- Judah is under siege by the Assyrians. They were the big, bad guys of the time. They had been swallowing up other nations. They came to Judah confident that they could take their cities for themselves.
- They seem to come up into Judah and lay siege to a city, but they aren’t at Jerusalem.
- When Hezekiah sees that they have come up against their land, he sets out to defend Jerusalem.
- He gets everyone working to fill in the springs to stop the water so that when the Assyrians come they won’t find a water source.
- The rebuild broken-down parts of the wall and built another wall. They build towers and strengthen their boundary.
- He also has shields and weapons made in abundance and appoints combat commanders.
- He’s not remembering that the Lord delivered them before without them using a single weapon.
- He’s relying on man’s methods of defense and self-preservation.
- Not a stitch of it will be needful, that day or in the days to come. And to add to that they ruined up their own springs of water.
- It was needless fuss and fret.
- When Hezekiah gathers the people together, he speaks to them with words of faith to encourage them, even though he hadn’t been acting on them himself.
- He tells the people that they have more on their side than the Assyrians do because they have the Lord God on their side.
- He says that they have the Lord God to both help them and to fight their battles.
- Hezekiah knows God is there to fight their battles. He’s just not completely trusting in that while he’s running around trying to defend himself.
- The next part of the story is God’s grace to move Hezekiah to act on the truth he says he believes in.
- It’s that turning to God in faith that saves them, not the fuss and fret and hard work of trying to save themselves.
