Day 202: Isaiah 36-39 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Hey, Bible nerds, this is Dr. Manny Arango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Family, welcome to day 202. We're in Isaiah chapter 36 to 39. Iconic chapters of the book of Isaiah. Really, really fun chapters for me to teach and go through. So I'm excited to dive into the content today. If you have not done the reading, you gotta go do the reading. Stop the video, stop the audio, go do the reading. Read these chapters, 36, 37, 38, 39. Fantastic chapters of the Bible. Great chapters of the book of Isaiah. If you have done the reading, you'll notice that we got a break in the poetry, okay? So we're out of poetry and it feels way more like history. And to be exactly honest, this section of the book of Isaiah is word for word from 2 Kings chapter 18 to 20, all right? 2 Kings chapter 18 to 20. So if you've been rocking with the Bible reading plan for a while, then you probably were kind of like, you had some deja vu today while you were reading. And that is because Isaiah chapter 36 to 39 is straight up plagiarized from 2 Kings chapter 18 to 20. I'm joking, it's not plagiarized. Also, scholars don't know which one came first, okay?

So nobody knows if the author of Kings is copying Isaiah or if Isaiah is copying the author of Kings, we really don't know. But word for word, straight up, Isaiah chapter 36 to 39 is saying the exact same thing as 2 Kings chapter 18 to 20. So all the context that we need is right there in 2 Kings chapter 18 to 20. And here's the context, kind of set us up for this yesterday and we're gonna drive the point home today, okay? Hezekiah, one of the best Kings to ever live. I mean, the man finds the covenant, okay? The covenant law of God had been lost. He finds it, he reads it out loud, he weeps, he repents. There's a religious reformation in Judah. I mean, people start seeking God again. Like Hezekiah is one of the most godly Kings and his dad is one of the worst Kings, okay? So Ahaz, wicked King, gives birth to a really solid, awesome, incredible guy by the name of Hezekiah. And then Hezekiah's son Manasseh is gonna, he's gonna be trash. So we get, you know, evil King, great King, evil King. So there we go. Now, back to, let me focus, back to what I'm talking about. So Hezekiah is an incredible leader, like intent on religious reform and cuts down Asherah poles, destroys all the high places. I mean, he is, I mean, adamant

that Israel worship God the right way, okay? Worship Yahweh and be loyal to Yahweh. But he inherited something from his dad. And the thing that he inherited from his father is that he was a vassal to the kingdom of Assyria. So what we're going to see is there is bookends to this whole section. This section of Isaiah spans from chapter one to chapter 39. What we're gonna see is the, this whole section is a bookended. With Isaiah confronting Ahaz in the beginning, Ahaz switching allegiance from Yahweh to a new Suzerain by the name of Tiglath-Pileser. And that is gonna be in the context of the Syro-Ephraimatic war, okay? So four things I need you to see from the beginning of the book. You've got the Syro-Ephraimatic war. You've got the prophet Isaiah who's confronting the King named Ahaz. And the confrontation is very, very easy to understand. It is be loyal to your Suzerain named Yahweh. Do not cheat on Yahweh with a new Suzerain named Tiglath-Pileser III, okay? So those are the main characters. This section of Isaiah is going to end with Isaiah confronting Hezekiah about Sennacherib. And this is gonna be the Assyrian invasion. So literally a four for four comparison. Okay, so chapters 36 to 39 are mirrored

in chapters one through 12. And what's mirrored? You got the prophet Isaiah. You've got a King, Ahaz on one side, Hezekiah on the other. You have a rival Suzerain, Tiglath-Pileser III. on one side and Sennacherib, his grandson, on the other side, and then the Syro-Ephramatic war on one side and the Assyrian invasion on the other. So Isaiah chapters one through 12 are supposed to mirror Isaiah chapter 36 to 39, okay? So this is a literary mirror. Now I want to show you this, like Dr. Mann is not just like making this up, okay? I want you to grab your Bible and I want you to go to chapter 36 and chapter seven. We're gonna compare what happens in chapter seven, verse three with what happens in chapter 36, verse two to three. So let's look at Ahaz in Isaiah chapter seven. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, this is Isaiah chapter seven, verse three. Then the Lord said to Isaiah, go out you and your son Shear-Jashub to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool on the road to the launderer's field, okay? So where's the setting of this conversation? At the upper pool. And then if you go to Isaiah chapter 36, we got to go to verse two.

The king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. So this is Ahaz's son, Hezekiah, when the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the upper pool on the road to the launderer's field. So that's verbatim, okay? The aqueduct of the upper pool on the road to the launderer's field. So Ahaz is confronted in the exact same place that Hezekiah is gonna be confronted at the aqueduct of the upper pool on the road to the launderer's field. And they both are gonna be in the valley of decision. And what decision does Ahaz make in the prior generation or the previous generation? Ahaz decides to be disloyal to his suzerain, to cheat on Yahweh, and to trust Tiglath-Piles of the third. What decision is Hezekiah gonna make? Well, he makes the same decision. He cheats on his suzerain. He's disloyal to his suzerain. And who is that suzerain? Sennacherib is that suzerain. And in the same way that Ahaz cheated on Yahweh and chose Tiglath-Piles, Hezekiah is gonna cheat on Sennacherib and choose Yahweh. This is the exact same thing, but opposite. So Ahaz is disloyal to his suzerain. It's just unfortunate that that suzerain is Yahweh.

He's disloyal to Yahweh, his suzerain, and chooses a new suzerain by the name of Tiglath-Piles. His son, Hezekiah, is disloyal to the suzerain named Sennacherib, the grandson of Tiglath-Piles, and chooses to be loyal to Yahweh, his actual suzerain, the person who he should be loyal to. And what are the consequences of this decision? Now, you can go all the way to chapter 37. Hezekiah is scared. Okay, go to verse 14. Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. And what does the letter say? We're gonna kill you, okay? We're gonna totally demolish you. And here's Hezekiah's response. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord. Lord almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God, over all the kingdom of the earth, you have made heaven and earth. Give ear, Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, Lord, and see. Listen to all the words of Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God. It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these people in their lands. So, just to give you more context, Assyria has destroyed all of Judah. The only thing left is Jerusalem, okay?

They have destroyed all the fortified cities of Judah. The only thing left is the capital. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them for they were not God, but only wooden stone fashioned by human hands. Now, Lord, our God, deliver us from his hand so that all the kings of the earth may know that you, Lord, are the only God. And so, what does Hezekiah do? He receives a letter. He's threatened by a real threat. Sennacherib has destroyed all of Judah. The only thing left is Jerusalem. He takes the letter and he spreads it out in the temple before the Lord, and he prays to God for deliverance. Verse 21, then Isaiah, son of Amos, sent a message to Hezekiah. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says. Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria, this is the word the Lord has against him. And there's a whole prophecy against him, okay? We don't need to read the entire prophecy, but I do want to tell you what happens in verse 36. Then the angel of the Lord went out and put death, put to death 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, broke camp and withdrew.

He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian empire. One day while he was worshiping in a temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adremalek and Sharizar killed him with the sword and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon, his son, succeeded him as king. And that is historically accurate. There's literally rooms in the British museum dedicated just to this time period in history. So Hezekiah trusts in Yahweh. And what does God do? Kills 185,000 soldiers. Done in one night. Kills all of them. And Sennacherib sees this as a curse from the gods and hightails it all the way back to Nineveh. And now in the British museum, there's actually a, what is it called? It's like a stele. It's like a wall that's dedicated to defeat of Judah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's called the Taylor Prism. It's in the British museum. Here's the cool thing is that, you know, Sennacherib being the Assyrian king, he wrote all this down like in his records, okay? He claimed to have conquered 46 walled cities. Okay, so 46 walled cities in Judah fell,

but not 47, not Jerusalem. 46 walled cities fell, but not Jerusalem. He deported 200,000 people. Okay, so this is still bad. Okay, by the time Hezekiah prays and asks the Lord for deliverance, this is bad. 200,000 people have already been deported. And then here's what Sennacherib writes. Said, Hezekiah, I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. That's all he could say. I made Hezekiah like a bird in a cage, a prisoner inside Jerusalem. But guess what the tale of prison does not say. It does not say that Sennacherib was victorious. It does not say that Sennacherib conquered a 47th walled city. You can see how Sennacherib knows he lost, but he's trying to frame it in the most positive way possible. Okay, he's like, yeah, I conquered 46 walled cities, deported 200,000 people. And I said, Hezekiah, I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, a royal residence, like a bird in a cage. Political propaganda goes all the way back to biblical times. He's not gonna admit that he was defeated. He's just gonna say, but I conquered 46 cities and I deported 200,000 people. He's not gonna admit that 185,000 of his soldiers died.

And then he hightailed it back to Nineveh and abandoned a siege city that he was so close to conquering. So Hezekiah is foiled with Ahaz, okay? Ahaz over here is disloyal to his true suzerain Yahweh and instead decides to be loyal to Telath-Pileser in the middle of the Syro-Ephraimatic war. And Isaiah is the prophet who's actually calling Ahaz into account. Over here, one generation later, Hezekiah is disloyal to his suzerain, Sennacherib, and is now loyal again to Yahweh. Yahweh comes through with deliverance. This is incredible. And this, you're gonna think, oh, wow, yes, Hezekiah is amazing. But no, chapter 39 is gonna end on a sour note. Before we get to chapter 39, we gotta deal with chapter 38 because chapter 38, Hezekiah is sick and he prays to the Lord for 15 more years. God grants him 15 more years. Now, there's a lot of people who say, well, in that 15 extra years, he gives birth to a son named Manasseh and that son is evil. Well, hold your horses. The son was actually already born. The reign, if you look at what year everyone is reigning in books like Kings and Isaiah, what you don't realize is that the reigns are overlapping.

So the reason that it looks like Manasseh, that Hezekiah is dead when Manasseh starts to reign is actually because good kings would allow their sons to co-reign with them as co-regents to teach them how to reign. So when Hezekiah gets an extra 15 years of life, Manasseh's already born. Because there's a lot of people who would make the argument, I've heard this preached a couple of times, that Hezekiah should have just trusted God's plan and not asked for 15 years. more years because in the 15 years that Hezekiah was alive, he had Manasseh and Manasseh became the most evil king in Israel's history. And I just go, first of all, that's just not even historically true. Like, it's not true. It can't be theologically true because it's not actually historically true. Second of all, that's terrible theology. Actually, the better theological point to take from all of that is that God told Hezekiah to the prophet Isaiah that he was gonna die because of a disease. And he prays and God gives him an extra 15 years of life, which means that our relationship with God is not static, but our relationship with God is dynamic. And prayer does actually have an effect on the things that God will do. And some things God has fixed, right? Like there are certain things that are fixed and then there are some things that are not fixed. And for those things, I actually think we should pray and we should bombard heaven and we should ask God to change His mind when things are not fixed. And we don't know what's fixed or not fixed, so we should pray about everything. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally today, I walked into a Barnes & Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes & Noble, or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the

Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right. Back to the episode. Then chapter 39. Okay. This is the story of Babylonian envoys. Okay. Now, remember Assyria still in control. Babylon is a fellow vassal with Israel of the kingdom of Assyria. So Assyria, Suzerain, Babylon vassal, Israel vassal, the Babylonians are gonna want to rebel against Assyria and they're looking for allies. And so Hezekiah for whatever reason thinks, well, let me show them all the money I've got in the temple treasury, which would have been the, you know, the equivalent of like the national treasury. Let me show them how much money we've got. We'd be a good ally. And again, as if he did not get the lesson, don't trust in political alliances. Like remember the last time you trusted God and he just miraculously killed 185,000 soldiers. Wasn't that awesome, dude? No. He wants to partner with the Babylonians to overthrow the Assyrians. And Isaiah walks in and we can just go to, uh, we can just go to Isaiah chapter 39, verse three. Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, what did these men say? And where do they come from? From a distant land, Hezekiah replied. They came to me from Babylon. The prophet asked, what did they see in your palace? They saw everything in my palace, Hezekiah said. There's nothing among my church that I did not show them. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, hear the word of the Lord Almighty. The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you will be taken away and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon. And guess who that's going to be? Daniel, Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego. They're all going to become eunuchs in the, you may not know that

Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are eunuchs, but they are, they become eunuchs in the palace of the King of Babylon. And a hundred and some odd years, like this is happening in 700 BC by 586 BC, the Babylonians who were currently a vassal of Assyria are actually going to overthrow Assyria and they're going to become the suzerain and the Babylonians are going to come and they are going to totally demolish Jerusalem. And Isaiah's words are going to come to pass. And that is the end of this entire section. Tomorrow when we pick up, it's going to be a totally different vibe. Okay. So I'll have to set us up because Isaiah chapter one to 39 is one cohesive unit. And so tomorrow at chapter 40 starts a totally different, um, section of the book of Isaiah, and we'll get oriented to that. Here's a timeless truth. I want to read it exactly how I wrote it. Will you be Ahaz or Hezekiah? Will you be the person who is disloyal to God to be loyal to another, or will you be Hezekiah who will become disloyal to whatever is a false God in your life to finally be loyal to God? I want to be Hezekiah. I don't want to be Ahaz. The follow-up question is this, are you going to trade Assyrian captivity for Babylonian captivity? That's exactly what Hezekiah does. He's faithful enough to avoid Assyrian captivity, but then falls right into the trap of Babylonian captivity. And there's so many Christians who avoid the trap of one thing, but then fall into the trap of another. And so the timeless truth for the day is that the enemy will always shapeshift and one season he's the Assyrian empire and the next season he's the Babylonians and you may think that the Babylonian empire is your friend, but really they're just the next Assyria and I know lots and lots and lots of Christians that have fallen out of one thing and to the

next out of legalism and then into licentiousness it's like, man, my parents, I was a PK and we were never allowed to do anything and it was super legalistic and now it's like, they've gotten into drunkenness and it's like, wait a minute, how did you trade the Assyrian captivity for Babylonian captivity, Jesus wants you to be free and freedom requires wisdom. And it takes a lot of foresight to see the Babylonians for who they are. They want to be my next captor. They want to be the next thing that holds me captive. All right. That's our timeless truth. And guys, we made it through a large chunk of the book of Isaiah. I hope that you can see chapters one to 39 are all prophesying about some future that's going to happen. Um, and now as we cross over into the next section of the book, we're actually going to deal with, um, the people who are in exile family. I'll see you right here tomorrow for day two Oh three. We're stepping into a brand new section of the book of Isaiah is going to be amazing. Tomorrow. We've got Isaiah chapters 40 to 43. If you're on a streak, don't break it. I'm so proud of you. Love you. See you right here tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend and subscribe so that you never miss an episode to learn more about the show. Head to the Bible department.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.