NOTES for Isa 37:33-37; Isa 38:1-6
Today, in the prophet Isaiah, we read the account of one of the most remarkable and instructive stories of the Old Testament. It happened at the end of the eighth century BC, when the Assyrian king Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem and showered the city with blasphemous letters. Sennacherib wrote that none of the ‘gods of the nations’ of the Near East had saved either their peoples or their kings from Assyrian occupation. On receiving such a letter, Hezekiah, king of Judah, gave all generations a most important example of prayer. He took the letter and placed it on the altar in the Temple of God. Then he turned to the Lord of hosts in a prayer of praise and trust. Following this example, when we ask God to help us and all people, we say that we ‘bring to God’ our problems.
The Lord heard Hezekiah’s prayer and said, ‘I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David,’ and that very night He scattered Sennacherib’s army. Besides being an example of prayerful intercession, this story is important for another reason. Sennacherib’s letter was deeply insulting to Hezekiah, all the more so because the inhabitants of Jerusalem had learned of it. But Hezekiah brings his hurt, the insult he has suffered, to God, rather than avenging it himself. As we say in one prayer: ‘Thou knowest (You know) the wrong done to me—resolve it as Thou wilt (as You will).’
The short passage we read today ends with another prayer of Hezekiah. As death approaches, the king prays with tears and asks for his days to be prolonged. In doing so, he speaks not so much of his merits before God as of the devotion of his heart. And these sincere tears and this real, unfeigned devotion did not go unanswered.