"Greetings in the Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for 17 April 2012"
Today's Blog Title: "Sennacherib Boasts Against the Lord"
Today's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 36:1-22
Today's Blog Verse: Isaiah 36:7 "But if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' it is not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar'?"
Standing like a beacon in the middle of Isaiah's prophecies is the Historic Interlude (Isaiah 36:1-39:8), which records the fulfillment of the prophet's predictions concerning the overthrow of Assyria and the rise of Babylon. This section shifts from poetry to prose and is paralleled to the accounts recorded in 2 Kings 18-12 and 2 Chronicles 32. Ennacherib ruled Assyria from 705 to 681 B.C. He immediately ousted the usurper Merodach-baladan of Babylon and invade Judah in 701 B.C. His initial campaign against the cities of Judah was completely successful, as the Assryians swept through the area with Ashkelon and Lachish suffering the worst. "The Chronicle of Sennacherib" claims that he captured 46 towns and 200,000 people. From Lachish he sends officers to Hezekiah to demand the surrender of Jerusalem. The archaeological discovery of the Taylor Prism reveals Sennacherib's own description of the siege of Jerusalem: "I shut Him (Hezekiah) up like a caged bird within his royal capital." However the account makes no claim to the actual conquest of Jerusalem or Hezekiah. The "conduit of the upper pool" is where Hezekiah had dug a new water tunnel to help maintain the water supply for the city.
"Rab-shaeh" is a title meaning "chief aide" and refers to a high court official. Ironically, he actually came to the very spot where Isaiah met Ahaz 30 years earlier to warn him not to trust in Assyria. The Rab-shakeh demands that Hezekiah surrender to the "great king...of Assyria." He shows his ignorance of Hebrews theology by assuming that Hezekiah had torn down the "high places and...altars" of Jehovah, when in reality Hezekiah had brought about a great spiritual revival and destroyed the altars of Baal. The demand to "give pledges" means to "pay tribute."
Fearful that the words of Rab-shakeh might panic the common people, the Jewish representatives requested that he speak to them in the Syrian language instead of the "Jewish language." By this period of history Aramaic had become common language of international diplomacy. "make an agreement with me by a present" means to make an "alliance" to pay tribute to Assyria.
Jesus Reigns!!! May the Love, Peace, Strength, and Grace be with you all.
Your Sister in Christ,
Cindi
Today's Blog Title: "Sennacherib Boasts Against the Lord"
Today's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 36:1-22
Today's Blog Verse: Isaiah 36:7 "But if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' it is not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar'?"
Standing like a beacon in the middle of Isaiah's prophecies is the Historic Interlude (Isaiah 36:1-39:8), which records the fulfillment of the prophet's predictions concerning the overthrow of Assyria and the rise of Babylon. This section shifts from poetry to prose and is paralleled to the accounts recorded in 2 Kings 18-12 and 2 Chronicles 32. Ennacherib ruled Assyria from 705 to 681 B.C. He immediately ousted the usurper Merodach-baladan of Babylon and invade Judah in 701 B.C. His initial campaign against the cities of Judah was completely successful, as the Assryians swept through the area with Ashkelon and Lachish suffering the worst. "The Chronicle of Sennacherib" claims that he captured 46 towns and 200,000 people. From Lachish he sends officers to Hezekiah to demand the surrender of Jerusalem. The archaeological discovery of the Taylor Prism reveals Sennacherib's own description of the siege of Jerusalem: "I shut Him (Hezekiah) up like a caged bird within his royal capital." However the account makes no claim to the actual conquest of Jerusalem or Hezekiah. The "conduit of the upper pool" is where Hezekiah had dug a new water tunnel to help maintain the water supply for the city.
"Rab-shaeh" is a title meaning "chief aide" and refers to a high court official. Ironically, he actually came to the very spot where Isaiah met Ahaz 30 years earlier to warn him not to trust in Assyria. The Rab-shakeh demands that Hezekiah surrender to the "great king...of Assyria." He shows his ignorance of Hebrews theology by assuming that Hezekiah had torn down the "high places and...altars" of Jehovah, when in reality Hezekiah had brought about a great spiritual revival and destroyed the altars of Baal. The demand to "give pledges" means to "pay tribute."
Fearful that the words of Rab-shakeh might panic the common people, the Jewish representatives requested that he speak to them in the Syrian language instead of the "Jewish language." By this period of history Aramaic had become common language of international diplomacy. "make an agreement with me by a present" means to make an "alliance" to pay tribute to Assyria.
Jesus Reigns!!! May the Love, Peace, Strength, and Grace be with you all.
Your Sister in Christ,
Cindi
No comments:
Post a Comment