"Come now, let us argue together, saith the Lord.
Though your sins be as scarlet,
They may become white as snow;
Though they be red as crimson,
They may become as wool;
If ye willingly yield and are obedient,
Ye shall eat the good of the land,
But if you refuse and rebel,
Ye shall be devoured by the sword.
The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!"
While Isaiah thus pleaded and threatened, he gained many additions to "The Remnant," but he failed to create a deep impression either with the reigning house or with the powerful priesthood or with the majority of the rich in Jerusalem and Judah.
In the meantime, a vassal of Assyria, in far-off Babylonia, rebelled
successfully. Immediately, various Palestinian states, including
Judah, began to prepare a similar attempt to free themselves from the
Assyrian yoke.
Ahaz had died in 721, the year in which Sargon the Great captured Samaria, after a two year's siege, and effectually reduced the kingdom of Israel. Hezekiah, his young son, to whom Isaiah looked for the ideal prince he had pictured, succeeded him.
The calamity of the northern kingdom did not seem to bring Isaiah or
Ahaz any warning. The king had been paying his Assyrian tribute
regularly and faithfully; the prophet had centered his hope in "The
Remnant" and in the crown prince, and bided his time.
When, however, six years later, in the year 715, Hezekiah joined the coalition of Palestinian states against Assyria, Isaiah was not only disappointed, but became greatly alarmed.
To permit Hezekiah to follow the advice of his father's counselors, Isaiah knew would be national suicide. For three years, therefore, while the agitation for coalition and rebellion was going on, Isaiah cast off his prophet's mantle and sandals, and walked barefooted and in the garb of a captive through the treets of Jerusalem, as an object lesson to the people of Judah, to show them what might await them if they rebelled against Assyria.
But even this, for the time being, was of no avail. Rebellion was in the blood of the king and the court clique. Somehow the very thought of it in Jerusalem seemed to reach the Assyrian capital. Hardly had Hezekiah begun to carry his contemplated revolt into action when Sennacherib, the new Assyrian king, was on the march.
Once more Judah was invaded by the Assyrian hosts, and once more Judah's rulers bent their knee in submission and undertook to pay a tribute that was heavier than ever before.
Yet Isaiah, though heartbroken, was in no way dismayed. His unbounded faith in the final triumph of God's purposes led him to go on, fearlessly, to oppose the king and his associates to the very end.