2 Kings 18

2Ki 18:1-3.

HEZEKIAH'S

GOOD

REIGN.

1, 2. Hezekiah . . . began to reign. Twenty and five years

old--According to this statement (compare

2Ki 16:2),

he must have been born when his father Ahaz was no more than eleven

years old. Paternity at an age so early is not unprecedented in the

warm climates of the south, where the human frame is matured sooner

than in our northern regions. But the case admits of solution in a

different way. It was customary for the later kings of Israel to

assume their son and heir into partnership in the government during

their lives; and as Hezekiah began to reign in the third year of Hoshea

(2Ki 18:1),

and Hoshea in the twelfth year of Ahaz

(2Ki 17:1),

it is evident that Hezekiah began to reign in the fourteenth year of

Ahaz his father, and so reigned two or three years before his father's

death. So that, at the beginning of his reign in conjunction with his

father, he might be only twenty-two or twenty-three, and Ahaz a few

years older than the common calculation makes him. Or the case may be

solved thus: As the ancient writers, in the computation of time, take

notice of the year they mention, whether finished or newly begun, so

Ahaz might be near twenty-one years old at the beginning of his reign,

and near seventeen years older at his death; while, on the other hand,

Hezekiah, when he began to reign, might be just entering into his

twenty-fifth year, and so Ahaz would be near fourteen years old when

his son Hezekiah was born--no uncommon age for a young man to become a

father in southern latitudes [PATRICK].

2Ki 18:4-37.

HE

DESTROYS

IDOLATRY.

4. He removed the high places and brake the images, &c.--The methods

adopted by this good king for extirpating idolatry, and accomplishing a

thorough reformation in religion, are fully detailed

(2Ch 20:3; 31:19).

But they are indicated very briefly, and in a sort of passing allusion.

brake in pieces the brazen serpent--The preservation of this remarkable

relic of antiquity

(Nu 21:5-10)

might, like the pot of manna and Aaron's rod, have remained an

interesting and instructive monument of the divine goodness and mercy

to the Israelites in the wilderness: and it must have required the

exercise of no small courage and resolution to destroy it. But in the

progress of degeneracy it had become an object of idolatrous worship

and as the interests of true religion rendered its demolition

necessary, Hezekiah, by taking this bold step, consulted both the glory

of God and the good of his country.

unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it--It is

not to be supposed that this superstitious reverence had been paid to

it ever since the time of Moses, for such idolatry would not have been

tolerated either by David or by Solomon in the early part of his reign,

probability is, that the introduction of this superstition does not

date earlier than the time when the family of Ahab, by their alliance

with the throne of Judah, exercised a pernicious influence in paving

the way for all kinds of idolatry. It is possible, however, as some

think, that its origin may have arisen out of a misapprehension of

Moses' language

(Nu 21:8).

Serpent-worship, how revolting soever it may appear, was an extensively

diffused form of idolatry; and it would obtain an easier reception in

Israel because many of the neighboring nations, such as the Egyptians

and Phœnicians, adored idol gods in the form of serpents as the

emblems of health and immortality.

5, 6. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel--without invoking the aid or

purchasing the succor of foreign auxiliaries like Asa

(1Ki 15:18, 19)

and Ahaz

(2Ki 16:17;

Isa 7:1-25).

so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah--Of

course David and Solomon are excepted, they having had the sovereignty

of the whole country. In the petty kingdom of Judah, Josiah alone had a

similar testimony borne to him

(2Ki 23:25).

But even he was surpassed by Hezekiah, who set about a national

reformation at the beginning of his reign, which Josiah did not. The

pious character and the excellent course of Hezekiah was prompted,

among other secondary influences, by a sense of the calamities his

father's wicked career had brought on the country, as well as by the

counsels of Isaiah.

7, 8. he rebelled against the king of Assyria--that is, the yearly

tribute his father had stipulated to pay, he, with imprudent haste,

withdrew. Pursuing the policy of a truly theocratic sovereign, he was,

through the divine blessing which rested on his government, raised to a

position of great public and national strength. Shalmaneser had

withdrawn from Palestine, being engaged perhaps in a war with Tyre, or

probably he was dead. Assuming, consequently, that full independent

sovereignty which God had settled on the house of David, he both shook

off the Assyrian yoke, and, by an energetic movement against the

Philistines, recovered from that people the territory which they had

taken from his father Ahaz

(2Ch 28:18).

13. Sennacherib--the son and successor of Shalmaneser.

all the fenced cities of Judah--not absolutely all of them; for,

besides the capital, some strong fortresses held out against the

invader

(2Ki 18:17;

2Ki 19:8).

The following account of Sennacherib's invasion of Judah and the

remarkable destruction of his army, is repeated almost verbatim in

2Ch 32:1-33

and Isa 36:1-37:38.

The expedition seems to have been directed against Egypt, the conquest

of which was long a leading object of ambition with the Assyrian

monarchs. But the invasion of Judah necessarily preceded, that country

being the key to Egypt, the highway through which the conquerors from

Upper Asia had to pass. Judah had also at this time formed a league of

mutual defense with Egypt

(2Ki 18:24).

Moreover, it was now laid completely open by the transplantation of

Israel to Assyria. Overrunning Palestine, Sennacherib laid siege to the

fortress of Lachish, which lay seven Roman miles from Eleutheropolis,

and therefore southwest of Jerusalem on the way to Egypt [ROBINSON]. Among the interesting illustrations of sacred

history furnished by the recent Assyrian excavations, is a series of

bas-reliefs, representing the siege of a town, which the inscription on

the sculpture shows to be Lachish, and the figure of a king, whose name

is given, on the same inscription, as Sennacherib. The legend,

sculptured over the head of the king, runs thus: "Sennacherib, the

mighty king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throne of

judgment before the city of Lachish [Lakhisha], I give permission for

its slaughter" [Nineveh and Babylon]. This minute confirmation

of the truth of the Bible narrative is given not only by the name

Lachish, which is contained in the inscription, but from the

physiognomy of the captives brought before the king, which is

unmistakably Jewish.

14-16. Hezekiah . . . sent to Lachish, saying,

. . . that which thou puttest on me will I

bear--Disappointed in his expectations of aid from Egypt, and

feeling himself unable to resist so mighty a conqueror who was menacing

Jerusalem itself, Hezekiah made his submission. The payment of 300

talents of silver, and 30 talents of gold--£351,000--brought a

temporary respite; but, in raising the imposed tribute, he was obliged

not only to drain all the treasures of the palace and the temple, but

even to strip the doors and pillars of the sacred edifice of the gold

that adorned them.

2Ki 18:17-37.

SENNACHERIB

BESIEGES

JERUSALEM.

17. king of Assyria sent Tartan--general

(Isa 20:1).

Rab-saris--chief of the eunuchs.

Rab-shakeh--chief cupbearer. These were the great officers employed in

delivering Sennacherib's insulting message to Hezekiah. On the walls of

the palace of Sennacherib, at Khorsabad, certain figures have been

identified with the officers of that sovereign mentioned in Scripture.

In particular, the figures, Rab-shakeh, Rab-saris, and Tartan, appear as

full-length portraits of the persons holding those offices in the reign

of Sennacherib. Probably they represent the very individuals sent on

this embassy.

with a great host to Jerusalem--Engaged in a campaign of three

years in Egypt, Sennacherib was forced by the king of Ethiopia to

retreat, and discharging his rage against Jerusalem, he sent an immense

army to summon it to surrender.

(See on

2Ch 32:30).

the conduit of the upper pool--the conduit which went from the

reservoir of the Upper Gihon (Birket et Mamilla) to the lower pool, the

Birket es Sultan.

the highway of the fuller's field--the public road which passed by

that district, which had been assigned them for carrying on their

business without the city, on account of the unpleasant smell

[KEIL].

18. when they had called to the king--Hezekiah did not make a

personal appearance, but commissioned his three principal ministers to

meet the Assyrian deputies at a conference outside the city walls.

Eliakim--lately promoted to be master of the royal household

(Isa 22:20).

Shebna--removed for his pride and presumption

(Isa 22:15)

from that office, though still royal secretary.

Joah . . . the recorder--that is, the keeper of the chronicles, an

important office in Eastern countries.

19. Rab-shakeh said--The insolent tone he assumed appears surprising.

But this boasting

[2Ki 18:19-25],

both as to matter and manner, his highly colored picture of his

master's powers and resources, and the impossibility of Hezekiah making

any effective resistance, heightened by all the arguments and figures

which an Oriental imagination could suggest, has been paralleled in

all, except the blasphemy, by other messages of defiance sent on

similar occasions in the history of the East.

27. that they may eat, &c.--This was designed to show the dreadful

extremities to which, in the threatened siege, the people of Jerusalem

would be reduced.