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Hezekiah

Spread a threatening letter out in the temple and left it there, and woke to find the siege gone.

Hezekiah opens the doors of the house in the first month of his first year and reopens a temple his father had shut. He removes the high places, breaks the pillars, and destroys the bronze serpent Moses made, because the people had been burning incense to it for centuries. Then Assyria takes forty-six fortified cities of Judah and arrives outside Jerusalem, and the field commander makes a speech in Hebrew from the wall so the people can hear it. Hezekiah takes the letter, goes into the house of the LORD, and spreads it open.

Where he appears2 Kings 18 to 20 · 2 Chronicles 29 to 32

2 Kings2 Chronicles
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Hezekiah

The movements, in the order the text gives them.

The Account of Hezekiah

  1. 01

    2 Kings 18:1-8

    He broke the bronze serpent

    He trusts in the LORD so that after him was none like him among the kings of Judah, nor any before him. The thing he destroys is the one Moses made, because it had become an object of worship.

    The serpent had a pedigree no new idol could match. Moses had made it. That fact is stated in the very sentence that describes Hezekiah breaking it apart, because the problem is not a fraudulent origin but a changed use. The instrument associated with healing in Numbers 21 has become something Israelites burn incense to. Its age and maker do not turn that worship into obedience.

    Moses therefore appears on both sides of the reform: his bronze work is destroyed in verse 4, his commandments are kept in verse 6. The Book of Second Kings sees no contradiction. Hezekiah's loyalty belongs to the LORD who gave the commands, not to every object that survived from Moses' lifetime. Even the name Nehushtan keeps the material in earshot: this is bronze, however distinguished its history. The paragraph measures the king by David rather than by his immediate father Ahaz. His inheritance includes a throne, but not an obligation to continue everything that came with it.

    Verse by verse

    1. 18:3

      David is Hezekiah's dynastic ancestor, not his immediate father; verse 1 names Ahaz as his father.

    2. 18:4

      The Hebrew connects Nehushtan with nehoshet, bronze, while nahash means serpent. The sound of the name keeps both the material and the shape close together.

    3. 18:6

      The repeated name Moses links the destruction of the serpent with obedience to the Mosaic commandments, rather than opposition to Moses.

    4. 18:7

      The later payment of tribute in 18:14-16 must remain alongside this statement of resistance; the chapter does not present an uninterrupted sequence of defiance.

    2 Kings 18:1-8

    King James Version · 8 verses

    18:1Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.

    18:2Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.

    18:3And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did.

    18:4He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

    18:5He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

    18:6For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses.

    18:7And the LORD was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.

    18:8He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

    2 Kings 18:1-8: He broke the bronze serpent
  2. 02

    2 Kings 18:17-37

    The speech in Hebrew from the wall

    The Rabshakeh is asked to speak Aramaic so the people on the wall will not understand, and answers by raising his voice in Hebrew. The people hold their peace, because the king had commanded it.

    The request to change languages exposes the real audience. Judah's officials can understand the Syrian language; the people on the wall cannot follow it in the same way. Rabshakeh therefore raises his voice in the language the people do understand. This is not a negotiation accidentally overheard. The listeners above the gate are the point.

    His argument recruits nearly everything in sight. Egypt becomes a broken reed, Hezekiah's removal of unauthorized altars becomes supposed hostility toward the LORD, and Assyria's invasion is presented as the LORD's own commission. Those are claims within the speech, not conclusions the book has endorsed. The same chapter has already described the reform as obedience. Even the offer of vines, figs and private water has a hinge: it lasts only until the Assyrian king comes to take the people away. The invitation to enjoy home contains the announcement that home will be lost.

    The people answer none of it, because the king has ordered silence. Their quiet is not recorded as consent. Meanwhile, the officials return with torn clothes. The chapter gives the public response and the private damage separately, without pretending that refusing to answer makes the words harmless.

    Verse by verse

    1. 18:22

      Rabshakeh treats the removal of high places as an offense against the LORD, whereas 18:4-6 presents Hezekiah's reform as fidelity to him.

    2. 18:25

      The claim of a divine commission belongs to Rabshakeh's speech; this verse does not independently authenticate his claim.

    3. 18:26

      The Syrian language is Aramaic; the contrast concerns a language the Judean officials understand and the language understood by the people on the wall.

    4. 18:31-32

      The promised enjoyment of home lasts only until deportation. The word until marks the limit hidden inside the attractive offer.

    5. 18:36

      The text explains the silence as compliance with Hezekiah's command, not as agreement with the Assyrian spokesman.

    2 Kings 18:17-37: The speech in Hebrew from the wall

    2 Kings 18:17-37

    King James Version · 21 verses

    18:17And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rab-shakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field.

    18:18And when they had called to the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder.

    18:19And Rab-shakeh said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?

    18:20Thou sayest, (but they are but vain words,) I have counsel and strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me?

    18:21Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.

    18:22But if ye say unto me, We trust in the LORD our God: is not that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?

    18:23Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my lord the king of Assyria, and I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.

    18:24How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

    18:25Am I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.

    18:26Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rab-shakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.

    18:27But Rab-shakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?

    18:28Then Rab-shakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and spake, saying, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria:

    18:29Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand:

    18:30Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

    18:31Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern:

    18:32Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The LORD will deliver us.

    18:33Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

    18:34Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand?

    18:35Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?

    18:36But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king’s commandment was, saying, Answer him not.

    18:37Then came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rab-shakeh.

  3. 03

    2 Kings 19:14-19

    He spread it before the LORD

    He takes the letter from the messengers, reads it, goes up to the house and lays it out. Open your eyes and see, and hear the words. Then he asks for deliverance so that all kingdoms may know.

    Hezekiah does not begin by disputing the enemy's military record. Of a truth, he says. Assyria really has destroyed nations and burned their gods. The prayer grants the evidence and rejects the conclusion. Objects made of wood and stone can be thrown into a fire; the maker of heaven and earth does not belong in the same inventory.

    That distinction gives the spread-out letter its force. The threatening document has moved from an exchange between kings into the temple, where its central claim can be answered on different ground. Hezekiah asks God to hear an insult against the living God, not merely to rescue an embarrassed government. All the kingdoms of the earth frames both the opening confession and the final request. Jerusalem is the immediate danger; recognition of the LORD beyond Jerusalem is the stated purpose of deliverance. The king who has received a letter about Assyria's reach answers with a prayer about God's.

    Verse by verse

    1. 19:14

      Spreading the letter is a concrete act within the prayer; the passage assigns no independent power to the document or its placement.

    2. 19:15

      The maker of heaven and earth is contrasted with the manufactured gods of verse 18.

    3. 19:17-18

      Hezekiah explicitly acknowledges Assyria's conquests while denying that the destroyed objects were gods.

    4. 19:19

      All the kingdoms of the earth repeats the scope of verse 15, giving the prayer a matching opening and close.

    2 Kings 19:14-19

    King James Version · 6 verses

    19:14And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

    19:15And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.

    19:16LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.

    19:17Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,

    19:18And 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.

    19:19Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD God, even thou only.

    2 Kings 19:14-19: He spread it before the LORD
  4. 04

    2 Kings 19:32-37

    He shall not come into this city

    The answer is specific: no arrow, no shield, no siege mound. In the morning the camp is dead, and Sennacherib goes home to Nineveh and is killed by his own sons in a temple.

    The promised defense begins with things that will not happen: no entry, no arrow, no shield brought forward, no siege bank. The answer is more specific than an eventual victory after Jerusalem has been devastated. In this encounter, the Assyrian king will not complete the assault he has threatened. The reason given is God's own name and his commitment to David, not the city's walls or the size of Hezekiah's army.

    Then the passage offers no Judean battle scene at all. An angel goes out; morning discloses the dead. The number is given, but a medical explanation is not. Sennacherib returns to Nineveh and dwells there before the account records his assassination, without specifying the interval. The final contrast is severe: Hezekiah entered his God's house with a threat and survived; Sennacherib enters his god's house and is killed by his own sons. The man whose message listed gods unable to save has reached a sanctuary that does not save him.

    Verse by verse

    1. 19:32

      A bank is a siege ramp or raised earthwork against a city's defenses, not a financial institution or merely a riverbank.

    2. 19:34

      The stated grounds are God's own sake and his servant David's sake; this promise addresses the present Assyrian threat, not every future attack on Jerusalem.

    3. 19:35

      The passage attributes the deaths to the angel of the LORD but does not identify a disease or other physical mechanism.

    4. 19:36-37

      The words dwelt at Nineveh leave an interval before the assassination unspecified. The text does not say the king died the next morning.

    2 Kings 19:32-37

    King James Version · 6 verses

    19:32Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.

    19:33By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD.

    19:34For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.

    19:35And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

    19:36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.

    19:37And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.

    2 Kings 19:32-37: He shall not come into this city
  5. 05

    2 Kings 20:12-19

    He showed them all his treasures

    Envoys arrive from Babylon after his illness and he shows them everything, silver, gold, spices, armoury, all of it. Isaiah tells him it will all be carried to Babylon. He says the word is good.

    All and nothing do the work in this passage. Hezekiah shows all his treasures, with nothing withheld; Isaiah announces that all will be carried away, with nothing left. The repetition turns a royal inventory inside out. Silver, gold, spices and weapons first appear as things a king can display, then as things a conqueror can remove. Even the descendants of the house enter the second inventory.

    Babylon has arrived with letters and a present, not with the threatening voice heard outside Jerusalem. The text states that its king heard of Hezekiah's illness; it does not supply a signed alliance or the visitors' secret instructions. Isaiah's inquiry stays close to what was shown. Hezekiah's final response must also be heard whole: he calls the LORD's word good and welcomes peace in his own days. That can be read as acceptance of a merciful delay, while the restriction to his lifetime remains troubling. The Book of Second Kings leaves both clauses standing. Present relief does not cancel the future loss just announced.

    Verse by verse

    1. 20:13

      The display includes the house of his armour as well as precious goods; this is more than a collection of ornaments.

    2. 20:15-17

      All and nothing recur in the king's description and the prophetic answer, binding the display of possessions to their removal.

    3. 20:18

      Sons can include royal descendants, not only immediate children. Matthew 1:9-10 preserves Hezekiah in Jesus' genealogy under the KJV form Ezekias.

    4. 20:19

      Readers differ over whether the final clause chiefly expresses grateful submission or a narrow concern for the king's own lifetime; the verse itself records acceptance and personal relief together.

    2 Kings 20:12-19

    King James Version · 8 verses

    20:12At that time Berodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah: for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick.

    20:13And Hezekiah hearkened unto them, and shewed them all the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not.

    20:14Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country, even from Babylon.

    20:15And he said, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All the things that are in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them.

    20:16And Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD.

    20:17Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD.

    20:18And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

    20:19Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?

Why it matters

Hezekiah is the best king since David by the account’s own verdict, and it is the prayer with the letter that earns it: he does not argue with the threat, he lays it out and asks God to read it. The deliverance is total and the reform is real. The last chapter is a caution rather than a fall: given fifteen more years, he shows everything in his treasury to envoys from Babylon, and is told that all of it will be carried there, and his response is that there will be peace in his days.

5 songs

The music

Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.

  1. 2 Kings 18-19

    Hezekiah and Sennacherib

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  2. 2 Kings 18-19; Isaiah 36-37

    The Angel in the Night

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  3. 2 Kings 18:1-19:37

    The Angel Smote the Camp

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  4. 2 Kings 20:1-21

    The Shadow Went Backward

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  5. 2 Chronicles 29:1-32:33

    The Passover Was Kept with Great Gladness

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The videos

The videos

Every release whose passage falls inside these chapters, playing here.

Hezekiah and Sennacherib2 Kings 18–19

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