Context & Key Themes
2 Kings 19 is the answer to chapter 18. Hezekiah receives the Rabshakeh’s letter threatening annihilation, goes to the temple, spreads the letter before the Lord, and prays. Isaiah sends him a word: do not fear. The king of Assyria will hear a rumor and return to his own land and fall by the sword there. Sennacherib sends another threatening letter. Hezekiah prays again — one of the great prayers of the Old Testament. Isaiah speaks again with a long oracle against Assyria. And then an angel of the Lord goes out and strikes down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. In the morning they are all dead. Sennacherib departs and returns to Nineveh, where his sons kill him in the temple of his god. The Lord has spoken, and everything he said came to pass.
Key Verse
“O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth.”
— 2 Kings 19:15
Summary
Hezekiah hears the Rabshakeh’s report, tears his clothes, covers himself with sackcloth, and goes to the temple. He sends to Isaiah. Isaiah says: do not be afraid of the words you have heard. I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his land. The Rabshakeh hears that Sennacherib has moved and finds him at Libnah. Sennacherib sends a letter to Hezekiah: do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you. You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands. Have the gods of the nations saved them?
Hezekiah takes the letter and goes to the temple and spreads it before the Lord. He prays: O Lord, God of Israel, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear and hear. See this letter. Hear the words of Sennacherib. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands. So now, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord God. Isaiah sends to Hezekiah: thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: he shall not come into this city, shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return. I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.
That night the angel of the Lord goes out and strikes down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When people arise early in the morning, these are all dead bodies. Sennacherib departs and returns to Nineveh. As he is worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer strike him down with the sword and escape into the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon reigns in his place.
Reflection
Hezekiah’s prayer is the theological heart of the Assyrian crisis. He does not bargain. He does not argue with the Rabshakeh’s letter point by point. He lays it before the Lord and makes one essential argument: you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made heaven and earth. The nations Assyria conquered had gods that were not gods — wood and stone the work of human hands. You are not that. Save us, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord. The prayer is for deliverance, but the reason for deliverance is that the whole world would know who God is. That is the same reasoning David used on the valley floor before Goliath.
A hundred and eighty-five thousand dead in a single night. The text does not dramatize it. It states it simply: when people arose early in the morning, these are all dead bodies. The God who sent fire on Carmel and chariots for Elijah sends an angel for Hezekiah. And Sennacherib, who boasted that no god had ever stopped him, goes home and is killed in his own temple by his own sons. The Rabshakeh’s speech asked: has any god ever delivered a nation from Assyria? The answer is yes. The Lord just did.