Isaiah
. . . asked, “Where did they come from?” “From a distant land,” Hezekiah
replied . . . “Babylon.” (2 Kings 20:14)
In
722 BC Israel had ceased to exist as a kingdom. The Assyrians relocated her
people and repopulated the land with other conquered peoples. Where earlier
empires had been satisfied with receiving tribute, the Assyrian king knew that
deporting an enemy effectively ended any possibility it would ever cause him
trouble again.
From
the south, Judah watched as its sister nation crumbled. Then Assyria turned its
gaze toward Jerusalem, defeating Judah’s fortified cities (and deporting their
inhabitants) and marching on the capital. Only after receiving a huge bribe
(including gold and selected daughters of Hezekiah as royal concubines) did the
Assyrian king Sennacherib withdraw his troops. [1]
Rebellion
on the other end of the Assyrian Empire convinced Hezekiah to strike a blow for
independence. When things turned bad, help from Egypt proved worthless, but
Hezekiah was determined to die rather than surrender. The only thing that saved
Jerusalem was the mysterious deaths of thousands of Assyrian soldiers (possibly
due to rodent-borne bubonic plague). Sennacherib withdrew but Judah remained a
subject nation.
In
later years Hezekiah received a get-well gift
from the king of another empire on the rise. Hezekiah proudly showed his guests
the nation’s remaining wealth. The prophet Isaiah’s question regarding the
purpose of their visit foreshadows dark days to come.
Have
you ever said, “This is going to come back to haunt me”?
[1]
John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1959, 1981), 286.
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