2 Kings 18

2 Kings 18:1

II. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH TO THE CAPTIVITY (Chaps. 18-25) A. King Hezekiah (Chaps. 18-20)Hezekiah the son of Ahaz was king of Judah for twenty-nine years (716/15687/86 B.C.; cf. 2 Chron. 2932; Isa. 3639). He is believed to have had a co-regency with Ahaz before that from 729/28 to 716/15.

1. Hezekiah’s Righteous Reign (18:1-8)18:1-6 More space is devoted to Hezekiah in Holy Scripture than to almost any king since the time of Solomon. The parallel accounts in 2 Chronicles 2932 and Isaiah 3639 should be read to better understand the spiritual and political victories that Hezekiah gained through his faith in God. When Hezekiah came to power, Judah was virtually a vassal state under Assyria. His reign was one of great reform. He conducted a campaign against all forms of idolatry, destroying even the high places and the bronze serpent of Numbers 21 (because the children of Israel burned incense to it). He called it Nehushtan, meaning literally “A Bronze Thing” (NKJV marg.). As far as his trust in the LORD God was concerned, Hezekiah was the greatest of the kings of Judah. Josiah was the greatest of the kings as far as thoroughness in expelling evildoers from the land was concerned (2Ki_23:24-25). 18:7, 8 Eventually Hezekiah rebelled against the Assyrian yoke, perhaps because of his military success in driving the Philistines out of the land from watchtower (country places) to fortified city (thickly inhabited and well-defended places).

2 Kings 18:9

2. The Capture of Samaria (18:9-12)This paragraph reviews the capture of Samaria by the Assyrians, and is perhaps introduced here to emphasize the seriousness of the threat which faced Hezekiah at this time. The seeming contradiction between the dates in verses 9 and 10 is explained by the fact that in Jewish reckoning a part of a year is counted as a year. The siege of Samaria began during the latter part of the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, continued during the fifth year, and ended in the first part of the sixth yeartherefore “three years.” This would have been 725722 B.C., during the co-regency mentioned above.

2 Kings 18:13

3. Sennacherib’s First Invasion of Judah (18:13-16)Assyria had been having troubles of her own at this time; Sargon II had died and Babylon was in rebellion. It wasn’t until 701 B.C. that Sennacherib, Sargon’s successor, was able to march on Palestine and Phoenicia. In his annals Sennacherib claimed to have taken forty-six fortified cities and 200,000 captives from Judah. Hezekiah . . . sent a servile message to him acknowledging that he had been wrong in rebelling. He abjectly paid three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold (a huge sum) to prevent an attack on Jerusalem. At the time, Sennacherib was in Lachish, southwest of Jerusalem, on the way to Egypt.

2 Kings 18:17

4. Sennacherib’s Second Invasion of Judah (18:1719:34)18:17-19 Hezekiah then began to fortify Jerusalem (2Ch_32:5). Perhaps it was news of this that caused the king of Assyria at a later date to dispatch his army officials to Jerusalem, demanding unconditional surrender. Three Jewish officials went out to meet the Assyrian emissaries and to hear their demands. The NIV renders the terms as “supreme commander,” “chief officer,” and “field commander.” The NKJV labels these officials by their original military titles: the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh. These terms are not proper names. 18:20-25 The Rabshakeh spoke insultingly to them . . . in their own Hebrew (lit. “Judean”) tongue. First, he mocked Hezekiah’s trust in the fortifications of Jerusalem. Then he revealed his knowledge that Hezekiah had sought the help of Egypt against Assyria, and ridiculed Egypt as a broken reed (v. 21). Third, he said that Judah could not trust in the LORD because Hezekiah had destroyed all the high places and . . . altars. Rabshakeh did not realize that these were heathen shrines and not places where the Lord was worshiped! Next he suggested a bethe would give . . . two thousand horses to Judah if Hezekiah could find that number of horsemen.

Judah did not have that many cavalrymen, he taunted, and so had to depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen. Finally, the Rabshakeh claimed that the LORD had sent Assyria to destroy Judah. 18:26, 27 The Jewish officials quickly suggested to the Rabshakeh that all further discussions be carried on in Aramaic, the language of diplomacy, rather than in Hebrew. They were secretly fearful that such arrogant talk might be destructive to the morale of the Jewish people listening on the wall. But the Rabshakeh countered that he wanted the people to hear and understand their coming starvation and doom. 18:28-37 Addressing the people directly, the Rabshakeh warned them not to let Hezekiah deceive them into trusting in the LORD for deliverance. If they would surrender, they would be granted the privilege of living in Jerusalem temporarily. Then when the king of Assyria returned from the Egyptian campaign, he would take them to Assyria, “a land like your own.” No other tribal deities had been able to deliver nations from . . . Assyria; how could they expect their God to do it? The people on the wall remained silent while the three Jewish officials returned to Hezekiah, thoroughly disheartened.