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Isaiah Chapter
Thirty-six
Isaiah 36
Isaiah 36 is very similar to 2 Kings
18:17-37. Thus
please see the commentary on 2 Kings 18.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 36
Sennacherib invades Judah
verse 1. He sends
Rabshakeh
who by his blasphemous persuasions tempts Hezekiah to despair
and
the people to revolt
verse 2-22. The history related here
and in the three
following chapters
is
almost in the same words contained 2Kings 18
19
20.
It is inserted here
to explain and confirm some of the foregoing predictions.
It may seem to have first been written by this prophet
and from him taken into
the book of Kings
to compleat that history.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
36 Chapter 36
Verses 1-22
Verse 1
Sennacherib King of Assyria came up
Sennacherib
Sennacherib was one of the most magnificent of the Assyrian kings.
He seems to have been the first who fixed the seat of government permanently at
Nineveh
which he carefully repaired and adorned with splendid buildings. His
greatest work is the grand palace at Koyunjik
which covered a space of about
eight acres
and was adorned throughout with sculptures of finished execution.
He built also
or repaired
a second palace at Nineveh
on the mound of Nebbi
Yunus
confined the Tigris to its channel by an embankment of brick
restored
the ancient aqueducts which had gone to decay
and gave to Nineveh that
splendour which she thenceforth retained till the ruin of the empire. (G.
Rawlinson.)
Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah
Lessons:--
1. That a people may be in the way of their duty
and yet meet with trouble
and distress. Hezekiah was reforming
and his people in some measure reformed;
yet their country is at that time invaded
and a great part of it laid waste.
Perhaps they began to grow remiss and cool in the work of reformation
were
doing it by halves
and ready to sit down short of a thorough reformation; and
then God visited them with this judgment
to put life into them and that good
cause. We must not wonder if
when we are doing well
God sends afflictions to
quicken us to do better
to do our best
and to press towards perfection.
2. That we must never be secure of the continuance of our peace in
this world
nor think our mountain stands so strong as that it cannot be moved.
Hezekiah was not only a pious king
but prudent
both in his administration at
home and his treaties abroad. His affairs were in a good posture
and he seemed
particularly to be upon good terms with the King of Assyria; for he had lately
made his peace with him by a rich present (2 Kings 18:14)
and yet that
perfidious prince pours an army into his country all of a sudden
and lays it
waste. It is good for us
therefore
always to keep up an expectation of
trouble
that when it comes it may be no surprise to us
and then it will be
the less a terror.
3. That God sometimes permits the enemies of His people
even those
that are most impious and treacherous
to prevail far against them. The King of
Assyria took all
or most
of the defenced cities of Judah
and then the
country would
of course
be an easy prey to him. Wickedness may prosper a
while
but cannot prosper always. (M. Henry.)
Verse 2
And the King of Assyria sent Rabshakeh
Invasion of Judah by Assyria
In chaps
36-39
a historical part follows
which retiring from
the ideal distances of chaps
34.
35. into the historical realities of chap. 33.
begins with the statement
that “at the conduit of the upper pool in the road of the fuller’s field
”
where Ahaz preferred the help of Assyria to that of Jehovah (Isaiah 7:3)
stands anembassy of the King
of Assyria with a section of his army. (F. Delitzsch
D.D.)
Rabshakeh
Rabshakeh or Rab-Sak
the chief cup-bearer
or general
staff-officer in the Assyrian service
entrusted with diplomatic business. It
is the title of an office
and not the name of a person. The “Tartan” was the
supreme military officer
or commander-in-chief
while the “Rab Saris” was the
chief of the Eunuchs
and a confidential officer. Rab-chief. (B. Blake
B.D.)
The Rabshakeh
Sennacherib’s Bismarck. (Prof. G. A. Smith
D.D.)
Verses 4-20
Rabshakeh said unto them
War orators
We have a class of speakers in this country who are silent on all
great social and cosmopolitan topics
but make themselves heard and felt the
moment any matter of warlike fascination comes to the surface.
All other questions float down the stream of public opinion without causing
them even to indicate their existence. But let a question involving blood
appear
and with marvellous celerity all these pugilistic men come from the
obscurity of barracks and service clubs
and from no one knows where
often
fuming about no one knows what. They remind one of those animals noted for
their bloodthirstiness in the warm regions of Africa--the caribitos (Serrasalmo)
Their haunts are at the bottoms of rivers
but a few drops of
blood suffice to bring them by thousands to the surface; and Humboldt himself
mentions that in some part of the A pure
where the water was perfectly clear
and no fish were visible
he could
in a few minutes
bring together a cloud of
caribitos by casting in some bits of flesh. With equal ease we can collect our
war orators if we only give them one sanguinary pretext. (Scientific
Illustrations and Symbols.)
Verse 5
Now on whom dost thou trust?
--
Trust in others sometimes dishonoured
That question may not be without importance in matters of ordinary
life. We have all to trust our fellows
more or less
and I suppose we have all
had to smart in some degree
as the result of it. We may trust the mass of men
in trifles without any serious consequences; but when it comes to large sums
when the whole of a man’s fortune
for instance
is staked upon the character
and reputation of someone else
then it is not altogether an unimportant
question
“On whom dost thou trust?” Many have rested on some choice friend
and found him play the Judas! How often have our dearest counsellors turned
away from us as Ahithophel did from David! How frequently have we confidently
rested upon the integrity
friendship
and fidelity of some person whom we
thought we knew and could trust
and we have found that “Cursed is he that
trusteth in man
and maketh flesh his arm.” Use discretion in all your transactions
in life
as to how far you will trust the sons of men. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
In whom art thou trusting?
I. Let us put this
question
and collect A LITTLE BUNDLE OF ANSWERS.
1. I think I hear some answer
“I do not know that I have thought
about the matter at all; I hope it is a long time before I shall die
and there
is no need to trouble myself before it is necessary
and
therefore
I put the
matter off.” Do not you think that you are very foolish? There is a gate to
death
ay! and to hell
too
from the place where you are now sitting. Suppose
you were sure of a long life
would you wish to delay being happy?
2. I hear one say
“I thank God I am about as good as most people;
when my poor neighbours have needed charity
they have never found a churl in
me. I hope I can say it will go well with me
and if it does not
sir
it will
go badly with a good many.” I am afraid it will go badly with a great many; but
I do not see what consolation you ought to get out of that
for company in
being ruined will not decrease
but rather increase the catastrophe. The sum
and substance of your confidence is
that you are trusting in yourself. Now
do
you really and honestly think that you are of yourself sufficient to bring
yourself safe to God’s right hand? I think your conscience can remind you of
some slips and flaws.
3. “I trust in my priest; he has been regularly ordained; he belongs
to an Apostolic Church; he tells me that he will forgive my sins if I confess
them to him
and that when I come to die he will give me my viaticum.” Do not
be misled; your priest might as well trust in you as you trust in him.
4. “Well
God is merciful. He is not so severe as to be unkind
towards us
and we dare say
though we may have a good many faults
yet as He
is a very good and gracious God
He will forgive our sins and accept us.” If
you go to God out of Christ
you will find Him to be a consuming fire
and
instead of mercy you shall receive justice.
5. “Well
sir
I do not say that I can trust to my works
but I am a
good-hearted man; I am a man of good intentions
and though I have a great many
faults
yet I am good-hearted at bottom
and I think God will look at my heart
and will put me right at the end
notwithstanding my slips and wanderings by
the way.” It will turn out
I am afraid
to be a delusion and a snare. Your
heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked. Do not talk about
its goodness any more
for when you do
you give God the lie
and how can you
expect to go to the heaven where God is
when you are thus insulting Him all
the while?
II. THE CHRISTIAN’S
ANSWER. “I trust
” says the Christian
“a triune God-Father
Son
and Holy
Spirit.” To some this does not look like a real trust. “Why
we cannot see
God
” says one. “How do we know all about this Trinity? Is this a real trust?”
Cannot you trust in a thousand things you have never seen or heard? Some of you
may be earning your living by electricity
but you never saw it. Some have
said
“But does God interfere to help His people? Is the trust you impose in
Him so really recognised by Him that you can distinctly prove that He helps
you?” Yes
we can. We can say
also
by way of commending our God to others
that we feel we can rest upon Him for the future.
III. SOME WORDS OF
ADVICE TO THOSE WHO ARE SO TRUSTING.
1. Drive out all unbelief. If we have such a God to trust to
let us
trust with all our might.
2. Let us seek the Holy Spirit’s help in this matter. The Author of
our faith must be the Finisher of it also.
3. Let us try to bring others to trust where we have trusted.
4. We must prove our faith by our works. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Unregenerate human nature bad all through:
That is a very silly thing which people say of men when they die
“Oh
he was rather loose in his morals
but he was a good-hearted man at
bottom.” It reminds me of Rowland Hill’s saying
“Yes
but when you go to
market to buy apples
and you see a number of rotten ones at the top
if the
market-woman says
‘Oh
never mind
it is only the rotten apples at the top
they are very good at bottom
’ you will say to her
‘My good soul
I will be
bound to say the best are on the top
and they will not improve as you go down
for generally they will get far worse.’” And so if a man is bad on the surface
I cannot tell how much worse he may be down below. It is said there was a man
who used to swear and drink
who
nevertheless
applied for membership with Mr.
Hill
and gave this reason for it
that though he did drink occasionally and
frequently swear
yet he was good at bottom. Mr. Hill said
“Then you think I
am going grovelling down through the dirty foul filth of your life to get the
little good that is somewhere at the bottom of you! Why
sir
it will not pay
for the risk of digging out
and I am not going to do it.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 11
The Syrian language
The Syrian language
The Syrian language i.. Aramaic
spoken between Palestine
and the Euphrates
the language of international intercourse and commerce in
those days. (A. B. Davidson
D.D.)
Verses 13-21
Hear ye the words of the great king
The bland insinuations of the enemies of God’s people
When Satan would tempt men from trusting in God and cleaving to
Him
he doth it by insinuating that in yielding to him they may better their
condition; but it is a false suggestion
and grossly absurd
and therefore to
be rejected with the utmost abhorrence
when the world and the flesh say to us
Make an agreement with us
and come out to us
submit to our dominion and come
into our interests
and you shall eat every one of his own vine
they do but
deceive us
promising liberty when they would lead us into the basest captivity
and slavery.
One might as good take Rabshakeh’s word as theirs for kind usage and fair
quarter; therefore
when they speak fair
believe them not. Let them say what
they will
there is no land like the land of promise
the holy land. (M.
Henry.)
Verse 19
Where are the gods?
--
Hamath
Hamath at the north border of the Holy Land
a large town on the
Orontes
depopulated by the Assyrian in 720. Arpad
Aradus
a town on the
coast
now a heap of ruins. Sepharvaim
or Sipar
a town to the north of
Babylon
built on both sides of the Euphrates. (B. Blake
B.D.)
Inquiry for gods:
These inquiries may
by a slight accommodation
be used as showing
some characteristics of false gods
and showing
by implication
the glory and
worship which are due to the one living Lord. Men have a distinct right to
inquire for their gods. Almighty God Himself does not shrink from this test of
personality and nearness. He will be inquired of. He has proclaimed Himself
accessible. “Come now
let us reason together.” God is within reach of the
heart of man; and religion
as well as bringing with it a Divine fear
brings
with it also a Divine companionship. Men cannot live on mere sublimity. Man
cannot get hold of infinitude. He must have something that he can lay the hands
of his heart upon. God must give miniatures of Himself
which little children
even can put away in the hiding-places of their love as their chief jewels. (J.
Parker
D.D.)
What is a man’s god?
A man’s god is whatever is the supreme object of his admiration
and trust. It may be beauty
it may be strength
it may be money
it may be
fame
it may be self-righteousness
it may be self-confidence. Now there are
times in life when a man instinctively or by force inquires for his god; and he
who cannot
in such critical hours
find his god
has made the profoundest and
saddest spiritual mistake in the bestowment of his affections and the gift of
his trust. There are times when you are dissatisfied with yourself; when you
feel your utter nothingness. Take a season of utter prostration
when the
strong man is withered. At such a time we look out for something greater than
ourselves. Is there no one who can meet us in this extremity of feebleness
who
can come down to us
not in the thunder of His great power
but in the
condescension of His almightiness? Look at a time of commercial panic
business
distress
when no man knows whom to trust. Man cannot be satisfied then without
the supernatural; he may even drift into superstition. Atheists pray when they
are in extreme pain or peril. There are times when all men either come quietly
with reverence and tenderness
to seek God who has withdrawn for a moment
or
when they are startled
are frightened into momentary devotion. (J. Parker
D.D.)
Man-made gods
1. Some people have made money their god
and there is not a more
helpless god in all the temples of idolatry. He will never come to you in the
crisis of your life. He will make little compromises with you
help you over
divers stiles
solve certain little problems for you. But when your soul is in
agony
when your life has wrought itself down to the one last spasm
he will be
a dumb god. We brought nothing into this world
and it is certain we can carry
nothing out. If you could take a five-pound note with you across the grave into
yonder invisible mysterious world
nobody would know what it was. You would
have to explain it
and nobody would believe you. You might hold it up
and show
the watermark
and lecture upon it
and turn it round and round
and nobody
could change it.
2. There is another god that some men are making. Its name is Luck!
Some men say
“Things will not turn out so badly after all. I have always been
able to get upon the sunny side of the road
and something will occur to get me
upon that side again. I have trusted the chapter of accidents. My chances have
always turned out right
and they will turn out right again.” There never was
so mocking an idol as luck. The young man who throws in a game of that kind and
is lucky
will have another game to play. He has another competitor who will
force him
and say
“Now you must have the dice out again.” The name of that
last competitor is Death
and he will play you. The young man says
“I do not
want to play.” Death grasps him by the throat
and says
“You shall play!” Now
he gets hold of his dice-box
and Death always wins.
3. Some men’s god is a well-favoured countenance. They trust to their
shape
figure
bearing
expression. They say
“My face is an introduction
a
certificate
a guarantee: wherever I go a space is cleared for me.” A very
superficial god! I can imagine such persons brought into circumstances which
will try their god severely. Yonder is a man lofty in stature
portly in
bearing
commanding in all the attributes of external person. He says that he
feels a pain piercing him. He is taken home
and betakes himself to his bed.
His physician comes to his room and says
“This is a case of small-pox.” That god
of his will be dug in the face till the man’s own mother will not know him
and
the sister who loved him best will pray to escape from his presence. God can
blotch your skin! God can send poison into your blood! And you
who sneered at
ungainly virtue
at unfavoured honesty
may be a corrupt
worm-eaten
pestilent
thing in the dirt! What
then
if any man should say to you
Where is thy God?
(J. Parker
D.D.)
The revelation of the true God in times of human need
This part of the subject is not free from difficulty. Many a man
has felt the most intense pain on observing what he supposed was God’s absence
from the scene of human affairs. This difficulty must be grappled with if we
would be honest to all sides of our great subject. In reply to this difficulty I
suggest three things.
1. As a mere matter of fact
attested by a thousand histories known
in our own experience
God has appeared in vindication of His name and honour.
2. As a first principle in sound theology
it must be admitted that
God Himself is the only true judge as to the best manner and time of
interposition. By so much as He is God this point at least must be conceded.
Let us be fair to the Almighty
as we would be fair to man. Stephen was taken
by the mob
dragged out and stoned. “Where was his God then?” was once the
mocking inquiry of a well-known freethinker. Go to Stephen himself for an
answer; and when he
outraged and dishonoured
said with his dying breath
“Lord
lay not this sin to their charge
”--to have wrought in the human soul
under
circumstances so tragic and terrible
a desire like that
was to do more for
Stephen than if he had been lifted up by myriads of angels out of the hands of
his murderers and set in the sun! Do not let us forget God’s spiritual gifts to
us. Though the stones were falling upon him and he was in the last agonies
he
said in a whisper
the sound of which shall survive the voices of all thunders
and floods
“I see heaven opened
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”
It is only in crises
in extremities such as these
that the highest reach of
faith is realised
and that faith itself becomes victory.
3. Then the very absence of God
being dictated by wisdom and
controlled by love
must be intended to have a happy effect upon human faith.
When God is absent
what if His absence is intended to excite inquiry in our
hearts? It is in having to grope for God we learn lessons of our own blindness
and weakness and spiritual incapacity. (J. Parker
D.D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》