2 Kings 18 — Read & Listen Online

Hezekiah Turns Judah Back to Our Father

Chapter 18.

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of our Father, just as David his father had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah pole. He broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ¹ He trusted in our Father, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either after him or before him. He held fast to our Father and did not turn away from following him, but kept the commandments our Father had given Moses. And our Father was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its borders, from watchtower to fortified city.

In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched up against Samaria and laid siege to it. At the end of three years they captured it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was captured. The king of Assyria deported Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, on the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes, because they did not obey the voice of our Father but broke his covenant — all that Moses, our Father's servant, had commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed.

Assyria Comes Against Judah

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. So Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and whatever you impose on me I will bear." The king of Assyria demanded from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of our Father and in the treasuries of the royal palace. At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of our Father and from the doorposts that he himself had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

Assyria Defies the Living God

The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer, and his field commander with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and took their position by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field. They called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, came out to them, along with Shebnah the secretary and Joah son of Asaph the recorder. The field commander said to them, "Tell Hezekiah: This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is this confidence you are relying on? You say you have a strategy and the strength for war — but these are only empty words. On whom are you relying, that you have rebelled against me? Look, you are relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who rely on him. And if you say to me, 'We are relying on the LORD our God' — is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem'? Now then, make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses — if you can put riders on them! How then can you turn back even one officer among the least of my master's servants, while you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Besides, have I come up to destroy this place without the LORD? The LORD himself said to me, 'March up against this land and destroy it.'"

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, with Shebnah and Joah, said to the field commander, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew within the hearing of the people on the wall."

But the field commander replied, "Was it only to your master and to you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who, like you, will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?"

Then the field commander stood and shouted in a loud voice in Hebrew: "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot deliver you from my hand. Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, 'The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.' Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat from your own vine and your own fig tree and drink water from your own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own — a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey — that you may live and not die. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he misleads you when he says, 'The LORD will deliver us.' Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?'

But the people remained silent and answered him not a word, for the king had commanded, "Do not answer him." Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they reported to him the words of the field commander.

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