2 Kings 18:13-23

Invasion of Judah

13 ¹Now in the fourteenth * year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.

14 Then Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, "²I have done wrong. Withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear." So the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

15 ³Hezekiah gave him all the silver which was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasuries of the king's house.

16 At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the doorposts which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

17 Then the king of Assyria sent ⁴Tartan and Rab-saris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a large army to Jerusalem. So they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they went up, they came and stood by the ⁵conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the fuller's field.

18 When they called to the king, ⁶Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and ⁷Shebnah the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, came out to them.

19 Then Rabshakeh said to them, "Say now to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, "⁸What is this confidence that you have?

20 "You say (but they are only empty words ), 'I have counsel and strength for the war.' Now on whom do you rely, ⁹that you have rebelled against me?

21 "Now behold, you ¹⁰rely on the staff of this crushed reed, even on Egypt; on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.

22 "But if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' is it not He whose high places and ¹¹whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem '?

23 "Now therefore, come, make a bargain with 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.

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2 Kings 18:13-23 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 18

This chapter begins with the good reign of Hezekiah king of Judah, the reformation he made in the kingdom, and the prosperity that attended him when Israel was carried captive, 2Ki 18:1-12 and gives an account of the siege of Jerusalem by the king of Assyria, and of the distress Hezekiah was in, and the hard measures he was obliged to submit unto, 2Ki 18:13-18 and of the reviling and blasphemous speech of Rabshakeh, one of the generals of the king of Assyria, urging the Jews to a revolt from their king, 2Ki 18:19-37.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 11

1. 2 Chronicles 32:1; Is 36:1-39:8
2. 2 Kings 18:7
3. 1 Kings 15:18, 19; 2 Kings 12:18; 2 Kings 16:8
4. Isaiah 20:1
5. 2 Kings 20:20; Isaiah 7:3
6. 2 Kings 19:2; Isaiah 22:20
7. Isaiah 22:15
8. 2 Chronicles 32:10
9. 2 Kings 18:7
10. Is 30:2, 3, 7; Ezekiel 29:6, 7
11. 2 Kings 18:4; 2 Chronicles 31:1

Footnotes 9

[a]. Lit "Return"
[b]. Lit "give"
[c]. Lit "put on"
[d]. I.e. launderer's
[e]. Lit "trust"
[f]. Lit "a word of the lips"
[g]. Lit "rely for yourself"
[h]. Lit "palm"
[i]. Lit "please exchange pledges"