This speech of Isaiah's, directed as it was against the most powerful man in Jerusalem, could not but have created a great sensation. It surely roused King Hezekiah from his contemplative and passive attitude, for soon after this we find Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, occupying the post which Shebna had so long maintained. This new superintendent of the palace acted according to the advice of Isaiah, and Hezekiah, through his means, appears to have been drawn into an active interest in public affairs. Shebna's fall initiated a change for the better. What had been done could not, however, be undone. The Assyrian monarch Sennacherib, filled with anger at Hezekiah's rebellion, was already on his way to Judah in order to devastate it. A part of his army, having crossed the Jordan, proceeded to the interior of the country. All fortified towns that lay on the way were taken by storm and destroyed, and the inhabitants fled weeping to the capital. The roads were laid desolate, no traveller could cross the country, for the enemy respected no man. The bravest lost courage whilst the enemy came ever nearer to the capital; their daring was changed to despair. Every thought of resistance was abandoned. But when all despaired, the prophet Isaiah remained steadfast, and inspired the faint-hearted with courage. In one of the open places of Jerusalem he delivered another of those orations, sublime in thought and perfect in form, such as have never flowed from other lips than his (Isaiah x. 5-xi. 10). He predicted to Assyria the frustration of her plans, and unrolled before Israel a glorious future which was to follow their deliverance from the threatening enemy. The scattered would return from the lands of their dispersion; the exiles of the Ten Tribes would be reunited with Judah; jealousy and enmity would appear no more; the miracles of the time of the Exodus from Egypt would be repeated, and the nation once more raise its voice in inspired hymns. What marvellous strength of mind, what all-conquering faith in God, in the ultimate victory of justice and the realisation of the ideal of everlasting peace, amidst the terror, devastation, and despair, and the deathlike gloom of the present!