Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | More
Nineveh is a burden to Jerusalem (vs 1)
- The burden Israel bears is the financial oppression and violence from Assyria’s capital, Nineveh. The burden describes what Nineveh is to Israel as a weight of reproach that the LORD will lift and remove.
- King Sennacherib takes several cities in Judah when Hezekiah was king in Jerusalem. Hezekiah pays Sennacherib to make him go away in 2 Kings 18.
- The LORD’s relationship with Israel and the king of Israel is much different than any other nation. The king of the heathen nations is the head and he imposes his will on others with the help of his god(s). For the Hebrew people, God is the heavenly King and all-powerful leadership, and the king is the servant and administrator of the revealed will of God.
The LORD is the Almighty Creator and God of gods (vss 2-10)
- The slow and almighty justice of the jealous Creator (vss 2-3).
- The difference between this Assyrian king and God Almighty, the heavenly king of Israel, is this Assyrian king can’t revenge all his enemies.
- All of nature is responsive and obedient to its Creator (vss 3-5).
- The difference between this Assyrian king and God Almighty, the heavenly King of Israel, is this Assyrian king commands swords and bows while the God of Israel commands the wind and sea.
- Even the storm clouds are below his feet; Job said he reserves the snow for the time of war. And who are you oh man? Who are you to harass the city of God?
- When the LORD speaks the mountains shake and the earth is burned in his presence. And who are you? Who are you to bring him down to your level?
- Who are you to think you can stand before Him? (vs 6)
- The Creator is good and knows those whose faith is in Him (vs 7).
- You can’t stand before the LORD, you must trust Him.
- What do you imagine against the LORD? (vs 9)
- Affliction will not rise again means Nineveh will be judged and never rise again. When Nineveh is judged, wickedness will never find a home in Nineveh again because there will be nothing left there.
- The judgment of God is immediate destruction without remedy to the wicked (vs 10)!
The LORD breaks the yoke of the wicked who has blasphemed His name (vss 11-15)
- Wickedness boasts itself against God.
- Sennacherib’s words: “As for Hezekiah of the land of Judah, I surrounded and conquered 46 of his fortified walled cities and smaller settlements in their environs, which were without number, by having ramps trodden down and battering rams brought up, the assault of foot soldiers, sapping, breaching, and siege engines. I brought out of them 200,150 people, young and old, men and women, horses mules, donkeys, camels, oxen, sheep, and goats which were without number, and I counted them as booty. As for him (Hezekiah), I confined him inside the city Jerusalem, his royal city, like a bird in a cage. I detached from his land the cities of his that I had plundered and gave them to Mitiniti, king of Ashdod, and Padi, king of Ekron, and SilliBel, king of Gaza, and thereby strangled him in his land. To the former tribute, their annual giving, I added the payment of gifts in recognition of my lordship over him. As for Hezekiah, fear of my lordly brilliance overwhelmed him, and after my departure, he had the auxiliary forces and elite troops whom he brought inside to strengthen the city Jerusalem, his royal city, and who had provided support, along with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, choice antimony, ivory beds, armchairs of ivory, elephant hides, elephant ivory, ebony, boxwood, multicolored garments, linen garments, blue wool, red wool, utensils of bronze, iron, copper, tin, iron, chariots, shields, lances, armor, iron-belt daggers, bows and arrows, implements of war without number, with his daughters, his palace women, men and women singers brought into Nineveh, my capital city, and he sent a mounted messenger to me to deliver this payment and do worship to me.”
- A while later Sennacherib returns to increase the burden on Judah. He sends an army to surround Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18. Hezekiah prays and the LORD kills 185,000 Assyrian troops outside Jerusalem’s city walls. Sennacherib returns to Nineveh.
- When Hezekiah seeks the LORD in humility, the LORD responds by removing Jerusalem’s iniquity from before His face and then dealing with the enemy of Jerusalem.
- Isaiah 10:15
- 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 tells you that the wickedness occupying Nineveh will eventually stand in a place dedicated to the God of Israel and make himself god.
Good news! The enemy is defeated!
- FOR NOW God breaks the yoke of the wicked. (Wickedness returns, just not as an Assyrian).
- The destruction of God’s enemies is the comfort of God’s people. And the willingness on God’s part to defend Jerusalem is God’s way of saying your iniquity is washed away.
- God orders the assassination of the wicked. God breaks the yoke of Assyria in Isaiah 36-37 (2 Kings 19:36-37, 2 Chronicles 32:20-21, and Isaiah 37:37 all record Sennacherib’s assassination).
- …the wicked shall no more pass through thee…
- Good news, the LORD has removed the burden of wickedness!
- Isaiah 52-53 is the context for Isaiah 52:7 citing this verse
- Romans 10 is the context for Romans 10:15 citing this verse
