2 Kgs 18:13-37 · Read 12 min · think and write 15 min
The first two lessons were from Second Chronicles: Hezekiah opened the doors of the temple and kept the Passover. From this lesson on, we read Second Kings.
Second Kings says of Hezekiah, “He didn’t depart from following him” (2 Kgs 18:6), and: “The LORD was with him. Wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria, and didn’t serve him” (2 Kgs 18:7).
In Lesson 1 we read that Assyria had already taken Samaria in the north (2 Kgs 18:10). In this lesson, the king of Assyria comes up against Judah.
13Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.
14Hezekiah 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.
15Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the LORD’s house and in the treasures of the king’s house.
16At that time, Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the LORD’s temple, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
17The 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.
18When 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.
19Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?
20You 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?
21Now, 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.
22But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD 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’?
23Now 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.
24How 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?
25Have 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.’”’”
26Then 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.”
27But 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?”
28Then 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.
29The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of his hand.
30Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
31Don’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;
32until 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, “The LORD will deliver us.”
33Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
34Where 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?
35Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
36But the people stayed quiet, and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”
37Then 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.
The fortified cities taken. “Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them” (v. 13).
I have offended you. Hezekiah sent word to the king of Assyria: “I have offended you. Withdraw from me. That which you put on me, I will bear” (v. 14). The king of Assyria demanded “three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold” (v. 14). “Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the LORD’s house and in the treasures of the king’s house” (v. 15), and “cut off the gold from the doors of the LORD’s temple, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria” (v. 16). Second Kings records these lines just as they happened.
An army outside the city. Still the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh and the others “with a great army to Jerusalem” (v. 17). They stood “by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field” (v. 17), and three of the king’s officials came out to meet them (v. 18).
On whom do you trust? Rabshakeh’s first words were: “What confidence is this in which you trust?” (v. 19). “Now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?” (v. 20). Egypt, he says, is “the staff of this bruised reed” — “If a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it” (v. 21). Then he speaks of trusting in the LORD: “But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away” (v. 22). He even says: “The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it’” (v. 25). In this speech the word ‘trust’ comes again and again.
In the Jews’ language. The king’s officials asked him, “Please speak to your servants in the Syrian language,” and, “Don’t speak with us in the Jews’ language, in the hearing of the people who are on the wall” (v. 26). Rabshakeh refused (v. 27); instead he “stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language” (v. 28).
Don’t listen to Hezekiah. This time he spoke to the people: “Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you” (v. 29); “Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD” (v. 30). He promised that if they surrendered, “everyone of you eat from his own vine, and everyone from his own fig tree, and everyone drink water from his own cistern” (v. 31). At the end he asked: “Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?” (v. 33); “Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?” (v. 35).
Quiet. “But the people stayed quiet, and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, ‘Don’t answer him’” (v. 36). The three officials came to Hezekiah “with their clothes torn, and told him Rabshakeh’s words” (v. 37). The chapter stops here.
The prophet Isaiah prophesied in the days of these kings, “in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (Isa 1:1). The book of Isaiah has this line: “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they don’t look to the Holy One of Israel, and they don’t seek the LORD!” (Isa 31:1).
Readers can see this: Rabshakeh says, “put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?” (v. 24), and a prophet of the same time also speaks of Egypt, horses and chariots. The people of that day faced exactly this question: ‘In whom do we trust?’
Perhaps someone is asking you, too: ‘In the end, whom are you trusting?’ It may be another person asking, or a voice in your own heart: illness, debt, work, children, set before you one after another.
This lesson does not give an answer, and it does not say Hezekiah got every step right; it stops where the people are quiet and the officials have torn their clothes. What it shows you is the question itself: “What confidence is this in which you trust?” (v. 19). The Psalms have this line: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Ps 20:7).
This week: Write down the three things you have been trusting most these days (savings, work, a certain person, your own abilities …). This week, find a quiet time, bring the list before God, and tell him honestly.
Scripture: World English Bible.