Big, big stuff going on in this passage. We start off learning about a guy named Ahaz, who becomes king in Judah at only 20 years old. (I'm 20 and can't imagine what that'd be like!) From a Biblical perspective, it's not
so young, though. After all, Joash was only seven when he became king in Israel (11:21). Now, as a general trend (but not a rule), we've seen that ever since the kingdom split up after the reign of Solomon, Judah has had good (or decent) kings who have sort of somewhat kind of basically kept things focused on the LORD, while Israel has been much more blatantly disobedient and has gone on heaping idols upon idols. Ahaz represents a kind of brake with this pattern, because "unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God" (16:2). The text even stresses the point I just made by saying "He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel..." (16:3). Ha!
Anyhow, during this time, "Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem and besieged Ahaz, but they could not overpower him" (16:5). The text isn't clear about why this conflict occurred, and I'm not sure why Israel and Aram always seem to be working together, but as a result of this, Ahaz appealed to Assyria for help, taking all the "silver and gold in the temple of the LORD and in the treasuries of the royal palace" and he gave it all as a gift to Assyria's king (16:8). Assyria came to Judah's aid and even killed Aram's king (16:9), but Judah became indebted to Assyria as a result, and even Israel was subjugated to them. The altar in Jerusalem was effectively desecrated "in deference to the king of Assyria" (16:17-18).
Now, we move to Israel, where a man named Hoshea becomes king. We're told that he did evil in the eyes of the LORD, "but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him" (17:2). That's an interesting point, but the text does not really elaborate. Perhaps he was not
as evil as the other kings, or the sins he brought in were simply different. In any case, during his reign, "The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years... Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria" (17:5-6). Assyria did this because Israel had stopped paying tribute to them under Hoshea, and they had been sending envoys to Egypt, presumably to seek military aid against them. We're told that "All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God" (17:7), and the rest of the chapter is almost a summary of everything that has happened in the history of the Israelites until this point. Very concise and to the point, too... check it out.
Enter Hezekiah, the new king in Judah. In all the reading I've done on the kings in Israel and Judah, I don't think any gets the praise that Hezekiah does. "He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles..." (18:3-4). He's not as well known as David, doesn't have all of the military exploits of David, nor does he have hundreds of Psalms under his belt, but Hezekiah was clearly a man of faith - and he doesn't have any Bathsheba stories, either. I like him.
Fourteen years into Hezekiah's reign, Assyria attacks and captures some of Judah's cities. (Blood thirsty, those ones.) Presumably not ready for a war (or maybe timid), Hezekiah tells the king of Assyria "I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me" (18:14). Even after robbing the temple of the LORD and the royal palace blind, Shalmaneser (Assyria's king) still sends an entire army to Jerusalem. His field commander calls for Hezekiah, who sends three of his officials to meet with the commander. The commander taunts them just outside of the city wall: "You say you have strategy and military strength - but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me?" (18:20). He mocks the idea that they could depend on either Egypt or the LORD, and adds insult to injury by asking "Have I come to attack and destroy this place without word from the LORD? The LORD himself told me to march against this country and destroy it" (18:25).
Hezekiah's officials were understandably embarassed by all of this. There they are, being totally humiliated, and right on the city wall are sitting men from Jerusalem listening to the whole thing. One of the men asks the commander to please speak to them in Aramaic so that the people on the wall will not understand what is said. The commander counters (in an even louder voice, I imagine) with "Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall - who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?" (18:27). Yikes.
This goes on a little longer, and Shalmaneser's commander gets a little haughtier. He warns the people not to trust in the LORD to deliver them, saying "Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?" (18:33-34). I suppose that what the commander didn't know was that
this was the God not only of Israel, but of all the universe, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.
Anyway, Hezekiah's officials were so distraught by everything they heard, that they "went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said" (18:37). When Hezekiah heard this, "he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the LORD" (19:1). A huge army was literally at his doorstep - can you imagine the pressure? Hezekiah sends his officials to Isaiah (the same prophet we all know) to seek advice. Isaiah prophesies, "This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard - those words with which the underlings of the king Assyria have blasphemed me. Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword" (19:6-7).
Right on cue, "Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the Cushite king of Egypt, was marching out to fight against him" (19:9). When the field commander heard about this, he had to withdraw the army from Jerusalem. That doesn't settle the matter though, and Assyria certainly wasn't done with this fight. Sennacherib sent a letter to Hezekiah, saying "Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, 'Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.' Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them: the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? (19:10-12). Can you believe the arrogance of this guy?
Hezekiah received this letter and took it straight to the temple of the LORD, where he spread it out and prayed "O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth... It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone... Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God" (19:15-19). I love Hezekiah's faith!
After Hezekiah's prayer, Isaiah sends a message to the king from God, with the magic words "I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant" (19:34). That same night, "the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp" (19:35). Sennacherib was with them; waking up and seeing his army decimated, he left to Nineveh. When he was there, two of his own sons killed him and another son (Esarhaddon) succeeded him as king (19:37). This is a total fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied in 2 Kings 19:6-7.
The passage winds down with a more well-known story. Hezekiah is ill and near death. Isaiah tells him "the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover" (20:1). Hezekiah prays, though, asking Him to remember "how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, [doing] what is good in your eyes" (20:2). Isaiah, came back to Hezekiah, and told him that he would be healed and that God was adding fifteen years to his life, on top of delivering Jerusalem from Assyria.
The reading ends on a solemn note as Isaiah warns Hezekiah about days to come. "The time will surely come when everything in your place, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon" (20:17-18). Hezekiah seems pleased that at least there will "be peace and security in my lifetime" (20:19), but we see that even though Hezekiah might have been a king faithful to the LORD, things are going to go right back to how they were after he's gone. Unfortunate.
