the Assyrian army

October 5, 2017

Sound the alarm trumpet (Hos 8:1-8:3)

“Set the trumpet

To your lips!

A vulture is over

The house of Yahweh.

They have broken

My covenant.

They have transgressed

My law.

Israel cries to me!

‘My God!

We!

Israel!

Know you!’

Israel has spurned

The good.

The enemy

Shall pursue him.”

Yahweh, via Hosea, told the Israelites to sound the alarm with a trumpet. The vulture or the Assyrian army was coming to the house of Yahweh. These Israelites had broken his covenant. They had transgressed his law. Yet they came crying to him, since they knew Yahweh. However, it was too late. They knew that they had turned away from the good Yahweh. Now their enemy, the Assyrians, would pursue them.

August 24, 2016

The response of Isaiah (Isa 37:5-37:6)

“When the servants of King Hezekiah

Came to Isaiah,

Isaiah said to them.

‘Say to your master.

Thus says Yahweh.

Do not be afraid

Because of the words

That you have heard,

With which the servants

Of the king of Assyria

Have reviled me.

I myself will put a spirit in him,

So that he shall hear a rumor.

He will then return to his own land.

I will cause him to fall

By the sword in his own land.’”

Once again, this is almost word for word from 2 Kings, chapter 19. Here we have the first royal intervention of the great prophet Isaiah, whose influence had a great impact on future Israelite life. The response of Isaiah is quite remarkable. Because the servants of the king of Assyria had reviled Yahweh, he was going to retaliate against the Assyrian king. This oracle of Yahweh, via Isaiah, said that Yahweh would spread a rumor that would make the Assyrian army return to its own land, where the king would be killed at home in Assyria. The fact is that King Sennacherib of Assyria did return home without capturing Jerusalem. He was then killed by his sons in Assyria.