The big difference between Hezekiah and Isaiah was that Hezekiah was worried that something that wasn’t necessarily true was. By contrast Isaiah stood outside propaganda’s borders. Out where you don’t get to call a lie the truth.
Note: quotes from Isaiah 36:18-20 & 37:6 (NLT)