Hezekiah (Samuel-Kings)

Chapter 18

¹In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah became king. ²He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years; his mother’s name was Abi daughter of Zechariah. ³He did what was pleasing to the Lord, just as his father David had done. ⁴He abolished the shrines and smashed the pillars and cut down the sacred post. He also broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until that time the Israelites had been offering sacrifices to it; it was called Nehushtan. ⁵He trusted only in the Lord the God of Israel; there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those before him. ⁶He clung to the Lord; he did not turn away from following Him, but kept the commandments that the Lord had given to Moses. ⁷And the Lord was always with him; he was successful wherever he turned. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. ⁸He overran Philistia as far as Gaza and its border areas, from watchtower to fortified town.

⁹In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it, ¹⁰and he captured it at the end of three years. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of King Hoshea of Israel, Samaria was captured; ¹¹and the king of Assyria deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor [and] the River Gozan, and in the towns of Media. ¹²[This happened] because they did not obey the Lord their God; they transgressed His covenant—all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded. They did not obey and they did not fulfill it.

¹³In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched against all the fortified towns of Judah and seized them. ¹⁴King Hezekiah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong; withdraw from me; and I shall bear whatever you impose on me.” So the king of Assyria imposed upon King Hezekiah of Judah a payment of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. ¹⁵Heze-kiah gave him all the silver that was on hand in the House of the Lord and in the treasuries of the palace. ¹⁶At that time Hezekiah cut down the doors and the doorposts of the Temple of the Lord, which King Hezekiah had overlaid [with gold], and gave them to the king of Assyria.

¹⁷But the king of Assyria sent ^a-the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh^-afrom Lachish with a large force to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. They marched up to Jerusalem; and when they arrived, they took up a position near the conduit of the Upper Pool, by the road of the Fuller’s Field. ¹⁸They summoned the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to them.

¹⁹The Rabshakeh said to them, “You tell Hezekiah: Thus said the Great King, the King of Assyria: What makes you so confident? ²⁰You must think that mere talk is counsel and valor for war! Look, on whom are you relying, that you have rebelled against me? ²¹You rely, of all things, on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which enters and punctures the palm of anyone who leans on it! That’s what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to all who rely on him. ²²And if you tell me that you are relying on the Lord your God, He is the very one whose shrines and altars Hezekiah did away with, telling Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship only at this altar in Jerusalem.’ ²³Come now, make this wager with my master, the king of Assyria: I’ll give you two thousand horses if you can produce riders to mount them. ²⁴So how could you refuse anything even to the deputy of one of my master’s lesser servants, relying on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ²⁵And do you think I have marched against this land to destroy it without the Lord? The Lord Himself told me: Go up against that land and destroy it.”

²⁶Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah replied to the Rabshakeh, “Please, speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in Judean in the hearing of the people on the wall.” ²⁷But the Rabshakeh answered them, “Was it to your master and to you that my master sent me to speak those words? It was precisely to the men who are sitting on the wall— who will have to eat their dung and drink their urine with you.” ²⁸And the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judean: “Hear the words of the Great King, the King of Assyria. ²⁹Thus said the king: Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from my hands. ³⁰Don’t let Hezekiah make you rely on the Lord, saying: The Lord will surely save us: this city will not fall into the hands of the king of Assyria. ³¹Don’t listen to Hezekiah. For thus said the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me,^b so that you may all eat from your vines and your fig trees and drink water from your cisterns, ³²until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of grain [fields] and vineyards, of bread and wine, of olive oil and honey, so that you may live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, who misleads you by saying, ‘The Lord will save us.’ ³³Did any of the gods of other nations save his land from the king of Assyria? ³⁴Where were the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where were the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? [And] did they^c save Samaria from me? ³⁵Which among all the gods of [those] countries saved their countries from me, that the Lord should save Jerusalem from me?” ³⁶But the people were silent and did not say a word in reply; for the king’s order was: “Do not answer him.” ³⁷And so Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and they reported to him what the Rabshakeh had said.

Chapter 19

¹When King Hezekiah heard this, he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the House of the Lord. ²He also sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ³They said to him, “Thus said Hezekiah: This day is a day of distress, of chastisement, and of disgrace. ^d-The babes have reached the birthstool, but the strength to give birth is lacking.^{-d 4}Perhaps the Lord your God will take note of all the words of the Rab-shakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to blaspheme the living God, and will mete out judgment for the words that the Lord your God has heard—if you will offer up prayer for the surviving remnant.”

⁵When King Hezekiah’s ministers came to Isaiah, ⁶Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master as follows: Thus said the Lord: Do not be frightened by the words of blasphemy against Me that you have heard from the minions of the king of Assyria. ⁷I will delude him; he will hear a rumor and return to his land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his land.”

⁸The Rabshakeh, meanwhile, heard that [the king] had left Lachish; he turned back and found the king of Assyria attacking Libnah. ⁹But [the king of Assyria] learned that King Tirhakah of Nubia had come out to fight him; so he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰“Tell this to King Hezekiah of Judah: Do not let your God, on whom you are relying, mislead you into thinking that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hands of the king of Assyria. ¹¹You yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, how they have annihilated them; and can you escape? ¹²Were the nations that my predecessors destroyed— Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Beth-edenites in Tel-assar—saved by their gods? ¹³Where is the king of Ha-math? And the king of Arpad? And the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?”

¹⁴Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it. Hezekiah then went up to the House of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord of Hosts, Enthroned on the Cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth. ¹⁶O Lord, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see. Hear the words that Sennacherib has sent to blaspheme the living God! ¹⁷True, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have annihilated the nations and their lands, ¹⁸and have committed their gods to the flames and have destroyed them; for they are not gods, but man’s handiwork of wood and stone. ¹⁹But now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hands, and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that You alone, O Lord, are God.”

²⁰Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: I have heard the prayer you have offered to Me concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria. [ . . . ]

²⁹“And this is the sign for you:^e This year you eat what grows of itself, and the next year what springs from that; and in the third year, sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ³⁰And the survivors of the House of Judah that have escaped shall regenerate its stock below and produce boughs above.

³²Assuredly, thus said the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:

³⁵That night an angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp, and the following morning they were all dead corpses.

³⁶So King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and retreated, and stayed in Nineveh. ³⁷While he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sarezer struck him down with the sword. They fled to the land of Ararat, and his son Es-arhaddon succeeded him as king.