1/01/2007

Sennacherib, King of Assyria

(The Word of the Lord concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria) "By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, 'With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon, to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest. I dug wells and drank waters, to dry up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.'

"'Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins, while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown.

"'I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me. Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.'
(Isa 37:24-29)


This passage affects me on multiple levels. On the one hand, it thrills me to see the sovereignty of God. I love seeing how God is in such utter control that these mighty Assyrians are nothing to be feared and mere putty in His hands. The Israelites do not even need to pick up weapons because the angel of the Lord is going to strike 185,000 Assyrian warriors dead in the middle of the night!

But on the other hand, this passage challenges my understanding of God deeply. How can our "God of love" plan the destruction of cities and make the people like grass on housetops? This is obviously an oversimplification of God's character. He is so much more than merely a God of love. . .or maybe my finite, mortal, temporal mind cannot grasp all the intricacies of God's expression of his love.

1 comment:

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