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CHAPTER 12 - HEZEKIAH, (THIRTEENTH) KING OF JUDAH.
Meaning and Lessons of the Account of the Assyrian Invasion. (2 KINGS 18:17-19)
RARELY, perhaps, was there an occasion on which faith in the unseen was put to severer
test than in the conference between the leaders of the Assyrian army and the
representatives of King Hezekiah. What gave special point to the message which the
Rabh-Shakeh addressed to the king of Judah was the deep sense of past inconsistency:
that, as regarded the matter in hand, it had not always been with Judah as at present, and
that in measure their present evil was the outcome of their wrong-doing. But there comes
to us also for all time this precious lesson: that even where we have been utterly
mistaken, if only we turn in repentance to our God, we may look for His help and
deliverance in the new and better course on which we are entering, however we may have
to suffer for past sin. For God remaineth faithful, however we may have erred and strayed
from His ways.
It was only too true, as the Rabh-Shakeh said,* that in rebelling against Assyria
Hezekiah's confidence had been in Egypt; (compare chapters 9 and 11). Too true also, as
even the experience of the past might have taught him, (compare chapters 9 and 11) that
this was to trust in "the staff of a bruised reed"** (comp. Isaiah 30:1-7).
- The opening words of the Rabh-Shakeh's speech, "The great king, the king of Assyria,"
give one of the very titles by which the Assyrian monarchs designate themselves on the
monuments.
** I prefer this to the rendering "cracked," by Professor Cheyne. It certainly does not
mean "broken," the distinction between the two words being clearly marked in Isaiah
42:3. The figure of "a reed" as applied to Egypt is peculiarly happy, from its reference to
the Nile banks (comp. Isaiah 19:6, and generally Ezekiel 29:6, which evidently refers to 2
Kings 18:21, or else to Isaiah 36:6). "A reed" is itself an insufficient support; but this reed
is besides "bruised." When leaning on it, it will break, and the hand that rests all its
weight thereon will fall upon it and be pierced.
Thus, assuredly, whether as regarded his plans or their proposed execution, it was "only
word of the lips: counsel and strength for the war!" But in the second point which the
Rabh-Shakeh urged lay the weakness of his cause and the strength of Hezekiah's position.
Addressing himself to Hezekiah's adherents,* he argued from the heathen point of view
that since Hezekiah had abolished all the altars on the heights, and confined public
religious worship to that in the Temple, he had not only forfeited any claim upon
Jehovah, Whom he regarded as the Jewish national deity, but provoked Him to judgment.
Accordingly, as on the one hand he had taunted Hezekiah with want of all means for
resisting the power of his master,** so on the other hand he now boldly claimed for the
(^)