What does Isaias Chapter 37 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The account retains the chapter’s particular images, requests and conditions. The speaker’s claims and the edition’s interpretations remain attributed. Unstated motives and general guarantees are not supplied as source facts.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 37 reports Ezechias rending clothes, wearing sackcloth and entering the Lord's house. Eliacim, Sobna and priestly elders in sackcloth go to Isaias with a message about tribulation, rebuke and blasphemy, compared with birth without strength. The king asks prayer for the remnant, saying perhaps the Lord will hear Rabsaces. Isaias says not to fear: a spirit, news, return to his country and death by sword are announced without defining the spirit's effect.

Rabsaces finds his king fighting Lobna after leaving Lachis. News of Tharaca's advance prompts further messages naming destroyed peoples and defeated kings. Ezechias reads the letter and spreads it before the Lord, without a specified altar. He prays to the creator enthroned over cherubim, distinguishes destroyed wooden and stone gods, and asks salvation so all kingdoms know the Lord.

Isaias conveys the Lord's answer. Sion scorns and wags her head at the reproacher of the Holy One. The boast of climbing Libanus and cutting cedars and entering Carmel remains future speech. Wells and dried rivers accompany the answer about ancient plans, destroyed fortified cities and weak people like grass and roof growth. The Lord knows dwelling, coming, going and rage, and promises a nose ring and lip bit returning the attacker along his route.

The sign gives self-grown food in the first year, fruits in the second, and sowing, reaping and vineyards in the third. The remnant roots and bears fruit through the Lord's zeal. Sennacherib will not enter the city, shoot an arrow, approach with shield or cast a trench; protection is for the Lord's own and David's sake. An angel strikes 185,000, found dead in the morning; an exact night or midnight is not supplied. Sennacherib returns to Ninive. While worshipping Nesroch, he is killed by Adramelech and Sarasar, who flee to Ararat; Asarhaddon succeeds him.

The story inside

Opening: The account retains the chapter’s particular images, requests and conditions. Development: The speaker’s claims and the edition’s interpretations remain attributed. Conclusion: Unstated motives and general guarantees are not supplied as source facts.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The account retains the chapter’s particular images, requests and conditions.
2
The speaker’s claims and the edition’s interpretations remain attributed.
3
Unstated motives and general guarantees are not supplied as source facts.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 81496–81503
37:1. And it came to pass, when king Ezechias had heard it, that he rent his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 37:2. And he sent Eliacim who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and the ancients of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaias the son of Amos the prophet.
Lines 81518–81525
37:7. Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a message, and shall return to his own country, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own country. 37:8. And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lobna. For he had heard that he was departed from Lachis.
Lines 81553–81574
heaven and earth. 37:17. Incline, O Lord, thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to blaspheme the living God. 37:18. For of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid waste lands, and their countries. 37:19. And they have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the works of men’s hands, of wood and stone: and they broke them in pieces. 37:20. And now, O Lord our God, save us out of his hand: and let all the kingdoms of the earth know, that thou only art the Lord. 37:21. And Isaias the son of Amos sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: For the prayer thou hast made to me concerning Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians: 37:22. This is the word which the Lord hath spoken of him: The virgin the daughter of Sion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the
Lines 81580–81586
37:24. By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord: and hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus: and I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees, and will enter to the top of its height, to the forest of its Carmel.
Lines 81587–81588
Carmel.... See these figurative expressions explained in the annotations on the nineteenth chapter of the fourth book of Kings.
Lines 81618–81629
37:32. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and salvation from mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. 37:33. Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it. 37:34. By the way that he came, he shall return, and into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord. 37:35. And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for the sake of David my servant.
Lines 81631–81641
37:36. And the angel of the Lord went out and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose in the morning, and behold they were all dead corpses. 37:37. And Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians went out and departed, and returned, and dwelt in Ninive. 37:38. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, that Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword: and they fled into the land of Ararat, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.