The momentous issues involved in Sennacherib’s defeat
We do not, perhaps, realise the magnitude of the crisis, not alone in the life and fortunes of Isaiah, but in the history of the Jews, and, inbreed, of the world at large.
It is not too much to say that if Sennacherib had taken Jerusalem, in all human probability the Jews would have ceased to exist as a nation, and the world would not have been prepared for the coming of Christ. They had not yet reached a point in their training at which the national life and religion could have survived such a calamity as that which a century later overtook Jerusalem in the time of Jeremiah; and there is every reason to believe that had they been carried captives now, they would simply have been absorbed into heathenism, as the ten tribes doubtless were. (Edward Grubb, M. A.)
Jerusalem and Leyden
The siege of Jerusalem reminds us of the siege of Leyden in later days. William the Silent (as Hezekiah had done before him) put his sole trust for deliverance in God. On the last night of the siege, and when help from man seemed hopeless, God came to their aid, and with His ocean and tempest delivered Leyden, and struck such terror into their enemies, that when the morning dawned, the Spaniards had fled, panic-struck, during the darkness. Leyden was relieved, and every person within its walls repaired to the great church to return thanks to Almighty God. (Sunday School Chronicle.)
Deliverance
The history of God’s people is one oft-repeated story of deliverance. Years ago, the Sultan of Turkey declared that every Christian missionary would be banished on a certain day. The Christians met in earnest prayer, and one said, “The great Sultan of the universe can change all this.” He did. The Sultan of Turkey died on the very day he had named for the expulsion of the missionaries, and they were allowed to remain. (J. S.Drummond.)
