2 Kings 19 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

2 Kings 19

Isaiah Reassures Hezekiah

19:1 As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. 2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. 3 They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. 4 It may be that the LORD your God heard all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.” 5 When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6 Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. 7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”

Sennacherib Defies the Lord

8 The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he heard that the king had left Lachish. 9 Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “Behold, he has set out to fight against you.” So he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”

Hezekiah’s Prayer

14 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD. 15 And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: “O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 16 Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. 17 Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands 18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. 19 So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone.”

Isaiah Prophesies Sennacherib’s Fall

20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. 21 This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him:

  “She despises you, she scorns you—
    the virgin daughter of Zion;
  she wags her head behind you—
    the daughter of Jerusalem.
22   “Whom have you mocked and reviled?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
  and lifted your eyes to the heights?
    Against the Holy One of Israel!
23   By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,
    and you have said, ‘With my many chariots
  I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
    to the far recesses of Lebanon;
  I felled its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses;
  I entered its farthest lodging place,
    its most fruitful forest.
24   I dug wells
    and drank foreign waters,
  and I dried up with the sole of my foot
    all the streams of Egypt.’
25   “Have you not heard
    that I determined it long ago?
  I planned from days of old
    what now I bring to pass,
  that you should turn fortified cities
    into heaps of ruins,
26   while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
    are dismayed and confounded,
  and have become like plants of the field
    and like tender grass,
  like grass on the housetops,
    blighted before it is grown.
27   “But I know your sitting down
    and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
28   Because you have raged against me
    and your complacency has come into my ears,
  I will put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,
  and I will turn you back on the way
    by which you came.

29 “And this shall be the sign for you: this year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same. Then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 30 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 31 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.

32 “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

35 And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. 37 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

Commentary

v1-2: Hezekiah sought the Lord; God's timing was such that He had raised up Isaiah at the same time.

v3-4: Hezekiah's prayer; that the Lord God would rebuke the king of Assyria. There was merely a remnant of Judah left from the attacks. The issue was not primarily a military one, but a spiritual one; the honour of God was at stake. The response is to pray.

v5-7: The response from the Lord through Isaiah. The word of assurance, "tell Hezekiah, 'Do not be afraid'"; and the power of prayer, that would take the king of Assyria back to his homeland.

v8-10: The king of Assyria and the field commander were called elsewhere. They couldn't go without sending another letter of reproach against God and against the king, "Do not let your God...deceive you". Judah had received the message from God that Jerusalem would not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Here is confidence for Hezekiah and the people.

v11-13: Previous victories for Assyria; the gods of the nations and the kings of the nations were impotent before Assyria. The difference here is the true God.

v14-16: Hezekiah again turned to the Lord to seek His mind. He had a deep trust in the living God. He saw that the real issue, as when David faced Goliath, was that unbelievers had come to attack the living God. The king of Assyria had come to insult the Only True God.

v17-18: Assyria had defeated many nations, whose gods were "not gods", but only the work of men's hands.

v19: Hezekiah's confidence was in God; His prayer was not so much that Judah be honoured, but that God be glorified. He knew that God could deliver; such was beyond the power of manmade gods.

v20: God responded to Hezekiah's prayer, "I have heard", an immediate answer from the merciful God.

v21: The promise of God was that Jerusalem would enjoy victory over Assyria.

v22-24: The spiritual reality; Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, had reproached and blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, the Lord God. He had proudly declared his intentions, by raising his voice, by lifting up his eyes on high. He spoke of previous victories, conquering kingdoms, and occupying their lands. He had expected to win another decisive victory.

v25-26: God had given Assyria victory;

fortified cities reduced to heaps of ruins;
their inhabitants had little power;
Sennacherib, and indeed Assyria itself, was an instrument in the hand of God.

v27-28: Ultimately, Sennacherib's actions were under the control of God; he could do nothing unless God so willed. God was not ignorant of his "rage against me."

v29-31: The sign of God's promises; that year and the following year, the people would eat from what was in the ground. In the third year they could plant and reap. The fruitfulness from the ground pictured the growth in the nation itself, as the remnant of Judah would take root and grow. The guarantee was the zeal of the Lord Almighty.

v32-34: God also gave promises concerning the Assyrian army, and the king.

v35-37: The king of Assyria was not beyond the reach of God. So he was killed, and his army destroyed.