2 Kings 18

In the third year that Hoshea son of Elah was king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz became king of Judah.

1Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.

NoteSince the death of Solomon the Israelites had been split into two kingdoms: Israel in the north, with its capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with its capital at Jerusalem. Both are ruled by their own kings, and the book dates the reign of each king by the regnal year of the other kingdom's king.

2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.

2Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.

NoteThe mother of a king of Judah is named almost every time a reign is introduced. The king's mother held a recognized position at court, the 'great lady,' with standing that outranked the king's wives.

3He did what was right in the LORD's sight, just as his forefather David had done.

3And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did.

Note'Father' in Hebrew usage covers any ancestor. David had died roughly three hundred years earlier; the point is that Hezekiah belonged to David's line and ruled the way its founder had.

4He took away the local worship sites, smashed the stone pillars, and cut down the wooden poles set up for the goddess Asherah. He also broke up the bronze snake that Moses had made, because until then the people of Israel had been burning incense to it. He called it Nehushtan.

4He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

NoteThe 'high places' were open-air shrines on hilltops and ridges, scattered across the countryside, where people offered sacrifices locally rather than traveling to the temple in Jerusalem. The standing stones and the wooden poles were the normal furniture of such a site; the poles carried the name of Asherah, a goddess worshiped across the region. The bronze snake goes back to a story in Numbers 21, where Moses made one and people bitten by snakes looked at it and lived. The name Hezekiah gives it, Nehushtan, plays on the Hebrew words for 'bronze' and 'snake' and amounts to calling it 'that bronze thing.'

5He trusted the LORD, the God of Israel. No king of Judah was like him, either before him or after him.

5He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

6He held tightly to the LORD and never stopped following him. He kept the commands the LORD had given to Moses.

6For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses.

7The LORD was with him, and he did well wherever he went. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.

7And the LORD was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.

NoteJudah had been a tributary state of Assyria since Hezekiah's father Ahaz: it kept its own king but paid an annual sum and swore loyalty. 'Rebelled' means Hezekiah stopped the payments and repudiated the oath, which under Assyrian practice was an act of war.

8He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and the land around it, from the smallest watchtower to the walled city.

8He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

NoteThe Philistines held five cities along the coastal plain south-west of Judah, Gaza being the farthest south; they had been Israel's neighbors and rivals for centuries. 'From watchtower to walled city' is a stock phrase meaning every kind of settlement, from an isolated lookout post to a fortified town.

9In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and surrounded it.

9And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it.

NoteA siege meant surrounding a walled city and cutting it off from food and water until it surrendered or was stormed. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom.

10At the end of three years they captured it. Samaria was taken in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.

10And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

11The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, and by the Habor River in the region of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

11And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes:

NoteAssyria's standard policy with a conquered people was mass deportation: the population was moved hundreds of miles away and foreigners were settled in its place, which broke up any base for revolt. Halah, the Habor river and Gozan lie in northern Mesopotamia, and the cities of the Medes lie farther east still, in what is now Iran.

12This happened because they had not obeyed the voice of the LORD their God. They broke his covenant, everything Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded, and they would not listen to it or do it.

12Because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear them, nor do them.

NoteA covenant was a formal binding agreement, in form much like the treaties great kings imposed on lesser ones: terms, obligations, and stated consequences for breaking it.

13In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the walled cities of Judah and captured them.

13Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.

NoteSennacherib's invasion of Judah is recorded in Assyrian sources as well and is dated to 701 BC. That date is hard to reconcile with 'the fourteenth year' if Hezekiah's reign began where verses 9 and 10 place it, and the chronology of this period remains disputed.

14So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. Pull back from me, and I will pay whatever you demand." The king of Assyria demanded from Hezekiah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

14And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

NoteLachish was Judah's second city, a heavily fortified town south-west of Jerusalem; Sennacherib was besieging it, and his capture of it was later carved in relief on the walls of his palace at Nineveh. A talent was a weight of roughly seventy-five pounds (about thirty-four kilograms), so this is on the order of ten tons of silver and one ton of gold. Sennacherib's own account of the campaign claims eight hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold, the silver figure differing perhaps because Assyria reckoned the talent differently.

15Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was in the LORD's house and in the treasure rooms of the royal palace.

15And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king’s house.

Note'The LORD's house' is the temple in Jerusalem. Temples in the ancient Near East served as state treasuries as well as places of worship, so the silver stored there was available to the king in an emergency.

16At that time Hezekiah stripped off the gold he had used to cover the doors and doorposts of the LORD's temple, and he gave it to the king of Assyria.

16At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

17Even so, the king of Assyria sent his commander, his chief officer, and his chief adviser from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, along with a large army. They marched up to Jerusalem and took their position by the water channel of the upper pool, on the road to the field where cloth is washed.

17And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field.

NoteThe three words the King James Version leaves untranslated - Tartan, Rabsaris, Rabshakeh - are Assyrian ranks, not personal names: roughly commander-in-chief, chief eunuch or chief officer, and chief cupbearer, the last a senior court title whose holder acted as spokesman. The upper pool was one of Jerusalem's water sources outside the wall; the field beside it was where cloth was trodden and washed, an operation needing space and water and therefore kept outside the city. The spot was close enough to the wall for a shouted conversation.

18They called for the king, and three men came out to them: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who managed the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who kept the official records.

18And when they had called to the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder.

NoteThese are the three highest officials of the court. The man 'over the household' ran the palace and the royal estates and was effectively chief of staff; the scribe was secretary of state, handling correspondence and revenue; the recorder was the official who kept the royal annals and served as herald.

19The chief adviser said to them, "Tell Hezekiah this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What makes you so sure of yourself?

19And Rabshakeh said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?

Note'The great king' was a formal Assyrian royal title, used to place its holder above the ordinary kings who were his vassals. The speech that follows uses the standard opening of a royal message, 'Thus says the king,' the same formula a herald would use anywhere.

20You say you have a war plan and the strength to fight, but those are only empty words. Who are you relying on, that you dare to rebel against me?

20Thou sayest, (but they are but vain words,) I have counsel and strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me?

21Look, you are leaning on Egypt, a cracked walking stick that will run into a man's hand and cut it if he puts his weight on it. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is to everyone who relies on him.

21Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.

NoteReeds grow along the Nile, so the image is pointed: Egypt looks like something to lean on but splinters and wounds the hand. Judah's rebellion depended on promised Egyptian military support.

22And if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' isn't he the one whose worship sites and altars Hezekiah took away? Hezekiah told Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship in front of this one altar in Jerusalem.'

22But if ye say unto me, We trust in the LORD our God: is not that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?

NoteThe chief adviser is turning Hezekiah's religious reform of verse 4 against him: to an outsider, shutting down the country shrines looked like an insult to the very god Judah now expects to save it.

23So come now, make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I will hand you two thousand horses, if you can even find enough men to ride them.

23Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my lord the king of Assyria, and I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.

NoteA taunt about Judah's lack of cavalry. Horses were expensive and trained riders scarcer still; the claim is that Judah could not field two thousand horsemen even if the horses were handed to it free.

24How could you drive back a single officer, even the lowest of my master's servants, while you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

24How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

25And do you think I marched against this place to destroy it without the LORD? The LORD himself told me, 'March against this land and destroy it.'"

25Am I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.

NoteAssyrian kings routinely claimed that the gods of the lands they attacked had abandoned those lands and summoned Assyria against them. The speaker is applying that standard claim to Judah's own God.

26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, along with Shebna and Joah, said to the chief adviser, "Please speak to us, your servants, in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew, where the people on the wall can hear."

26Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.

NoteAramaic was the international language of diplomacy and trade across the Near East, understood by officials but not by ordinary people in Jerusalem, who spoke Hebrew. The request is to keep the negotiation from being overheard by the troops on the wall.

27But the chief adviser answered, "Did my master send me to say these things only to your master and to you? Didn't he send me to the men sitting on the wall, who along with you will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?"

27But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?

NoteA blunt description of what a long siege does to a city: once food and water run out, the defenders are reduced to consuming their own waste.

28Then the chief adviser stood and shouted in Hebrew, "Listen to the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!

28Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and spake, saying, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria:

29This is what the king says: Don't let Hezekiah fool you. He cannot rescue you from my power.

29Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand:

30Don't let Hezekiah talk you into trusting the LORD by saying, 'The LORD will certainly rescue us, and this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.'

30Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

31Don't listen to Hezekiah. 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 grapevine and your own fig tree, and drink water from your own well,

31Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern:

NoteStandard terms of surrender: come out of the city and submit, and you will be left on your land to farm it in the meantime. Sitting under one's own vine and fig tree was a common way of describing a life of peace and security.

32until I come and take you away to a land like your own. It is a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Then you will live and not die. Don't listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, 'The LORD will rescue us.'

32Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The LORD will deliver us.

NoteThe offer ends in deportation, the same policy applied to Samaria in verse 11 - stated openly here, and dressed up as resettlement in a country just as good as the one being left.

33Has the god of any nation ever rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria?

33Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

NoteThe argument assumes what most people in the ancient world assumed: each nation had its own god, and a war between nations was also a contest between their gods. Assyria's record of conquest is offered as proof of which god won.

34Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? Did they rescue Samaria from my power?

34Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand?

NoteAll cities in Syria and northern Mesopotamia that Assyria had conquered in living memory. Samaria, named last, was the closest to home and the most recent.

35Which of all the gods of these lands has rescued his land from my power? So how could the LORD rescue Jerusalem from my power?"

35Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?

36But the people stayed quiet and did not answer him at all, because the king had ordered, "Do not answer him."

36But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king’s commandment was, saying, Answer him not.

37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who managed the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who kept the records, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they told him what the chief adviser had said.

37Then came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

NoteTearing one's clothes was the recognized public sign of grief, horror or mourning. Here it registers what the officials heard as unbearable, and it shows the king their reaction before they say a word.