The Siege of Jerusalem (2 of 2)

In context

Isaiah tells the siege of Jerusalem again in nearly the same words as 2 Kings, so much of today’s reading repeats yesterday’s (Isaiah 36–39; 2 Kings 18:13–20:19). These four chapters stand between Isaiah’s warnings and the words of comfort that open chapter 40.

Only Isaiah keeps “The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and had recovered” (38:9). “In the middle of my life I go into the gates of Sheol,” he writes, Sheol being the place of the dead, and he pictures his life taken down “like a shepherd’s tent” and cut “from the loom” (38:10–12). He tells God, “you have cast all my sins behind your back” (38:17), and ends, “The father shall make known your truth to the children” and “Yahweh will save me” (38:19–20). The sign was the shadow going back ten steps “on the sundial of Ahaz,” his father (38:8).

Then Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon, sends envoys, and Hezekiah shows them all his treasures. Isaiah says that one day everything in his house will be carried to Babylon, and Hezekiah answers, “there will be peace and truth in my days” (39:1–8).