178 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



went beyond his commission. And therefore, as Senna 

 cherib s host rose to deeds of ever wilder violence, as the 

 yoke was tightened around the neck of Jerusalem and 

 human help seemed more distant, Isaiah s spirit rose. 

 He stirred up the king and people to some share of his 

 own confidence, persuaded them to reject an offer of 

 alliance from Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, 1 and to collect 

 their strength within the fortresses in patient expectation 

 of a God-sent deliverance. And now Sennacherib lay at 

 the gates, deliberately preparing to sweep Judah from the 

 face of the earth, and so remove the last barrier that lay 

 between him and Egypt, and secure an impregnable posi 

 tion in which to await the assault of Tirhakah. The 

 strength but not the faith of the nation was exhausted, 

 but Jahveh fought for His people. A terrible pestilence 

 ravaged the host of the Assyrians, and the panic-stricken 

 remnant sought their own land in the wildest confusion. 



We cannot better characterise this great blow, from 

 which Assyria never recovered, than in the words of 

 Ewald : 



&quot; In the evolution of these great events, Jerusalem 

 had been the last knot round which all turned, but also 

 the strong rock on which the arrogance of the Assyrian 

 was broken ; and further, the fire that burned between 

 Assyrian and Jew was no mere war of subjugation, but 

 had at last risen to the height of a purely religious con 

 flict. 2 If, then, the victory here remained on the side of 

 Jerusalem, it is no less true that Faith in the might of the 

 spiritual God, whom the Jews worshipped, had gained a 

 visible victory, as glorious as we can well conceive. It 

 was one of those rare days when the truth, which is not to 

 be grasped with hands, and which is so slow to find deep 

 entrance among men, once more forced itself, with over 

 whelming certainty on the people. . . . The long and 

 weary straits that went before, the hard temptation, the 

 swift surprising deliverance, the compression of everything 

 into Faith in the true Helper, makes this time parallel to 

 the first foundation of the theocracy. And hence its 



1 Isa. xviii. 2 On both sides. See Isa. xxxvi. 18 sqq. 



