Isaiah 36:19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?
Have you ever greatly underestimated a person or thing? There have been times this fall where we have had some long trips. In order to keep up with our schedule we have finished a church service, driven a couple hundred miles, grabbed a night’s sleep, then finished our trip the next day. Sometimes I can be a little optimistic about how far it is to our next destination. Sometimes a trip is bigger than I think it is!
People often underestimate God. They have no idea of just how big God is! The king of Assyria had done this because he was taken with his own importance. The king of Assyria sent messengers to King Hezekiah and said, “I’m taking over. I’m taking everything you have.” Several times the king of Assyria taunted King Hezekiah, the king of God’s people, and said to the people, “Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord.”
When the Assyrians addressed God’s people directly, they said, “Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you.” They also arrogantly asked, “Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?” The Assyrians were basing their estimation of God Jehovah on the way God had been represented by the people who should have known Him.
Back in II Kings 17, the Bible speaks of people who feared the Lord and served their own gods. When Assyria had taken Samaria, they began to colonize Samaria with other conquered peoples. Those peoples mixed with the remnant left in Samaria, and what came of it was a mixed religion. This mix of conquered peoples accepted all the gods of the area, and, of course, they included God Jehovah. They were, in effect, idolatrous, but they acknowledged God in some small way.
So, it is easy to understand that the king of Assyria would have such a small impression of God based on the fact that those who should have known God had given such a weak impression of God. “Where are their gods?” the king of Assyria said. Hezekiah very well estimated this day when he said, “This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy.” The king of Assyria was blaspheming God, Israel herself had been rebuked, and it was a day of trouble. The answer was to seek God alone.
In Isaiah 37:16 King Hezekiah basically says to God, “You are God alone. You have made heaven and earth.” In contrast, all the idols that the Assyrians knew about were the work of men’s hands. Then Hezekiah says in verse 20, “Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD, even thou only.”
Sometimes the people in our world have a low estimation of God because of the impression we have given them. Instead of giving them a full portrait of a living God manifested through our actions and in our life, we give God as a caricature, a poor artist’s conception of what God is. Sometimes we present Him as a small god, not the God Who created the world and is the Sovereign in our lives. The result is that those around us have a weak concept of God.
Did God deliver Hezekiah? He most certainly did, and the reason is that Hezekiah saw God for Who He is. Hezekiah trusted God for all that He is. Assyria was soon to find out that God was not just another god.