2 Kings 18:13-37--Sennacherib Attacks Judah

2 Kings 18:13-37
English Standard Version

Sennacherib Attacks Judah
13 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. 14 And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15 And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king's house. 16 At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. 17 And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer's Field. 18 And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

19 And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? 20 Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? 21 Behold, you are trusting now in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. 22 But if you say to me, “We trust in the LORD our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? 23 Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 24 How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 25 Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”

26 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 27 But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?”

28 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “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 deliver you out of my hand. 30 Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city 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: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, 32 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” 33 Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 35 Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

​36 But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, “Do not answer him.” 37 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

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The king of Assyria is given permission by the LORD to attack the land of Judah and to take control of all the fortified cities there.  King Hezekiah surrenders and tells the king of Assyria to name his price for what he must offer to stop the siege.  Like the kings before him, Hezekiah empties the treasuries of the Temple and even scrapes the gold laid over the doors of the Temple to pay Assyria's price of 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold.

This was not enough for the Assyrians though, as they sent a false prophet to the people to prophecy against Hezekiah, but Hezekiah would not come out to him.  Instead, three high-ranking officials were sent as envoys to meet with this prophet called the Rabshakeh.  The Rabshakeh warned Hezekiah not to trust in Egypt for salvation (this may have actually been a word from the LORD), but then also accused Judah of not worshiping the LORD because they destroyed the high places and made everyone worship at the Temple.  In the view of the Assyrians, the LORD was who the people of the northern kingdom worshiped, and they worshiped at the high places and did not worship at the Temple, so in Assyria's mind, they had to be telling people to worship a different God if they worshiped in such a different way than the northern ten tribes and the Samaritans that had resettled the northern part of the Land.

The Assyrians taunted the Israelites in Hebrew so that all those guarding the wall would understand them, even though the envoys asked the Rabshakeh to speak to them in Aramaic, which they all understood as educated people, but the guards would not have known.  The Rabshakeh refused as he wanted to put fear into the hearts of the guards on the wall as well as the people in the king's court.  The king of Assyria said he would even give the king of Israel 2,000 horses if he could find riders for them and knew what to do with them without going to Egypt for help, and Assyria was sure that they could still defeat Judah, even with their worst military leader and strategist.

The Rabshakeh asked the people of Judah to surrender for peace, access to food and water, and to not listen to Hezekiah when he promised that the LORD would save Judah.  The Rabshakeh pointed to Assyria's victory over Samaria (the northern ten tribes of Israel) as well as other surrounding lands to say that neither the gods of these nations (they lumped the LORD, the God of Israel in with all of them) were able to stop them.  The Assyrians were sure the Jerusalem and Judah with it would be no different.

The king ordered the people not to answer the Rabshakeh, so everyone stood silent and said nothing, but the envoys that Hezekiah had sent to hear the Rabshakeh returned to him with their clothes torn (a sign of grief and mourning), indicating that the condition of their hearts that they felt like their hearts were torn like their clothes.  I'm not sure if these envoys believed that the LORD would save them, and I would wonder if the LORD would be upset that they had just desecrated the Temple in order to pay the extortion money to the Assyrians.  Why trust Him after paying the extortion money but not before?

The LORD is going to send a true prophet to Hezekiah to reassure him and give him council in the next passage we will study together when we for the first time see the prophet Isaiah mentioned in the book of Kings.  We'll look at that next time.