2 Kings 19 Study Notes

19:22 In contrast to the idols destroyed by Assyria, the Assyrians were now facing the only true God, the Holy One of Israel, whose power surpassed anything the Assyrians had experienced.

19:23-24 Then came the most amazing principle of Isaiah’s oracle. He admitted that the power of the Assyrian and his conquests were real. These verses use poetic figures of conquest, marching to the mountains of Lebanon and trampling the waters of many nations. No Assyrian court poet could have more effectively described the power and glory of Assyria in so few words.

19:25-26 Assyria had her way with surrounding nations for one reason: God ordained it.

19:27-28 The Assyrians were in God’s hand. This brings us to the fourth point (see note at vv. 5-7) of good news: God would lead the Assyrians back to their land by his hook in their nose just as he would handle a stubborn draft animal.

19:29 The year of Jubilee was a second consecutive Sabbath year, where fields were left fallow for two years (Lv 25:1-12). Many suspect that these commands were never consistently implemented. While possible, it is statistically unlikely that these two years under discussion would have coincided with the Jubilee. It is more likely that the author used these concepts and principles as metaphors to describe the recovery of the land from devastation. Just as in the Jubilee, it would take two years of work and living on volunteer growth (plants arising from stray seeds not planted by man) to restore the land. These words also suggest that the diminished population could survive on volunteer growth for two years. This message from Isaiah was both a sign, whose fulfillment proved God’s reliability, and a promise that volunteer growth would suffice for those two years.

19:30-31 This closing metaphor had three levels of meaning. First, the remnants of the agricultural crops would take root and grow, and that growth would be an encouraging sign to God’s people. Second, it promised that the remnant of the people would take root in the promised land, grow there, and survive this disaster. Third, this was a metaphor for the way in which God’s people survive and recover from physical and spiritual enemies when they are fulfilling God’s purposes.

19:32-33 Then God reiterated the fourth principle (vv. 27-28), adding that Jerusalem’s deliverance would be so thorough that the Assyrians would not even shoot an arrow against Jerusalem.

19:34 The message of this verse is repeated in 20:6.

19:35-36 The fifth and final step of good news (see note at vv. 5-7) was that God did send the Assyrians home. God miraculously damaged the Assyrian army so severely that they had to leave Judah. This apparently happened after the Assyrians had defeated the invading Egyptian army. All the events of this chapter probably took several weeks. Leaving Lachish, turning aside from Libnah, defeating the Egyptians, and then suffering a miraculous blow from God—perhaps a plague—would take some time.

19:37 The topic of these two chapters is God’s triumph over Sennacherib. Though the end actually came some ten or so years later, the Bible writer recorded the prophesied end of that account—Sennacherib’s death—before going on to begin another. Sennacherib had claimed that Hezekiah’s God could not save him. Hezekiah’s God did save him, but Sennacherib’s god could not—even in his own temple.