AS on our next visit to the British Museum we hope to spend a long morning in the Egyptian rooms, where we shall find so many objects of interest that we shall be almost able to imagine ourselves in the land over which the Pharaohs ruled, we will take our Bibles and spend a happy, and I hope not unprofitable, half-hour in tracing out the history of King Hezekiah, and learning how in the day of his greatest need and danger he proved the God in whom he trusted to be just what His word says He will be, "a stronghold in the day of trouble." (Nah. 1:77The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him. (Nahum 1:7).)
We know that Hezekiah's most bitter and powerful enemy was Sennacherib, the haughty king of Assyria. And we may be sure that the news of the movements of the great warrior-king that from time to time reached Jerusalem were grave enough to make both its king and people anxious.
We are able to learn many interesting things about the doings and the thoughts and feelings of Sennacherib, not only from the clay tablets and cylinders of which there are so many in the museum, but from inscriptions which he had ordered to be carved in stone upon the walls of his palace at Nineveh. Though for a time at least Hezekiah seems to have turned a deaf ear to the warnings of the prophet Isaiah, and by sending presents to and entering into friendly agreement with the kings of Egypt and Babylon, showed that he was not trusting fully in the living God, he seems to have made an attempt to throw off the yoke of the haughty king of Assyria, and either sent very little tribute, or gave up sending it altogether.
How angry Sennacherib was when the messengers, probably high officers of state, whom he had sent to collect tribute, returned almost empty-handed, and also bringing the unwelcome news that quite a number of kings and princes had refused to acknowledge him as their sovereign lord, we may learn from an inscription carved upon the wall of one of his palaces, and which it is not unlikely he had read and re-read many times "As for Hezekiah, king of Judah, he is an obstinate rebel. He has sent me no tribute; he has been disobedient under my yoke, and he has lifted up his hand against me.... I will go to his land, and his royal city of Jerusalem I will pull down, destroy and in the fire burn. One man alive in his kingdom I will not leave, for his people shall serve me; his country shall remain a desert, and my foot shall rest on his neck. To whom will he go? In whom will he trust? To what stronghold will the vain and foolish man fly. None shall dare to rebel against the rule of Sennacherib king of Assyria.”
Sennacherib was great and powerful among the kings of the earth, but he did not know either the power or the goodness of the God of Israel, who, though His people had been faithless and backsliding, would not fail or forsake them.
So great preparations for invasion were made. The older warriors put on their armor and sharpened their heavy swords; horsemen and footmen were collected in vast numbers from every province in the vast empire of Assyria. War chariots were got in readiness, and baggage wagons loaded with food and weapons of war.
It was not long before the vast army entered the land of Judah. Several cities were besieged and taken; great numbers were slain, and the bands of refugees who, pale and trembling, often wounded and starving, crowded the streets of Jerusalem, added to the general terror by their tales of suffering and sorrow.
At last news reached the king that Lachish, not many miles from Jerusalem, was surrounded by the almost countless hosts of Sennacherib. It was a very strongly fortified city, with a strange, old-world history, for it was one of the great and walled cities (Deut. 1:2828Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there. (Deuteronomy 1:28)) which Joshua took from the Amorites soon after the children of Israel entered the land of Canaan. We cannot linger over all the horrors of the siege, but at last a tower falls, then a gap is made in the city walls, and a troop of the invaders rush in.
A heavy tribute sent to the king of Assyria bought a brief respite from the terror that was hanging like a thundercloud over the inhabitants of Jerusalem; but they knew only too well that there was little cause for rejoicing. Lachish was a heap of ruins, many cities of Judah lay waste and desolate; only like the lull before a storm was the short-lived peace that had been so dearly bought, and before long the walls of Jerusalem were surrounded by part at least of the great army of Assyria.
But those difficult, anxious days and weeks had not been wasted time for Hezekiah. He seems to have been learning that his hope and his help must be in God, for when Sennacherib sent three of his highest officers with a haughty message, bidding the king of Judah come forth and hear the words of the great king of Assyria, Hezekiah did not himself obey, but sent three of his most faithful friends and trusted counselors.
They passed quietly through the streets of the city to the walls. As far as eye could reach the hosts of Assyria met their gaze; there were the great battering rams, ready at a moment's notice to begin their work of destroying the walls.
Still, as they looked forth, the words of faith and hope their king had spoken in the hearing of all the people may have found an echo in their hearts.
Open your Bible, Connie, at 2 Chron. 32 and read verses 7 and 8. "Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles.”
Thank you, Connie. Though our time will not allow us to follow the long and deeply interesting conversation that took place between the counselors of Hezekiah and the messengers of Sennacherib, we know that with cruel words they tried to persuade the people that the God of Israel had no greater power to deliver those who trusted Him than the idol gods of the nations Sennacherib had already conquered. They had even dared to say that the Lord had sent them to make war against Israel.
But the people would not surrender; faithful to their king and to his wise order, "For the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not" (2 Kings 18:3636But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not. (2 Kings 18:36)), they remained silent. When the long and trying interview ended, and Hezekiah's counselors returned to him weary and almost heart-broken, the conduct of the king spewed how deeply he felt the state of things; he tore in two his royal mantle, and putting on sackcloth, a sign of mourning, he humbled himself before God.
How long Hezekiah wept and prayed we are not told, but when he looked up it was to see his faithful friends with eyes full of hope standing near him. The prophet Isaiah had again sent him a message of cheer. It was, "Be not afraid of the words which thou halt heard.... Behold... he [the king of Assyria] shall hear a rumor, and shall return to his own land: and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land." (2 Kings 19:6, 76And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. 7Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. (2 Kings 19:6‑7).)
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