Hezekiah, king of Judah

1 Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, began to reign in Judah in the third year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel.

2 He was twenty-five years old then, and his reign in Jerusalem lasted for twenty-nine years. His mother was Abi jah, daughter of Zechariah.

3 He did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, like David, his ancestor.

4 He did away with the sanctuaries on the hills, demolished the standing stones and cut down the sacred pillars.
He also destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had fashioned in the desert for, until that time, the Is raelites were offering sacrifices to it and called it Ne hushtan.

5 He trusted in Yahweh more than any of the kings of Judah who preceded or succeeded him and he never depart ed from Yahweh.

6 He kept the commandments Yahweh had given through Mo ses.

7 For that reason, Yahweh was with him; he succeeded in all his undertakings. He rebelled against the king of As syria and was no longer subject to him.

8 He imposed his authority on the Philis tines as far as Gaza, and seized their land from the watchtowers to the fortified cities.

9 In the fourth year of Hezekiah��s reign, which was the seventh year of Ho shea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shal maneser, king of Assyria, came against Samaria and besieged it.

10 At the end of three years, he conquered it. In the sixth year of Heze kiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Samaria was conquered.

11 The king of Assyria de ported the Israelites to Assy ria and settled them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

12 This happened to them because they did not listen to the voice of Yahweh, their God, and had broken his cove nant; they did not listen to nor put into practice what Moses, the servant of Yah weh, had commanded them.


Sennacherib��s invasion

13 In the fourteenth year of Heze kiah��s reign, Sennacherib, king of As sy ria, came up and invaded Judah; he laid siege to all the fortified cities and seized all of them.

14 Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent a message to Sennacherib who was in Lachish, ��I have acted badly, stop your attack and I will do whatever you demand of me.�� The king of Assyria demanded that Hezekiah give a contribution of three hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold.

15 Hezekiah then handed over to him all the money that was found in the House of Yahweh and in the treasuries of the royal palace.

16 It was at that time that Hezekiah ordered that the gold sheets, with which he himself had adorned the doorposts, be stripped from the gates of the House of Yahweh, and given to the king of Assyria.

17 From Lachish the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. They halted at the channel of the Up per Pool on the highway to the Fuller��s Field. The field commander called for the king; and

18 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, went out to him together with Shebnah the secretary and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.

19 The field commander said to them, ��Give Hezekiah this message from the great king of Assyria: How can you be so confident?

20 You thought that words are as good as wis dom and replace strength in time of war? On whom are you relying that you rebel against me?

21 You rely on Egypt, a broken staff which pierces the palm of him who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, for all who rely on him.

22 Yes, you may say to me: ��We rely on Yahweh our God.�� But isn��t he the one whose altars and high places Hezekiah removed when he com manded Judah and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar?

23 Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king. I will give you two thousand horses if you are able to supply riders.

24 How could you ever repulse one of the least of my master��s generals? And you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen!

25 Do you think that I have come to attack and destroy this land without consulting Yahweh? He himself said to me: Go up to this land and conquer it!��

26 Then Elia kim and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, ��Speak to your servants in Ara maic; we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of these people on the walls.��

27 But the field commander said, ��Do you think that my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you? Is it not also to the men on the walls who, with you, will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?��

28 Then the field commander stood and cried out with a loud voice in Hebrew, ��Hear the words of the great king of Assyria:

29 Do not let Hezekiah deceive you! No, he will not be able to help you!

30 Do not listen to him when he tells you to trust in Yahweh, saying, ��Yahweh will save us; this city will not be given over to the king of Assy ria.�� Do not listen to Hezekiah but

31 to what the king of Assyria says, ��Make your peace with me and surrender. Then I will let each of you eat of your vine and of your fig tree and drink the water of your cistern until I come again.

32 Then I will take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, of bread and vineyards, of oil and honey, that you may live and not die.
Hezekiah is misleading you when he says that Yahweh will save you.

33 Have the gods of the nations rescued their land from the hands of the king of As syria?

34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Se pharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? And have the gods delivered Samaria from my hand?

35 Who among all the gods of these nations has been able to save his country from me? Do you think that Yahweh will deliver Jerusalem from my hand?��

36 The people were like deaf and remained silent, since the king had commanded them not to answer him.

37 Then Eliakim with Shebna and Joah came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him what the field commander had said.

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Comments 2 Kings, Chapter 18

• 18.1 Here begins the last part of the Book of Kings: the history of the kingdom of Judah. The fall of Sa maria and the disappearance of the northern king dom bring about a religious renewal in the south.

Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of Yah weh. This is the time when the prophet Isaiah is present at the side of King Hezekiah (716-687 B.C.).

He did away with the sanctuaries on the hills. Here we note the effort on the part of the kings of Judah to see to it that the only place of worship would be the Jerusalem temple. In the many rural sanctuaries, people went to offer their sacrifices to Yahweh in ways that were usually mixed with pagan practices. By highlighting the Jerusalem Tem ple��s monopoly with its better educated priests and Levites looking after the purity of the faith, Hezekiah promotes religious reform.

As to the bronze serpent which Hezekiah de stroyed, see Numbers 21:4.

It is also true that many fugitive priests had come from the north during the last days of Samaria. Some of them had succeeded in maintaining faith in Yahweh and religious unity. They brought along sacred books and kept many ancient traditions of Moses and Israel��s past. This contribution would be extremely important for the writing of the Bible and also for Josiah��s reform a century later (2 K 22).

The reforms of Hezekiah are told more in detail in 2 Chr 29�C31.

• 13. In 701 B.C. Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem and Hezekiah had to pay a high price to keep him away.

Beginning with 18:7 to the end of chapter 19, we have the story of the miraculous liberation of Jerusalem. Actually there are two stories that may correspond to two liberations from two Assyrian invasions.

In 701 the king of Assyria sends his generals from Lachish to demand Hezekiah��s surrender. He is forced to return to his country and cannot carry out his threats. This story is in 18:17-19, and it concludes in 19:36-37.

In 690 B.C. there is another intervention related in 19:9-35. This time ��the angel of the Lord came out and killed one hundred eighty-five thousand soldiers in the camp.�� The famous pagan historian, Herodotus, relates the sudden destruction of this army by an epidemic. A most natural event! And yet, at the time when the Holy City is about to fall and when God��s promises seem to fail, some rats are spreading the deadly virus. The biblical author makes no mistake in seeing this as a manifestation of God. Jerusalem was liberated as Isaiah had predicted.

These two chapters appear almost word for word in the book of Isaiah, chapters 36�C37. Here we only emphasize the story of the first liberation, and in Isaiah 37, the story of the second one.

Make your peace with me and surrender (v. 31). The Assyrian king proposes peace under the condition that the people be deported. For the Jews this dispersal would mean the loss of their national and religious life by being dispersed in other lands. It would also mean that David��s descendants are now deprived of power and, according to the mentality of that time, that Yahweh had been de feated by the gods of the conqueror. That is why God does something.

All along these two chapters, the prophetic account emphasizes the difference between the worthless gods of the nations and the God of Israel who knows the good time for him to reverse the course of history.

These events invite us to trust in God��s help. When God commits himself to act, he cannot fail if we do not get tired of hoping in him. Against all human hope, Jerusalem remains untouched. This is the image of a ruler whom people want to depose because of his honesty but who remains steadfast. Or the student who stays firm even though his friends mock his faith. Or the young people who remain pure in a culture without morality. Or the church reduced to a few faithful which is seemingly defeated by political forces and yet remains victorious.