Isaiah · 38 verses
Isaiah 37
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What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
The night ends with 185,000 dead in the Assyrian camp, and the morning report is almost offensively plain: everyone got up, and there they were.
Sackcloth and a rumourvv. 1–9
Hezekiah hears the Rabshakeh’s report, tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth, and goes into the house of the LORD. Eliakim, Shebna, and the leading priests go likewise to Isaiah son of Amoz, carrying a plea for prayer and describing a nation in the painful language of a birth that cannot be completed. Isaiah answers with a promise that the Assyrian king will hear a rumour, return home, and fall by the sword. Meanwhile, the Rabshakeh leaves Lachish and finds Sennacherib fighting at Libnah; then news arrives that Tirhakah is coming against him.
A letter spread before the LORDvv. 10–20
Sennacherib sends Hezekiah another message, this time arguing that Jerusalem will fare no better than all the countries already crushed by Assyria. The letter parades a catalogue of vanished kings and defeated gods. Hezekiah reads it, carries it into the house of the LORD, spreads it out before the LORD, and prays. His prayer grants the Assyrians their record of destruction, but insists that their gods were only wood and stone, and asks that Jerusalem be saved so that the kingdoms of the earth may know who alone is God.
The camp at breakfastvv. 21–38
Isaiah brings the answer: Sennacherib has been mocked by the Daughter of Jerusalem, and his grand claims about mountains, cedars, wells, and even drying up Egypt’s streams are answered by a hook in his nose and a bit in his mouth. He will not enter Jerusalem. A remnant will take root, and the LORD will defend the city. Then the angel of the LORD strikes 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. In the morning, the people rise to find the dead bodies. Sennacherib withdraws to Nineveh, where his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer kill him while he worships in the temple of Nisroch; Esar-haddon succeeds him, with the throne changing hands rather more briskly than the boastful speech had suggested.
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Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Isa 37:1On hearing this report, King Hezekiah tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and entered the house of the LORD.
Isa 37:2And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz
Isa 37:3to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.
Isa 37:4Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”
Isa 37:6who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the LORD says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.
Isa 37:7Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”
Isa 37:8When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.
Isa 37:9Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “He has set out to fight against you.” On hearing this, Sennacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
Isa 37:10“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
Isa 37:11Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared?
Isa 37:12Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar?
Isa 37:13Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”
Isa 37:14So Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers, read it, and went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD.
Isa 37:16“O LORD of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.
Isa 37:17Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see. Listen to all the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God.
Isa 37:18Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands.
Isa 37:19They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.
Isa 37:20And now, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.”
Isa 37:21Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,
Isa 37:22this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.
Isa 37:23Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!
Isa 37:24Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests.
Isa 37:25I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”
Isa 37:26Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.
Isa 37:27Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, are dismayed and ashamed. They are like plants in the field, tender green shoots, grass on the rooftops, scorched before it is grown.
Isa 37:28But I know your sitting down, your going out and coming in, and your raging against Me.
Isa 37:29Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’
Isa 37:30And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
Isa 37:31And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below and bear fruit above.
Isa 37:32For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.
Isa 37:33So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it.
Isa 37:34He will go back the way he came, and he will not enter this city,’ declares the LORD.
Isa 37:35‘I will defend this city and save it for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”
Isa 37:36Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
Isa 37:37So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
Isa 37:38One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. And his son Esar-haddon reigned in his place.
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 470 passages were voted onto 37 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 3Isaiah 66:9Shall I bring a baby to the point of birth and not deliver it?” says the LORD. “Or will I who deliver close the womb?” says your God.
- 3Hosea 13:13Labor pains come upon him, but he is an unwise son. When the time arrives, he fails to present himself at the opening of the womb.
- 352 Kings 20:6I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”
- 35Isaiah 38:6And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.
- 35Isaiah 31:5Like birds hovering overhead, so the LORD of Hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will shield it and deliver it; He will pass over it and preserve it.”
- 32 Kings 19:3to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.
- 3Psalms 50:15Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”
- 3Isaiah 26:17–18As a woman with child about to give birth writhes and cries out in pain, so were we in Your presence, O LORD.
- 31Isaiah 27:6In the days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole world with fruit.
- 362 Kings 19:35And that very night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
- 36Isaiah 10:12So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.
- 26Acts 4:27–28In fact, this is the very city where Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed.
- 302 Kings 19:29And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
- 312 Kings 19:30–31And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below and bear fruit above.
- 35Ephesians 1:14who is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of His glory.
- 35Jeremiah 33:15–16In those days and at that time I will cause to sprout for David a righteous Branch, and He will administer justice and righteousness in the land.
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