Bible Strands
Isaiah 36:7
But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Assyrian commander addresses Judah’s officials, countering their reliance on Egypt with a challenge to their reliance on Yahweh. He invokes King Hezekiah’s recent reforms that dismantled local worship sites to centralize cultic practice in Jerusalem.
The words — The Hebrew term בָּטָ֑חְנוּ (ba.Ta.che.nu) translates literally as “we trust,” while the rhetorical particle הֲ/לוֹא־ (ha./lo'-) functions as “is it not.”
The thread — This tension between centralized worship and local high places recurs in 2 Kings 18:4, which records Hezekiah’s destruction of rival shrines. The taunt echoes the psalmist’s adversaries in Psalms 42:10, who demand, “Where is your God?”
Why it lands — It forces the reader to confront whether institutional religious reform strengthens or fractures communal faith. The text demands a direct evaluation of how centralized authority shapes trust in divine protection.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God: is it not he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar?
Cross-references
- 2 Kings 18:4 He removed the high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze snake called Nehushtan that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had burned incense to it.
- Psalms 42:5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him for the salvation of His presence.
- Psalms 42:10 Like the crushing of my bones, my enemies taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- 1 Corinthians 2:15 The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment.
- Deuteronomy 12:2 Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
- Deuteronomy 12:13 Be careful not to offer your burnt offerings in just any place you see;
- 2 Kings 18:22 But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem: ‘You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?
- 1 Chronicles 5:20 And because they cried out to God in battle, they were helped against their enemies, and the Hagrites and all their allies were delivered into their hands. Because they put their trust in God, He answered their prayers.
- 2 Chronicles 16:7 At that time Hanani the seer came to King Asa of Judah and told him, “Because you have relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand.
- 2 Chronicles 30:14 They proceeded to remove the altars in Jerusalem and to take away the incense altars and throw them into the Kidron Valley.