2 Kings 18:2-12

2 Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.
3 And he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done.
4 He removed the high places, and brake the pillars, and cut down the Asherah: and he brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan.
5 He trusted in Jehovah, the God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor [among them] that were before him.
6 For he clave to Jehovah; he departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses.
7 And Jehovah was with him; whithersoever he went forth he prospered: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.
8 He smote the Philistines unto Gaza and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city.
9 And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it.
10 And at the end of three years they took it: in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
11 And the king of Assyria carried Israel away unto Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,
12 because they obeyed not the voice of Jehovah their God, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of Jehovah commanded, and would not hear it, nor do it.

2 Kings 18:2-12 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.

The American Standard Version is in the public domain.