But Ahaz died, and suddenly the Lord roused Isaiah with a tingling sense of hope. The Lord sent the prophet forth again in deliberate joy.
He was fifty. His hair had not turned grey. His body was healthy, his mind was stout—and one morning, under pressure of the deity, Isaiah rose early, trimmed his beard, washed and oiled himself, dressed in his finest raiment, and went out into the streets of Jerusalem to fulfill a command of God.
In his left hand he carried a ram’s horn, in his right a timbrel. Swiftly he ascended the temple hill, then took a stand at the southern gate between the courtyard of the Lord and the private quarters of the king, Solomon’s palace.
“Hezekiah!” he cried. “Hezekiah, come out! Let’s make your coronation more joyful than it was, so that your reign may become more blessed than it is!”
The prophet raised the ram’s horn to his lips and blew on it. He sent a thrilling blast through Jerusalem. He blew till the people began to fill the entire area between the temple and the palace.
And when the young king leaned out of an upper window, Isaiah began to sing. He beat the timbrel and raised his left hand and danced as if he were at a wedding:
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light!
Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness,
upon them the light has shined!
For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called:
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his kingdom and of peace,
of justice and of righteousness,
there shall be no end;
the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this!
Now Hezekiah the king come down out of his palace and walked across the pavement to Isaiah. Prophet and king stood face-to-face a while, neither breaking the gaze. The older man was smiling at the younger, but the younger had the solemnity of a serious question. Hezekiah, taller than Isaiah but bent by his meditations, had developed deep lines between his brows, so that he seemed always frowning. Finally he said, “But the Lord of hosts was defeated by Asshur of the Assyrians. How can he accomplish the things you say he promises?”
Isaiah, shorter than the king but as straight as a tree stump, laughed. “No! No!” he cried. “O my son, the Lord was not defeated,” he said. “Rather, the people of the Lord were defeated because they would not trust in him. Hezekiah, so young and so somber, listen to me: even Assyria is the servant of our God! Hasn’t he called that nation The rod of my anger, the staff of my fury? It was the Lord who sent Assyria to plunder Israel.
“And now the Lord declares that he will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant soul and his pride:
The light of Israel will become a fire
and his Holy One a flame,
and it will burn and devour
the thorns and briars of Assyria
all in a single day!
“In that day,” Isaiah said, “the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel!”
Isaiah stepped forward and laid his hands on the bony shoulders of the king. “Trust the Lord,” he said softly, “though your father did not. Serve him, serve him faithfully, and no enemy will be able to trouble you.”
Then the prophet jumped backward and cried, “But this is a coronation! Judah, you have a new king!” As erect as a pillar, he blew seven quick blasts on the ram’s horn, and then it was the Lord who spoke in Jerusalem, saying:
O my people, do not fear the Assyrians when they smite with the rod. Soon my anger will turn to their destruction. I will lift my rod as I did in Egypt! In that day Assyria’s yoke will be broken from your neck!
And there shall come forth from Jesse
a shoot;
a green branch shall sprout
from his root—
And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him:
He shall not judge by what his eyes see
but with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
and with equity choose for the meek of the earth.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard lie down with the kid,
The lion, the calf, and the fatling together—
and a little child shall lead them.
They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all my holy mountain;
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God
as the waters cover the sea.
Who could remember the last time a prophet had laughed and danced for gladness? Oh, it had been long since the Lord had spoken so kindly unto his people.
But there was a king in Judah who obeyed the Lord. There was reason for celebration.
IV
FOR THE REST of that day King Hezekiah sat in a dark corner of the temple, contemplating what the prophet had said. It required a whole new view of the God of Israel. But, oh!—what a glorious sight was spread before him now! As if he stood on a mountain, and the world lay down before him.
The Lord was not lesser, but greater than the king had conceived! And if a people perished, it was not because God had forgotten them, but because they had forgotten God.
“He is our strength,” Hezekiah murmured, weaving the meaning of his name into the word.
And how did Israel forget the Lord? Their rituals were more elaborate than Judah could afford. Their ceremonies were rich and noisy, splendid displays. But they did not remember the covenant. They had lost humility and obedience. Doing good.
“God is my refuge and strength,” the king said. His voice echoed in the empty temple. A little daylight drifted through dust in the upper reaches of the room—a cruel light, really, because the sacred place was cluttered with junk, wooden images, the sins of his fathers. Idols. Abominations.
The king stood up and spoke in a full voice:
“God is our refuge and strength! Therefore we will not fear though the nations change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though the waters roar and foam!”
He walked to the lampstands that Solomon had fashioned two hundred years ago. They were gathered all along one side, dead out.
“This,” he said, “should be the habitation of the Most High God”—then he walked out into sunlight and stood on the porch of Solomon’s temple. He saw a priest in the courtyard and called him over.
“God,” said the long, lugubrious king, “is in the midst of us. We shall not be moved.”
“No, sir,” said the priest. “We shall not be moved.”
The king frowned, deepening the lines between his brows. He pondered the priest a moment, then he said, “Do you believe that?”
“I believe that the Lord of hosts is with us. Yes, my lord: I believe it.”
The king said, “And I’ll tell you another thing: it is the Lord who causes desolations in the earth! Likewise, the Lord can stop war altogether.”
“He shatters the spear and burns the chariots with fire.”
“Extraordinary!” the king murmured, gazing grey-eyed at the man before him. “Priest, what is your name?”
The priest said, “Azariah.”
The king said, “Azariah, work with me. I appoint you the chief officer of the house of God. Gather the priests and Levites. Command them to sanctify themselves. It is now time to purge the temple and again to sanctify it!”
In those days a great reform took place in Jerusalem and in all Judah.
All the desecrations that had accumulated in the temple were carried outside the city and thrown into the brook Kidron, where they were burned. The temple doors were repaired and opened. The altars were purified, the utensils, the lampstands, and the room which in darkness contained the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy of Holies.
Hezekiah then led Judah in a sacrifice o
f thanksgiving. Six hundred bulls were slaughtered and offered on the great altar—and three thousand sheep.
Then the king sent out an edict to all Judah and even to the remnant of Israel who still lived in the desolated lands north: Come! Keep the Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem.
Ever since Moses had commanded it, the Passover had been kept by families in their own tents and their own houses. This was a new thing, that all the people should gather in one place for the festival! Then all the households and all the tribes of Israel constituted a single family before God.
Hezekiah tore down the high places. He broke pagan images in the land. He shattered pillars erected to other gods. He kept the commandments which the Lord had commanded Moses.
And he had rest.
For the Lord was his fortress.
V
BUT THE YEARS PASSED, the wheels of power ground forward, and the world began to change again.
There arose a new Pharaoh and a new dynasty in Egypt. He unified that ancient nation and strengthened its armies and then began to seek diplomatic relationships with all the smaller kingdoms to its east. It was this Pharaoh’s strategy to make these kingdoms stones in a great wall between himself and Assyria.
Ambassadors of Egypt began to arrive in Jerusalem, begging private consultations with the king of Judah.
Hezekiah admitted them into his throne hall once, twice.
And the prophet Isaiah grew wary. His counsel was not sought during these visitations, nor was his presence invited.
Everyone knew that the old Assyrian king had died and that rebellion was breaking out everywhere in the empire. King Midas of Phrygia, Carchemish in Syria, the powerful Babylon, the king of Elam—all were testing the strength and the resources of the New Assyria. The nations were raging again and—as Isaiah saw it—little kingdoms who leaped into the maelstrom seeking power or advantage would more likely drown.
Hezekiah ceased appearing in public. Isaiah could not find him to speak to him.
But evidence of the king’s thinking began to appear everywhere in the kingdom.
A new wall was built around Jerusalem, protecting buildings that once were outside the old wall. New stables and storehouses were constructed. A tunnel was carved through solid rock, starting from both ends at once. It went seven hundred feet from a spring of water in the Kidron Valley up into the city and assured Jerusalem a continuous water supply—even during a siege!
Troops and chariots were sent forth to garrison strategic cities, and watchtowers appeared like a necklace around the throat of Judah, a border of fortresses!
In the sixty-sixth year of his life, Isaiah was again roused by God and driven into the streets of Jerusalem to prophesy.
The next time the Egyptian ambassadors arrived at the city gates, an angry man ran at them, crying, “An oracle!” He was wearing sackcloth. He grabbed the bridles; the horses reared and whinnied, and the Lord spoke:
I am riding on the swift clouds to Egypt
to confound your plans!
Your Nile will be parched and dry,
your fishermen will mourn,
because your princes are deluded
and your wise men fools.
The leaders of Egypt have led her astray!
She’s like a drunk who staggers in his vomit—
But the Egyptian charioteers whipped their horses until the great beasts broke into a bewildered gallop and Isaiah was knocked to the side.
His head hit a stone baluster, so that he lay stunned in the street a while.
When he came to his senses, Isaiah pulled himself up, took a few unsteady steps, then set his face toward the king’s palace and began to walk.
The longer he walked, the more erect he became. His expression was fixed and bleak. He made the sackcloth seem a noble robe by his bearing alone.
So aristocratic did his manner become, that the guards outside the throne hall shuffled backward, and the old man entered without hindrance.
King Hezekiah was sitting six steps high on his ivory chair, his long countenance lined and melancholy. The Egyptian envoy was evidently in the midst of formal greetings. Everyone looked up at the sound of Isaiah’s intrusion, but no one spoke.
Isaiah walked directly to the throne, ignoring the Egyptians.
“When did you cease to listen to the Lord?” he said.
Hezekiah only looked at Isaiah, pursing his lips. He said nothing.
Isaiah, then, took hold of the hem of his sackcloth and pulled it off over his head. There were startled grunts in the room. Courtiers were offended. But the prophet continued. He kicked his sandals off. He stripped his old flesh of all its covering except the loincloth.
Then, standing in the throne hall with his buttocks visible, thin, and shining white, Isaiah said, “This is a portent against Egypt, King Hezekiah. This is all that nation has to offer you. Thus says the Lord your God!”
Leaving his clothes behind as his counsel, the old man went out from the presence of the king. Nor did he wear anything but the loincloth from that day forward—until Hezekiah began to trust the word of God again.
For three years Isaiah walked naked and barefoot through Jerusalem. His skin burned in the summer sun. It cracked and withered in winter. At all times people hid their faces from him because nakedness was such a shameful thing.
But Hezekiah was establishing alliances with the kingdoms of the world. Nearby, Moab and Edom and Ashdod and cities of the Philistines joined him, each one a stone in the wall against Assyria. From greater distances, Hezekiah received an embassy from Merodach-Baladan, the king of Babylon. International promises, international intrigue, and the maneuverings of power.
At home the king was manufacturing weapons for his soldiers and chariots for their horses—and in huge clay jars he was sending grain to the fortresses where they were garrisoned.
The citizens of Judah began to delight in the prospect of independence again. Hezekiah’s father had brought upon them the crushing yoke of Assyria. He had initiated an annual tribute that had burdened them ever since. But now the good and shrewd king Hezekiah, having magnified himself by associations with other embittered kingdoms, decided to withhold the tribute from the iron empire. Jerusalem, a little breathless at the dare, grinned and grew proud of their amazing boldness: Jerusalem was free!
But the Lord God said:
As my servant Isaiah is walking naked and barefoot, so shall Assyria lead away the Egyptians naked. And those who hope in Egypt shall be dismayed and confounded! In that day you will say, “And we?—how will we escape?”
VI
KING HEZEKIAH FELL SICK with a deadly sickness. He went into his private chambers and lay down, intending to suffer through to health again. But he didn’t get well.
Hezekiah had always been a monarch of internal meditation, thoughtful and quiet. This, now, was the measure of his physical pain: he groaned so loudly that his voice could be heard throughout the palace.
Day by day his servants came to wash him. He was covered with an eruption of boils so fiery and violent, he could scarcely move. His servants wiped the discharge away. They lay wet cloths on his flesh to cool a raging fever. They changed his bedding, scrubbed the floor and the walls, poured ointment, spread spices—but the odor in his room only grew more foul and his pain increased.
Then one morning the prophet Isaiah was standing in the king’s room. Despite the fire all around his body, Hezekiah felt the presence. He looked through the haze of his sickness and saw Isaiah at his feet. “Have you come to comfort me?” he whispered.
The prophet, his beard as trim as ever but snow white, spoke with an impersonal exactitude.
“Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die. You shall not recover.”
Isaiah left.
The king gazed where the prophet had stood, tears rising in his eyes. All his life a melancholy man, yet he had never until this moment wept. Hezekiah turned. Through a slow cycle of suffering, Hezekiah turned to the wall and prayed
a silent prayer, moving his lips and releasing a corrupted breath, but making no sound:
“O Lord, remember now how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart. Remember the good I have done in your sight.”
The king wept bitterly.
Suddenly he was hearing the voice of the prophet:
“Even before I had left your courtyard, the Lord stopped me and sent me back to you.”
King Hezekiah lifted his head. Indeed, Isaiah stood at his foot again.
And the Lord said, Hezekiah, I have seen your tears. I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the temple, and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the armies of Assyria. I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.
Then it was Isaiah, the old white-bearded man himself, who spoke to a physician outside the chamber door. “Make a poultice of figs,” he said, “and lay it on the king’s boils.”
IN THE TWENTY-FIFTH year of Hezekiah’s reign the king of Assyria marched his mighty armies into the west as far as the Great Sea.
He utterly destroyed the kingdom of Tyre and its seaports and its lucrative trade. From that day forward, Tyre was nothing on earth.
Then the king of Assyria turned his attention to all the kingdoms that had joined into a great alliance, that mighty wall built up between Egypt and himself He fought them one by one, and stone by stone they fell before his bloody, ineluctable assault: Byblos and Arvad and Ashdod and Moab and Edom and Ammon.
Three nations were left: Ashkelon and Ekron and Judah.
As Assyria marched south along the Great Sea, an Egyptian army appeared and drew up battle lines in order to defend the city of Ekron, but they were beaten back in a morning, and Ekron was defeated in an afternoon, its leaders executed, its people deported.
Now the king of Assyria began to move through a great, sweeping arc into Judah, like a sickle mowing toward Jerusalem. He captured the city of Timnah, cutting off supply lines to the capital. In the Elah Valley he took Azekah and Gath, then marched farther south against Hezekiah’s fortress at Lachish. He burned that city to the ground. His soldiers dug a pit for the corpses. One thousand five hundred bodies were covered by the bones of swine and by a casual dirt.
The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel Page 41
