Hezekiah Prays when Jerusalem Is Threatened

2 Kings 18

¹³ Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

¹⁴ Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have offended you. Withdraw from me. That which you put on me, I will bear.” The king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

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

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

¹⁷ The king of Assyria sent Tartan, Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field.

¹⁸ When they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came out to them.

¹⁹ Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?

²⁰ You say (but they are but vain words), ‘There is counsel and strength for war.’ Now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

²¹ Now, behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt. If a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust on him.

²² But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Yahweh our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?

²³ Now therefore, please give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

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

²⁵ Have I now come up without Yahweh against this place to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’ ” ’ ”

²⁶ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah, said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Syrian language, for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Jews’ language, in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

²⁷ But Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you, to speak these words? Hasn’t he sent me to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own urine with you?”

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

²⁹ The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of his hand.

³⁰ Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, “Yahweh will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

³¹ Don’t listen to Hezekiah.’ For the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and everyone of you eat from his own vine, and everyone from his own fig tree, and everyone drink water from his own cistern;

³² until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and of honey, that you may live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah when he persuades you, saying, “Yahweh will deliver us.”

³³ Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

³⁴ Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

³⁵ Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ”

³⁶ But the people stayed quiet, and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”

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

2 Kings 19

¹ When King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh’s house.

² He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

³ They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.

⁴ It may be Yahweh your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”

⁵ So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master this: ‘Yahweh says, “Don’t be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” ’ ”

⁸ So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.

⁹ When he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Behold, he has come out to fight against you,” he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰ “Tell Hezekiah king of Judah this: ‘Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, 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, by destroying them utterly. Will you be delivered?

¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?’ ”

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh’s house, and spread it before Yahweh.

¹⁵ Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh, and said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

¹⁶ Incline your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and see. Hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to defy the living God.

¹⁷ Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands,

¹⁸ and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them.

¹⁹ Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us, I beg you, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Yahweh, are God alone.”

²⁰ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, says ‘You have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, and I have heard you.

²¹ This is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: ‘The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

²² Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel!

²³ By your messengers, you have defied the Lord, and have said, “With the multitude of my chariots, I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon, and I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees; and I will enter into his farthest lodging place, the forest of his fruitful field.

²⁴ I have dug and drunk strange waters, and I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt with the sole of my feet.”

²⁵ Haven’t you heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

²⁶ Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops and like grain blasted before it has grown up.

²⁷ But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me.

²⁸ Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.’

²⁹ “This will be the sign to you: This year, you will eat that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from that; and in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³⁰ The remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

³¹ For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and out of Mount Zion those who shall escape. Yahweh’s zeal will perform this.

³² “Therefore Yahweh says concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there. He will not come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.

³³ He will return the same way that he came, and he will not come to this city,’ says Yahweh.

³⁴ ‘For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.’ ”

³⁵ That night, Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

³⁶ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went home, and lived at Nineveh.

³⁷ As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.

2 Chronicles 32

¹ After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, entered into Judah, encamped against the fortified cities, and intended to win them for himself.

² When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that he was planning to fight against Jerusalem,

³ he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the springs which were outside of the city, and they helped him.

⁴ Then many people gathered together and they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the middle of the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find abundant water?”

⁵ He took courage, built up all the wall that was broken down, and raised it up to the towers, with the other wall outside, and strengthened Millo in David’s city, and made weapons and shields in abundance.

⁶ He set captains of war over the people, gathered them together to him in the wide place at the gate of the city, and spoke encouragingly to them, saying,

⁷ “Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or dismayed because of the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude who is with him; for there is a greater one with us than with him.

⁸ An arm of flesh is with him, but Yahweh our God is with us to help us and to fight our battles.” The people rested themselves on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.

⁹ After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem, (now he was attacking Lachish, and all his forces were with him), to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were at Jerusalem, saying,

¹⁰ Sennacherib king of Assyria says, “In whom do you trust, that you remain under siege in Jerusalem?

¹¹ Doesn’t Hezekiah persuade you to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, ‘Yahweh our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria’?

¹² Hasn’t the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall worship before one altar, and you shall burn incense on it’?

¹³ Don’t you know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands in any way able to deliver their land out of my hand?

¹⁴ Who was there among all the gods of those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand?

¹⁵ Now therefore don’t let Hezekiah deceive you nor persuade you in this way. Don’t believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand?”

¹⁶ His servants spoke yet more against Yahweh God and against his servant Hezekiah.

¹⁷ He also wrote letters insulting Yahweh, the God of Israel, and speaking against him, saying, “As the gods of the nations of the lands, which have not delivered their people out of my hand, so shall the God of Hezekiah not deliver his people out of my hand.”

¹⁸ They called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten them and to trouble them, that they might take the city.

¹⁹ They spoke of the God of Jerusalem as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men’s hands.

²⁰ Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, prayed because of this, and cried to heaven.

²¹ Yahweh sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, the leaders, and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. When he had come into the house of his god, those who came out of his own body killed him there with the sword.

²² Thus Yahweh saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side.

²³ Many brought gifts to Yahweh to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from then on.

Isaiah 36

¹ Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

² The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway.

³ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder came out to him.

⁴ Rabshakeh said to them, “Now tell Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?

⁵ I say that your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?

⁶ Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

⁷ But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Yahweh our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?”

⁸ Now therefore, please make a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

⁹ How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

¹⁰ Have I come up now without Yahweh against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.” ’ ”

¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the Jews’ language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

¹² But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you, to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

¹³ Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

¹⁴ The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you.

¹⁵ Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, “Yahweh will surely deliver us. This city won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’

¹⁶ Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink the waters of his own cistern;

¹⁷ until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

¹⁸ Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “Yahweh will deliver us.” Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

²⁰ Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ”

²¹ But they remained silent, and said nothing in reply, for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”

²² Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

Isaiah 37

¹ When King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh’s house.

² He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

³ They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to give birth.

⁴ It may be Yahweh your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”

⁵ So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘Yahweh says, “Don’t be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

⁷ Behold, I will put a spirit in him and he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” ’ ”

⁸ So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish.

⁹ He heard news concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to fight against you.” When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰ “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, ‘Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem won’t 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, by destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered?

¹² Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?’ ”

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh’s house, and spread it before Yahweh.

¹⁵ Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying,

¹⁶ “Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, who is enthroned among the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

¹⁷ Turn your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and behold. Hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God.

¹⁸ Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land,

¹⁹ and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.

²⁰ Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, even you only.”

²¹ Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Yahweh, the God of Israel says, ‘Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,

²² this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

²³ Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

²⁴ By your servants, you have defied the Lord, and have said, “With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field.

²⁵ I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.”

²⁶ “ ‘Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to destroy fortified cities, turning them into ruinous heaps.

²⁷ Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown.

²⁸ But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me.

²⁹ Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

³⁰ “ ‘This shall be the sign to you: You will eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from it; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

³¹ The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

³² For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and survivors will escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.’

³³ “Therefore Yahweh says concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.

³⁴ He will return the way that he came, and he won’t come to this city,’ says Yahweh.

³⁵ ‘For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.’ ”

³⁶ Then Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there.

³⁸ As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.