"See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; His lips are full of wrath, and His tongue is a consuming fire." (Isaiah 30:27) The anger and wrath in verse 27 are not directed toward the nation of Judah but toward the nation that threatens it.
"His breath is like a rushing torrent, rising up to the neck. He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction; He places in the jaws of the peoples a bit that leads them astray." (Isaiah 30:28) This verse makes it clear that it is not the nation of Judah but Judah's enemies that the Lord intends to defeat.
Have you ever worried about things that didn't even come to pass? I'm pretty sure everyone has---and more than once. I couldn't tell you how many times I've worried over particular problems that ended up being solved before I actually arrived at the moment of having to deal with them. That is what is going to happen when Assyrian soldiers come and camp around Jerusalem with the intention of laying siege to it: the Lord is going to solve the problem without the people inside the city having to do anything except trust Him.
After witnessing His mighty deliverance, the people will sing His praises. "And you will sing, as on the night you celebrate a holy festival; your hearts will rejoice as when people playing pipes go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. The Lord will cause people to hear His majestic voice and will make them see His arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail. The voice of the Lord will shatter Assyria; with His rod He will strike them down. Every stroke the Lord lays on them with His punishing club will be to the music of timbrels and harps, as He fights them in battle with the blows of His arm." (Isaiah 30:29-32)
In our study of the kings we learned that during the night the Lord struck down 185,000 Assyrian troops in their camp outside of Jerusalem so that in the morning, when the citizens of the city awoke, it was to the sound of silence from the camp. It was to the sight of nothing except dead bodies rather than the sight of armed soldiers standing around the walls.
We conclude Chapter 30 with the following text: "Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze." (Isaiah 30:33)
Topheth was a location outside of Jerusalem in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. This was a place considered unclean, for in the time of the Canaanites it was used for many abominable heathen sacrifices---including child sacrifice. Some of the descendants of Jacob also engaged in such heathen practices in that location, so that by the time of Jesus it was used as a city dump similar to our landfills of today, for the unclean practices that took place there had rendered it unfit for being anything other than a dump site. Jesus compared that location to hell because it was a place where fires burned continually (to get rid of household garbage and the bodies of livestock that died of disease or died by being attacked by wild animals) and because it was filled with maggots and a terrible stench. Jesus used this comparison so people would understand what a place of despair hell is going to be---so they would not end up there.
Isaiah appears to be using the location of Topheth as a metaphor for hell as well, stating that this will be the fate of the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria did not die in the region of Jerusalem and he was not buried or burned at Topheth; he was not among those who perished in the plague the Lord sent during the night. He did die though, and at the hands of two of his own sons, not long after threatening to regroup his army and send it against Jerusalem again.
The Lord handles so many situations for us before we ever arrive at them, just as He is going to do for the people of Jerusalem against their enemy. Even in times when we have to enter the battle, He is right there with us fighting for us. There are occasions in the Bible where the people fight in battles and there are occasions when the Lord tells them to stand back and watch Him do it, but in both circumstances He is the one who wins the victory. In the case of the Assyrians coming right up to the gates of Jerusalem, the Lord wins the victory without the people inside the city having to lift a finger against the Assyrian army. How many times has He done the same for you and for me? More times than we are even aware of! Let us thank Him for that!
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