Isaiah 37

Hezekiah does not answer the letter; he spreads it before the LORD in the temple. It is a model of taking a threat straight to God.

Calvin: Hezekiah took the letters. He immediately went into the Temple, to lament before the Lord the calamity which he could not remove, and to cast upon him his grief and his anxieties. Nor was this a blind or confused lamentation, but the pious king wished to move God by his tears and complaints to render assistance. In spreading the letters before the Lord, he does not do this as if the Lord did not know what was contained in the letters; God knows our wants and necessities before we ask anything from him. The reason and design was this, that he might excite his own earnestness, and inflame his own ardor, in prayer.

Hezekiah’s prayer (vv. 16–20) moves from who God is—enthroned above the cherubim, Maker of heaven and earth—to what he asks. Praise comes before petition.

Calvin: because Sennacherib was the agent employed by Satan to shake the faith of Hezekiah, he defends himself by this rampart, that God possesses infinite power; by bestowing on God those lofty praises, he undoubtedly encourages himself to confidence in supplication. Before forming any prayer, he overturns the delusions by which Satan had endeavored to shake his courage. That our prayers may not be unsuccessful, we ought always to hold it as certain that God is the rewarder of all who seek him.

Wesley: he calls him the God of Israel, because Israel was his peculiar people; but yet the God of the whole earth, not as Sennacherib fancied, the God of Israel only. Let them say what they will, thou art sovereign Lord, the God of gods, even thou alone: universal Lord of all the kingdoms of the earth; and rightful Lord; for thou hast made heaven and earth. Being creator of all, by an incontestable title thou art owner and ruler of all.

Hezekiah addresses God as the God of Israel and the only God of all the kingdoms. Wesley notes the point against Sennacherib: the LORD is not a local deity but Creator and Ruler of all.

Calvin: thou alone art God over all the kingdoms of the earth: not only does he assert God’s almighty power, but likewise maintains the authority which he exercises over the whole world; these statements strengthen the faith he entertained about the providence of God, by which he governs the world and every part of it. It is impossible that God, who is the Creator of heaven and earth, should forsake his work; on the contrary, he governs by his providence the human race. Sitting between the cherubim is on account of the form of the ark; it was a symbol of the presence of God, though his power was not confined to it; Hezekiah intended to express his firm belief that God was present with him. God accommodates himself to our weakness that the sacraments may serve to us the purpose of ladders.

Wesley: him—Rabshakeh: he would not do him the honour to name him.

Hezekiah asks God to hear and see, echoing the language of covenant appeal. Wesley notes that he will not dignify Rabshakeh by name; the plea is about the living God being defied.

Calvin: from these words we conclude how great was the perplexity of Hezekiah; the earnestness that pervades the prayer breathes an amazing power of anguish. Does he think that he is asleep or does not hear? By no means; but in a matter of such difficulty we frequently speak as if we thought that God was absent. Open thine eyes: it is as if Hezekiah had prayed that the assistance of God, which he had long kept in his heart committed to the guardianship of hope, would be actually and publicly manifested. Although he was deeply affected by anxiety about his kingdom and people, yet he set a higher value on the glory of God than on all other sources of uneasiness.

Wesley (on vv. 14–20): of a truth the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their countries.

Hezekiah concedes that Assyria did lay waste the nations. He doesn’t deny the facts; he reinterprets them in v. 19.

Calvin: here Hezekiah begins to distinguish between the false gods and the true God. It is not enough that we believe in something which heathens imagine to be a deity; we must believe in God in such a manner as to distinguish him from pretended gods. The beginning of true piety is, that from the whole multitude of false gods we shall wisely distinguish that one God to whom we ought to be entirely devoted.

Hezekiah grants the facts—Assyria did burn the nations’ gods—but explains them: those gods were wood and stone. The same logic makes the living God’s rescue the proof of who he is (v. 20).

Calvin: by two arguments Hezekiah shews that they were not gods; first, because they consisted of matter, and secondly, because they were formed by the hands of men. Nothing can be more absurd than for a man to assume the right to create a god. It is in the highest degree absurd to frame some deity out of matter which is corruptible and devoid of feeling, as if wood or stone, whenever it received a shape, began to be a god.

Wesley: his prayer. Now therefore, Therefore, LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD, even thou only.

Hezekiah’s prayer ends with its aim: that all the kingdoms of the earth would know that the LORD alone is God.

Calvin: at the conclusion of his prayer, the pious king now rises above that fear with which he had struggled. Although God does not always deliver his people from temporal evils, yet as he had promised that he would be the protector of the city, Hezekiah could firmly believe that all the efforts of that wicked tyrant would be fruitless. Nothing is more desirable than to make his name glorious; this is even the chief design of our salvation. Those men are unworthy of his assistance who, satisfied with their own salvation, disregard why God chooses to preserve them. Hezekiah does not only desire that the God of Israel shall hold a certain rank, but that all idols shall be abolished, and that he shall reign alone; he does not admit companions.

Calvin refuses to let the cry to be saved imply a God who shares the throne.