Isaiah 36:7
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? 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?
Isaiah 36:7 belongs to the historical account of Sennacherib, king of Assyria's invasion and threat against Judah and Jerusalem during Hezekiah's reign. The campaign included the siege of Lachish and the threat against Jerusalem, a setting confirmed by ancient records from Nineveh. It was a time of danger that led to Hezekiah's humility and God's deliverance of the land, which was Hezekiah's triumph.
The verse records the Assyrian speaker challenging Judah's trust in the LORD by arguing that Hezekiah's removal of high places and altars undermines that trust and makes it misplaced. The speaker points to centralized worship before this one altar in Jerusalem as evidence against Hezekiah, claiming he had rejected and offended the very God he urged the people to trust and had weakened Judah's worship in an attempt to discredit him. In truth, Hezekiah had removed places used for idol worship and directed the people to worship God at one altar.
The challenge was part of an effort to frighten Jerusalem and make the people regard the God of Israel as powerless like the nations' handmade gods, reflecting the heathen view that reliance on one God rather than many gods is foolish; the later deliverance showed this claim was false. The chapter is placed within the account of Hezekiah's experiences without further explanation of the verse.