Thoughts on Isaiah 37

Today's reading: Isaiah 37; Revelation 3

Isaiah 37 gives us a very practical example of how prayer can impact reality.

If you're anything like me, you can sometimes wonder if prayer is really worth it. Prayer can be a lot of work and can consume a lot of time, but very often we don't see clear, tangible results from it, or at least not such that we can say it was certainly because of our prayers.

What I find helpful about Isaiah 37 is that we see how God answers Hezekiah's prayer, but it could have been easy to miss if He hadn't said it.

When Hezekiah prays about the threats from Sennacherib, the Lord says, "Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him..." So God's words are specifically because Hezekiah prayed about it. However, at the end of His response God says, "Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came." He doesn't say, "Because Hezekiah prayed I will turn you back," but "Because you have raged against me..." God says He is doing this in response to Hezekiah's prayer, but then He also says He is doing this is response to Sennacherib's blasphemy against Him. So which is it?

The answer, I think, is both!

If you remember about 3 weeks back in our reading plan in Isaiah chapter 10, we talked about how God declared that Assyria was the rod of His anger, but then turned right around and declared that He would punish Assyria when He was done using them to punish Israel, because they were not doing it for Him, but for their own pride and power. So from the very beginning, well before Hezekiah's prayer, the Lord had already declared that He would deal with Sennacherib/Assyria because of his blasphemy, exactly the reasoning He gives here to Hezekiah in chapter 36.

So what did Hezekiah's prayer accomplish? It changed when God was done using Assyria. Back in chapter 10 Isaiah said, "When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes." If Hezekiah and the other Israelites in Jerusalem had never repented and turned to God for deliverance, God's work on Mount Zion would not yet be finished. If Hezekiah had not prayed, God still would have dealt with Sennacherib, but it may very well have not been until after Jerusalem was destroyed and all the Jews were led away as captives. But because Hezekiah prayed, God moved forward His timeline for dealing with Sennacherib and rescued Jerusalem by enacting His judgement on Assyria early.

So Hezekiah's prayer did not lead God to do something He hadn't previously been willing to do, but it did have a very real impact on how events played out with the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem.