Dawn over Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives: the walled city on its ridge across the misty Kidron valley, the plain temple small at the top of the ridge with a thin thread of altar smoke, a calm pale-gold sky above.

The Book of

2 Kings 19

A threatening letter, a king who spreads it out before the LORD, and one night that saved a city.

37 verses≈ 8 min4 peopleBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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In this chapter

Where we are

1–8ElishaThe prophet's double portion
9–12JehuThe house of Ahab falls
13–17Last kings of IsraelSamaria falls
18–20HezekiahTrust in the LORDChapter 19
21–23JosiahThe Book found
24–25ExileJerusalem falls

Isaiah’s Message of Deliverance

Gray early morning in the temple court: King Hezekiah, his blue robe torn at the neck under coarse dark sackcloth and no crown, walks alone across the pale paving toward the plain stone temple, head bowed, the bronze altar to one side and two priests standing back by the wall.

On hearing this report, King Hezekiah tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and entered the house of the LORD.

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz

Hezekiah

to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them. Perhaps the LORD your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”

So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah,

Isaiah

who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the LORD says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

Sennacherib’s Blasphemous Letter

When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.

Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “Look, he has set out to fight against you.” So Sennacherib again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

From SennacheribTo Hezekiah king of Judah

“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared? Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar? Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”

2 Kings 19:10–13

Reflect

When the threat comes in writing

The same threat came twice, first shouted at the wall and then in a letter: “Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you.” Is there a message, a diagnosis or a fear you keep rereading? Write it down. What would it mean to carry it, as Hezekiah did, into the presence of the LORD?

Hezekiah’s Prayer

Morning in the empty temple court, seen from behind and above: Hezekiah kneels on the stone paving before the plain temple, an unrolled leather letter lying on the stones before him, its blank back turned up and its edges held flat by his open hands.

So Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers, read it, and went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD.

And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD: “O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see. Listen to the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God.

Hezekiah

Hezekiah

Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste these nations and their lands. They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands.

2 Kings 19:19

Pray

Spread it out before Him

Pray the way Hezekiah prayed. Say who He is: “You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.” Name what is happening, honestly. Ask Him to save. And ask it for His name’s sake, “so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know.” Bring one fear and spread it out before Him now.

Trust: Hezekiah’s answers

Whiteboard

Silver bought nothing; the army came anyway. So Hezekiah stopped paying and started praying. He took the letter that said “Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you” and laid it before the LORD, and the LORD answered, “I will defend this city.”

Sennacherib’s Fall Prophesied

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him:

‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion

despises you and mocks you;

the Daughter of Jerusalem

shakes her head behind you.

Isaiah

Have you not heard?

Long ago I ordained it;

in days of old I planned it.

Now I have brought it to pass,

that you should crush fortified cities

into piles of rubble.

Close and low across the flat mud-plastered roof of a Judean house in hot morning light: a thin crop of grass sprouted in the packed earth, already scorched yellow-brown and bent by the wind, a stone roof roller on its side, flat roofs and a hazy hill beyond.

Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power,

are dismayed and ashamed.

They are like plants in the field,

tender green shoots,

grass on the rooftops,

scorched before it is grown.

But I know your sitting down,

your going out and coming in,

and your raging against Me.

Because your rage and arrogance against Me

have reached My ears,

I will put My hook in your nose

and My bit in your mouth;

I will send you back

the way you came.’

Late spring on terraced fields below a Judean hill village: thin uneven barley sprung up on its own among old stubble and weeds, unpruned vines straggling over the terrace walls, a farmer and his young son gathering the self-sown heads by hand into a basket.

And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah:

This year you will eat

what grows on its own,

and in the second year

what springs from the same.

But in the third year you will sow and reap;

you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem,

and survivors from Mount Zion.

The zeal of the LORD of Hosts

will accomplish this.

Early morning at Jerusalem's thick plain stone wall and gate on the ridge, whole and quiet: no ramp, no arrows, no army, two watchmen on the wall looking out, the road below empty and mist lifting from the valley.

So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria:

‘He will not enter this

city or shoot an arrow

into it. He will not come before it with a shield

or build up a siege ramp against it.

He will go back the way he came,

and he will not enter this city,

declares the LORD.

I will defend this city

and save it

for My own sake

and for the sake of My servant David.’”

Question

Quick question

Isaiah gave Hezekiah a sign that the LORD would keep His word.

What sign did the LORD give Hezekiah through Isaiah?

Jerusalem Delivered from the Assyrians

Gray first light over a vast Assyrian camp on a wide plain: rows of low tents with still flaps, spears stacked in bundles, wicker shields leaning on tent poles, cooking fires gone cold, a thin mist between the rows, horses tethered at the far edge, no one in sight.

And that very night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!

Late afternoon from a high hill in Judah: far below, a long Assyrian column with glinting helmets and tall shields winds away north along a dusty road through the hills, golden dust in the low sun, a pale empty sky above.

So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. And his son Esar-haddon reigned in his place.

0:19

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

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2 Kings 19

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A verse to carry with you

And now, O LORD our God, please save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.

2 Kings 19:19

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