Sennacherib’s Fall Prophesied

Because Hezekiah prayed, Isaiah receives and sends a word from the LORD that personifies virgin daughter Zion as despising Sennacherib's boasting. The Assyrian king is confronted with the truth that his rage has really been directed against the Holy One of Israel, and that the conquests he credits to himself were in fact planned by God long ago; therefore, because the LORD knows his going out, coming in, and arrogance, He will hook him like a beast and turn him back the way he came.

T²¹hen 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, ²²this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ²³Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? ²⁴Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, ²⁵I have dug wells ²⁶Have you not heard? ²⁷Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, ²⁸But I know your sitting down, ²⁹Because your rage and arrogance against Me

The LORD then gives Hezekiah a sign tied to the land itself: Judah will survive lean seasons, then plant again, and the surviving remnant will take root downward and bear fruit upward. On that basis He declares that the king of Assyria will not enter the city, shoot there, or build siegeworks against it, because the LORD Himself will defend Jerusalem for His own name and for David His servant.

³⁰And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: ³¹And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah ³²For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, ³³So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ³⁴He will go back the way he came, ³⁵‘I will defend this city