Original Meaning
ALTHOUGH THE DATES for the end of Ahaz’s reign and the beginning of Hezekiah’s are complicated by apparently contradictory datings in 2 Kings 18, it seems probable that Ahaz died in 716 B.C. and that Hezekiah either began to reign then or assumed full regnancy after having been coregent for some time.1 But it is not clear what the significance of Ahaz’s death is for the meaning of this oracle. It is possible that the date has no significance for the interpretation of the judgment on Philistia, but since there are only three datings in Isaiah (6:1; here; 20:1), that does not seem likely.
Nevertheless, the connection is unclear. If Ahaz had been a threat to the Philistines, it would be natural to say he was the broken rod who had struck the Philistines. But that is not the case. If anything the reverse was true, for 2 Chronicles 28:18 indicates that Ahaz lost several cities to the Philistines. Perhaps the date is significant because the Philistines had revolted against Assyria at this time and were urging the new king Hezekiah to join them because Assyria, “the rod that struck [us,] is broken.” In 715 B.C. Sargon of Assyria was still trying to regain full control of the empire after his accession in 721, and the Philistines may have taken this prolonged struggle as a sign of weakness. If that is correct, Isaiah quickly disabuses them of such a false notion. In fact, Assyria’s period of greatest strength is still in its youth and will continue to grow for another sixty years. Like Moses’ staff, this “rod” will turn into a “snake,” and the snake will give birth to a venomous “viper” (Isa. 14:29).
Verses 30 and 32 strengthen the suggestion that the Philistines are inviting the Judeans to join them in revolt. To this proposal, Isaiah answers that the Lord will take care of Judah without any help from the Philistines. Here again is the trust issue. Will Judah trust the nations or the Lord? They need not ally themselves with the Philistines because the Judeans are the flock of God, and he will tend them (14:30; see also 40:11). In fact, the great Philistines themselves will be consumed by a “cloud of smoke…from the north” (14:31). This refers to the Assyrian armies coming south along the coast. Since “the LORD has established Zion,” an alliance with a soon-to-be-destroyed neighbor is hardly necessary.
Bridging Contexts
THE ISSUE HERE is the folly of turning away from that which is secure to depend on what is failing. The Lord’s help often seems so intangible while the material and physical seems so real. Today as in ancient times, we need prophets who will help us see the real fragility of what seems on the surface to be so strong.
Contemporary Significance
THE CHURCH TODAY is often in the position of Judah. We feel beleaguered on every hand, and we look for allies. Unfortunately, the allies to whom we are tempted to turn are weaker than us and in some cases are actually our enemies, just as Philistia was to Judah. We feel we need a large new facility and turn to a fund-raising consultant who has only veneered over the most cynical and manipulative methods of the world with a layer of superficial “spirituality.”
Yet it is “Zion” that will survive when all the world’s institutions are gone. Is it wrong “to spoil the Egyptians,” to raid the world for its best products? No, but the history of the church’s attempts to do this is a pretty sorry one. All too often we discover that the world’s “best products” carry with them understandings of reality that are alien to everything the church stands for. All too often the subtle assumption on which these methods and approaches is based is that “God helps those who help themselves.” Count Bismarck is reported to have said, “God is on the side of the big battalions.” That is the world talking. The Bible says “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Prov. 3:5). That is what Isaiah is saying.
1. Second Kings 18:1, 9–10 place the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign in 727 B.C. before the fall of the northern kingdom. Yet v. 13 says that Sennacherib’s attack, which can be dated securely in 701 B.C., occurred in Hezekiah’s fourteenth year. Perhaps there was a coregency with his father Ahaz until 716, but elsewhere in Kings the first year of a coregency is counted as the king’s first year of rule, meaning that we would expect 18:13 to say that Sennacherib’s attack occurred in Hezekiah’s twenty-sixth year. For a full discussion of the problems, see E. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 132–40.