Books: Stories of the Prophets
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Isaac Landman >> Stories of the Prophets
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Isaiah, however, who knew, and had taught "The Remnant" that sacrificing
animals was not the true manner of worshipping God, replied as follows:
"Hear the word of the Lord, ye Rulers of Sodom;
Give heed to the instruction of our God, ye people of Gomorrah!
What care I for the great number of your sacrifices? saith the Lord.
I am sated with the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of
fed beasts,
And in the blood of bullocks and lambs and he-goats I take
no pleasure.
When ye appear before me--who has required this of you?
Trample no more my courts, bring no more offerings,
Vain is the odor of incense--it is an abomination to me;
I am not able to endure a fast and a solemn assembly.
Your new moons and your appointed days my soul hateth.
I am tired of bearing it.
When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you.
Also, if ye make many prayers, I will not hear."
Then Isaiah launched forth into one of the most beautiful speeches that
he delivered in his whole career. In it he brought home to the people
the true idea of the religion which God had commanded to Israel, and
through which Judah could be regenerated, strengthened and saved:
"Your hands are stained with blood;
Wash, that ye may be clean;
Remove the evil of your deeds from before mine eyes.
Cease to do evil; learn to do good;
Seek justice; relieve the oppressed;
Vindicate the orphan; plead for the widow."
In one of the sublimest passages that any prophet ever uttered, Isaiah
promised the people God's forgiveness in the following wonderful appeal:
"Come now, let us argue together, saith the Lord.
Though your sins be as scarlet,
They may become white as snow;
Though they be red as crimson,
They may become as wool;
If ye willingly yield and are obedient,
Ye shall eat the good of the land,
But if you refuse and rebel,
Ye shall be devoured by the sword.
The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!"
While Isaiah thus pleaded and threatened, he gained many additions to
"The Remnant," but he failed to create a deep impression either with
the reigning house or with the powerful priesthood or with the
majority of the rich in Jerusalem and Judah.
In the meantime, a vassal of Assyria, in far-off Babylonia, rebelled
successfully. Immediately, various Palestinian states, including
Judah, began to prepare a similar attempt to free themselves from the
Assyrian yoke.
Ahaz had died in 721, the year in which Sargon the Great captured
Samaria, after a two year's siege, and effectually reduced the kingdom
of Israel. Hezekiah, his young son, to whom Isaiah looked for the
ideal prince he had pictured, succeeded him.
The calamity of the northern kingdom did not seem to bring Isaiah or
Ahaz any warning. The king had been paying his Assyrian tribute
regularly and faithfully; the prophet had centered his hope in "The
Remnant" and in the crown prince, and bided his time.
When, however, six years later, in the year 715, Hezekiah joined the
coalition of Palestinian states against Assyria, Isaiah was not only
disappointed, but became greatly alarmed.
To permit Hezekiah to follow the advice of his father's counselors,
Isaiah knew would be national suicide. For three years, therefore,
while the agitation for coalition and rebellion was going on, Isaiah
cast off his prophet's mantle and sandals, and walked barefooted and
in the garb of a captive through the treets of Jerusalem, as an object
lesson to the people of Judah, to show them what might await them if
they rebelled against Assyria.
But even this, for the time being, was of no avail. Rebellion was in
the blood of the king and the court clique. Somehow the very thought
of it in Jerusalem seemed to reach the Assyrian capital. Hardly had
Hezekiah begun to carry his contemplated revolt into action when
Sennacherib, the new Assyrian king, was on the march.
Once more Judah was invaded by the Assyrian hosts, and once more
Judah's rulers bent their knee in submission and undertook to pay a
tribute that was heavier than ever before.
Yet Isaiah, though heartbroken, was in no way dismayed. His unbounded
faith in the final triumph of God's purposes led him to go on,
fearlessly, to oppose the king and his associates to the very end.
CHAPTER VII.
_Like Father, Like Son._
A chain, we are told, is as strong as its weakest link. The weak link
in the long chain of Assyrian provinces was the fact that whenever a
new king came to the throne, if he happened to be away, fighting in
the field, he had to hurry back to the capital, backed by the complete
military force under his command, in order to establish himself firmly
in his dominions.
Immediately upon the withdrawal of the king's armies from the field,
all the provinces that hated Assyria bitterly, rebelled. Naturally,
all the work of conquest had to be done over again. Then, when another
change took place in the rulership of Assyria, the new king met the
same conditions and the same difficulties.
When Tiglath-Pileser died, Shalmaneser IV., who laid siege to Samaria,
was forced to reconquer all the Syrian and Palestinian tributaries.
The great Sargon, who reduced Samaria and carried its inhabitants
captive into the northern part of the Assyrian Empire, left his
successor, Sennacherib, no better legacy.
With Sennacherib's ascension to the throne in the year 704, therefore,
the usual thing happened--rebellion broke out all along the line of
his possessions.
In Palestine, King Hezekiah of Judah became the leader of a movement
for a strong organization of all Palestinian and Syrian states and
cities with the purpose of concerted rebellion against the new king.
So strong was the patriotism aroused among the various peoples that
Padi, king of the city of Ekron, who would not join the proposed
coalition, was captured by the citizens, bound in chains and handed
over a prisoner to Hezekiah in Jerusalem.
It did not take Sennacherib long to make up his mind what to do. His
predecessors had shown him the way. He organized a strong force,
composed mostly of mercenaries, and marched at once into Phoenicia.
City after city fell before his prowess and he worked his way rapidly
into Palestine. Unfortunately for Hezekiah and his allies, no
concerted action could be agreed upon by them. Each one feared for
himself; each one tried to be on the safe side.
Sennacherib took advantage of the situation in this rebellious
district of his empire. He marched his armies, victorious throughout
Phoenicia, into Palestine, meeting with success after success. The
city of Tyre resisted most nobly on its own account, but it was no
match for the Assyrians. Immediately after that Ekron, too, fell, and
Judah itself was overrun by Sennacherib's troops.
The great disappointment of the Palestinian allies in this struggle
for independence during the years 703-701, was that the help they
looked for from the Arabian tribes to the south was very meagre, and
that the horses and chariots they counted upon from Egypt did not
materialize at all.
In Jerusalem, the prophet Isaiah counseled against the proposed
rebellion from its very beginning. He warned Hezekiah, the leaders in
Jerusalem, and even the nations who were entering into the coalition
with Hezekiah, of the folly of this step. Knowing, as he did, the
situation, the weakness of the leaders, the corruption within Judah
and the demoralization of the army and the people generally, because
of greed and oppression, he understood that Sennacherib's forces would
rout the Palestinian forces unmercifully.
He wanted no coalition. He wanted Hezekiah and the Judeans to trust
wholly in God. "Quietness and trust" was his motto and "Abiding faith
in God" his standard.
"By repenting and remaining quiet you shall be delivered;
In resting and in trusting shall your strength consist."
Hezekiah, like his father, Ahaz, however, placed his trust in himself
and in the power of his armies. There was no doubt in Hezekiah's mind
but that the assistance that would come from Egypt would strengthen
him sufficiently to defeat Sennacherib and gain complete independence
for Judah.
Isaiah, who knew differently, preached openly against Hezekiah; but he
had no more influence with the king than he had had with his father:
"Woe to the rebellious sons, is the oracle of Jehovah,
Carrying out a plan which is not mine,
Establishing a treaty contrary to my spirit,
So that they heap sin upon sin;
Who would set out for Egypt without asking my decision,
To flee to the shelter of Pharaoh,
And the refuge in the shadow of Egypt.
The shelter of Pharaoh will be your shame,
And the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion."
While Isaiah's position among the people, and his standing in the
community in Jerusalem, made Hezekiah fear to do him bodily harm, or
even to arrest him, the king and his counselors, who were, naturally,
eager to gain all the assistance possible from the people at home,
sent out men who were in favor of fighting Assyria to refute the
opinions and arguments of Isaiah.
These men also called themselves prophets of God; but Isaiah saw in
them only false prophets:
"For it is a rebellious people, lying sons,
Sons who will not heed Jehovah's instruction,
Who say to the seers, 'See not!'
And to those who have visions, 'Give us no vision of what is right!
Speak to us what is agreeable, give us false visions!
Turn from the way, go aside from the path,
Trouble is no more with Israel's Holy One.'"
When Sennacherib's armies finally came into Judah, Isaiah still saw
the possibility of saving the country from the horrors of devastation,
and he warned the king and people in these words:
"Therefore, thus saith the Holy One of Israel,
Because ye reject this word,
And trust in perverseness and crookedness and rely thereon,
Therefore this guilty act shall be to you
Like a bulging breach in a high wall about to fall,
Suddenly, in an instant, will come its destruction;
Yea, its destruction shall be as when one dashes an earthen vessel
in pieces, shattering it ruthlessly,
So that not a potsherd is found among the pieces
With which to take up fire from the hearth or to draw water from
a cistern."
Notwithstanding the utter failure that faced Hezekiah in his course,
neither he nor his counselors gave heed until Sennacherib had captured
and destroyed forty-six fortified Judean cities and towns and had
actually begun preparations for a siege of Jerusalem.
It was then that Hezekiah came to his senses. When Sennacherib was at
Lachish, Hezekiah sent him a message which was almost a duplicate of
the one sent by Ahaz to Tiglath-Pileser:
"I have offended; withdraw from me; whatever you lay on me I
will bear."
The tribute that Sennacherib laid on Hezekiah was three hundred
talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. To meet this, Hezekiah
was forced to ransack the Temple in Jerusalem and the treasure-chamber
of the royal palace. He was even forced to strip the doors and pillars
of the Temple of their gold decorations in order to make up the
enormous tribute to send to Sennacherib.
Judah once more lay a helpless tributary at the feet of Assyria.
Sennacherib withdrew his armies and returned to Nineveh. Hezekiah had
proved himself both a coward and a traitor; a traitor because he did
not do all in his power to assist such allies as Tyre and Ekron; a
coward because, unlike Tyre and Ekron, he did not fight Sennacherib to
the bitter end.
It was only after his own country had been terribly devastated by the
Assyrian mercenaries that he followed the advice which Isaiah gave him
in the first place. Had he followed it before, he would have saved not
alone his country and his people from the ravages of war, but he would
have been spared the payment of so large a tribute and the desecration
of the Temple.
The real reason why Sennacherib withdrew from before Jerusalem was the
fact that, while he was engaged in Palestine, all the Babylonian
provinces rebelled. He, therefore, received Hezekiah's message with a
great deal of pleasure. In truth, he was eager to act upon it, for he
had to hurry to Babylonia to subdue the rebels there.
Immediately after the Assyrian troops were out of Palestine, however,
Hezekiah returned to his old policy and began a war to regain the
forty-six cities which Sennacherib had conquered and in which he had
left Assyrian governors.
CHAPTER VIII.
_The Prophet Triumphs._
The fearful crisis through which Judah and Jerusalem had passed,
before Sennacherib withdrew from Judah to fight his subjects in
Babylonia, set both the king and the people to thinking.
Hezekiah had evidently become convinced that Isaiah's counsel for
peace with Assyria was the best; for, after he had reconquered several
of the fortified cities and towns captured by Sennacherib, he made an
arrangement with the Assyrian king to pay an annual tribute
peacefully, in order that his country should be at rest.
During the ten years that followed, Hezekiah, instead of seeking
alliances with foreign nations, for the purpose of rebellion, devoted
himself to building up his own country, and to reforming his own
people, in line with the preaching of Isaiah.
Once, when Hezekiah was sick, Isaiah called on him at the palace. The
prophet cheered him in his illness and expressed his hope for the
king's speedy recovery. This call established a friendlier
relationship between the king and the prophet.
At another time, Hezekiah invited Isaiah to the palace; and Isaiah was
glad to go, because Hezekiah, in his new policy, was following the
commandments of God which, as taught by Isaiah, were destined to save
the nation from its enemies.
"The Remnant," which Isaiah educated, now grew in great proportions,
until it included the majority of Jews who were leading upright lives.
Isaiah, himself, was established as a true prophet of God among
his people.
Upon his recovery from his illness, Hezekiah began to reform the
religious life of the country. He destroyed the "high places" on which
many people offered sacrifices to strange gods. He broke up the brazen
serpent to which the people sacrificed and which they worshiped from
the days of the Wilderness. He destroyed many idols and practically
banished idolatry from the land. Men turned from their evil ways; they
left off their wrongdoing and dealt justly and honorably, one with
another. Not only did they worship their God, but they had full faith
in Him.
It so happened, therefore, in the year 690, when Sennacherib marshaled
his great Assyrian army, in order to conquer Egypt, that another
crisis came upon Hezekiah and Judah; but neither king nor people
feared the Assyrians, because they now trusted in the God of their
fathers to save them from the hands of their enemy.
Sennacherib had determined to conquer Egypt for two reasons: first,
because none of his great predecessors on the Assyrian throne had ever
gone so far south in their conquest; second, because Egypt was always
stirring up rebellion in the Assyrian provinces of Asia Minor, by
promising them help. Sennacherib figured, therefore, that, with Egypt
thoroughly subdued, the great Assyrian Empire would be permanently
established and strongly founded on absolute union.
Sennacherib made one of his whirlwind marches toward Egypt. A little
poem describing his march, is preserved in an ancient record:
"He has gone up from Rimmon.
He has arrived at Aiath.
He has passed through Migron.
At Michmash he lays up his baggage.
They have gone over the pass.
At Geha they halt for the night,
Ramah trembles.
Gibeah of Saul flees.
Shriek aloud, O people of Gallim.
Hearken, O Laishah.
Answer her, Anathoth.
Madmenah flees.
The inhabitants of Gebin are fled.
This very day he halts at Moab.
He shakes his fist against Mount Zion,
Against the Hill of Jerusalem."
Finally, Sennacherib had a problem to solve: He wanted to be sure of the
friendship of Hezekiah, through whose land he would have to pass on his
way to Egypt. He was afraid on the one hand, that, having passed through
Judah, Hezekiah might rebel and attack him from the rear; on the other
hand, he wanted the city of Jerusalem to be a safe-guard to himself,
so that, if he should be defeated by the Egyptians, he could escape to
its shelter.
Therefore, when he came within hailing distance of Jerusalem, he sent
word to Hezekiah to deliver the city into his hands peacefully, and
also to join with him in the proposed conquest of Egypt. Sennacherib
was willing to furnish two thousand horses if Hezekiah would furnish
him two thousand men to mount them, and to join the Assyrian cavalry.
He did not want to attack Jerusalem, because he could not afford to
waste his strength on a long siege, and thus weaken his forces before
he met Egypt on the battlefield.
But this time, Hezekiah, being older and wiser, and knowing that his
people were certain that God was on their side, sent word back to
Sennacherib that there was no reason whatever for such action on the
part of Judah at this time since the country was at peace with
Assyria, paying the tribute annually.
Encamped at Lachish, on the western border of Palestine, and eager to
press on toward Egypt, Sennacherib thought to force Hezekiah into
helping him by an unusual display of his power; so he sent his
Commander-in-Chief, with a great retinue, to the king in Jerusalem.
A meeting was arranged between them and Hezekiah's representatives
just outside of Jerusalem, at the conduit of the upper reservoir, the
place where Isaiah first confronted King Ahaz.
King Hezekiah, himself, did not go out to receive the emissaries from
the Assyrian army. Instead, he sent Eliakim, who was Governor of the
Royal Palace, Shebnah, the Secretary of State, and Joah, the
Chancellor of the Treasury.
A great assembly of the leading citizens of Jerusalem gathered upon
the walls to see and hear the interview between the agents of
Sennacherib and Hezekiah.
The spokesman for the Assyrians began:
"Thus saith the great king, the King of Assyria, 'What
confidence is this which you cherish? You, indeed, think, a
simple word of the lips is counsel and strength for the war!'
Now, on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
"Indeed, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even
upon Egypt, which, if a man lean on it, will go into his
hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh King of Egypt to all who
trust in him."
Eliakim, speaking of his king, attempted to make clear to the Assyrians
that they were misjudging Hezekiah. He did not lean upon Egypt; no
alliance had been entered into between the two nations; Judah did not
desire to enter into this quarrel at all and relied upon neither Egypt
nor Assyria. "We trust in the Lord our God," concluded Eliakim.
Quick as a flash came back the reply from Assyria:
"If you say to me, 'We trust in the Lord our God,' is not
_he_ the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken
away, and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, 'You shall worship
on this altar in Jerusalem?'
"Now, therefore, give pledges to my master and King of
Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you
are able on your part to set riders upon them.
"How can you repulse one of the least of my master's servants?
And yet you trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen! Have I
now come up against this place to destroy it without God's
approval? God it was who said to me, 'Go up against this land
and destroy it'"
Shaken a little bit in their argument, and a great deal in their
faith, Eliakim, Shebnah and Joah held a short consultation. Then
Eliakim said to the spokesman, in a whisper:
"Speak, I pray you, to your servants in the Aramaic language,
for we understand it; but do not speak with us in the Jewish
language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall."
The Assyrian caught the drift of this request at once. He understood
that the people had evidently not given up their idolatrous practices
very graciously and that their trust in the Lord their God was not as
great as that of Hezekiah. He, therefore, answered Eliakim, so that
all could hear:
"Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak
these words? Is it not rather to the men who sit on the wall,
that they shall eat their own refuse and drink their own
water together with you?"
Then, walking away from the official group and facing the assembly on
the walls, he cried with a loud voice in the Jewish language, saying:
"Hear the message of the great king, the King of Assyria.
Thus saith the king, 'Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he
will not be able to deliver you out of my hand.'
"Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in God by saying, 'God
will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given
into the power of the King of Assyria.'
"Hearken not to Hezekiah, for thus saith the King of Assyria,
'Make your peace with me and come over to me; thus shall
each one of you eat from his own vine and his own fig tree
and drink the waters of his own cistern, until I come and
take you away to a land like your own land, a land full of
grain and of new wine, a land full of bread and vineyards,
a land full of olive trees and honey, that you may live and
not die.'
"But hearken not to Hezekiah, when he misleads you, saying,
'God will deliver us!' Has any of the gods of the nations
ever delivered his land out of the power of the King of
Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are
the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Where are the gods
of the land of Samaria that they have delivered Samaria out
of my power? Who are they among all the gods of the countries,
that have delivered their country out of my power, that God
should deliver Jerusalem out of my power!'"
This speech cast a deep gloom upon the people gathered upon the wall.
All were silent. Not a single man, not even the representatives of the
king, could answer the Assyrians' arguments.
Then Eliakim, Shebnah and Joah hastened back to Hezekiah and repeated
to him the message of Sennacherib through his Commander-in-Chief. As
soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered
himself with sackcloth and went into the Temple. He sent Eliakim,
Shebnah and the eldest of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to
Isaiah, and they said to him:
Thus saith Hezekiah:
"This is a day of trouble and of discipline and of contumely.
It may be God, thy God, will hear all the words of the high
official, whom his master, the King of Assyria, has sent to
defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord
your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the
remnant that is left."
When Isaiah heard the message of the king, he sent back this reply of
hope and courage to the palace:
"Thus saith the Lord: 'Be not afraid of the words that thou
hast heard, with which the servants of the King of Assyria
have blasphemed me. Behold I will put forth a spirit in him
so that he shall hear tidings and shall return to his own
land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his
own land.'"
Hezekiah, acting upon the advice of Isaiah, then sent Sennacherib's
emissaries back to Lachish with a flat refusal to do what the King had
asked him.
When the Commander-in-Chief returned to Lachish, to his great amazement,
Sennacherib and his army were not there. An officer who was left behind,
however, told him that Sennacherib had broken camp and had marched
against Libnah.
The next that was heard of the Assyrian armies in Jerusalem was that a
plague had fallen upon the camp of Sennacherib and that, in great
disgust and disappointment, the king and what remained of his forces,
had returned to Nineveh.
It was at that time that Isaiah gave expression to a conception of
God's relationship to the nations of the earth that was entirely
different from that held by the people up to this time.
According to Isaiah, God had used Assyria as a rod with which to whip
the people of Judah, God's chosen people, into an understanding of His
law and commandments, by which they should live.
Now that Hezekiah and his people had thoroughly reformed and were
following in the ways of God and His commandments, Assyria's work was
done. Because Assyria, however, had prided herself that she had become
a great power in the world on account of her own strength, God would
now destroy Assyria.
This is the dirge that Isaiah sang regarding Assyria and God's hand in
the life and death of nations, while Sennacherib was retreating toward
Nineveh, his capital:
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