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New Testament
2 Kings 18:13-19:34
13In King Hezekiah's fourteenth year, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. 14Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent a message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will pay.” Then the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah a penalty of three hundred talents[] of silver and thirty talents[] of gold. 15So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the Lord's house and in the treasuries of the king's house. 16At this time, Hezekiah stripped the gold off the doors of the temple of the Lord and off the doorposts, which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid with gold, and he gave it to the king of Assyria.
The Assyrian Commander Taunts Hezekiah
17Then the king of Assyria sent the field commander, the chief of staff, and the herald[] from Lachish with a large army against King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and stood by the water channel from the upper pool, which is on the way to the launderers field. 18They summoned the king, so Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was the palace administrator, Shebna, who was the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who was the recorder, went out to meet them.
19The herald said to him, “Tell Hezekiah what the great king, the king of Assyria, says.”
The Taunt
What are you relying on? 20You say that you have the plan and power for war, but this is only words from your lips. So who are you trusting when you rebel against me? 21Tell me, are you really trusting in Egypt as your staff, that splintered reed which will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it? That's what Pharaoh king of Egypt is for all those who trust in him.
22And if you say to me, “We are trusting in the Lord our God,” didn't Hezekiah remove his high places and his altars and tell Judah and Jerusalem, “You must bow down before this altar in Jerusalem”?
23But now, make a bargain with my lord, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses if you can provide riders for them. 24How will you resist one officer from among the least significant of my lord's servants? You are trusting in Egypt for chariots and charioteers. 25Have I now come up against this place without the Lord's orders? The Lord said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”
26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, along with Shebna and Joah, said to the herald, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand it. But don't speak with us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
27Then the herald said to them:
Is it only to your lord and to you that my lord sent me to speak these words? Is it not also to the people who are sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine with you?[]
28Then the herald stood up and called out in a loud voice in Hebrew and said the following:
Listen to the words of the Great King, the king of Assyria. 29This is what the king says. Don't let Hezekiah deceive you, because he can't save you from my hand. 30And don't let Hezekiah cause you to trust in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will surely save us! He will not let this city be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
31Don't listen to Hezekiah because this is what the king of Assyria says. Make a peace treaty with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat from his own vine and drink from his own cistern, 32until I come and take you to a land like your own land, a land with grain and sweet wine, a land with bread and vineyards, a land with olive oil and honey, so that you may live and not die. Don't listen to Hezekiah because he is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will save us.”
33Have the gods of any nation ever saved their land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 34Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did they save Samaria from my hand? 35Who among all the gods of the lands saved their land from my hand? Will the Lord really save Jerusalem from my hand?
36But the people were silent. They did not answer him a word because the king had commanded them not to speak or answer. 37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was the palace administrator, Shebna who was the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who was the recorder, went to Hezekiah with their robes torn and told him the words of the herald.
Isaiah's Message to Hezekiah
191When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth. Then he went into the House of the Lord. 2He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the elders of the priests, dressed in sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.
3They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says. Today is a day of distress and rebuke and humiliation because children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them. 4Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of the herald,[] whom his lord, the king of Assyria, sent to mock the living God, and he will rebuke him for the words which the Lord your God has heard, and you will lift up a prayer on behalf of the remnant who are left.”
5When the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah, 6Isaiah said to them, “Say this to your master: This is what the Lord says. Do not be afraid of these words which you heard, with which the lackeys[] of the king of Assyria blasphemed me. 7See, I am going to put him into such a frame of mind that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his country, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”
Hezekiah's Prayer
8Because the herald heard that the king of Assyria had withdrawn from Lachish, he went back and found the king fighting against Libnah. 9For he had heard this report about Tirhakah king of Cush: “Watch out! He has come out to fight with you.” So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah 10to say this to Hezekiah king of Judah: “Don't let your God, whom you trust, deceive you, saying, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ 11Listen, you have heard what the kings of Assyria did to all the lands which they completely destroyed. And you expect to be saved? 12Did the gods of the nations which my fathers destroyed save them—Gozen and Haran and Rezeph and the people of Eden, who are in Tel Assar? 13Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and Hena and Ivvah?”
14Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the House of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it out before the Lord. 15Then Hezekiah prayed before the Lord:
O Lord, God of Israel, you are seated above the cherubim. You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth. 16Bend your ear, O Lord, and hear. Open your eyes, Lord, and see. Hear Sennacherib's words, which he sent to taunt the living God. 17It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed these nations and their lands. 18They have burned their gods, because they were not gods but only the works of human hands, just wood and stone, so they destroyed them. 19But now, O Lord our God, please save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you, O Lord, are God, you alone.
The Lord's Answer to Hezekiah
20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah:
This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I have heard what you have prayed to me about Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. 21This is the message which the Lord has spoken about him:
The virgin daughter Zion despises you. She jeers at you.
The Daughter Jerusalem tosses her head at you.
22Whom have you taunted and blasphemed?
Against whom have you lifted up your voice and raised your eyes to heaven?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
23By your messengers you have taunted the Lord.
You have said,
“With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains,
to the most remote part of Lebanon.
I cut down its tall cedars and its best fir trees.
I went in to its farthest dwelling place, the most lush of its forests.
24I dug wells and drank water in foreign lands.
I dried up all the streams of Egypt with the soles of my feet.”
25Have you not heard?
From long ago I, the Lord, did this.
From days of eternity I formed it,
and now I have brought it about
that fortified cities crash into piles of ruined stones.
26Their inhabitants, powerless, are dismayed and ashamed.
They are like plants in the field and fresh green grass,
like grass on the roof, scorched before it becomes a full-grown stalk.
27I know when you sit down, and when you go out,
and when you come in again, and how you rage against me.
28Because you rage against me,
because your arrogance has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth,
and I will make you go back by the same way you came.
29This will be a sign for you, Hezekiah:
This year you will eat what grows naturally,
next year what grows naturally from that,
but in the third year, you will sow and harvest.
You will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
30The surviving remnant of the house of Judah
will again take root below and produce fruit above.
31For a remnant will go out from Jerusalem,
and survivors from Mt. Zion.
The zeal of the Lord will do this.
32Therefore, this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:
He will not come into this city.
He will not shoot an arrow there.
He will not advance against it with a shield,
and he will not build up a siege ramp against it.
33By the same way he came he will go back,
but he will not come into this city.
A declaration of the Lord:
34I will protect and save this city for my own sake
and for the sake of my servant David.
Footnotes
- 18:1 The account of Hezekiah's reign in 2 Chronicles, which covers chapters 29–32, is significantly longer than the account in Kings.
- 18:14 More than 22,500 pounds
- 18:14 More than a 2,250 pounds
- 18:17 Isaiah's account is the earliest account of these events and the closest parallel to Kings.
- 18:17 In Hebrew the titles are tartan, rab saris, and rab shakeh (also in verses 19, 26-28, and 37). The exact equivalents of these foreign titles are uncertain.
- 18:27 The terms for excrement and urine are apparently coarse, because the scribal notes substitute euphemisms for them.
- 19:4 Hebrew rab shakeh (also in verse 8). The exact equivalent of this foreign title is uncertain.
- 19:6 Or junior officers