Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 3 of 5
Devotional: May 23rd

Isaiah 36:1-10; ; Isaiah 36:22; Isaiah 37:1-4

Ch. 36-39 form a historical interlude between the two main prophetic divisions of the book of Isaiah. It involves an account which we know already from 2 Kings 18:13 to 2 Kings 20:21 and 2 Chronicles 32:1-33. God gives it to us a third time as a living illustration on the one hand of confidence in Him, and on the other hand of His gracious answers to that confidence. Although it comes unexpectedly at this point in the book, this great story involving Hezekiah is intended to strengthen "weak hands" and make "feeble knees" firm (Isaiah 35:3). It is also a picture of the situation in which the remnant of Israel will be found at the time of the Assyrian invasion.

The enemy who was victorious until then presents himself "by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field", at the very place to which, at the invasion of Rezin, the prophet and his son Shear-jashub had been sent to meet Ahaz with a message of grace (Isaiah 7:3-4). Faced with the provocative words of this new invader, Hezekiah can also remember the promise made to his father at the same spot: "Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted . . ."