My Daily Meditation
Today’s Reading
The Second Book of Kings
Chapter 19:1-37
1 And when King Hezekiah heard it, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth, and came into the house of the Lord,
2 And sent Eliakim which was the steward of the house, and Shebna the chancellor, and the Elders of the Priests clothed in sackcloth to Isaiah, the Prophet the son of Amoz.
3 And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of tribulation and of rebuke, and blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth.
4 If so be the Lord thy God hath heard all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to rail on the living God, and to reproach him with words which the Lord thy God hath heard, then lift thou up thy prayer for the remnant that are left.
5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
6 And Isaiah said unto them, So shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a noise, and return to his own land: and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.
8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.
9 He heard also men say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against thee: he therefore departed and sent other messengers unto Hezekiah, saying,
10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, and say, Let not thy God deceive thee in whom thou trustest, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, how they have destroyed them: and shalt thou be delivered?
12 Have the gods of the heathen delivered them which my fathers have destroyed? as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden, which were in Telassar?
13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Shepharvaim, Hena and Ivah?
14 So Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it before the Lord.
15 And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the Cherubims, thou art very God alone over all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made the heaven and the earth.
16 Lord bow down thine ear, and hear: Lord open thine eyes and behold, and hear the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent to blaspheme the living God.
17 Truth it is, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,
18 And have set fire on their gods: for they were no gods, but the work of man’s hands, even wood and stone: therefore they destroyed them.
19 Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know, that thou O Lord, art only God.
20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have heard that which thou hast prayed me, concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria.
21 This is the word that the Lord hath spoken against him, O Virgin daughter of Zion, he hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: O daughter of Jerusalem, he hath shaken his head at thee.
22 Whom hast thou railed on? and whom hast thou blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the holy One of Israel.
23 By thy messengers thou hast railed on the Lord, and said, By the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the top of the mountains, by the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the high cedars thereof, and the fair fir trees thereof, and I will go into the lodging of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.
24 I have dug and drunk the waters of others, and with the plant of my feet have I dried all the floods closed in.
25 Hast thou not heard, how I have of old time made it, and have formed it long ago? and should I now bring it, that it should be destroyed, and laid on ruinous heaps, as cities defensed?
26 Whose inhabitants have small power, and are afraid, and confounded: they are like the grass of the field, and green herb, or grass on the house tops, or as corn blasted before it be grown.
27 I know thy dwelling, yea, thy going out and thy coming in, and thy fury against me.
28 And because thou ragest against me, and thy tumult is come up to mine ears, I will put mine hook in thy nostrils, and my bridle in thy lips, and will bring thee back again the same way thou camest.
29 And this shall be a sign unto thee, O Hezekiah, Thou shalt eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and the next year such as grow without sowing, and the third year sow ye and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.
30 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah, shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
31 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and some that shall escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.
32 Wherefore thus saith the Lord, concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not enter into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a mount against it:
33 But he shall return the way he came, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.
34 For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for David my servant’s sake.
35 And the same night the Angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of Assyria an hundred four score and five thousand: so when they rose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went his way, and returned and dwelt in Nineveh.
37 And as he was in the Temple worshipping Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons slew him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead. (a)
(a) Editor’s notation - Read Job 36:9-14; Matthew 26:52-53 - note that Sennacherib, lived by his conquests, that is to say by the sword, so likewise he died by sword.
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