Today’s Devotion
Topic: When The Enemy Threatens! (Part 1)
(Self Assessment 186)
Background: In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. Then he sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, Eliakim, Hezekiah’s palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah the recorder went out to him. (Isaiah 36: 1-3)
Let us delve into the passage now to see what message Sennacherib has for Judah and what king Hezekiah will say or do about it. Call the family around, it’s time to study the word of God.
Text: Isaiah 36: 4- 15
4 The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: “‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? 5 You say you have counsel and might for war—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me? 6 Look, I know you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. 7 But if you say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”?
8 “‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses— if you can put riders on them! 9 How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?
10 Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land without the Lord?The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’”
11 Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”
12 But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the people sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”
13 Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you! 15 Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’
Questions:
1. Kindly read verse 4- 5 again and help explain what the Assyrian commander was trying to achieve with those questions and comments?
2. Why do you think he also assumed Judah would be depending on Egypt and tried to discredited that too?
3. What was he again trying achieve with those comments in verse 7 regarding the relationship between God, Hezekiah and the people of Judah?
4. Kindly read verse 8- 9 very carefully and again. What did this Assyrian commander mean by those comments and what do you think he was trying to imply by that?
5. How had this Assyrian commander intended verse 10 to be the “last straw” to break the will of Judah to surrender?
6. What light does verses 11 – 12 throw on the truest motive behind the Assyrian siege against Judah?
7. What have you learnt from today’s Bible study?
Kindly reply us through this same social media platform (WhatsApp/ Facebook). We learn so much from the answers you provide.
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