Hezekiah’s Prayer

Hezekiah receives the Assyrian letter, spreads it before the LORD, and prays from the place of God's enthronement and universal sovereignty rather than from panic. He acknowledges the real devastation Assyria has inflicted, but refuses the false comparison between the LORD and the destroyed gods of the nations, and he asks for salvation not merely for Judah's survival but so that all kingdoms may know that the LORD alone is God.

S¹⁴o 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. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: 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. 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. ¹⁸Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands. 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. 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. ”