King Alfred: Book of Hebrews

While hiding in the marshes, another Bible verse which comforted King Alfred was from the Book of Hebrews.

Hebrews 12 v 5-6

My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.

The king had viewed the demise of the English as a judgement from God. Where He had used the Great Heathen Army to chastise and discipline the wayward nation.

Alfred would have found similar stories in the Bible to support his thesis. In 721 BC, the Assyrians sacked Samaria, Israel’s capital. They were taken into captivity, and never returned. Those who occupied the vacated land became known as the Samaritans, but it was unlikely any of them could trace their heritage back to the Children of Israel.

Isaiah explains in one of his prophecies, how Assyria was an instrument of God.

Isaiah 10 v 5-6

Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

In 605 BC, the prophet Jeremiah gave a prophecy which told the people of Judah that their days were numbered. Within 20 years, the Babylonians would siege and conquer Jerusalem, taking its inhabitants back to Babylon.

Jeremiah 25 v 8-9

Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations.

God calls a foreign king, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, His servant. This may seem strange. How could God use a nation who didn’t worship Him? Creation, and all that is in it, is His and is under His rule. So God could as easily have used the Egyptians or any other nation to discipline Israel and Judah. But He chose Assyria and then the Babylonians to chastise His people. It is as though nothing is outside God’s plan.

With this in mind, Alfred deduced that the kingdom had fallen because of something he and his people had done wrong. So the period in the marshes became a time of repentance. A period where the king confessed his sins and sought penance, for himself and his people.

Alfred believed the Danes were being used as a tool to discipline him and his people. And as the text of Hebrews says, Alfred did not reject this chastisement, but welcomed it.

Through humility, the king accepted the hard lessons God was teaching him. And like Alfred, we too, should not remain downcast when life becomes a sea of troubles. We should open ourselves up to God’s will and let Him work. We can see how God changed King Alfred’s situation. He turned it from complete disaster, to convincing victory.

We can therefore have hope that He will do the same for us.