2 Kings 18: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Hezekiah becomes king of Judah, tears down the shrines and objects used in worship of other gods, and refuses to keep serving Assyria. During his reign Assyria captures Samaria and carries Israel away, and later Sennacherib takes the fortified cities of Judah and forces Hezekiah to pay a heavy tribute of silver and gold. Assyria then sends officers with an army to Jerusalem, where the Rabshakeh shouts to the people on the wall in Hebrew, arguing that neither Egypt nor the LORD can save them. The people stay silent as Hezekiah ordered, and his officials report the speech to him with their clothes torn.

Claim by Claim

1. 18:1
   • It happened in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel.
   • Hezekiah was the son of Ahaz.
   • Hezekiah began to reign as king of Judah.
2. 18:2
   • Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign.
   • Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem.
   • Hezekiah's mother was named Abi.
   • Abi was the daughter of Zechariah.
3. 18:3
   • Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the LORD.
   • Hezekiah did according to all that David his father had done.
4. 18:4
   • Hezekiah removed the high places.
   • Hezekiah smashed the standing stone pillars.
   • Hezekiah cut down the sacred pole of Asherah.
   • Hezekiah crushed to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made.
   • Until those days the children of Israel had been burning incense to the bronze serpent.
   • The serpent was called Nehushtan, and the text leaves unclear whether Hezekiah or the people gave it that name.
5. 18:5
   • Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel.
   • After Hezekiah there was none like him among all the kings of Judah.
   • There was none like Hezekiah among the kings who were before him.
6. 18:6
   • Hezekiah clung to the LORD.
   • Hezekiah did not turn away from following the LORD.
   • Hezekiah kept the commandments that the LORD had commanded Moses.
7. 18:7
   • The LORD was with Hezekiah.
   • Hezekiah prospered wherever he went out.
   • Hezekiah rebelled against the king of Assyria.
   • Hezekiah did not serve the king of Assyria.
8. 18:8
   • Hezekiah struck the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory.
   • He struck them from watchtower to fortified city.
9. 18:9
   • It happened in the fourth year of king Hezekiah.
   • That year was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel.
   • Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria.
   • Shalmaneser besieged Samaria.
10. 18:10
    • At the end of three years they captured Samaria.
    • The capture was in the sixth year of Hezekiah.
    • That year was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.
    • Samaria was captured.
11. 18:11
    • The king of Assyria carried Israel away into exile to Assyria.
    • He settled them in Halah.
    • He settled them in Habor, the river of Gozan.
    • He settled them in the cities of the Medes.
12. 18:12
    • This happened because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God.
    • They transgressed his covenant.
    • They transgressed all that Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded.
    • They did not listen.
    • They did not do it.
13. 18:13
    • In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah.
    • Sennacherib captured those cities.
14. 18:14
    • Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish.
    • Hezekiah said, I have sinned.
    • Hezekiah said, Withdraw from me.
    • Hezekiah said, Whatever you impose on me I will bear.
    • The king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver.
    • The king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah thirty talents of gold.
15. 18:15
    • Hezekiah gave all the silver found in the house of the LORD.
    • Hezekiah gave the silver found in the treasuries of the king's house.
16. 18:16
    • At that time Hezekiah cut off the doors of the temple of the LORD.
    • Hezekiah cut off the doorposts, which he himself, Hezekiah king of Judah, had overlaid.
    • Hezekiah gave them to the king of Assyria.
17. 18:17
    • The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh, three of his high officers, from Lachish to king Hezekiah at Jerusalem.
    • He sent them with a large army.
    • They went up and came to Jerusalem.
    • They took their stand at the conduit of the upper pool.
    • The conduit is on the highway of the launderer's field.
18. 18:18
    • They called for the king.
    • Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, came out to them.
    • Shebna the scribe came out to them.
    • Joah son of Asaph the recorder came out to them.
19. 18:19
    • The Rabshakeh said to them, Say to Hezekiah.
    • He said, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria.
    • He asked, What is this confidence in which you trust?
20. 18:20
    • The Rabshakeh said that Hezekiah's claim of counsel and strength for war is only words of the lips.
    • The Rabshakeh asked, On whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
21. 18:21
    • The Rabshakeh said, You trust in the support of this crushed reed, Egypt.
    • He said that if a man leans on that reed it goes into his hand and pierces it.
    • He said Pharaoh king of Egypt is like that to all who trust in him.
22. 18:22
    • The Rabshakeh said, If you say to me, We trust in the LORD our God.
    • He asked, Is he not the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed?
    • He said Hezekiah told Judah and Jerusalem, You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem.
23. 18:23
    • The Rabshakeh said, Make a wager with my lord the king of Assyria.
    • He said, I will give you two thousand horses.
    • He said this offer stands if you are able to put riders on them.
24. 18:24
    • The Rabshakeh asked how Hezekiah could turn back the face of even one governor among the least of his master's servants.
    • He said Hezekiah relies on Egypt for chariots and horsemen.
25. 18:25
    • The Rabshakeh asked, Have I come up against this place to destroy it without the LORD?
    • He said, The LORD said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.
26. 18:26
    • Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh.
    • They said, Please speak to your servants in Aramaic.
    • They said, We understand Aramaic.
    • They said, Do not speak with us in the language of Judah in the hearing of the people on the wall.
27. 18:27
    • The Rabshakeh said to them, Has my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words?
    • He said his master had sent him to the men sitting on the wall.
    • He said those men will eat their own dung and drink their own urine along with the officials.
28. 18:28
    • The Rabshakeh stood.
    • He called out with a loud voice in the language of Judah.
    • He said, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria.
29. 18:29
    • He said, Thus says the king.
    • He said, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you.
    • He said Hezekiah will not be able to deliver you out of his hand.
30. 18:30
    • He said, Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD.
    • He quoted Hezekiah as saying, The LORD will surely deliver us.
    • He quoted Hezekiah as saying, This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
31. 18:31
    • He said, Do not listen to Hezekiah.
    • He said, Thus says the king of Assyria.
    • He said, Make peace with me and come out to me.
    • He said, Then each of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree.
    • He said, Each of you will drink the water of his own cistern.
32. 18:32
    • He said, Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land.
    • He described it as a land of grain and new wine.
    • He described it as a land of bread and vineyards.
    • He described it as a land of olive oil and honey.
    • He said, That you may live and not die.
    • He said, Do not listen to Hezekiah.
    • He said Hezekiah is misleading you when he says, The LORD will deliver us.
33. 18:33
    • He asked whether any of the gods of the nations had delivered his own land out of the hand of the king of Assyria.
34. 18:34
    • He asked, Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad?
    • He asked, Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?
    • He said concerning Samaria's deliverance from his hand a clause that can be read either as the question 'Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?' or as the statement 'They did not deliver Samaria out of my hand.'
35. 18:35
    • He asked which among all the gods of the lands had delivered his land out of his hand.
    • He asked how then the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of his hand.
36. 18:36
    • The people kept silent.
    • The people did not answer him a word.
    • The king's command was, Do not answer him.
37. 18:37
    • Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, came to Hezekiah.
    • Shebna the scribe came to Hezekiah.
    • Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah.
    • They came with their clothes torn.
    • They told Hezekiah the words of the Rabshakeh.

Words Worth Explaining

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

18:1

Since 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.

18:2

The 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.

18:3

'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.

18:4

The '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.'

18:6

"He clave to the LORD" uses the old past tense of cleave, meaning to stick fast to something. It has nothing to do with cutting.

18:7

Judah 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.

18:8

The 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.

18:9

A 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.

18:10

"At the end of three years" counts the part years at each end, so the siege probably ran about two. Assyrian records credit the final capture to Sargon II, who took the throne around the time the city fell, while this account names Shalmaneser, who began the siege.

18:11

Assyria'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.

18:12

A 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.

18:13

Sennacherib'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.

18:14

Lachish 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.

18:15

'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.

18:16

Covering temple doors and doorposts with sheet gold was a mark of the building's standing. Peeling it back off was a very public measure of how desperate things had become.

18:17

The 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.

18:18

These 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.

18:19

'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.

18:21

Reeds 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.

18:22

The 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.

18:23

A 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.

18:24

"Turn away the face of" means beat off or drive back. The claim is that Judah could not repel even the most junior officer in the Assyrian army, let alone the army itself.

18:25

Assyrian 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.

18:26

Aramaic 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.

18:27

A 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.

18:31

Standard 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.

18:32

The 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.

18:33

The 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.

18:34

All 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.

18:36

The King James phrase "held their peace" means they stayed silent.

18:37

Tearing 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.