United States or Cabo Verde ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The great outward events that took place during Isaiah's public career were the invasion of Judah by the combined forces of Israel and Syria in the reign of Ahaz, and the great Assyrian invasion in the reign of Hezekiah. In regard to the first, it was disastrous to Judah.
The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the LORD from his holy temple.
Now Jotham died when he had lived forty-one years, and of them reigned sixteen, and was buried in the sepulchers of the kings; and the kingdom came to his son Ahaz, who proved most impious towards God, and a transgressor of the laws of his country.
This prophecy has for its historical background the calamitous reign of the weak and wicked Ahaz, during which the heart of the nation was bowed, like a forest before the blast, by the dread of foreign invasion and conquest. The prophet predicts a day of gloom and anguish, and then, out of the midst of his threatenings, bursts this glorious vision, sudden as sunrise.
But do not for heaven's sake call in Sargon; if you do you will supply him with an excuse for meddling and we shall never get rid of him. This was good counsel, but Ahaz was too short-sighted and panic-stricken to take much notice of it, so in oriental fashion Isaiah goes on to paint a picture of future disaster.
We are told that Ahaz, seeing the offerings made by Tiglath-Pileser at Damascus, commanded his priests at Jerusalem, despite the remonstrance of Isaiah, to make offerings to the Assyrian gods. Judah, as the result of these events, became tributary to Assyria.
Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27; Jacob to the viceroy of Egypt, Gen. xliii. 11; Joseph to his brethren and father, Gen. xlv. 22, 23; Benhadad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9; Ahaz to Tiglath Pilezer, 2 Kings vi. 8; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings x. 13; Jeroboam to Ahijah, 1 Kings xiv. 3; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv. 18, 19.
Throughout his reign, Hezekiah devoted himself mainly to the task of dispelling the ignorance of the Torah which his father had caused. While Ahaz had forbidden the study of the law, Hezekiah's orders read: "Who does not occupy himself with the Torah, renders himself subject to the death penalty." The academies closed under Ahaz were kept open day and night under Hezekiah.
Once he and Phillida had broken, he had set out to be what he had been before. But who shall cause the shadow to go backward upon the dial of Ahaz? When was a human being ever the same after a capital passion that he had been before?
Let us begin with ourselves, lest, like careless servants, we leave dirty finger-marks where we have been 'cleaning. The next point in the speech is the profound and painful sense of existing corruption. The historical truth of the picture is confirmed by the close of the previous chapter, and its vividness shows how deeply Hezekiah had felt the shame and sin of Ahaz.
Word Of The Day