A HARVEST OF HOPE
Opening Prayer
Lord, as I come to spend time with you in your Word, help me to set aside those things that would distract me from hearing your voice.
Read ISAIAH 37:21–38
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Sennacherib’s Fall
21 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word the Lord has spoken against him:
“Virgin Daughter Zion
despises and mocks you.
Daughter Jerusalem
tosses her head as you flee.
23 Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
24 By your messengers
you have ridiculed the Lord.
And you have said,
‘With my many chariots
I have ascended the heights of the mountains,
the utmost heights of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars,
the choicest of its junipers.
I have reached its remotest heights,
the finest of its forests.
25 I have dug wells in foreign lands[a]
and drunk the water there.
With the soles of my feet
I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’
26 “Have you not heard?
Long ago I ordained it.
In days of old I planned it;
now I have brought it to pass,
that you have turned fortified cities
into piles of stone.
27 Their people, drained of power,
are dismayed and put to shame.
They are like plants in the field,
like tender green shoots,
like grass sprouting on the roof,
scorched[b] before it grows up.
28 “But I know where you are
and when you come and go
and how you rage against me.
29 Because you rage against me
and because your insolence has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will make you return
by the way you came.
30 “This will be the sign for you, Hezekiah:
“This year you will eat what grows by itself,
and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
31 Once more a remnant of the kingdom of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.
32 For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.
33 “Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria:
“He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow here.
He will not come before it with shield
or build a siege ramp against it.
34 By the way that he came he will return;
he will not enter this city,”
declares the Lord.
35 “I will defend this city and save it,
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!”
36 Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! 37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
38 One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 37:25 Dead Sea Scrolls (see also 2 Kings 19:24); Masoretic Text does not have in foreign lands.
- Isaiah 37:27 Some manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, Dead Sea Scrolls and some Septuagint manuscripts (see also 2 Kings 19:26); most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text roof / and terraced fields
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
When we come to the end of ourselves and find God is all we have, he is enough.There were walled cities all around the world. They were designed with the security of their inhabitants in mind. They had slits in the ramparts through which weapons could be fired against the enemy, who were kept from the citizens within by impenetrable barriers of rock.
The problem was that all an attacking army needed to do to achieve victory was camp out long enough for the food in the city to run out. The Assyrians not only had Jerusalem under siege, but they had also created conditions for a famine on a far larger scale by confiscating the crops ready in March and April, and preventing the farmers from sowing in September and October. If they weren’t to die of starvation, surely their only option was to submit to Assyria (2 Chronicles 32:11).
God was not going to let that happen. Through Isaiah, Hezekiah learned that there would be a harvest of food that had planted itself (v. 30). A remnant of his people would come through this horrific situation, taking root and bearing fruit (vv. 31, 32). In some sense we, citizens of God’s kingdom in the twenty-first century, are their fruit. The Lord Almighty will always accomplish what he says he will.
Apply
Are you under siege and in need of a miracle? Take heart! Your God can do more than you could ask or imagine.
Closing prayer
Holy Spirit, help me to remember, believe, and act on the fact that my God is more than able to bring victory in any battle I wage.
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