Wednesday Bible Study: Plagiarism

It's a bit puzzling, but 2 kings 19 and Isaiah 37 are essentially identical. Isaiah is a bit player here, but he gets a whole book later on, and this chapter is in it. I'm not into the weeds of biblical scholarship, but as I understand it the Book of Isaiah is cobbled together, apparently by three different authors, and one of them lifted this. As I said last time, there is no historical record of an outright defeat of Sennacherib in his Levantine campaign, but there is some indication that sickness in his camp may have discouraged him from actually entering Jerusalem. Just a reminder that until the last few chapters, it has not been possible to compare the Biblical account to any other extant historical record, but now we have that luxury. 

Note the prophecy starting at verse 29. This is of course essentially what happened, but it was written three generations later, which makes it kind of easy to foresee. Note also Yahweh's claim of omnipotence and omniscience in the prayer beginning at verse 21. He claims to have jurisdiction over Sennacherib, in that he ordained his victories; now he ordains his defeat. In other words Yahweh usurps the authority and power of Sennacherib's gods; Judaism is becoming more clearly monotheistic.

19 When King Hezeki′ah heard it, he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. ² And he sent Eli′akim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. ³ They said to him, “Thus says Hezeki′ah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. ⁴ It may be that the Lord your God heard all the words of the Rab′shakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.” ⁵ When the servants of King Hezeki′ah came to Isaiah, ⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. ⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’”

Sennacherib’s Threat

⁸ The Rab′shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah; for he heard that the king had left Lachish. ⁹ And when the king heard concerning Tirha′kah king of Ethiopia, “Behold, he has set out to fight against you,” he sent messengers again to Hezeki′ah, saying, ¹⁰ “Thus shall you speak to Hezeki′ah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹ Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, destroying them utterly. And shall you be delivered? ¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations which my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? ¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharva′im, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”

Hezekiah’s Prayer

¹⁴ Hezeki′ah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezeki′ah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. ¹⁵ And Hezeki′ah prayed before the Lord, and said: “O Lord the God of Israel, who art enthroned above the cherubim, thou art the God, thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. ¹⁶ Incline thy ear, O Lord, and hear; open thy eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennach′erib, which he has sent to mock the living God. ¹⁷ Of a truth, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, ¹⁸ and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they were destroyed. ¹⁹ So now, O Lord our God, save us, I beseech thee, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou, O Lord, art God alone.”

²⁰ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezeki′ah saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennach′erib king of Assyria I have heard. ²¹ This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him:

“She despises you, she scorns you—
    the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you—
    the daughter of Jerusalem.

²² “Whom have you mocked and reviled?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and haughtily lifted your eyes?
    Against the Holy One of Israel!
²³ By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
    and you have said, ‘With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
    to the far recesses of Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses;
I entered its farthest retreat,
    its densest forest.
²⁴ I dug wells
    and drank foreign waters,
and I dried up with the sole of my foot
    all the streams of Egypt.’

²⁵ “Have you not heard
    that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
    what now I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
    into heaps of ruins,
²⁶ while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
    are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field,
    and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops;
    blighted before it is grown?

²⁷ “But I know your sitting down
    and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
²⁸ Because you have raged against me
    and your arrogance has come into 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.

²⁹ “And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same; then in the third year sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. ³⁰ And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward; ³¹ for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord will do this.

³² “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. ³³ By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, says the Lord. ³⁴ For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

Sennacherib’s Defeat and Death

³⁵ And that night the angel of the Lord went forth, and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. ³⁶ Then Sennach′erib king of Assyria departed, and went home, and dwelt at Nin′eveh. ³⁷ And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adram′melech and Share′zer, his sons, slew him with the sword, and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhad′don his son reigned in his stead.