2 Chronicles 32: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Sennacherib king of Assyria invades Judah, and Hezekiah prepares Jerusalem by blocking the springs outside the city, rebuilding the walls, making weapons, and telling the people not to fear. Sennacherib's officials taunt the people in Hebrew, arguing that no other nation's god has saved anyone from Assyria; Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah pray, and the LORD sends an angel who kills the Assyrian fighting men, so Sennacherib goes home and is killed by his own sons. The chapter then covers Hezekiah's illness and recovery, his pride and his humbling, his great wealth and building projects, God leaving him to be tested when Babylonian envoys came, and his death and burial.

Claim by Claim

1. 32:1
   • After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came.
   • Sennacherib entered Judah.
   • Sennacherib encamped against the fortified cities.
   • Sennacherib intended to break the fortified cities open and take them for himself.
2. 32:2
   • Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come.
   • Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was set on making war against Jerusalem.
3. 32:3
   • Hezekiah took counsel with his officials and his warriors about stopping up the waters of the springs outside the city.
   • They helped him.
4. 32:4
   • A large number of people were gathered together.
   • They stopped up all the springs.
   • They stopped up the stream that flowed through the middle of the land.
   • They said, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?
5. 32:5
   • Hezekiah strengthened himself.
   • Hezekiah rebuilt all the wall that was broken down.
   • Hezekiah raised up upon it towers, or raised the wall up to the height of the towers; the text is ambiguous.
   • Hezekiah built another wall outside.
   • Hezekiah strengthened the Millo of the city of David.
   • Hezekiah made weapons in abundance.
   • Hezekiah made shields.
6. 32:6
   • Hezekiah appointed commanders of war over the people.
   • Hezekiah gathered the people to himself in the open square at the city gate.
   • Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to them.
7. 32:7
   • Hezekiah said, Be strong and courageous.
   • Hezekiah said, Do not be afraid or dismayed because of the king of Assyria.
   • Hezekiah said, Do not be afraid of all the multitude that is with him.
   • Hezekiah said that there is more with us than with him.
8. 32:8
   • Hezekiah said that with the king of Assyria is an arm of flesh.
   • Hezekiah said that with them is the LORD their God, to help them and to fight their battles.
   • The people relied on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
9. 32:9
   • After this Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem.
   • Sennacherib himself was at Lachish, laying siege to it.
   • All Sennacherib's forces were with him.
   • The message was sent to Hezekiah king of Judah and to all Judah who were in Jerusalem.
10. 32:10
    • The message said, Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria.
    • Sennacherib asked, On what do you trust that you remain under siege in Jerusalem?
11. 32:11
    • Sennacherib asked whether Hezekiah was not misleading them so as to hand them over to death by famine and thirst.
    • Sennacherib said that Hezekiah says, The LORD our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria.
12. 32:12
    • Sennacherib asked whether this same Hezekiah had not removed his high places and his altars; whether the altars belonged to the LORD or to Hezekiah is ambiguous.
    • Sennacherib said that Hezekiah commanded Judah and Jerusalem to worship before one altar.
    • Sennacherib said that Hezekiah commanded them to burn offerings upon that one altar.
13. 32:13
    • Sennacherib asked whether they did not know what he and his fathers had done to all the peoples of the lands.
    • Sennacherib asked whether the gods of the nations of those lands were at all able to deliver their land out of his hand.
14. 32:14
    • Sennacherib asked who among all the gods of those nations that his fathers utterly destroyed was able to deliver his people out of his hand.
    • Sennacherib asked how then their God should be able to deliver them out of his hand.
15. 32:15
    • Sennacherib said, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you.
    • Sennacherib said, Do not let him mislead you in this way.
    • Sennacherib said, Do not believe him.
    • Sennacherib said that no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of his hand or out of the hand of his fathers.
    • Sennacherib said that much less would their God deliver them out of his hand.
16. 32:16
    • Sennacherib's servants spoke still more against the LORD God.
    • Sennacherib's servants spoke against his servant Hezekiah.
17. 32:17
    • Sennacherib wrote letters to revile the LORD, the God of Israel.
    • The letters spoke against the LORD.
    • The letters said that as the gods of the nations of the lands did not deliver their people out of his hand, so the God of Hezekiah would not deliver his people out of his hand.
18. 32:18
    • They called out with a loud voice in the language of Judah.
    • They called out to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall.
    • Their purpose was to frighten and terrify them.
    • Their purpose was so that they might capture the city.
19. 32:19
    • They spoke against the God of Jerusalem as they spoke against the gods of the peoples of the earth.
    • The gods of the peoples of the earth are the work of human hands.
20. 32:20
    • Hezekiah the king and Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet prayed about this.
    • They cried out to heaven.
21. 32:21
    • The LORD sent an angel.
    • The angel destroyed every mighty warrior, leader, and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria.
    • The king of Assyria returned to his own land with shame of face.
    • He entered the house of his god.
    • Some of his own offspring struck him down there with the sword.
22. 32:22
    • The LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria.
    • The LORD saved them from the hand of all others.
    • The LORD guided them on every side.
23. 32:23
    • Many brought offerings to the LORD at Jerusalem.
    • Many brought precious gifts to Hezekiah king of Judah.
    • From then on Hezekiah was exalted in the sight of all the nations.
24. 32:24
    • In those days Hezekiah became sick to the point of death.
    • Hezekiah prayed to the LORD.
    • The LORD spoke to him.
    • The LORD gave him a sign.
25. 32:25
    • Hezekiah did not repay according to the benefit done to him.
    • Hezekiah's heart was lifted up.
    • Wrath came upon Hezekiah.
    • Wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem.
26. 32:26
    • Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart.
    • The inhabitants of Jerusalem humbled themselves along with him.
    • The wrath of the LORD did not come upon them in the days of Hezekiah.
27. 32:27
    • Hezekiah had exceedingly great riches and honor.
    • Hezekiah made himself treasuries for silver, gold, precious stones, spices, shields, and every kind of desirable object.
28. 32:28
    • Hezekiah made storehouses for the yield of grain, new wine, and oil.
    • Hezekiah made stalls for every kind of livestock.
    • Hezekiah made pens for flocks, or put flocks in the stalls; the text is ambiguous.
29. 32:29
    • Hezekiah made cities for himself.
    • Hezekiah acquired flocks and herds in abundance.
    • God had given Hezekiah very great possessions.
30. 32:30
    • This same Hezekiah stopped up the upper outlet of the waters of Gihon.
    • Hezekiah directed the waters down to the west side of the city of David.
    • Hezekiah prospered in all his works.
31. 32:31
    • Envoys of the princes of Babylon were sent to Hezekiah to inquire about the wonder that had happened in the land.
    • In that matter God left Hezekiah to himself.
    • God did this to test him.
    • God did this to know all that was in Hezekiah's heart.
32. 32:32
    • The rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his acts of faithful devotion are written in the vision of Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet.
    • They are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.
33. 32:33
    • Hezekiah slept with his fathers.
    • They buried him in the upper section of the tombs of the sons of David.
    • All Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem honored him at his death.
    • Manasseh his son reigned in his place.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

32:1

Assyria was the dominant military empire of the age, based on the Tigris in what is now northern Iraq, with its great capital at Nineveh. Sennacherib ruled it from 705 to 681 BC and invaded Judah in 701 BC. "After these things" points back to Hezekiah's reopening and cleansing of the temple in the previous three chapters.

32:3

Jerusalem's water came from springs in the valley outside the walls. Concealing or blocking them left the city drawing water through covered channels while a besieging army had to haul it from a distance, the standard defensive move when a siege was expected.

32:5

The Millo (a Hebrew word meaning roughly "the filling") was a system of stone-built terraces packed with fill on the steep eastern slope of the oldest quarter of Jerusalem, holding up the ground the buildings stood on; it needed repeated repair. The City of David is that oldest quarter, the narrow ridge south of the temple, taken by David generations earlier.

32:6

The open square just inside a city gate was the town's public space, where courts sat, deals were struck and business was done, and the one place a crowd could be assembled and addressed.

32:8

"An arm of flesh" is a Hebrew way of saying nothing but human power. The arm stands for strength, and "flesh" for what is mortal and breakable.

32:9

Lachish was the largest fortified town in Judah after Jerusalem, about twenty-five miles south-west of it. Its capture mattered enough to Sennacherib that he had the assault carved in detail across a wall of his palace at Nineveh; that relief survives and is now in the British Museum.

32:10

A siege meant ringing a city so that nothing and nobody could get in or out, then battering the walls while hunger, thirst and disease worked on the people inside. Sennacherib's question is a taunt: he is asking what possible reason the trapped city has for holding out.

32:12

High places were open-air worship sites, usually on a hill or rise, with an altar and often a standing stone or a wooden pole. They had been ordinary features of the countryside for centuries. Hezekiah had shut them down and required that sacrifice be offered only at the temple in Jerusalem. The Assyrian envoy is turning that reform into an argument: on his reckoning, a king who tears down his own god's shrines can hardly expect that god's protection.

32:13

"My ancestors" means the Assyrian kings before him. His audience knew exactly what he was referring to: Assyria had destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and its capital Samaria about twenty years earlier and deported its population.

32:17

In the King James, "to rail on" means to abuse someone with mocking words. It has nothing to do with rails or railings.

32:18

They shouted in Hebrew, the everyday language of Judah, rather than Aramaic, the language of international diplomacy that trained officials used. The point was to reach the ordinary people standing on the wall directly, over the heads of their negotiators.

32:19

Many countries back then prayed to statues of wood, stone, or gold. People called those statues their gods.

32:20

Isaiah son of Amoz is the prophet whose collected sayings make up the book of Isaiah. A prophet was a figure who spoke publicly in God's name, and just as often on royal policy and foreign alliances as on anything else.

32:21

The Hebrew word translated "angel" means simply "messenger", one sent to carry out an errand. As for Sennacherib's death: he was in fact assassinated in 681 BC, some twenty years after this campaign, and Assyrian and Babylonian records also record that he was killed by one or more of his own sons. The account here sets his retreat and his death side by side without noting the gap.

32:22

The King James "guided them on every side" renders the Hebrew text exactly as it stands. A nearly identical Hebrew word means "gave them rest," which is why most modern translations read "gave them rest on every side." The two readings differ by a single letter.

32:23

Bringing gifts to a king was a formal act of diplomacy rather than simple generosity. It publicly acknowledged his standing and sought his goodwill, and receiving such gifts from many nations was a measure of how far a ruler's reputation now reached.

32:24

This illness is told at greater length in 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 38, where the sign given is a shadow moving backwards down a stairway. It is the "wonder" the envoys from Babylon come asking about in verse 31.

32:25

The King James "rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him" means he did not respond in a way that matched the kindness he had been shown. "Benefit" here means the favor done to him, not a payment or an allowance.

32:27

"Jewels" in the King James means valuable objects of any kind, not specifically jewelry. Spices and aromatic resins were imported over enormous distances and are listed alongside silver and gold because they were worth comparable amounts.

32:28

Grain, new wine and olive oil were the three staple crops of the land, and naming them together was a standard way of saying "the entire harvest." New wine is the freshly pressed juice of that year's grapes, still fermenting.

32:30

The spring of Gihon lay in the valley outside the city wall. Hezekiah had a tunnel cut some 1,750 feet through solid rock to bring its water inside the defenses to a pool at the far end. The tunnel still exists and can be walked; an inscription cut by the workmen describing the moment the two digging teams, tunnelling from opposite ends, broke through to each other was found in it in 1880.

32:31

Babylon at this date was a subject territory of Assyria in more or less permanent revolt. A delegation sent from there to a small western kingdom would have been sounding out allies against Assyria at least as much as enquiring after a king's health. The visit is described in 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 39.

32:32

Ancient histories routinely pointed readers to their sources like this. The "Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel" was a record that has not survived; it is not the books of Kings found in the Bible.

32:33

"Died and joined his ancestors" is a fixed formula used of a king who dies peacefully and is buried in the family tomb. The tombs of David's descendants were arranged in tiers, and burial in the upper section was the place of greatest honor. Hezekiah died around 686 BC.