Forty years earlier, King Ahaz had stood there, inspecting Jerusalem’s water source as two northern armies threatened to invade Judah. His heart trembled, and the hearts of his people trembled with him. The prophet Isaiah met him at that very spot with a message from God: “Be careful, be quiet, do not fear.” Ahaz was offered a sign from heaven itself — proof that God was with him. But Ahaz refused. He would not trust the Lord; he trusted politics instead. He made an alliance with Assyria, hoping that the empire’s power could save him.
That decision would haunt his descendants. Because decades later, in that same place, another king of Judah stood facing the empire his father had once trusted — and it was now the enemy.
The Siege of Sennacherib
In 701 BC, the world’s mightiest army surrounded Jerusalem. The Assyrian king, Sennacherib, had already conquered forty-six fortified cities in Judah. The smoke of destruction rose in the distance, and the roads were filled with refugees. The Assyrian field commander, the Rabshakeh, arrived at the same pool where Isaiah had once met Ahaz. He shouted to the men on the wall in the people’s own language — taunting, blaspheming, boasting.
Read about this in Isaiah 36
“Do not let Hezekiah deceive you,” he called out. “Do not let him make you trust in the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us.’ Has any god of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?”
It was psychological warfare at its cruelest. The people of Jerusalem listened in silence, forbidden to answer a word. Hezekiah’s counselors tore their clothes in grief and carried the message to their king.
Hezekiah had every reason to panic. His father Ahaz had chosen the path of worldly alliances at the same pool; now Hezekiah had to choose the path of faith. He didn’t summon an army or send messengers to Egypt. Instead, he tore his royal robes, clothed himself in sackcloth, and went straight to the temple of the LORD.
He prayed.
“O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim… incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear… that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone are the LORD.”
It was one of the simplest, most powerful prayers in Scripture — not a demand for comfort, but a plea for God’s glory.
Isaiah sent word: “Do not be afraid of the words you have heard… I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”
That night, something happened the Assyrians could never have imagined. Scripture records it with stunning simplicity: “Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians.” When the survivors awoke, they saw the camp filled with the dead.
Sennacherib retreated to Nineveh, never to return. Some years later, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his own sons struck him down with the sword.
The prophecy was fulfilled to the last word.
Faith at the Same Pool
The contrast between Ahaz and Hezekiah could not be sharper. Both men faced terror at the same pool. Both heard the word of Isaiah. Both had a choice: fear or faith. Ahaz clung to human power and lost his soul in the process. Hezekiah clung to the promise of God and saw the impossible happen.
The location itself becomes a sermon — the same setting, the same conduit, but two radically different responses. One trusted in the empire; the other trusted in the Eternal.
The Poet’s Vision
Over 2,500 years later, Lord Byron retold the story in his famous poem “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” Written in a galloping rhythm that mimics the thunder of hooves, the poem opens with all the color and glory of an unstoppable army:
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.
But the brilliance fades in an instant:
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
Byron’s closing lines are unforgettable:
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
Whether Byron meant it as mock-heroic or as reverent awe, the effect is the same — the proud empire, adorned in purple and gold, is reduced to silence by a single breath of divine power. The “Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,” and the tents were still. Human might withered before a God who didn’t even need to draw a sword.
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Closing note: You can read my earlier series on English Romantic poets as well:
Here is the first one
Remembering the English Poets- Blake
I never did one of those on Byron- so here is a post script.....
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824), was the most famous poet of England’s Romantic era — brilliant, defiant, and restless. He lived fast, loved recklessly, and wrote with unmatched intensity. His life was a whirlwind of scandal, exile, and genius, yet beneath all his rebellion ran a deep, uneasy fascination with God.
Byron’s poems often wrestle with faith, sin, and the meaning of existence. He doubted the church, but he couldn’t shake Scripture — its language, its imagery, its moral gravity. He understood beauty and judgment in ways few poets have ever captured. In “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” Byron paints the biblical scene of Isaiah 37 with breathtaking rhythm and vivid imagery.
What makes the poem remarkable is the tension in Byron himself: a man who mocked piety yet bowed in awe before the power of the Almighty. His words ring with both admiration and unease. Whether he meant it as mockery, irony, or genuine reverence, the poem ends with an image that silences every empire:
“And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.”
In that line, Byron — the skeptic, the exile, the Romantic hero — captures the truth Isaiah proclaimed: that God needs no sword to conquer, and that every proud heart, whether Assyrian or English, ultimately melts before His glance.
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