Old Testament: A Book of Epic Proportions

Imagine. You are king of a large city, whose population recently exploded due to an influx of refugees from a neighboring state that was breached by the Assyrian army. Lachish and Azekah, the two fortress cities that stand between you and the Assyrian army, have fallen. The Assyrians are expanding their mighty empire by utilizing terror, displaying the slain and sending survivors to tell the sad tale. You build up walls around your city and send tributes from the temple treasury to appease the Assyrian king, but the threat is imminent nonetheless.

One day, a man named Rab-Shakeh appears at the city gate with a message to your people—“Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly…” (2 Kings 19:10).

When Hezekiah received the news from his counselors, he didn’t mourn. He didn’t hide. “Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord” (2 Kings 19:14). He uttered a powerful prayer, explaining to God about their daunting enemies and beseeching him with absolute faith to save them from the impossible odds. That night, 185,000 of the Assyrian army died by the Lord’s hand, and Hezekiah and Jerusalem were saved by the hand of the Lord (2 Kings 19:35).

I love this story, not just because it is larger-than-life-reminds-me-of-Lord-of-the-Rings sort of cool. I love it because Hezekiah took his impossible problems and spread them out before the Lord. He didn’t run from them or cry about them. He trusted in God to deliver, and God did so.

Epic? Yes, sir. Feels like it was written just for me? Mm-hm.

Oh, how I love the Old Testament.