Jehovah Takes Up “the Rod”

3. How does the reaction of the Israelites to the warnings delivered by Jehovah’s prophets differ from that of the Ninevites?

³ Do the Israelites, to whom Jonah also preached, respond? (2 Kings 14:25) No. They turn their backs on pure worship. Indeed, they go so far as “to bow down to all the army of the heavens and to serve Baal.” What is more, “they continued to make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire and to practice divination and to look for omens, and they kept selling themselves to do what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah, to offend him.” (2 Kings 17:16, 17) Unlike the Ninevites, Israel does not respond when Jehovah sends prophets to warn them. So Jehovah determines to take stronger measures.

4, 5. (a) What is meant by “the Assyrian,” and how will Jehovah use him as a “rod”? (b) When does Samaria fall?

⁴ For some time after Jonah’s visit to Nineveh, there is a decline in Assyrian aggression.a However, at the beginning of the eighth century B.C.E., Assyria reasserts itself as a military power, and Jehovah uses it in an astonishing way. The prophet Isaiah conveys a warning from Jehovah to the northern kingdom of Israel: “Aha, the Assyrian, the rod for my anger, and the stick that is in their hand for my denunciation! Against an apostate nation I shall send him, and against the people of my fury I shall issue a command to him, to take much spoil and to take much plunder and to make it a trampling place like the clay of the streets.”​—Isaiah 10:5, 6.

⁵ What a humiliation for the Israelites! God uses a pagan nation​—“the Assyrian”—​as a “rod” to punish them. In 742 B.C.E., Assyrian King Shalmaneser V lays siege to Samaria, capital of the apostate nation of Israel. From its strategic location on a hill some 300 feet [90 m] high, Samaria wards off the enemy for almost three years. But no human strategy can block God’s purpose. In 740 B.C.E., Samaria falls, trampled under Assyrian feet.​—2 Kings 18:10.

18. (a) Does Isaiah’s prophecy have more than one fulfillment? Explain. (b) What organization today is like ancient Samaria?

¹⁸ The account of Isaiah discussed in this chapter has to do with events in Judah more than 2,700 years ago. But those events have the utmost relevance today. (Romans 15:4) Does this mean that the major players in this thrilling narrative​—the inhabitants of Samaria and Jerusalem as well as the Assyrians—​have modern-day counterparts? Yes, it does. Like idolatrous Samaria, Christendom claims to worship Jehovah, but she is apostate to the core. In An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Roman Catholic John Henry Cardinal Newman admits that items Christendom has used for centuries, such as incense, candles, holy water, priestly garb, and images, “are all of pagan origin.” Jehovah is no more pleased with Christendom’s paganized worship than he was with Samaria’s idolatry.

19. Of what has Christendom been warned, and by whom?

¹⁹ For years, Jehovah’s Witnesses have warned Christendom of Jehovah’s displeasure. In 1955, for example, the public discourse entitled “Christendom or Christianity​—Which One Is ‘the Light of the World’?” was delivered worldwide. The talk graphically explained the way that Christendom had strayed from genuine Christian doctrine and practice. Thereafter, copies of this powerful lecture were mailed to clergymen in many countries. As an organization, Christendom has failed to heed the warning. She leaves Jehovah with no choice but to discipline her with a “rod.”