‘No Galley Fleet Will Succeed’

● Regarding the security that the inhabitants of Jerusalem would enjoy when under Jehovah’s protection, the prophet Isaiah wrote: “The Majestic One, Jehovah, will be for us a place of rivers, of wide canals. On it no galley fleet will go, and no majestic ship will pass over it. For Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah is our Statute-giver, Jehovah is our King; he himself will save us.”​—Isa. 33:21, 22.

The city of Jerusalem had no great rivers or system of canals as part of its defenses against attack. But the protection that Jehovah could give the city was like the protective effect of “rivers” and “wide canals.” Strong enemy forces, represented as a hostile galley fleet, would be wrecked in the figurative waters of Jehovah’s protection. A striking example of this protection in the time of Isaiah was the failure of Assyrian King Sennacherib to capture Jerusalem. In one night Jehovah’s angel destroyed 185,000 of the Assyrian host. Having lost the most essential part of his army, Sennacherib was forced to abandon his plans to capture Jerusalem.​—2 Ki. 19:35, 36.