Hezekiah has two goals: to restore Temple service in Covenant renewal, and to bring Judah out from under pagan rule. While he did quite well on the first, he attempted the latter without the Lord's guidance. The parallel passage runs through 2 Kings 18 and 19.
2 Chronicles 31:1-4 -- The grand celebration of Passover was ended by a concerted effort to remove every shrine of the pagan devotion to Baal an Ashtarte, as well as the paganized high places. They did this not just in Judah and Benjamin, but in the ravaged countryside of Israel. With most of the ruling classes gone, there were few to resist this cleansing of idols. With the removal of the stain of ritual disobedience by observing the Passover, Hezekiah proceeded with re-instituting the full rotation of priests and offerings. He budgeted for the offering from his own personal herds and other resources. Further, he published a command that the residents of the royal capital should pitch in to keep the priests and Levites from having to do other work for a living.
31:5-21 -- The command to support the Temple was not some harsh edict, but more of an announcement the Temple was ready to receive the support commanded in the Law of Moses. This was circulated throughout the whole of Judah and the friendly portions of Israel. The timing was perfect, as it was about the wheat harvest (May). Over the next few months the response was overwhelming. Four months later (September) was the fruit harvest. The amount of offerings in-kind are referred to as heaps, and we are left with a picture of the Temple Mount resembling an agricultural storage area. The official records indicate the names of those deputized to manage all this stuff. New storage facilities were added to the Temple complex, and a fresh census was made of those eligible for the Temple dole. There was a strict accounting, but the offerings brought were of such quantity the Chief Priest reported they could get fat very easily.
32:1-8 -- This brief accounting jumps over quite a bit of history. It becomes necessary to weave in details from several other passages of the Bible to clear things up. Things were actually quite busy in the land. Sargon was tied up dealing with Urartu (modern Armenia) to his north between 720-711 BC, and Egypt had just succumbed to Nubian invasion at about the time Hezekiah gets the Temple service back on track, 715 BC. Ashdod in Philistia revolted, allied with the new Nubian rulers of Egypt. At this same time, the Babylonians, far to the south of Ninevah, began having dreams of throwing off the Assyrian yoke. They sent encouragement to the Philistines, hoping to keep the imperial troops tied up away from their area. We see the story mentioned in Isaiah 20, where the commander of Assyrian troops called by his title, Tartan, comes to lay siege to Ashdod. Hezekiah knew his day to revolt was not yet, and did not take any overt action, as far as we can tell. He was sympathetic, and may have been supporting this revolt. We know that Edom and Moab were also under Assyrian rule, in revolt at the same time.
The Assyrian army finally finishes matters in Urartu and come straight down to Ashdod, the apparent center of revolt. The city falls quickly, and Sargon installs an Assyrian governor. Assyrian troops stayed busy, and when Sargon dies in 705 BC, Hezekiah openly revolts. A change of rulers is always a good time for such things, because of the inherent political instability when the government's servants must be tested for loyalty. There was always a portion that had to be replaced.
Meanwhile, Hezekiah made several major mistakes. We are aware of a faction among his advisors that favored Egypt, and this party remained a force in royal politics until the Fall of Jerusalem much later. To the prophets, alliances with Egypt were seen as a repudiation of the Exodus. This was like poking a finger in God's eye; the very event to which prophets often pointed as the primary example of their special status before Jehovah was treated as a mistake. We see this addressed in Isaiah 30. Breaking the yoke of Assyria was no sin, but doing so using the means of mere human wisdom was. Hezekiah should have inquired of God, not his partisan advisors. At the same time, Merodoch-baladan of Babylon sends an envoy to see if Hezekiah is likely to resist better than the Philistines. In 1 Kings, this appears somewhat out of sequence in chapter 20, seemingly after the revolt they were hoping to foment. Here again, Hezekiah is foolish, because he shows the Babylonian visitors all his wealth and preparations for the siege they knew was coming. Isaiah warned him these were the very people who would take his sons captive someday (1 Kings 20:17-19). Hezekiah was short-sighted enough to feel it wouldn't matter to him, since it was clearly after his lifetime.
Hezekiah continued preparations for the siege by securing the water supply. Recall the Spring of Gihon was outside the city wall, typical of ancient custom from when the city was built by Jebusites. The tunnel through which David's forces slipped into the city was still there, along with another that brought the water around the ridge to a pool on the lower west side. It allowed a rather low volume of water. Hezekiahs' tunnel was much larger, and longer, taking a route that was nonetheless a bit flatter. He also enlarged the original pool at the low end of the ridge on which the old city was built. This tunnel is still there today, and all agree it was quite a neat trick to get it done so quickly. He had men digging from both ends, speeding up the work, but requiring precise engineering to meet at the exact same spot. At the same time, he filled the entrance to the spring from the Kidron Valley with a mass of packed rubble to prevent siege troops from having access to the water. His plaque just inside the lower opening of the new tunnel gave him grand credit, but Isaiah reminded him that he gave no credit to the Lord who made the pool (Isaiah 22:9-11). In that same passage Isaiah berates Hezekiah for his utter failure to trust in Jehovah for success in a revolt He surely wanted.
32:9-15 -- Sargon's successor was named Sennacherib. Once the imperial bureaucracy was working, he immediately marched on Babylon in 703 BC. He placed an Assyrian governor over Babylon, then turned and made the long trek up the Valley to Charan, across the Upper Euphrates, and down along the coast. He vanquished rebellions in Tyre, Acco, Joppa and Ashkelon. He began a siege on Lachish, but was interrupted. The Nubians sent a force under Pharaoh Shabakah's brother, Tirhakah. These were quickly vanquished at Libnah, and the Assyrians returned to working on cities of Judah. While they were tied up again at Lachish, Hezekiah sent a message requesting terms to ward off a siege (2 Kings 18:13-16). Sennacherib demanded a huge tribute of silver and gold. Hezekiah stripped the Temple of the overlay he had so lavishly provided at the start of his reign. Jerusalem remained on alert while waiting the response. Sennacherib sent his chief officers for some psychological warfare, each identified by his title: Tartan, the Commander in Chief; Rabsaris, the Chief of Staff; and Rabshakeh, who appears to be the Assyrian appointed to become the governor of Judah, once Hezekiah was captured (2 Kings 18:17). There was a large military escort with them, whose approach caused the city to close up.
These three presented themselves at the city's oldest gate, near the Spring of Gihon pool, which was now a dry cistern after Hezekiah's engineering of the water flow. They had a message from the Emperor. They called out to Hezekiah, who sent out his scribe, Eliakim. Apparently the King was expecting the visitors to speak in Aramaic, a somewhat different Semitic tongue, and Eliakim could translate. Instead, the new governor appointee took care to speak in clear Hebrew, so that everyone manning the defenses could hear. First, he mentioned how foolish it was to have trusted in Egyptian troops. Then, if they were claiming to trust Jehovah, was that not the altars Hezekiah had destroyed throughout the land? It's not that the Rabshakeh didn't know the high places weren't valid altars to the Lord; it was an attempt to stir up those who resented Hezekiah's reforms -- they thought the Baalist forms of worship were valid. He goes on to mention that their supply of horses was far greater than those of Egypt, and bragged how one company of Assyrian soldiers could fight their way into Jerusalem alone. Indeed, it was Jehovah who had sent them!
Eliakim tried to remind Rabshakeh he was breaching protocol by not speaking in Aramaic, but in the language of the people (2 Kings 18:26ff). This was the business of rulers, not troops on the city wall. The reply was a continuation of unvarnished arrogance. He wanted to make sure the troops would remember his offer when the siege got nasty. Then he directed a long speech to the citizens, promising all manner of wonderful future in another land if they would ignore Hezekiah and submit to Assyria. He compared Jehovah to the pagan gods of all the nations the Empire had vanquished, naming several that failed to deliver their people. Those people were those already trickling in as advanced parties for the mass resettlement of folks into Israel to the north. These three came and went several times, returning to the Emperor when the siege of Lachish was lifted to face the Nubians, then coming back to Jerusalem again.
32:16-19 -- Hezekiah knew there was no hope. His strongest ally had failed -- the Nubians -- and every other ally was already prostrate at Sennacherib's feet. One of the strongest fortresses of Judah was now under attack and Jerusalem was next. Already, there was a substantial force outside the gates to keep them holed up and under strain. By the time the larger army appeared, the siege would be well advanced, with people inside dying. All his human wisdom brought nothing, and his actions had distanced him from Jehovah. Further, as the siege of Jerusalem got under way, the trio of messengers began blaspheming God, and cursing Hezekiah. Sennacherib sent letters doing the same. The trio made regular speeches in Hebrew trying to spread fear in the defenders' ranks. They thought to incite a revolt.
32:20-23 -- All this time Isaiah had been encouraging Hezekiah to stand fast in his trust in God. With the blasphemy and cursing, they had far stronger grounds for expecting a reaction from God for His own sake. Hezekiah humbled himself and began seeking the Lord. At one point he took one of Sennacherib's threatening letters and spread it out in the presence of the Lord at the Temple (2 Kings 19:14). The Lord spoke to Isaiah and sent his own message back to the Emperor (2 Kings 19:22ff). His promise to Hezekiah was that the Assyrian troops would not enter the city. As the main army came on the scene, the Lord moved. While the text does not say, we get a hint from secular historians writing of that time. One mentions that the entire Assyrian army fell not far from the border of Egypt from a plague of mice that ate all the leather bindings on their weapons and equipment. If true, that would leave them nearly disarmed, since even swords had leather handles. Even then, it does not account for the loss of 185,000 men from causes other than battle. Perhaps the mice carried a horrific disease, too. The description and situation resemble bubonic plague. Either way, Sennacherib returned in shame to Ninevah, and covered up his loss by recording how glorious it was to have Hezekiah trapped inside Jerusalem. No mention of breeching the city walls, though, as was boasted of in the case of Lachish.
This utter failure on such an ostensibly simple mission left Sennacherib's war machine weak. He undertook no further military missions. Some twenty years later, while bowing in the temple to his god, Nisroc, two of his many sons executed him. They fled, but were eventually executed themselves. Meanwhile, the heir to the Imperial throne was Esarhaddon. Back in Jerusalem, Hezekiah gained in fame and power from his now sure victory over the army that crushed all others.
32:24-33 -- The summary of Hezekiah's final days goes back to pick up some loose ends. Sometime early in the siege, Hezekiah suffered some illness that was expected to be fatal. The account in 2 Kings 20 gives more detail, including a description of the miracle that God offered -- the sun retreating back on his father's sundial -- to show he would live a bit longer. However, Hezekiah did not keep his implied promise to give God the glory. Instead, he became arrogant again for a time. We aren't told what, but some disaster loomed over the kingdom, and Hezekiah again turned back to the Lord. This brought the kingdom back to safety. This wavering back and forth did not help his son, Manasseh, learn faith in Jehovah. During Hezekiah's last decade, his son was co-regent, starting when the boy was but 12 (697 BC). We are given a quick look at his extraordinary personal wealth, and it is this wealth he showed off to the visiting Babylonians. In death, his resting place was among the most honored in the royal cemetery.
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Ed Hurst
14 May 2005
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