2 Kings 18:11-13

The Voice

¹¹Assyria’s king transported the Israelites to Assyria as exiles. He forced them to live in Halah on the Habor (the river of Gozan) and in the cities of the Medes. ¹²This took place because they did not obey the warning of the Eternal their God. Instead they transgressed both the sacred covenant He had made with them and everything Moses, the servant of the Eternal, had commanded. They would not listen to the sacred laws, much less obey them.

The Assyrian King Sennacherib invades Judah at the end of the 8th century. In 701 b.c., he reaches Jerusalem and sets himself against King Hezekiah. In one of his royal documents are words describing Hezekiah’s situation: “like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem, his royal city, I penned him.” Hezekiah is desperate and consults Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah tells Hezekiah to trust God entirely.

The story is phenomenal! God sends an angelic warrior to the Assyrian camp and 185,000 Assyrians from the royal army are killed. The Greek historian Herodotus also mentions this story and says that multitudes of rats brought a divine omen and disease to the Assyrian camp. The writer of the book of Kings clearly encourages his reader to see this event as God’s hand favoring Judah over Assyria.

¹³During King Hezekiah’s 14th year, Sennacherib, Assyria’s king, attacked and captured all of Judah’s fortified cities.

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