Great Prayers of the Bible: Hezekiah Spreads the Letter
12 July 2025 · 1 min read · Prayer
Sennacherib's letter was terror on paper: Assyria's king listing the gods of crushed nations and promising Jerusalem the same. Hezekiah received it, read it, went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD — the most physical prayer in the Bible.
And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up unto the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.
Show God the letter
The prayer that follows is a model: it begins with God's greatness (thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth), honestly names the threat (of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations), and asks with a pure motive — save us, that all the kingdoms may know that thou art the LORD.
Spreading the letter is a practice worth copying literally: the diagnosis, the bill, the email — laid flat before God, read aloud in his presence. Threats shrink when spread out under that gaze.
For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.
The answer that emptied a camp
God's reply came the same day through Isaiah: I will defend this city. That night the Assyrian army was broken without Judah drawing a sword, and Sennacherib went home to his fall.
File the method where you can find it: take the frightening document to the temple, spread it out, and pray for a rescue that makes God known. Some sieges end overnight.
