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Day 208: The Futility of Idols
Agape Bible Study
Isaiah 37-38
Chapter 37: God Delivers His People
Isaiah 37:1-7 ~ Hezekiah sends his Ministers to consult Isaiah and Isaiah's reply
The use of the words "your God" sometimes suggests the person is not fully committed to Yahweh, like King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:30. However this is not the case for Hezekiah; see verse 20 where Hezekiah refers of Yahweh as "our God." His reference is to the solidarity of their belief in Yahweh as the "living God" unlike the idols of the pagan Assyrians. Tearing one's clothing and wearing sackcloth was a sign of grief and mourning. The king went to the Temple to pray while his ministers and the most senior chief priests were sent to consult Isaiah.
Unlike Elijah and Elisha who were men of action, the prophet Isaiah is a literary prophet who prophesizes in a poetic style. Perhaps the ministers are approaching the prophet in the same stylistic form with this poetically descriptive saying concerning the condition of the nation of Judah. The meaning is that children about to be born cannot emerge from the womb when the mothers come to the birthing stool and haven't the strength to push the babies out. This is a descriptive image of Judah's desperate impotence and may have been a common saying of the times. As with the previous chapter, this entire passage is recorded in the Book of 2 Kings Chapter 19:1-7.
Question: Why did Hezekiah describe the people of Jerusalem as a "remnant" in verse 4b?
Answer: They are only a portion of the original twelve tribes, consisting of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and even the tribes of Judah and Benjamin have been diminished by the Assyrian invasion and the destruction of so many Judean towns.
Isaiah 37:8-13 ~ Sennacherib sends Messengers to Hezekiah a Second Time
See the parallel passage in 2 Kings 19:8-19. The Judahite town of Libnah was named as one of the Levitical cities (Josh 21:13; 1 Chr 6:57). The city was west of Lachish and Sennacherib had moved from Lachish to attack Libnah. The citizens of the town of Libnah were devout and had revolted against King Jehoram of Judah when he had apostatized from the covenant (2 Kng 8:16-18, 22). Sennacherib and his army left Libnah when he heard that Tirhakah king of Cush was on the way to attack him. Tirhakah later became the Pharaoh of the 25th Egyptian dynasty. After receiving his ministers' report on Hezekiah's reply to their demands, Sennacherib sent another series of threats in a letter to Hezekiah similar to the first threats delivered by his ministers.
Gozan was one of the places to which the Israelites were deported after the capture of Samaria by the Assyrians (2 Kng 17:6; 18:11, 1 Chr 5:26). Texts found in the ruins of the city mention the exiles descendants. Haran is located in northwest Mesopotamia. It was Abraham's home before the migrated to Canaan and the wives of Isaac and Jacob came from Haran or nearby (Gen 11:22-32; 12:1; 24:10; 27:43; 28:10). According to 2 Kings 17:24 the conquered peoples who were brought in to settle the depopulated land of the Northern Kingdom of Israel were from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva [Ivvah], Hamath and Sepharvaim. This is similar to the list of kingdoms conquered by the Assyrians in 2 Kings 18:34 and 19:12-13
Isaiah 37:14-20 ~ Hezekiah's Prayer
See the parallel passage in 2 Kings 19:14-19. Hezekiah's prayer can be divided into three parts:
- He gives his profession of faith that Yahweh is the one and the only God who has sovereignty over all nations of the earth.
- He lists the affronts to God by the Assyrian king and acknowledges the Assyrian victories.
- He petitions God to save his people from the hands of the Assyrians as a sign to the other nations that Yahweh alone is God.
Question: What is significant about Hezekiah's prayer? See Ex 20:3-4; Dt 5:7-8; 6:4; the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed.
Answer: Hezekiah confess his belief in the most basic tenant of Yahweh's covenant with Israel and the New Covenant in Christ Jesus. Monotheism is the belief that there is only one God. Yahweh is the One True God and all other so-called gods are only images made by men.
Isaiah 37:21-29 ~ Isaiah's Intervention
See the parallel passage in 2 Kings 19:20-28.
Question: What are main points of Yahweh's response to Sennacherib?
Answer:
- The Assyrians have blasphemed the God of Israel and will be punished (verses 23-25).
- The Assyrian boasts are empty boasts because God is in control of their destiny (verses 26-28).
- God will send the Assyrian king back to his own lands (verse 29).
Sennacherib's insults and his boasts that he will destroy Jerusalem is seen by God as an assault on the God of heaven and earth. In the Assyrian king's boasts, he thinks of himself as godlike in his accomplishments.
Isaiah 37:30-31 ~ God gives King Hezekiah a Sign
Hezekiah receives the promise of a "sign" that what God has foretold through Isaiah will come to pass.
Question: God also gave a "sign" to Hezekiah's father King Ahaz through Isaiah in Isaiah 7:14 when Ahaz refused to ask for a "sign" that God would save Ahaz and his people. What was Ahaz's sign? Was it fulfilled?
Answer: Ahaz's "sign" was that a virgin of the house of David would give birth to the Redeemer-Messiah. St. Matthew announced that it was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ, son of David in Matthew 1:23.
Question: What is Hezekiah's "sign"?
Answer: The sign is living off the land without sowing crops this year. The next year they will do the same, and in the third year everything will return to normal and a remnant of the covenant people will be preserved from Jerusalem.
A "sign" is a work of God that points forward in time to a more significant event; in this case the sign will be two years of having enough to eat from what is naturally produced by the earth without sowing seed. It will point to life returning to normal in the third year. The only time the land laid fallow for two years in a row was when a Sabbath year (every 7th year) was followed by a Jubilee year that was observed after every 7th Sabbath year that came every 50th year (Lev 25:1-12). In the third year after a Sabbath and Jubilee years, the land could be sown again. The "rest" for the land in a Sabbath and Jubilee year was a test of faith for the covenant people to trust God to provide for them from the land. Later when the prophet Jeremiah called a covenant lawsuit against Judah in the 6th century BC, he included in the riv (lawsuit) against Judah the claim that Judah failed to observe the Sabbath years. The point here may be that like the Sabbath year followed by a Jubilee year in which the land will not be worked until the third year, it will be the same for Judah because it will take two years for life to return to normal for the remnant of the Kingdom of Judah, and they will have to trust God to provide for them.
Once again we return to the sub-theme of the faithful "remnant" of God's covenant people that He will preserve (see Is 1:9; 10:20, 21 twice, 22; 11:11, 16; 37:4, 31, 32; 46:3). The preservation of a remnant of the children of Israel is necessary to God's divine plan to bring forth the Davidic Messiah-Redeemer to save mankind.
Isaiah 37:32-35 ~ Yahweh's Prophecy for Assyria
It is Yahweh's promise that King Sennacherib will not attack or harm the city of Jerusalem and its citizens in any way.
Question: Why does Yahweh say that He does this for the sake of "my servant David"? See 2 Sam 7:16, 29; 23:5; 2 Chr 13:5; Sir 45:25; 47:11/13; Is 11:1-5, 10-13; Jer 23:5; Ez 34:23-24; Mt 1:1).
Answer: Yahweh made an eternal covenant with David and therefore must preserve David's family line. It is God's divine plan that the Messiah shall come from the line of David and from the nation of Israel/Judah to save mankind.
Isaiah 37:36-38 ~ King Sennacherib's Punishment
See the parallel passage in 2 Kings 19:32-37. Hezekiah had Yahweh's promise that the city will not be taken nor even attacked. That night the army of the Assyrians was silently struck by the Angel of Yahweh. When the king and the surviving members of his army discovered the dead in the morning, they immediately abandoned the siege of the city of Jerusalem and returned to Assyria, just as Yahweh had promised.
Assyrian annals record that the king and his army gave up the siege of Jerusalem, but no reason is given for the sudden retreat in the Assyrian documents. Sennacherib was indeed assassinated in the year c. 681 BC by two of his elder sons, and he was succeeded by his youngest son Esarhaddon.
King Hezekiah
Chapter 38: Hezekiah's Illness and Cure
Isaiah 38:1-6 ~ Hezekiah's Illness
See the parallel passages in 2 Chronicles 32:24 and 2 Kings 20:1-11. Bible scholars suggest that this episode took place before Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem in 701 BC. The date proposed for this episode is 703 BC. Verse 6 seems to suggest that the siege had not taken place and there is an additional problem with the event referred to in 39:1-4 where Merodach-Baladan of Babylon sent emissaries to Hezekiah in Judah that appears to have taken place before Sennacherib's invasion and siege of Jerusalem in 701.(1)
Hezekiah was ill. Isaiah brought him Yahweh's message that he was not going to recover and was going to die. After Isaiah left, Hezekiah offered his prayer to Yahweh. 2 Kings 20:4-5 includes the information: Isaiah had not left the middle court, before the word of Yahweh came to him, "Go back and say to Hezekiah, prince of my people, Yahweh, the God of your ancestor David, says this: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I shall cure you: in three days' time you will go up to the Temple of Yahweh. Isaiah was either returning to the Temple and had only reached the middle Court of the Women or the middle court of the palace when God sent him back to the king with the news that his life had been spared.
Question: Instead of begging that his life be spared, what did Hezekiah do? What was the result and why?
Answer: He prayed that God would remember his faithfulness and then submitted himself to God's will. God sent word to Hezekiah that his life would be spared for 15 years for the sake of God's covenant with David, and in 3 days he would be well enough to attend the Temple liturgy.
Did God change His mind about Hezekiah's death? God has the power over life and death and He responds to our humble prayers for our salvation from physical illness. Sometimes illness will cause us to be angry with God. For others it becomes an opportunity to take into account the possibility of the end of life and the condition of one' relationship with God that leads to repentance and conversion, or trust and a renewed commitment, as in Hezekiah's case (CCC 1500-02). It isn't that God changed His mind; it is that Hezekiah responded to God's call for humility and trust in God's plan for his life "it was an experience of spiritual growth for the king. It was because of Hezekiah's response, prompted by the threat to his life, that God prolonged his life, but from the beginning of the episode, God knew what would happen.
Isaiah 38:7-8 ~ Hezekiah's Cure
After giving the king the news of his recovery, Isaiah asked for the materials to make a poultice for the king. It appears that Isaiah was applying a remedy, perhaps at God's command, to draw out the infection from the king's ulcer and to save the king's life.
Question: Why did he ask for this sign and what did the miracle represent?
Answer: It is easy for a shadow to incline down then steps since it would be the natural course of the shadow in the progression of the sun in its path across the sky; therefore, Hezekiah chooses the miraculous reversal of the progress of the shadow that becomes a symbol for the reversal of his imminent death.
The miracle is a reminder that God is the Master of Creation and all of Creation is subject to Him.
Question: When was a similar "sun" miracle employed for a leader of the covenant people? See Josh 10:12-15.
Answer: Joshua needed more time to defeat Israel's Amorite enemies; therefore he prayed for God to stop the sun and moon from moving their orbits to delay the end of the day: And the sun stood still, and the moon halted, until the people had taken vengeance on their enemies (Josh 10:13).
Isaiah 38:9-20 ~ Hezekiah's Canticle of Thanksgiving
Hezekiah wrote a poem of thanksgiving after his recovery, and Isaiah included it in his book. The poem can be divided into two sections:
- Hezekiah's thoughts concerning his anguish over the Lord's decree that he would die (38:9-15)
- Hezekiah's reflection on the grace God has extended to him and the lessons he learned through his anguish (38:16-20)
Verses 10 and 11 both literally begin with the words "I said." In poetic verses these words usually introduce thoughts and feelings the writer had that turned out to be wrong (i.e., see Is 49:4a; Ps 30:6; Eccl 2:1; 7:23). Hezekiah is recalling the painful thoughts and feelings he had before God's promise to prolong his life.
In verses 16-20 of his hymn of thanksgiving, Hezekiah reflects on the lessons he has learned in his encounter with Yahweh through the prophet Isaiah:
- The Lord has restored him to health (38:16)
- His sins have been forgiven (38:17)
- He has a new opportunity to testify to Yahweh's faithfulness (38:19)
- He pledges himself to a life filled with worshipping in God's Temple (38:20)
DAY 208 The Trick Hypothesis
CHALLENGE: “Why can’t we explain the Resurrection by saying someone tricked the disciples? Maybe Jesus was drugged on the cross when he was given a drink (Matt. 27:48; Mark 15:36; John 19:28–30), later he revived, and co-conspirators got him out of the tomb and posed as angels (Matt. 28:2–7; Mark 16:5–7; Luke 24:4–7; John 20:12).”
DEFENSE: Anesthesiology was not a developed science in the first century, and it would be extremely risky to administer a drug to a person who had been severely traumatized and was being crucified. The odds of the drug killing him would be too high.
Further, the Romans checked to ensure Jesus was dead. A soldier plunged a spear into his side, causing a flow of blood and what looked like water (John 19:34). The “water” was likely a clear liquid that had built up in the pleural cavity of the lung, the pericardial sac around the heart, or both. That wound itself would have been fatal.
Who would these conspirators have been? If Jesus was entrusting his survival to them, they must have been very close associates, but then why weren’t they among the apostles—Jesus’ closest associates? (Remember that the point of this hypothesis is that the apostles were innocently tricked, unlike the hypothesis that they lied; see Day 214.)
Even if they weren’t apostles, they would have been close enough associates that the women should have recognized them. (And their clothes wouldn’t have been bright white, as the Gospels indicate, after rolling back the stone from the tomb, getting a bloodied Jesus out of his grave clothes, and helping or carrying him from the tomb.)
How did they get past the guard on the tomb (Matt. 27:62–66)? Why would they undertake such a risk? Jesus was a poor man, so what did they get out of it? And why bother to fake a resurrection, when this wasn’t something Jews expected to happen until the last day (see Day 213)?
Finally, how did they manage to fake Jesus’ Ascension into heaven in front of the apostles (Luke 24:50–51; Acts 1:9–11)? Even if we granted all the previous implausibilities, nobody in the first century had the ability to fly.
The trick hypothesis thus does not explain how the apostles could have innocently thought they saw Jesus ascend after the Crucifixion.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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