2 Kings 18-19

Amplified Bible

Hezekiah Reigns over Judah

18 Now it came about in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king. ² He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. ³ Hezekiah did right in the sight of the Lord, in accordance with everything that David his father (ancestor) had done. ⁴ He removed the high places [of pagan worship], broke down the images (memorial stones) and cut down the Asherim. He also crushed to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the Israelites had burned incense to it; and it was called ^[a]Nehushtan [a bronze sculpture].^{(A) 5} Hezekiah trusted in and relied confidently on the Lord, the God of Israel; so that after him there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. ⁶ For he clung to the Lord; he did not turn away from [faithfully] following Him, but he kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses.

Hezekiah Victorious

⁷ And the Lord was with Hezekiah; he was successful wherever he went. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to serve him. ⁸ He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza [the most distant city] and its borders, from the [isolated] lookout tower to the [populous] fortified city.

⁹ Now in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh of Hoshea the son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser the king of Assyria went up against Samaria and besieged it. ¹⁰ At the end of three years they captured it; in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹ Then the king of Assyria sent Israel into exile to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of [the city of] Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, ¹² because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but broke His covenant, everything that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded; and they would not listen nor do it.

Invasion of Judah

¹³ In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah [except Jerusalem] and captured them. ¹⁴ Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear.” So the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah [a tribute tax of] three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. ¹⁵ Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house (temple) of the Lord, and in the treasuries of the king’s house (palace). ¹⁶ At that time Hezekiah cut away the gold framework from the doors of the temple of the Lord and from the doorposts which ^[b]he had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

¹⁷ Then the king of Assyria sent ^[c]the Tartan and the Rab-saris and the Rabshakeh [his highest officials] with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem, and when they went up and arrived, they stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool, which is on the road of the Fuller’s Field.^{(B) 18} When they called for the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the [king’s] household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the secretary went out to [meet] them.

¹⁹ Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is [the reason for] this confidence that you have? ²⁰ You say (but they are only empty words) ‘I have counsel and strength for the war.’ Now on whom do you rely, that you have rebelled against me? ²¹ Now pay attention: you are relying on Egypt, on that staff of crushed reed; if a man leans on it, it will only go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust and rely on him. ²² But if you tell me, ‘We trust in and rely on the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship [only] before this altar in Jerusalem’? ²³ Now then, make a bargain with my lord the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if on your part you can put riders on them. ²⁴ How then can you drive back even one official of the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ²⁵ Now have I come up against this place to destroy it without the Lord’s approval? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”’”

²⁶ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Aramaic (Syrian) language, because we understand it; and do not speak with us in the Judean (Hebrew) language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” ²⁷ But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to say these things? Has he not sent me to the men who sit on the wall, [who are doomed by the siege] to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you?”

²⁸ Then the Rabshakeh stood and shouted out with a loud voice in Judean (Hebrew), “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. ²⁹ Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to rescue you from my hand; ³⁰ nor let Hezekiah make you trust in and rely on the Lord, saying, “The Lord will certainly rescue us, and this city [of Jerusalem] will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ³¹ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: “Surrender to me and come out to [meet] me, and every man may eat from his own vine and fig tree, and every man may drink the waters of his own well, ³² until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, so that you may live and not die.” Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads and incites you, saying, “The Lord will rescue us!” ³³ Has any one of the gods of the nations ever rescued his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ³⁴ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad [in Aram]? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah [in the valley of the Euphrates]? Have they rescued Samaria (Israel’s capital) from my hand? ³⁵ Who among all the gods of the lands have rescued their lands from my hand, that the Lord would rescue Jerusalem from my hand?’”

³⁶ But the people kept silent and did not answer him, for the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.” ³⁷ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the [royal] household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph the secretary, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn [in grief and despair] and told him what the Rabshakeh had said.

Isaiah Encourages Hezekiah

19 When king Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and he covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house (temple) of the Lord.^{(C) 2} Then he sent Eliakim who was in charge of his household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz. ³ They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This is a day of distress and anxiety, of punishment and humiliation; for children have come to [the time of their] birth and there is no strength to rescue them. ⁴ It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to taunt and defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. So offer a prayer for the remnant [of His people] that is left [in Judah].’” ⁵ So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. ⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Say this to your master: ‘Thus says the Lord, “Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled (blasphemed) Me. ⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”’”

Sennacherib Defies God

⁸ So the Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah [a fortified city of Judah]; for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. ⁹ When the king heard them say concerning Tirhakah king of ^[d]Ethiopia, “Behold, he has come out to make war against you,” he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰ “Say this to Hezekiah king of Judah, ‘Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by saying, “Jerusalem shall not be handed over to the king of Assyria.” ¹¹ Listen, you have heard what the Assyrian kings have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be spared? ¹² Did the gods of the nations whom my forefathers destroyed rescue them—Gozan and Haran [of Mesopotamia] and Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad [of northern Syria], the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?’”

Hezekiah’s Prayer

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the house (temple) of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.^{(D) 15} Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim [of the ^[e]ark in the temple], You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heavens and the earth. ¹⁶ O Lord, bend down Your ear and hear; Lord, open Your eyes and see; hear the [taunting] words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to taunt and defy the living God. ¹⁷ It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have devastated the nations and their lands ¹⁸ and have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not [real] gods but [only] the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they [could destroy them and] have destroyed them. ¹⁹ Now, O Lord our God, please, save us from his hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know [without any doubt] that You alone, O Lord, are God.”

God’s Answer through Isaiah

²⁰ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘I have heard your prayer to Me regarding Sennacherib king of Assyria.’^{(E) 21} This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:

²⁹ ‘Then this shall be the sign [of these things] to you [Hezekiah]: this year you will eat what grows of itself, in the second year what springs up voluntarily, and in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. ³⁰ The survivors who remain of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. ³¹ For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and [a band of] survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform this.

³² ‘Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: “He will not come to this city [Jerusalem] nor shoot an arrow there; nor will he come before it with a shield nor throw up a siege ramp against it. ³³ By the way that he came, by the same way he will return, and he will not come into this city,”’ declares the Lord. ³⁴ ‘For I will protect this city to save it, for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’”

³⁵ Then it came to pass that night, that the ^[f]angel of the Lord went forth and struck down 185,000 [men] in the camp of the Assyrians; when the survivors got up early in the morning, behold, all [185,000] of them were dead. ³⁶ So Sennacherib king of Assyria ^[g]left and returned home, and lived at ^[h]Nineveh. ³⁷ It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with a sword; and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.