Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

18:1 Extrabiblical evidence for the reign of Hezekiah comes from a bulla (clay seal) bearing his name. It reads, "Belonging to Hezekiah [son of Ahaz], king of Judah." The only other Judahite king whose seal impression has been found is Ahaz (see note on 16:1-4).

18:4 He removed the high places. This is a significant accomplishment because even the most righteous of Judean kings prior to Hezekiah in 1-2 Kings failed to do this (e.g., 1 Kings 3:2; 15:14; 22:43). Hezekiah also destroys the pillars and the Asherah (see notes on 1 Kings 14:15; 14:23), perhaps a particular Asherah that Hezekiah's father Ahaz placed in the Jerusalem temple (as Manasseh will later do, 2 Kings 21:3; 23:12). Hezekiah takes further action against the bronze serpent named Nehushtan, which Moses had made in the wilderness (Num. 21:4-9) and which had recently itself become an object of worship (no doubt because of the close association of serpents with the goddess Asherah). At the site of Beersheba, archaeologists discovered a horned altar. The altar, from the late eighth century b.c., was built of hewn stones and had a serpent carved into one of its blocks. Obviously, this altar was used at the site in an aberrant cultic worship. It was probably destroyed during King Hezekiah's religious reforms.

18:5-6 He trusted in the Lord. Hezekiah's trust was unparalleled in Judean history (there was none like him among all the kings of Judah), and was evidenced in the way that he held fast to God (Hb. dabaq) throughout his life (cf. Deut. 10:20; 11:22; 13:4; 30:20), in contrast to Solomon, who in his old age "held fast" (Hb. dabaq; see 1 Kings 11:2, "clung") to foreign wives and broke the Law of Moses.

18:7-8 The consequence of Hezekiah's religious faithfulness was that his military exploits paralleled David's in a unique way: the Lord was with him (cf. 1 Sam. 16:18; 18:12, 14; 2 Sam. 5:10); he prospered in war (cf. 1 Sam. 18:5, 14, 15); and he struck down the Philistines (cf. 1 Sam. 18:27; 19:8). He was quite unlike his father Ahaz, for he rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him (cf. 2 Kings 16:7). His rebellious acts may have begun as early as 720 b.c., when one of the inscriptions of the Assyrian king Sargon II describes the Assyrian as "the subduer of the country Judah which lies far away"; but the authors mainly have in mind the events following Sargon's unexpected death on the battlefield in 705, when widespread revolt broke out in Syria-Palestine, leading to an Assyrian invasion of Palestine in 701 (see note on 18:13). Hezekiah's attack on the Philistines was in fact a preemptive strike against Assyrian allies in advance of this invasion.

18:9-12 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria. The fate of the northern kingdom at the hands of the king of Assyria is reiterated here (cf. 17:1-6) to remind readers of the context in which Hezekiah pursued his bold policy of rebellion. Israel's rebellion met with a devastating response.

18:13-19:37 A six-sided prism has been found that contains the annals of Sennacherib, king of Assyria (704-681 b.c.). It dates to 689 b.c. and recounts eight military campaigns. One of these describes Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem in the following way (referring to Hezekiah): "Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence like a bird in a cage." Although this is Sennacherib's account of the siege, it is noteworthy that no Assyrian record mentions any capture of Jerusalem, so these sources are not in conflict with the record of Sennacherib's departure and death in 19:36-37.

18:13-14 In 701 b.c. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, launched a major assault against Judah. Archaeology sheds significant light on this event. The Sennacherib Relief found at Nineveh depicts the Assyrian attack on the Judean city of Lachish. Sennacherib built a siege ramp on the southwestern corner of the city and destroyed its defenses by using archers, infantry, and siege machines. The Judeans responded by erecting a countersiege ramp to bolster their defenses. It was to no avail: Sennacherib conquered Lachish. Both of the actual ramps have been uncovered.

18:13 Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah. After Sargon II's death, the new Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 b.c.) first campaigned in southern Mesopotamia (703-702) against the king of Babylon, Marduk-apla-iddina II (see 20:12), before turning his attention to Syria-Palestine in 701. (See map.) The rebellion there quickly collapsed, and Hezekiah found himself without effective allies and without fortresses. Sennacherib's own account of the campaign is found in its earliest form on the Rassam Cylinder, which dates from immediately after the events (700 b.c.).

18:14-16 I have done wrong. Hezekiah's first response to the crisis is to bargain--a disappointing prologue to what will eventually turn out to be his finest hour. On Lachish, see notes on 14:19 and 18:13-14. As one of Judah's most important cities, Lachish received particular attention from Sennacherib during this campaign, and after a siege it was eventually captured and burned to the ground. When Sennacherib later constructed his royal palace at Nineveh, he commissioned a set of stone reliefs to commemorate his famous conquest of the city. The choice of the assault on Lachish for this impressive artistic representation is interesting, in that it serves to underline (without intending to do so) that Sennacherib did not capture Jerusalem.

18:17 Still besieging Lachish, Sennacherib decides after all not to accept Hezekiah's attempt to persuade him to withdraw (no doubt because Hezekiah was one of the moving forces in the revolt), and he sends an army to Jerusalem to pressure Hezekiah to surrender. The Tartan (Assyrian turtanu) was one of two persons in the Assyrian army with this title who often led campaigns on behalf of the emperor, and the Rab-saris was himself often dispatched on campaigns at the head of Assyrian forces. The Rabshakeh, or "chief cupbearer," would have accompanied the emperor as a personal attendant. His presence in this delegation is no doubt to be explained in terms of his linguistic abilities (vv. 19, 26). The conduit of the upper pool is of uncertain location, but was just outside the city wall; it is the place where Isaiah had earlier called on Ahaz to exercise faith in the midst of war (Isa. 7:1-9). The Washer's Field may plausibly be associated with the spring En-rogel to the south of Jerusalem at the juncture of the Hinnom and the Kidron Valleys--a natural place, because of its water supply, for the Assyrian army to encamp.

18:18 over the household . . . the secretary . . . the recorder. Three of the most important of the Judean officials go out to negotiate with the three Assyrian officials (see also 1 Kings 4:1-6).

18:19-25 On what do you rest this trust? The matter of Hezekiah's trust (cf. v. 5) lies at the heart of this speech (see also vv. 20, 21, 22, 24). Sennacherib reasons that trust in Egypt would be futile, but so also would trust in the Lord, for it is his high places and altars that Hezekiah has removed, and indeed it is the Lord who has sent Assyria to destroy Judah because of this sacrilege!

18:26-28 Please speak to your servants in Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of the Assyrian Empire west of the Euphrates and would have been understood by the educated Judean royal officials, though not by the ordinary people on the city wall. However, the Assyrians were trying to appeal to the people over the heads of their rulers, therefore they ignored the request and continued to address the people in Hebrew (the language of Judah).

18:29-30 The Rabshakeh equates trust in the Lord with deception; the reader is prepared to see God vindicate that trust.

18:31-35 eat of his own vine . . . his own fig tree . . . drink the water of his own cistern. The Assyrian king is presented as a powerful god who is able to provide for his worshipers, in contrast to the allegedly weak God of Israel who is unable to deliver. The language of the false promise recalls Deut. 8:7-9.

19:1-2 he tore his clothes. On the tearing of clothes as a sign of deep emotion, see note on 5:5-7. The contrast between the wicked Jehoram (6:30-31) and the pious Hezekiah is particularly interesting. The besieged Jehoram is unwilling to wait for God and looks instead to remove the head of God's prophet, while Hezekiah humbly sends a message to the prophet Isaiah to request prayer to God (19:4).

19:3-4 there is no strength. It is a day of great humiliation and powerlessness. The remnant, in this context, likely comprises those from the northern kingdom (Israel) who sought refuge in Judah, and specifically in Jerusalem, in the face of prior Assyrian aggression, along with those of the southern kingdom (Judah) who survive Sennacherib's siege (see Introduction to Micah: Key Themes). The only hope for this remnant is that the Lord, who is truly the living God and not simply one false god among many, will act to defend his name (see 2 Kings 19:30-31).

19:7-9 I will put a spirit in him. According to the prophet Isaiah (cf. vv. 2, 5-6), the Lord will so influence Sennacherib's thinking that several events will occur. Sennacherib will hear (Hb. shama‘) a certain rumor, abandon his campaign, and return (Hb. shub) to his own land, where he will meet his death (v. 7). However, the timing of this is not clear. Repetition of the pair of Hebrew verbs ("hear" and "return"), found again in vv. 8-9, encourages the hope that Sennacherib's doom is imminent: in v. 8, Rabshakeh . . . heard (Hb. shama‘) that the king had left Lachish and he returned to him (Hb. shub); in v. 9, the king heard (Hb. shama‘) concerning Tirhakah king of Cush and sent messengers again (lit., "he returned [Hb. shub] and sent") to Hezekiah. The ultimate fulfillment of the prophecy does not in fact occur until vv. 35-37. "Tirhakah king of Cush" commanded an Egyptian army that marched into Palestine in 701 b.c. to aid the rebels. He would later be a pharaoh of Egypt (690-664). Sennacherib defeated this Egyptian force at Eltekeh, about 12 miles (19 km) east of the Mediterranean on the eastern border of the coastal plain.

19:10-13 Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you. The argument is subtly different on this second speech by the Assyrians. In 18:19-35 the Rabshakeh claimed that Hezekiah was deceiving the people about what would happen if they trusted the Lord (18:29-30); here he claims that Hezekiah is the one deceived by the God in whom he trusts. This is a God, according to Sennacherib, who is not only weak but duplicitous; and he invites Hezekiah to turn his back on this deity and save himself from the fate of all those other kings who went to their doom clinging to their idols.

19:15-19 Hezekiah prayed before the Lord. Hezekiah's response on this occasion is not to send messengers to Isaiah, asking the prophet to pray (v. 4), but rather to pray himself to God, who is here envisaged as dwelling in a special way in the Jerusalem temple and as being invisibly enthroned in the Most Holy Place on two enormous cherubim (see note on 1 Sam. 4:3-4; cf. also 1 Kings 8:6-7). This God is God alone, creator of heaven and earth, and therefore God . . . of all the kingdoms of the earth. He is not to be confused with the gods of the nations against whom the Assyrians have known admittedly great success--"gods" who are in fact mere cult images made of wood and overlaid with metal and precious stones. Hezekiah now asks that Jerusalem be delivered for the glory of God himself: that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.

19:20-28 A second prophecy from Isaiah (cf. vv. 6-7), in three parts, brings God's response to Hezekiah's prayer. This first part concerns Sennacherib's blasphemy, pride, and ultimate downfall. He thinks of himself as a god, claiming to have brought judgment (as only the Lord can do) on the mighty cedars of Lebanon and on Egypt (cf. Ps. 29:5; Isa. 2:12-13; 19:1-15; Amos 2:9; Zech. 11:1-3); he has allegedly ascended the heights so that he can look God straight in the face (cf. Ps. 73:8; 75:4-5; Isa. 14:13-15); and he boasts that he has both brought and withheld fertility on the earth, creating water supplies and drying up rivers (cf. Ps. 36:8-9; Jer. 2:13; 17:13; 51:36; Ezekiel 31; Hos. 13:15). His great mistake has been to imagine that what he has accomplished in his military campaigns has been achieved in his own strength. In reality, it was the Lord who determined it long ago. It was God who planned from days of old that Sennacherib would turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins (2 Kings 19:25), so his pride in his mighty accomplishments is foolishness. In fact, Assyria is merely the rod of God's anger (cf. Isa. 10:5-11). Likewise, the Lord will bring an end to his campaigns, causing Sennacherib to turn . . . back on the way by which he came, led like an animal by a hook in the nose and a bit in the mouth (2 Kings 19:28).

19:21 Daughter of Zion (or daughter of Jerusalem) is frequently used in the OT as a personification of the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. Jerusalem is as defenseless as a virgin daughter, but because of the Lord's protection she will not be violated by mighty Sennacherib; in fact, she wags her head at him, scoffing at his pride.

19:29-31 this shall be the sign for you. The second part of Isaiah's prophecy looks beyond the withdrawal of the Assyrians from Judah. The sign that Judah will recover from the Assyrian assault is to be found in the way that the survivors will be provided for in the short term: initially they will be able to survive only because of the crops that spring up from what is already in the ground, but in the third year they will resume normal agricultural practice, able to bear fruit.

19:32-34 concerning the king of Assyria. The third part of Isaiah's prophecy makes explicit the circumstances in which Sennacherib will return home by the way that he came (vv. 28, 33). He will return home before the army encamped outside the city of Jerusalem takes military action against it--for the sake of God's servant David (cf. 1 Kings 11:13, 32; 2 Kings 8:19).

19:35-36 Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home. The event precipitating Sennacherib's "return" to Nineveh when he "heard" about it (see note on vv. 7-9) involved enormous casualties suffered by his army outside Jerusalem, with 185,000 struck down in one night by the angel of the Lord. Here is God's remarkable answer to Hezekiah's prayer, "O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand" (v. 19), and the fulfillment of God's promise in vv. 32-34.

19:37 Sennacherib, who had "mocked and reviled" the Lord, is killed by his sons, and all his proud boasting (18:22, 32-35; 19:10-13) ends in nothing. Though he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, this false god could not protect the king. The name "Nisroch" is not attested in Assyrian sources, and readers are left to guess at the deity intended (perhaps it is Ashur, the chief god of Assyria). Sennacherib's assassins flee to Ararat, known to the Assyrians as Urartu, a kingdom of eastern Asia Minor that flourished from the ninth to the sixth centuries b.c. Esarhaddon ruled Assyria from 681 to 669 b.c. In his own records he describes the events surrounding his accession to the throne, referring to his "elder brothers who . . . went out of their senses . . . and butted each other--like kids--to take over the kingship," and of the "flight of the usurpers . . . to an unknown country." One of his letters identifies one of the assassins as Arad-Mullissu, probably the Adrammelech of the biblical text.

20:1 In those days. Verses 1-19 represent a "flashback" to the period around 713-712 b.c., some 12 years before Sennacherib's invasion and some 15 years before Hezekiah's death (cf. v. 6).

20:2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall. Hezekiah is in distress and wishes to be left alone, although for different reasons from Ahab in 1 Kings 21:4.

20:3 please remember. The prayer is somewhat more self-centered than the one in 19:15-19, stressing the king's own righteousness. This is the first hint in this passage that Hezekiah has an attitude problem.

20:4 The middle court was the area between the temple and the palace (see Solomon's Temple and Palace Complex); Isaiah is on the way back to the temple. The word of the Lord comes to him suddenly and unexpectedly.

20:5 On the third day. A detail not included in Isaiah's parallel account (Isa. 38:5). you shall go up. God's response to Hezekiah's prayer (2 Kings 20:3) shows that many prophecies, though stated in unconditional terms (v. 1), have implied conditions.

20:7 Figs had long been cultivated in Palestine. They could be eaten fresh or dried, made into cakes, or fermented and made into wine. Here a cake of figs, serving as a compress, is applied to what may have been an abscess. The belief that figs had medicinal qualities is also attested earlier at Ugarit and later in Rome. But the healing of such a serious illness (v. 1) probably included a supernatural work of God as well.

20:8-11 What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me? The king is unwilling to believe the promise of healing without a sign, which is provided in the unnatural movement of a shadow on some steps associated with Ahaz (it moves back, even though the sun has already caused it to go down the steps). The text offers no explanation of the details of this miracle; in the biblical worldview, nothing is beyond the power of the Maker of heaven and earth. Hezekiah, too, is sinking down toward death, but he will miraculously recover and go up to the temple.

20:12 When Sargon II ascended the Assyrian throne in 722 b.c., Merodach-baladan (the Hb. name for Marduk-apla-iddina II) had himself crowned king in Babylon, and the ensuing conflict in Mesopotamia lasted intermittently until Esarhaddon's reign in Assyria (see notes on 17:24-41; 19:37). This visit of Merodach-baladan's envoys to Jerusalem is best set during his first spell of kingship in Babylon (722-710 b.c.), before Sargon II reconquered Babylonia after 710 and drove him into exile.

20:13-18 he showed them all his treasure house. Hezekiah is evidently proud of his wealth, but pride comes before a fall (cf. Prov. 11:2), when nothing shall be left and even some of the king's sons (descendants) will be taken away into exile in Babylon. On eunuchs, see note on 2 Kings 9:32, although here the term may be intended metaphorically rather than literally (the "sons" will be powerless servants of the king of Babylon).

20:19 Why not? Hezekiah is surprisingly unmoved by Isaiah's prophecy, and again displays self-centeredness. All he cares about is peace and security in his days. Even this "king like David" has his dark side.

20:20 the pool and the conduit. The Gihon Spring in the Kidron Valley was Jerusalem's crucial water resource, and a large quarter-mile-long conduit (often known as the Siloam Channel) brought water from there to a reservoir at the southern end of the city of David. Since this water supply lay outside the city's walls and was vulnerable in time of siege, a subsidiary tunnel leading from the Siloam conduit allowed residents to access its water from inside the city walls. In preparation for the Assyrian attack, Hezekiah had an additional tunnel cut that diverted water from the Gihon Spring directly underground to the Pool of Siloam, which now lay within the city walls, whereupon the old water system was apparently abandoned. An inscription cut into the conduit wall and known as the Siloam Tunnel Inscription commemorates this accomplishment. On the Chronicles of the Kings, see note on 1 Kings 14:19.