Reading Isaiah 7 through 10 we see that God ties the prophecy of Immanuel to his judgment upon the king of Assyria. Assyria ruled much of the world during the days of Isaiah and scholars consider Assyria to have been the most powerful and greatest kingdom on earth then. The Kingdom of Babylon took that prize from Assyria in 609 BC. Prior to that the kings of Assyria destroyed and deported the northern kingdom of Israel and seriously attacked and compromised southern Judah, but that is only the first, the natural application, of the prophecies about Assyria.
The question we need to answer is, who does the king of Assyria represent spiritually? First we must understand Assyria’s role in the plan of God. Assyria is the rod of God’s wrath, his instrument to bring judgment upon his rebellious children. Isaiah says, “Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury!” (Is. 10:5) First, God wielded Assyria in order to bring chastisement and ultimately destruction to the rebellious house of Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
2 Kings 17
English Standard Version (ESV)
Hoshea Reigns in Israel
17 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. 2 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. 3 Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. 4 But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. 5 Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it.
The Fall of Israel
6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
Exile Because of Idolatry
7 And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods 8 and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.9 And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.10 They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, 11 and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord to anger,12 and they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, “You shall not do this.” 13 Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”
14 But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. 15 They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them. 16 And they abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. 17 And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings[a] and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 18 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only. (2 Kings 17:1-18 ESV)
Assyria finally conquered Israel in the ninth year of King Hoshea’s rule. Six years before this Hezekiah came to the throne of the southern kingdom of Judah. The Bible records that Hezekiah “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD” and that in his very first year of rule he cleansed the temple of God and restored Biblical temple worship. Remember from previous studies on this site that Hezekiah re-implemented the Feast of Passover and celebrated the only recorded Second Passover in Scripture. Second Passover, I believe, peculiarly relates to God’s overcomers. As an overcomer Hezekiah repented for the sins of his nation, restored their religious worship mandated by Scripture, and reached out to his fallen brethren in the northern kingdom to join in this restoration. Northern Israel refused to accept Hezekiah’s invitation, scorned him in fact, and were then annihilated as a nation by Assyria just a few years later. Here is the account of Hezekiah’s invitation:
Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover to theLord, the God of Israel. 2 For the king and his princes and all the assembly in Jerusalem had taken counsel to keep the Passover in the second month— 3 for they could not keep it at that time because the priests had not consecrated themselves in sufficient number, nor had the people assembled in Jerusalem— 4 and the plan seemed right to the king and all the assembly. 5 So they decreed to make a proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that the people should come and keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, for they had not kept it as often as prescribed. 6 So couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his princes, as the king had commanded, saying, “O people of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may turn again to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. 7 Do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were faithless to the Lord God of their fathers, so that he made them a desolation, as you see. 8 Do not now be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord and come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever, and serve the Lord your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you. 9 For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.”
10 So the couriers went from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. (2 Chronicles 30:1-10)
Judah, however, did not escape the rod of God’s punishment either. During Hezekiah’s reign God brought Assyria against Judah as well. Isaiah devotes chapters 36 and 37 of his prophetic book to the life and death drama of Judah led by King Hezekiah and Assyria led by King Sennacherib. Why was faithful and righteous Hezekiah punished? Because God chastens all of his sons.
5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:5-11)
The fact is that even God’s sons in the flesh remain subject to sin and rebellion so long as they dwell in their earthly tents. God used the physical power of Assyria to judge the two parts of his natural nation of Israel; God even now uses spiritual Assyria to chastise, discipline, and reprove his spiritual nation of Israel, those who believe in Jesus Christ. And, like Israel of old, today’s spiritual Israel consists of two parts. Christians who persist in rebellion to God’s ways correspond to the northern kingdom dominated by Ephraim and will be destroyed by spiritual Assyria. Christians who walk the path of the overcomer correspond to the southern part of Israel known as Judah and are even now encompassed by Assyria “up to their necks.”
… to be continued.
