THE GOD OF ALL THE NATIONS

Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.’ ” —Isaiah 37:6

This is Isaiah’s retelling of the story in 2 Kings 19, and it largely replicates the text of that chapter, this time in the context of Isaiah’s ongoing prophetic role.

This event took place about 700 B.C., and history records that, as much as Assyria was the dominant power in the region at that time, Jerusalem was not defeated. Nonetheless, Hezekiah was alarmed. He sent some of his officials to Isaiah as a way of seeking God. “This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace,” they said (Isaiah 37:3).

Hezekiah asked Isaiah to pray for the nation, but his burning question was whether God had heard the ridicule the Assyrian spokesman had directed against Him and the people. Isaiah dismissed the intimidation from the Assyrian delegation, and assured King Hezekiah and his officials that God was well aware of their situation and that He had heard the threats against them. While Isaiah’s larger message was one of warning and judgment, he also consistently directed the people and their leaders back to God. Despite their history of unfaithfulness, God remained attentive, faithful, merciful, and available. Across his ministry, Isaiah insisted that the people’s best political and military strategy was always to trust in “the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 37:23). As Isaiah foretold, God intervened in the siege of Jerusalem, and Sennacherib was called back to his home in Nineveh, where he was murdered (see Isaiah 37:36–38).

While we might not understand all the ways in which this works, Isaiah explained that this foreign king’s life and even his military successes were always under the supervision and watch of Israel’s God—“Long ago I ordained it” (Isaiah 37:26).

Somehow, the God of the people of Jerusalem was also the God of all the nations.