“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,/And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;/And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,/When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.” This is the beginning of a poem by Lord Byron, “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” It refers to the invasion of Judah on the part of the Assyrian army in the seventh century before Christ. The northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed and deported in 721BC and there seemed to be nothing to keep Judah from sharing their fate. As the Biblical text reports even though the Assyrians laid seige to Jerusalem the city stood firm. (Historians speculate that a plague might have decimated the Assyrian army.) All of which serves as a reminder that, then as now, salvation history is played out in human history. We must find the hand of God in current events just as King Hezekiah did.
JUNE252024
By Church Staff
