When Chizkiah HaMelech was confronted by Sancheriv’s massive international army (185,000 battalions from different countries), he went to bed. Not because he was exhausted, though he was, not because he wanted to hide from impending doom, because that wasn’t possible. He went to bed—and actually slept—as an expression of his total faith in the salvation of God.
Imagine how amazing he felt the next morning when he woke up to the complete annihilation of Sancheriv’s army, which had fallen apart and scattered. And the turncoats from within his ranks? Tortured to death by the enemy to which they had surrendered. His faith had been rewarded beyond imagination.
A plague had been the weapon of divine choice. While Chizkiah slept soundly, panic ensued in Sancheriv’s camp as a plague ravaged his ranks. If people didn’t die from the plague itself, they were stampeded by panicking soldiers on the quick retreat. It was such a personal disaster that Sancheriv had to run for his own life, only to be assassinated by his own sons later on while he was praying to his idol.
The Talmud says that had Chizkiah only sang shirah to God in praise of the incredible miracle that was done for him and his small band of loyalists, he would have been Moshiach and Sancheriv’s army would have been Gog and Magog (Sanhedrin 94a). history would have come to an end and Yemos HaMoshiach would have begun then and there. We wouldn’t be sitting here wondering and worrying about the third and final War of Gog and Magog.
Oh well.
At least let us glean what we can from this near final redemption which was pushed off until, well, OUR time.
Firstly, it was a war waged by a massive international force against a relatively tiny Jewish people that looked like it could only go in favor of the visiting army. Within one night, the enemy was miraculously vanquished, and the Jewish people did not have to lift a sword. The redemption of God comes in the blink of an eye.
Secondly, it only looks as if the Jewish people stood no chance. But God was there the entire time ready to fight on their behalf. Sancheriv’s army was the one that had no chance to win.
Thirdly, God has many agents of destruction. Just because we can’t see what He has in mind to use to get rid of evil from the world does not mean that He doesn’t already know.
Fourthly, our greatest contribution to the defeat of Gog and Magog will not be our technology and sophisticated military arsenal. It will be our trust in God, and our belief that He is with us even if it looks, until the end, that He isn’t. The people who did not trust in God died with the enemy, while the ones who did, lived to tell the tale.
President Roosevelt said during the Great Depression, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” I would amend that to, “We have nothing to fear but our lack of trust and faith in God.” If we can build that up sufficiently, then even fear won’t scare us anymore.