40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 36:13-37:32 (Episode 477)

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Rabshakeh makes promises he has no intention of keeping while insulting God. Isaiah says not to be afraid. And Hezekiah prays a good prayer. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms by Chad Bird Remembering Your Baptism: A 40-Day Devotional by Kathryn Morales Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome back to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament, of course, is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all of their podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. So many things. I mean, articles, academies. You've heard the spiel before.

The bookstore. You know, get all that stuff. Have you pre-ordered Chad's book yet? I mean, come on. It's an Old Testament book. It's a book about the Psalms. So, I mean, probably need to pre-order that. There is a link for that, no doubt, in the show notes.

So get that thing pre-ordered, and you want to get that as soon as it comes out. we ended in uh isaiah chapter 36 uh we're getting a little uh historical background but you know it's not it's not super boring uh at least you know so you're getting some uh some lofty speeches you're getting some intimidating talk in this historical background so it's not just names and dates but you're getting some uh some rhetoric as well and we ended with you know one of the great passages of of all scripture where we have some guy tell uh tell the people of israel hey uh the lord told me to go and destroy you guys and i want you to hear that because uh the options are full surrender or uh eat your own dung drink your own urine and that is how we ended up the last

episode nothing boring about the bible right got some scatological rhetoric going on here quite the threat. Yeah, so the guy who said that is the Assyrian representative. He's the mouthpiece of Sennacherib, who is the Assyrian king at the time. He took the throne and he had some problems to deal with back home with some of those rebellious Babylonian guys. This is before the rise of Babylon. That's going to come later. So he had to put down some of their stuff going on. And then he moved to the West. And one of the kings that he wanted to deal with is our friend Hezekiah, who is now sitting trapped in Jerusalem with the Assyrian army around them. And we have this guy named, whose title is the Rabshakha, Rabshakha, or however you want to say it anyway.

It's a title. He's the mouthpiece. He's the guy talking. He's the one who just threatened them with eating their own dung and drinking their own urine. And he is now wanting to let everybody know who is within earshot, who's on the wall of Jerusalem, what's going to happen. So that's how we're going to pick it up here with verse 13. Then the Rav Shikah stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah. So this guy is an Assyrian who is multilingual because he is speaking in clear Hebrew. Here's what he says.

Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus says the king, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. Don't let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria,

Make your peace with me and come out. Then each of you will eat of his own vine and each one of his own fig tree. And each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern. You got to appreciate the, at least on the surface level, the rhetoric here. He's like, hey, if you guys don't want to eat your own dung and drink your own urine, there is another option here. You know, make peace with me and you can have wine from your own vine and you can eat your figs You can drink water from your own cistern. There's a better option.

But to get that option, you have to have full surrender. I feel like this is definitely a lie. Definitely a lie. Yeah. I mean, I know you're trying to, like, you know, juxtapose these two things, and I can appreciate the rhetoric. But is anyone buying that, like, hey, listen, man, you surrender, treat you as equals. You know what? Would I give you a house and a well and a vineyard?

Like, what are you talking about, man? You might be overselling the surrender a little bit. Yeah, I think there's some overselling going on here. Yeah, because he's not even done. After you have, you know, your vines and fig trees and water from your own cisterns, then I'm going to say, here's what's going to happen. I'm going to come and I'll take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Oh yeah, I bet you will do that.

Just to wrap this up, verse 18, beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying the Lord will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Were the gods of Hamath and Arpad, were the gods of the Sepharvaim, have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? You know, there's too far and there's way, way, way too far. And the Rabshakeh has gone way, way too far here. Because what has he done, basically? Well, he's not just kind of spit in the face of God. He's basically saying he's greater than all of these gods and therefore according to this twisted logic he's also greater than

the god of the hebrews he's greater than yahweh himself so this is like hyper arrogance that's speaking here which is you know you don't have to spend very much time studying the persians the babylonians and the assyrians and all the kings of these great ancient kingdoms to realize that you know for them humility was not a virtue arrogance was it was virtue you know i'm surprised these guys could even walk upright their heads were so big well i know we talked about this when we were going through um you know second kings and and one of the things that's true if you like if you were to like take it out of the bible and then like read um you know like the literature from these groups uh like read the histories uh not only uh did they you know think okay you this

nation has that god and like okay like israel's got that god whatever um they viewed their kings like when they say king of kings and that kind of stuff like they viewed them as as deities basically so they did so part of what's happening here is that he's just he's not just saying that Like, hey, your gods are weak, but that, like, your gods are, like, all subservient to me. Like, I'm greater than all of them. Like, I myself am a god. Like, actually, I'm the messenger for a god greater than all of these gods, which is the king of Assyria, who they would—they treated them as, I am God. Like, that's what it is.

yeah that's an important important historical fact to bear in mind because we're not i mean we might some sense sometimes you know say a politician's all man he's so full of himself who does he think he is a god you know yeah well well maybe yeah maybe that kind of pride and arrogance uh not maybe but yeah it's something that can can uh any of us can fall prey to but they actually believe that the ancient world well if you ask that politician what do you think you're god he'd be like no of course not if you ask the king of assyria if he thinks he's god he'll tell you he is yeah yeah so this was uh this deification or divinization of of royalty this was a a real thing in the ancient world oh the egyptians believe their pharaoh was an

incarnation of the gods and and so here's if you look at the kind of broader sweep of history the way this uh works in the new testament is so you have alexander the great coming through conquering that part of the world in the 4th century, so in the 330s. And before that, the Greeks didn't really think in those terms. So we're talking different part of the world. We're talking the Feral Crescent, Egypt, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians. The Greeks didn't really think of their rulers in those terms. Well, along comes Alexander, and he begins to flirt with these notions of the deity of monarchs.

Well, then that kind of works its way into the Greek Hellenized world, which also then, over time, begins to affect the way that the Romans also thought of their Caesars. And so you begin to have, over time, and you can see this gradual embracing, this gradual growth of this, and it ends up being emperor worship, which is full-blown by the time you get into the Book of Acts and to the writings of Paul's epistles, to where you visit one of these cities in modern-day Turkey, and you've got altars to the Caesar. So that's kind of the long historical arc of how this worked its way from the Old Testament, ancient Near East, to the pages of the New Testament.

Yeah, well, I mean, why do you think it is? that the religious leaders can say, we have no God but Caesar. And that is not something that is strange. It's not as though no one had ever referred to Caesar as a god. They didn't invent that. They say this because Caesar views himself as a god. And they say, okay, fine, we'll go ahead and agree with that. And you have to remember, too, that monotheism is not the norm.

And so, like, if there are lots of gods, it would be weird to think that you were God, as in singular. But if there's, like, lots of gods, sure. Like, maybe if I'm, like, having no problem taking over the world, maybe I am one. Yeah. Yeah, that is another thing to keep in mind that I think we often forget about. Because today, even among, you know, non-religious people, if you ask them, you know, how many gods are there, most people would say one. Yeah. Because we're not in a polytheistic, not objectively the way that people think in a polytheistic worldview.

But, yeah, in the ancient world, the Jews were the exception. They were unique. They were the only ones who were monotheists. I mean, they were the weirdos, right? Theological weirdos of the ancient world because they believed in just one God. And, yeah, the Greeks and the Romans, they made exceptions for these strange Jews who only believed in one God. Okay, you don't have to fully embrace our pantheon of gods. Just say that you will offer, sacrifice, or pray for the emperor, and we'll let this one slide.

They had the monotheistic exception clause for the Jews, but not for anybody else. So yeah, they were strange in the eyes of the ancient world. Yeah, and it's not as though this guy says that all those countries' gods weren't gods. He just says that they were not able to deliver them. And he doesn't say that the God of Israel is not a God. He just says, yeah, he's just not going to be a problem for me. Not a good enough God or not a strong enough God for the Assyrians. Okay, so he makes his speech, ends it.

And how does everyone respond? Well, they don't really. Verse 21 says that they were silent and answered him not a word because the king had given this command, do not answer him. And then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shevna, the secretary, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, these three that we heard mentioned before, two of whom actually we've heard about before, Eliakim and Shevna.

You may remember we talked about them, I think, back in chapter 22. It was the whole key of David, that whole section. Well, anyway, we heard their names before. These three, they come to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rav Shikha. So they bring back word to Hezekiah as to what was said, what was threatened by this representative of Sennacherib. Then we switch chapters, chapter 37.

So we're going to hear now what Hezekiah's response to this is going to be. So they get back to Hezekiah and they report to him what was said. He hears it and he too tore his clothes. and not only that but he switched clothes he covered himself with sackcloth and he went into the house of the lord so he goes up to to the temple which uh that section reminds me of there's a couple lines in psalm 73 which have this same idea it's asaph wrote psalm 73 and he was troubled by the prosperity and the ease of the wicked and he's trying to figure this out you know why is this so and even says that i've tried to keep my heart pure and i've washed my hands in innocence

but it was all in vain you know because i'm not prospering and they are and then he says uh when he was trying to understand this he says this is verse 11 until i went into the sanctuary of god and then i discerned their end so there is this there's this idea that when you really want to figure stuff out when you really want to ponder the mysteries and the problems what do you do well to use our language you go to church you go to the sanctuary and that because that's where that's where god had promised to be and he says i'm going to put my my name there my presence there this is his earthly dwelling place and so when you really want to appear before god well you literally appear before him when you go to his house to his temple this is what hezekiah does

and he he sent eliakim who was over the household and shevna the secretary and the senior priest covered with sackcloth. He sent them on this mission too. And where do they go? Well, they go to our prophet, Isaiah, the son of Amoz. And here's what they say 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. In the Hebrew, that's literally, it's a typical difference between English and Hebrew. Hebrew uses an anatomical term which some have translated the cervical opening so children have come to the cervical opening they've come to to that point where they should be getting ready to be born 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 Rav Shikah 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 this is hezekiah speaking through his messengers to isaiah therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left so hezekiah goes to the temple he's in sackcloth he's torn his clothes he's gonna he's gonna pray to god but he also sends a group to hezekiah i mean to isaiah basically saying this is a terrible day you know we're at the point where we're like a pregnant woman who needs to birth this child, and the child's not going anywhere. There's no strength left in her. What's going to happen? Well, she's going to die, right? We're at the point of death.

And the hope is that God will hear these mocking words that have been spoken by the king of Assyria through his messenger, and that God will not only hear, but will rebuke and will act. And what he asked Isaiah to do, this is interesting too, he basically says to Isaiah, we need you to pray. We need you to reach out to God and pray. And Isaiah doesn't even pray. He's just like, as we'll hear in the next few verses, he's got a response already. He's got the word of the Lord already come to him. Yeah, that's pretty good.

And Isaiah does seem like, you know, he's been saying a lot of things. And he's probably like, oh, finally, someone's going to ask me for my, like, what's going to happen here? Go to the Lord for us. And it's like, oh, all right, well, it's about time. Yeah. I've been trying to talk to you guys for a long time. So thanks for showing up and asking for my advice. So here's what he says.

This is verse 5. So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. And Isaiah says to them, you almost get the feeling like they show up. They don't even get a word out. And Isaiah's like, all right, here's what you need to say to the king. Isaiah said to them, say to your master, thus says the Lord, don't be afraid because of the words that you have heard. with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me.

So this probably should be translated in a pejorative sense. So this is not the word for servants. The word that's used here is like some have suggested underlings or flunkies. So yeah, those flunkies, those guys who were like the Rav Shikai who was making these great boasts outside the city. Well, those flunkies from the king of Assyria, yeah, they have reviled me. Don't worry about any of that. Verse 7,

Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land. Now there's a, don't worry, I've got this covered kind of section. Yeah. Yeah, and you almost get this impression, like, I'll put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor. It's almost as if, like, he'll manufacture this rumor to himself, right? Like, he's going to tell you this rumor. You're just going to hear it in your own head.

I'm going to make him irrationally afraid of something, and he's going to run away. Yeah, it's just a perfect response. I love the brevity of it, too. The Rosh guy stands outside there and he's got this long, you know, rhetorical speech. This is going to happen if you don't surrender. It's going to be terrible. But if you do surrender, I'm going to make everything beautiful for you. It's going to be awesome.

I'm going to give you all this stuff. And Isaiah's response from God is basically, eh, don't pay attention to those guys. They don't know what they're talking about. A bunch of flunkies. Just trust me. I've got this handled. I'm going to get rid of this guy. and he's going to die.

I'm going to make him fall by his own sword in his own land, which we know happened. It was many years after this, but it's coming up later on. But two of his own sons will kill him. In fact, that will be his end. He messes with God's people, and his own people, his own family members actually take him out much later on. You know, you might have crossed the line.

You're going to mess with God's people, which sometimes God's people get messed with, especially when they've rebelled a whole lot. But, man, you went kind of above and beyond because you started not just saying, hey, we're just going to take your city, so that's the way it is. But you started speaking for the Lord. You started insulting the Lord.

And now you've got an issue. And, yeah, it is great that his response is basically like, yeah, none of that's going to happen. Yeah. that is the perfect response oh yeah those guys are just full of hot air none of that's none of it's going to go down he doesn't even know he doesn't even need to know what they said like hey these guys said yeah i don't i don't care um pay no attention to their words yeah you got to love the confidence of the the prophet when god has spoken to him and there's like no

hesitation he's like nah this is what god told me to tell you it's all going to be fine so verse 8 picking up the story back to the Assyrian spokesman the Rav Shikah returned so he goes back leaves Jerusalem goes back and he found the king of Assyria fighting against Livna and we really don't know where Livna is at precise location is is unknown but the king of Assyria was was there for he had heard that the king had left Lachish so goes from Lachish he's fighting now in Livna. Now the king heard concerning Tirhaka, king of Cush, Cush being of course part of Africa, Africa near modern day Ethiopia. He had heard concerning this leader, Tirhaka, king of Cush, that he has sent, he has set out to fight against you. And when he heard

it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, kind of a lot of back and forth here. So the king hears about this threat coming from the people of cush that they're moving their military might to take on the the assyrians a lot of political movements going on here so they he sends messengers to hezekiah saying this thus you shall speak to hezekiah king of judah don't let your god and whom you trust deceive you by promising that jerusalem will not be given into the hand of king of Syria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and all the people of Eden

who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of the Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Iva? Yeah, I don't know where half those places are, But the point is, the Assyrians have taken out all these places. Their gods didn't deliver them, the kings didn't deliver them, and so don't trust in Hezekiah claiming that the god of Hezekiah is going to deliver you. Is the move here to say, like, okay, so some stuff came up, so I'm not going to be doing this right now, but don't think that it's not going to happen. like that's like if you see as you see us turn to go take care of day to go address this other thing that i'm think i'm hearing about um don't think that i won't be back precisely yeah this is the i'll be back moment arnold schwarzenegger moment uh i will i'll be back and when i come back

then i'm going to make good on the promise the threat rather that i already gave to you so don't think yeah just because we're dealing with this other conflict that everything's going to be okay with you yeah and and don't see this is the thing when you uh fancy yourself sort of this god like what he doesn't want like this is about how ego works like uh i don't want to have i don't want to hear about like the people having some celebration that their god has delivered them or whatever i'm just taking care of something else right now yeah that's that's exactly how ego works so evidently uh this message uh that i just read in those in those verses was written down in in a letter uh so that's we're going to hear about this letter now in verses 14 and following

so hezekiah received the letter that would have had these words in it from the hand of the messengers and he read it and then hezekiah goes up to the house of the lord and in this uh this move, which I kind of, I kind of appreciate it. He like takes this letter and he spreads it out before the Lord. So he's opening the letter. It's got all of these insulting words from the King of Assyria, spreads it out there at the temple and he prays. And here's, here's his prayer.

Verse 16. Oh, 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 so in other words you're the you are actually you're the you're the god of the assyrians also right yeah you're not just the god of israel you're you're yes you are so if you think of him at the temple you're enthroned above the cherubim right here in front of me in that holy of holies so i know you're here and you're our god but you're also the god of all the kingdoms of the earth you i mean you made

everything so of course you're the god of every kingdom he goes on incline your ear oh lord and hear and open your eyes and see and hear all the words of sennacherib which he has sent to mock the living god truly oh lord the kings of assyria have laid waste all the nations in their lands so he's not disputing that and they'd cast their gods into the fire he's not disputing that either but here's what he says he says for why did this happen for they were no gods they were the work of men's hands just wood and stone therefore they were destroyed so now oh lord our god save us from his hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the lord you know there's some not so great prayers in the scriptures but this is a pretty good one

yeah i like it i i i kind of envision him uh going in there spread this out be like read this like the that's the right move uh so you notice that it what makes this prayer good is that hezekiah doesn't appeal to like his like the right things he's done or that he's trying real hard or that the people will turn back from their evil ways and none of that. He doesn't do any of that. He just says, check this letter out. I mean, there's some truth in it.

They've done a lot of destruction, but those people didn't have a real God. Yeah. There's some awesome theology that's embedded there. Yeah. Well, of course. I'm not disputing the fact the Assyrians have bulldozed all these nations and kings

and threw all their gods into the fire well that's what happens to no gods it's wood yeah so you burn it it's stone so you crush it that's what happens to these fake gods they get destroyed and the people that worship them get destroyed too but you're the only true god and so act in such a way as to make it abundantly clear that you in fact are the only true god and that you alone are the one who's over all the kingdoms of the earth it's kind of a it's kind of an egyptian exodus kind of motif also make sure that the egyptians make sure the assyrians know as the egyptians once figured out that the god of israel is the one true god when you act to save your people yeah it's always a

good idea to when you're when you need some deliverance or anything uh to appeal to god and not to appeal to God but really be appealing to something else, which is – so when Moses does this with God, I always think of this. When God's like, yep, you know, Moses, you didn't want to do this in the first place, and I think maybe you were right. This is horrible. So I'm just going to kill everyone, and it's going to be you and me after that, and then we'll just kind of hit the restart.

and Moses doesn't be like, ow, I mean, but like some of them aren't so bad or I think I can turn them around or just give me more time with them. I think that after a while, they'll start to straighten up. No, he just says like, oh, I mean, you can't do that

because, you know, because you. It's always best just to appeal to God and just say, hey, are you God? Or no, that's what Hezekiah is doing here. Those are the best prayers. I'm thinking of some psalms that'll like that too yeah you just you appeal directly to who god is and the promises that god has made and tell him basically or be who you are and be true to the promises that you have made

that's the the best thing you can you can always do i'll often say something like you know if you're sorry yeah if god hasn't promised something uh unconditionally well then you pray you know thy will be done. I mean, I don't know if God wants me to get better if I'm sick. So I pray for healing, but then I say, thy will be done. But if I ask God to forgive my sins, I don't say, forgive my sins if it's according to your will. I already know what his will is. His will is to forgive my sins. So I can say to him, God, you have promised that if we can confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive those sins, and so I'm calling upon you to do that. We can do that

with boldness and confidence, because we're saying to God, you promised, so be true to your promises. Yeah. I also feel like Hezekiah is saying, you know, as he's got the letter and stuff, he's sort of showing this to God and saying, man, you've got a real great opportunity here.

Yeah. Really. I mean, this guy has really set you up to really do something. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's a great way to think about that. And God does in quite the amazing way. He answers that.

So moving on here to verse 21. Isaiah's got something else to say here. He's going to, Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah with something else to say. This is from the Lord, he says. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Because you have prayed to me Concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him

It's kind of nice I mean, you pray And then a prophet shows up and says Oh yeah, here's God's answer to your prayer Yeah, that's nice That is, yeah I haven't had that happen yet But maybe one of these days

So here's what God says in response to Hezekiah's prayer She despises you She scorns you, the virgin daughter of Zion she wags her head behind you i was trying to think of a modern because we don't talk about wagging the head anymore i was thinking maybe rolling the eyes maybe yeah she she rolls her eyes behind you the daughter of jerusalem it's a mocking expression so this is the assyrians this is how they're treating zion they're mocking her they're rolling their eyes well whom have you really mocked and reviled against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the

so who's really the one that's the object of all this scorn and reviling against the holy one of israel that's what god says by your servants you have mocked the lord and you have said with my many chariots i've gone up to the heights of the mountains the far recesses of lebanon to cut down its tallest cedars its choicest cypresses to come to its remotest height its most fruitful forest. I dug wells and drank waters to dry up with the sole of my foot, all the streams of Egypt. So this is a, yeah, this mocking and boasting going on. First of all, they, yes, they have of course despised and scorned and mocked the virgin daughter of Zion. Yeah, they're doing that. But who's the real object of this mocking and reviling and raising of their

voices against god you can't here's the thing you know if somebody insults my wife or your wife dan that insult is also against us yeah and we're going to deal with it right you can't insult my wife and think i'm just going to stand there and not do something about it you can't insult my daughter and think i'm just going to just yeah whatever no i'm gonna i'm gonna act because you've insulted me also well it's like you can't you can insult the church and not also insult christ you can't insult the people of god in the old testament and not also insult god god himself and of course they clearly did that when they were speaking disparagingly concerning who he was and basically saying you're on the same level as the gods of all these other peoples too and then we have all you

know the boast you you claim that oh yeah i've done so many great things i've gone up to the heights of the mountains i've cut down all these tall trees i i'm uh in fact i'm so powerful that I'm drying up all the streams of Egypt with the sole of my foot. It's just this human arrogance that the Assyrians were so adept, so skilled at exercising. Well, God goes on to say, verse 26, Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass,

that you should make fortified cities crashed into heaps of ruins, while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded and become like the plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops blighted before it's grown. Oh, you thought that you just came up with all of this and you accomplished this because you're so great? I was like, no, I mean, I talked about this a long time ago. You're doing my bidding, even though you're not only ignorant of me,

but you like to belittle me and my people. It's almost as if God's saying, yeah, you know how you didn't attack Jerusalem because you were reacting to something that you didn't know was happening? Yeah, I don't – that never happens to me. So I already – like I knew a long time ago how this was going to go. So I'm just – I'm watching a movie I've seen a hundred times. Yeah, good way to put it. No surprises here for me. yeah this is going to be part of a a major sermon of isaiah in in later chapters too where

god will say i yeah i planned this long ago all you got to do is look back and i said this was going to happen contrary to the gods of wood and stone that people make i actually know i see past present and future it's directly in front of me at all times nothing surprises me and then he goes on in verse 28 to say i know you're sitting down and you're going out and coming in and you're raging against me i've always loved that it's almost like a setup oh i know i know when you sit down i know when you go out i know when you come in and you know what else i know i know you're raging against me and because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears. Here's what I'm going to do. And there's another great image. I will put my

hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came. This is, this is God reducing this self-important, arrogant king of Assyria to the level of a beast. put a hook in your nose and a bit in your mouth and i'm going to ride you like the horse that you are yeah i mean this is certainly god saying uh this is not going to be that difficult for me like that doesn't sound all that difficult like this is this problem is as easy for me to solve as if you have a uh you know an animal if you have the you know the reins of a horse they got a bit in his mouth and you decide you were going this way that's the way that they're going he's I guess pretty much that easy for me.

Yeah, this has got to be quite the humiliating speech for anyone who's filled full of hubris to hear, oh yeah, I can turn you whichever way I want you to turn and I'll know it, but you won't realize it until it's too late and it's already happening. And then, so he leaves behind the poetry and he goes on to some prose and he says, this shall be the sign for you this year.

So now he's speaking to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. This shall be the sign for you. This year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that. Then in the third year, sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Some have suggested that this might be a reference to the Jubilee year. If it is, the Jubilee year was every 50th year,

and there's no sowing. You just reap what grows of itself. If so, this is the only reference, historical reference in the Old Testament to its being celebrated. So it could be what's going on here. Either way, God is basically saying, don't worry about what you're going to eat. It's just going to spring up from the soil of itself. You're going to have plenty of fruit and grain. And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors for the zeal of the Lord of hosts will will do this so he transitions from that agricultural imagery which I think is quite literal you're going to have plenty to eat the crops are going to grow he switches from that to talking about the people you're going to take root too you're going to take root downward in other words you're not going to be uprooted you're going to be you're going to be downrooted. You're going to be secure, and you're going to bear fruit also, because God's going to make sure there's always a remnant, a band of survivors in Jerusalem and there at Mount Zion. And this is going to be accomplished not because you're such great people or because of some

military endeavor, but it's all because of God's zeal, which is linked up, of course, with his devotion to Israel. His zealous devotion to Israel is going to make this happen. Yeah, whenever the zeal of the Lord comes into play You know that He's not just He's not doing this reluctantly When the zeal is invoked You know that he's going to do this

And he desires to do it Yeah, this is his This is his heartfelt ardor I mean, he's zealous for his people He's jealous for his people He's going to make sure his people are taken care of And when that happens things will happen for

the good of his people. And we'll see, we're out of time now, but we'll see in those next few verses what happens and how the zeal of the Lord brings this about for the people of Judah and Jerusalem. All right.

Well, we are out of time, so we will leave it there. We will pick it up. He's got more to say next episode. Chad, I will see you then. See you then. We'll see you next week.