Isaiah 37

Hezekiah Seeks Isaiah's Help

1 And ¹when King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth and entered the house of the LORD.

2 Then he sent ²Eliakim who was over the household with ³Shebna the scribe and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to ⁴Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

3 They said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah, 'This day is a ⁵day of distress, rebuke and rejection; for ⁶children have come to birth, and there is no strength to deliver.

4 'Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to ⁷reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard. Therefore, offer a prayer for ⁸the remnant that is left.' "

5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6 Isaiah said to them, "Thus you shall say to your master, 'Thus says the LORD, "⁹Do not be afraid because * of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

7 "Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will ¹⁰hear a rumor and ¹¹return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.""'

8 Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against ¹²Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left ¹³Lachish.

9 When he ¹⁴heard them say concerning Tirhakah king of ¹⁵Cush, "He has come out to fight against you," and when he heard it he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

10 "Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah, '¹⁶Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, "Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."

11 '¹⁷Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be spared?

12 'Did the gods of those nations which my fathers have destroyed deliver them, even ¹⁸Gozan and ¹⁹Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?

13 'Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?' "

Hezekiah's Prayer in the Temple

14 Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD.

15 Hezekiah prayed to the LORD saying,

16 "O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ²⁰who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the ²¹God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. ²²You have made heaven and earth.

17 "²³Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and ²⁴listen to all the words of Sennacherib, who sent them to ²⁵reproach the living God.

18 "Truly, O LORD, the ²⁶kings of Assyria have devastated all the countries and their lands,

19 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the ²⁷work of men's hands, wood and stone. So they have ²⁸destroyed them.

20 "Now, O LORD our God, ²⁹deliver us from his hand that ³⁰all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, LORD, are God."

God Answers through Isaiah

21 Then ³¹Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria,

22 this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: "She has despised you and mocked you, The ³²virgin ³³daughter of Zion; She has ³⁴shaken her head behind you, The daughter of Jerusalem!

23 "Whom have you ³⁵reproached and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised your voice And haughtily ³⁶lifted up your eyes? Against the ³⁷Holy One of Israel!

24 "Through your servants you have reproached the Lord, And you have said, 'With my many chariots I came up to the heights of the mountains, To the remotest parts of ³⁸Lebanon; And I cut down its tall ³⁹cedars and its choice cypresses. And I will go to its highest peak, its thickest ⁴⁰forest.

25 'I dug wells and drank waters, And ⁴¹with the sole of my feet I dried up All the rivers of Egypt.'

26 "⁴²Have you not heard? Long ago I did it, From ancient times I ⁴³planned it. Now ⁴⁴I have brought it to pass, That ⁴⁵you should turn fortified cities into ⁴⁶ruinous heaps.

27 "Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength, They were dismayed and put to shame; They were as the ⁴⁷vegetation of the field and as the green herb, As ⁴⁸grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.

28 "But I ⁴⁹know your sitting down And your going out and your coming in And your raging against Me.

29 "Because of your raging against Me And because your ⁵⁰arrogance has come up to My ears, Therefore I will put My ⁵¹hook in your nose And My ⁵²bridle in your lips, And I will turn you back ⁵³by the way which you came.

30 "Then this shall be the sign for you: you will eat this year what ⁵⁴grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

31 "The ⁵⁵surviving ⁵⁶remnant of the house of Judah will again ⁵⁷take root downward and bear fruit upward.

32 "For out of Jerusalem will go forth a ⁵⁸remnant and out of Mount Zion survivors. The ⁵⁹zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this."'

33 "Therefore, thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, 'He will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield, or throw up a ⁶⁰siege ramp against it.

34 '⁶¹By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he will not come to this city,' declares the LORD.

35 'For I will ⁶²defend this city to save it ⁶³for My own sake and for My servant David's sake.' "

Assyrians Destroyed

36 Then the ⁶⁴angel of the LORD went out and struck 185,000 * * * in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were dead *.

37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at ⁶⁵Nineveh.

38 It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of ⁶⁶Ararat. And ⁶⁷Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.

Isaiah 37 Commentary

Chapter 37

( 2 Kings 19 )

Cross References

• 1. 2 Kings 19:1-37; Isaiah 37:1-38
• 2. Isaiah 22:20
• 3. Isaiah 22:15
• 4. Isaiah 1:1; Isaiah 20:2
• 5. Isaiah 22:5; Isaiah 26:16; Isaiah 33:2
• 6. Isaiah 26:17, 18; Isaiah 66:9; Hosea 13:13
• 7. Is 36:13-15, 18, 20
• 8. Isaiah 1:9; Isaiah 10:20-22; Isaiah 37:31, 32; Isaiah 46:3
• 9. Isaiah 7:4; Isaiah 35:4
• 10. Isaiah 37:9
• 11. Isaiah 37:37, 38
• 12. Numbers 33:20; Joshua 10:29
• 13. Joshua 10:31, 32
• 14. Isaiah 37:7
• 15. Isaiah 18:1; Isaiah 20:5
• 16. Isaiah 36:15
• 17. Isaiah 10:9-11; Isaiah 36:18-20
• 18. 2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:11
• 19. Genesis 11:31; Genesis 12:1-4; Acts 7:2
• 20. Exodus 25:22; 1 Samuel 4:4; Psalms 80:1; Psalms 99:1
• 21. Deuteronomy 10:17; Psalms 86:10; Psalms 136:2, 3
• 22. Isaiah 42:5; Isaiah 45:12; Jeremiah 10:12
• 23. 2 Chronicles 6:40; Psalms 17:6; Daniel 9:18
• 24. Psalms 74:22
• 25. Isaiah 37:4
• 26. 2 Kings 15:29; 2 Kings 16:9; 2 Kings 17:6, 24; 1 Chronicles 5:26
• 27. Isaiah 2:8; Isaiah 17:8; Isaiah 41:24, 29
• 28. Isaiah 26:14
• 29. Isaiah 25:9; Isaiah 33:22; Isaiah 35:4
• 30. 1 Kings 18:36, 37; Psalms 46:10; Isaiah 37:16; Ezekiel 36:23
• 31. Isaiah 37:2
• 32. Jeremiah 14:17; Lamentations 2:13
• 33. Psalms 9:14; Zephaniah 3:14; Zechariah 2:10
• 34. Job 16:4
• 35. Isaiah 37:4
• 36. Isaiah 2:11; Isaiah 5:15, 21
• 37. Ezekiel 39:7; Habakkuk 1:12
• 38. Isaiah 10:33, 34
• 39. Isaiah 14:8
• 40. Isaiah 10:18
• 41. Deuteronomy 11:10; 1 Kings 20:10
• 42. Isaiah 40:21, 28
• 43. Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27, 28; 1 Peter 2:8
• 44. Isaiah 46:11
• 45. Isaiah 10:6
• 46. Isaiah 17:1; Isaiah 25:2
• 47. Isaiah 40:7
• 48. Psalms 129:6
• 49. Psalms 139:1
• 50. Isaiah 10:12
• 51. Ezekiel 29:4; Ezekiel 38:4
• 52. Isaiah 30:28
• 53. Isaiah 37:34
• 54. Leviticus 25:5, 11
• 55. Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 10:20
• 56. Isaiah 37:4
• 57. Isaiah 27:6
• 58. Isaiah 37:4
• 59. 2 Kings 19:31; Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 59:17; Joel 2:18; Zechariah 1:14
• 60. Jeremiah 6:6; Jeremiah 32:24
• 61. Isaiah 37:29
• 62. 2 Kings 20:6; Isaiah 31:5; Isaiah 38:6
• 63. Isaiah 43:25; Isaiah 48:9, 11
• 64. 2 Kings 19:35; Is 10:12, 33, 34
• 65. Genesis 10:11; Jonah 1:2; Jonah 3:3; Jonah 4:11; Zephaniah 2:13
• 66. Genesis 8:4; Jeremiah 51:27
• 67. Ezra 4:2

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "give birth"
• [b]. Lit "he"
• [c]. Or "Ethiopia"
• [d]. Lit "Judah, saying"
• [e]. Lit "delivered"
• [f]. Lit "the"
• [g]. Lit "letters"
• [h]. Lit "Hezekiah spread"
• [i]. So DSS and 2 Kin 19:19; M.T. omits "God"
• [j]. Lit "on high"
• [k]. Lit "farthest height"
• [l]. Or "the besieged place"
• [m]. So DSS and 2 Kin 19:26; M.T. as "a plowed field"
• [n]. Lit "complacency"
• [o]. Lit "eating"
• [p]. Lit "those who escape"
• [q]. Lit "they"
• [r]. Lit "dead bodies"
• [s]. Lit "went and returned"

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 37

In this chapter are contained Hezekiah's message to Isaiah, desiring his prayer for him and his people, in this time of sore distress, Isa 37:1-5, the comforting and encouraging answer returned by the prophet to him, Isa 37:6,7, the king of Assyria's letter to Hezekiah, to terrify him into a surrender of the city of Jerusalem to him, Isa 37:8-13 which Hezekiah spread before the Lord, and prayed unto him for deliverance, Isa 37:14-20, upon which he received a gracious answer by the hand of the prophet, promising safety and deliverance to him, and destruction to the king of Assyria, of which a sign was given, Isa 37:21-35 and the chapter is closed with the slaughter of the Assyrian army by an angel, the flight of the king, and his death by the hands of his sons, Isa 37:36-38.