2 Kings 18:13-18

The Voice

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. ¹⁴Hezekiah (Judah’s king) sent a message to Sennacherib at Lachish.

Hezekiah’s Message: I confess that what I have done is wrong! Please leave now, and I will personally pay the penalty of my own actions.

Assyria’s king demanded 11 tons of silver and one ton of gold from Hezekiah, king of Judah. ¹⁵Hezekiah gathered up all the silver he could find in the Eternal’s temple and in the palace treasuries; and he gave it to Assyria’s king, just as he had demanded. ¹⁶He even stripped the gold off the Eternal’s temple doors and doorposts that he had gilded, and he handed it over to Assyria’s king.

¹⁷Assyria’s king then dispatched a large army to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The army was led by three senior military officers, Tartan, Rab-saris, and Rabshakeh, from Lachish. They came to Jerusalem and waited by the channel of the upper pool. (The channel is on the main route to the fuller’s field.) ¹⁸They called out to the king; but instead of the king coming out to meet them, Eliakim (Hilkiah’s son) the palace administrator, Shebnah the lawyer, and Joah (Asaph’s son) the reporter to the king and the people approached them.

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