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2 Kings 19:21 "This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning [Sennacherib, king of Assyria]: 'She despises you, she scorns you - the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you - the daughter of Jerusalem.'"

 

In his pride Sennacherib was most likely unaware of the level of animosity and scorn leveled toward him, especially by God's people, and apparently God Himself. Sennacherib had been allowed a certain measure of success in his campaign in Judah as a rebuke to the people. God makes clear that it was He who allowed this - "I planned from days of old ... that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins" (2 Kings 19:25). But that success led Sennacherib to mock and scorn the very God who was allowing him to be successful, and to urge God's people to not trust in Him (see the showdown with the Rabshakeh discussed here). So God now promises to put a bit in Sennacherib's mouth and turn him back the way he came (2 Kings 19: 28).

 

Pride is blinding, which makes it such a dangerous trap. Sennacherib was on a bit of a roll in destroying the fortified cities of Judah (2 Kings 18:13) He had no fear of the Jewish God, he was certain that all his conquests were due to his own power. But behind the scenes of his ego-drama, the theo-drama was at work, as it always is. Sennacherib could do nothing on his own, none of us can. He was acting in his own will, certainly, but everything he "accomplished" was because God was allowing it for His own purposes. When Hezekiah, King of Judah, sacrificed and prayed for his people to be delivered from the mocking king's army, God answered him, and let Hezekiah know, through Isaiah, that Sennacherib was despised and scorned, and God would turn him back.

 

The world is always talking behind our backs. It may be creating false narratives, justifying its hatred of us; it may be justly scorning us, if we are acting in pride; or it may be praising us, but if so it is often for worldly reasons and not Godly ones. If we are walking in the right path, trying to play our part in the theo-drama, what the world thinks of us does not matter one bit. But if we are still wrapped up in our ego-drama, living earthly lives and seeking the things of this world, we usually care very much with the world thinks of us. Unfortunately, in that state, we are least willing and able to hear it, since it often threatens our carefully constructed image of ourselves. I just read this, which seems on point: "Like dictators who have been in charge too long who somehow combine the sense of their own invulnerability with a paranoid fear of criticism and challenge. The result: an inability to change course based on real-world feedback, paired with an increasingly brutal apparatus for suppressing dissent." ("I Warned You This Would Happen", Kisin, Konstantin, Substack, available here).

 

Sennacherib would have been angered if he had heard Isaiah's prophecy, and probably would have doubled down on his wickedness. That is the unfortunate result of caring about what the world thinks while living on our ego-drama. Fortunately for us, Jesus has showed us how to break free of that, and to live in the theo-drama, where the only thing that matters is doing God's will, and where freedom and peace abound, no matter what he world thinks of us.