19:20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.
19:21 This is the word that the LORD hath spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.
19:22 Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.
19:23 By thy messengers thou hast reproached the LORD, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.
19:24 I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places.
19:25 Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.
19:26 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the house tops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.
19:27 But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.
19:28 Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.
19:29 And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.
19:30 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
19:31 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.
19:32 Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.
19:33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD.
19:34 For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
Here's what happened:
19:35 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
19:36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.
19:37 And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
Well, that's economy of the early biblical style, I guess... not much screwing around, only what they said and what they did. The rest is for the reader to elaborate. The living God, the angel of the LORD, the prophet, Hezekiah, the enemy, those who are crushed by the enemy. The angel hasn't created heaven and earth but still has somewhat omnipotent reach reagarding doing. Prophet's role is transparent; when he speaks on LORD's behalf the LORD speaks. Regarding knowing, the prophet is incomprehensibly adept. Hezekiah has a connection to the LORD - what he did was right in LORD's eyes. Hezekiah demonstrates a great deal of courage. He's probably got other qualities (that make him a king to begin with). His weakness is having no ears to hear, therefore, at this point the prophet must help. The enemy is doubt, and perishes, because of having wrong connection. The 'god' of the enemy is an idol, which can do nothing and knows nothing, but still has the power to disable real connection. Apparently the enemy does not know who he is dealing with. Although the end of the story shows it is less than nothing, ultimately its power is an illusion, it has a strange tendency to try to overpower the living in faith and rule over them. It's the old "follow me and all that, water, figs etc. - the highest well-being you are able to imagine - shall be yours". (Using concepts-pool of NT helps us dispel confusion a lot.)
Judah, at the note FA, is safe from personal difficulty that MI the note of multiplicity, among other things, is a symbol of.
Hezekiah the king is the pivotal element of the plot; the title says, after all, The Book of Kings. Let's study this for a moment.
At first, he gets himself into 3rd state of consciousness, symbollized by going into the Temple, and asks from another person for what his own ears cannot yet supply. The king knows which of his 'I's can do it.
19:1 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD.
19:2 And he sent Eliakim, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.
19:3 And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy; for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.
19:4 It may be the LORD thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left.
19:5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
19:6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
19:7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.
Next, hovering over the dubious MI-FA interval - I can almost hear certain voices who belong to those whose chief feature seems to be lack of humility, sayin, Yeah, the guy was surely gettin some friction - he needs reassurance, and turns directly 'upwards' and 'inwards', to the real I, to the LORD: It says that he prayed before the LORD. What really happens, more likely, is that something above the king is taking over...
19:14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.
19:15 And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubim, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.
19:16 LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.
19:17 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,
19:18 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 have destroyed them.
19:19 Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD God, even thou only.
This is sure a critical moment, and one of those, I suspect, that must not be thrown to the swine, to the dry intellectual analysis. I'll mention it in passing but won't claim I really get it with my ordinary power of reasoning, of course. Hezekiah has courage, faith, obedience. Wine, figs, olives, notes below FA, perhaps. But at the interval, all that seems to be insufficient? Is the lord blind, perhaps, or does not see? Or cannot do? (Hehe. Maybe, just maybe, thou sunday-school-boy, Hezekiah, your 'lord' was an idol, all the time. Hehe.) The need for reassurance, re-confirmation of what he already heard shows he is everything but self-confident, that much is clear. Nowadays we'd say that at first he positively sucks in (it was somewhat hard to believe that that's the way of putting it) what doubt suggests. That All the kingdoms of earth may know... outerly is not comprehensible easily, but psychologically the wish of man #4 to have dissembled, contradictory multiplicity influencenced and ruled centrally is evident. He has not got it, but he is becoming aware of what he needs. Rather unmerciful welcome to reality, yet... it is precisely what is needed to trigger doing. No doubt if one is not a 'king' one doesn't even get close to it. No sunday-school-boys do, for example.
An interesting building stone of the supplication is that the king is aware why the enemy has success with other kings and kingdoms. For they were no gods, but the work of man's hands.
Who was Hezekiah?
18:1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.
18:2 Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.
18:3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did.
18:4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.
18:5 He trusted [faith] in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.
18:6 For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses.
18:7 And the LORD was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.
18:8 He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.
Hezekiah the king can issue command to his 'I's: 18:36 But the people held their peace, and answered him [the enemy] not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not. That's a noteworthy difference between the king and his enemy, who thinks along diametrically opposite lines than the king, believing in power of words, being aware (the enemy is right here) that the opponent must be undermined 'psychologically' or not at all. It seems like innocent little tale, but nothing less than murder of the soul is attempted.
First of all, I don't want to forget (disrespectful or heretical to others, maybe, not to me) that, to me, Bible is also leather, that I have to make use of by making shoes. Shoes to run out of the prison of multiplicity of 'I's and lack of unity, lack of consciousness and will included. Maybe if one would see that if one has got the indicated depth(contents) and frequency and duration of prayer, it is going to produce doing (almost wrote "in Gudiffian sense" but its no time for too much kidding) in a very precise meaning of the word, albeit indirectly, it would be a lot already.
Another 'king' was successful at climbing a higher note. Temporarily or for ever? Judging by the page number, not yet definitely, not yet irrevocably...
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