Isaiah 37:23

23 Whom are you defying and slandering? Against whom are you shouting? Who are you looking at so arrogantly? It is the Holy One of Israel!

Isaiah 37:23 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 37:23

Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed?
&c.] A creature like thyself? no, but a God, and not one like the gods of the nations, the idols of wood and stone, but the living God: and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice?
alluding to Rabshakeh's crying with a loud voice, ( Isaiah 36:13 ) : and lifted up thine eyes on high?
as proud and haughty persons do, disdaining to look upon those they treat with contempt: even against the Holy One of Israel;
that is, Israel's God, and will protect him; "a Holy One", and of purer eyes than to behold with pleasure such a proud blaspheming creature, and cannot look upon him but with indignation; for against such he sets himself; these he resists, pulls down, and destroys.

Isaiah 37:23 In-Context

21 Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent a message to Hezekiah, "This is what the LORD God of Israel says: You prayed to me about King Sennacherib of Assyria.

22 This is the message that the LORD speaks to him, 'My dear people in Zion despise you and laugh at you. My people in Jerusalem shake their heads behind your back.

23 Whom are you defying and slandering? Against whom are you shouting? Who are you looking at so arrogantly? It is the Holy One of Israel!

24 Through your servants you defy the Lord and say, "With my many chariots I'll ride up the high mountains, up the slopes of Lebanon. I'll cut down its tallest cedars and its finest cypresses. I'll come to its most distant heights and its most fertile forests.

25 I'll dig wells and drink water. I'll dry up all the streams of Egypt with the trampling of my feet."