Begin consideration of Isaiah 37, not with the most exciting verse, but with the dullest—unless you are a text nerd. Hezekiah spreads out Rabshekah’s threatening letters face-up before Jehovah—as though only with them neatly laid out could he read them (or does it just indicate how real God is to the king?) He points out that the invader king means business and that it’s not for nothing that he’s worried:
“It is a fact, O Jehovah, that the kings of Assyria have devastated all the lands, as well as their own land,” he updates God. (Isaiah 37:18–NWT)
This reads a little clunky. As they devastate other lands, they also devastate their own? And even if they are, why would Hezekiah care? It doesn’t quite square with the verse that follows:
“And they have thrown their gods into the fire, because they were not gods but the work of human hands, wood and stone. That is why they could destroy them.” (37:19)
Friend or foe, they all have gods of “wood and stone.” They all have gods that are the “work of human hands.” But it’s not as though Assyria is going to be destroying its own “house” gods. It will be boasting about those.
Furthermore, other translations sidestep the awkwardness entirely. Such as the NIV: “It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands.” Yeah. No concern about Assyria’s own land here. Is it likely that Hezekiah’s going to be shedding tears about Rabshekah’s homeland? So why translate the verse as though he were?
It’s because the source Masoretic text (MT) makes the distinction. The Masoretic Hebrew text reads that “the kings of Assyria have devastated [or destroyed] all the lands [or countries] and their land.” There is the conjunction “and” in the MT. It’s two lands the verse speaks of, that of the conquered nations and that of the conquering nation, Assyria.
Some translations preserve this “and” and some don’t.
The NWT preserves it, even adding “own” to the second “land,” God only knows for what reason. Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) preserves it: “Truly, O Jehovah, kings of Asshur have laid waste all the lands and their land.” So does the American Standard Version: “Of a truth, Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the countries, and their land.”
But others, like the above NIV, sort of mash both “lands” together, as though only the conquered nations suffer, as though it is easy coasting for the conqueror:
“Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands.” (ESV) The “lands” are those of the conquered “nations.”
“Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the countries and their lands.” (NASB) The “lands” are those of the conquered “countries.”
In their support, the parallel Masoretic Hebrew account at 2 Kings 19:17 simply reads “the nations and their lands”—who cares about Assyria? If they bring any damage upon themselves, it serves them right! It almost seems this would be Hezekiah’s view, too, as he is caught in the Assyrian crosshairs.
But maybe it is not God’s view, who sees the big picture. Nations wage war, in the same “King of the Mountain” manner they have done since Adam, and they harm their own people as they do those of their adversary. Empire-building to conquer the neighbors devastates the home turf, shaking everyone down to finance aggression, scooping up warriors who would rather be living with the wife and kids back home (to say nothing of what the wife and kids would prefer). After all, it is not the governments that God cares about, but the peoples they dominate. “All of this I have seen,” Solomon says, “and I applied my heart to every work that has been done under the sun, during the time that man has dominated man to his harm.” (Ecclesiastes 8:9) Sure enough, the tyrant also “destroy[s] its own land, and kills its own people, says Isaiah 14:20.
Nonetheless, the easy-peasy Bibles smooth it all out, the way 2 Kings 19:17 does, and just think of the conquered lands.
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