2 Chronicleschapter 32
33 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Spring of Gihon and channeled it down to the west side of the City of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all that he did.
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for people who knew that Assyria had taken forty-six walled towns of Judah and left only the capital standing. The invasion comes right after the king's great acts of faithfulness. Two speeches face each other across the city wall, one from the king and one from the enemy's officers. Listen for the arguments each side makes about who can be trusted. Then listen to the close of the reign, where the book adds what Kings leaves out. The final purpose it gives is a test of the king's own heart.
Context
- Who
- Judeans who had seen forty-six walled towns taken and the capital left standing
- What
- Sennacherib's invasion of Judah, Hezekiah's defence of Jerusalem and its water, the Assyrian taunts, the LORD's deliverance, and the close of Hezekiah's reign.
- Where
- Jerusalem, its walls and its water supply, with the Assyrian camp at Lachish.
- When
- 701 BC for the invasion, a year fixed by the Assyrian records, and the reign's close about 687 BC.
- Why
- To show that the LORD delivers those who trust Him against overwhelming odds, and that pride after deliverance is its own danger.
Historical context
The chapter is Hezekiah's, and beside him stand Isaiah the prophet and, on the other side, Sennacherib king of Assyria and his officers. The people of Jerusalem are addressed directly in verses 7 and 8.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time is 701 BC, one of the most securely dated years in the Old Testament, because the Assyrian king's own annals record the campaign. The closing verses summarise the rest of the reign to the king's death about 687 BC.
The place is Jerusalem, its walls and its water, with the Assyrian headquarters thirty miles away at Lachish. The Gihon spring lay outside the wall, which is the problem the chapter's engineering answers.
The occasion is stated in the chapter's first clause. The invasion came after the reform was finished and secured, so the trial arrives at the point of the reign a reader would expect to be safest.
A first hearer knew what a siege meant for a city with its spring outside the wall. Stopping the springs and cutting a channel into the city was the difference between holding out and surrendering. A hearer also knew that Assyria had destroyed Samaria within living memory and that the taunt at the wall was delivered in Hebrew on purpose, so that the men on the wall would understand it.
Significance
For Judah this chapter said that the arithmetic of an invasion is not the whole account. The king's own sentence put an arm of flesh on one side and the LORD their God on the other, and the outcome is told in a single verse.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
It also told them that the danger after the deliverance was real. Hezekiah's heart was lifted up, wrath came, and he humbled himself, and the book records all three where the older account records none of them.
The last word on the reign was a purpose rather than a verdict. God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon, and the annual cycle of Torah portions and their Haftarot draws on other books. A Jewish reader meets this chapter in study rather than in a reading appointed for a Sabbath or a feast, and the site's own reading data records the same for every chapter.
How it is read
The Assyrian speech is read as an argument built on a misunderstanding. Rashi has the speaker asking whether the king of Judah has not himself offended his God by pulling down the high places (Rashi on II Chronicles 32:12:1). He explains why the argument had force. The people took those high places to have been built in the name of the God of Israel, so the removal looked like a loss rather than a reform.
Rashi also reads the Chronicler's own temper into the account. On the words spoken against the God of Jerusalem he says the author of the book is complaining about the man who blasphemed the living God (Rashi on II Chronicles 32:19:1). Several of his notes here send the reader elsewhere for the full account. He marks the letters, the speech at the wall, the prayer and the sickness as things set out at length in Kings and Isaiah (Rashi on II Chronicles 32:17:1, 32:18:1, 32:20:1 and 32:24:1).
The close of the reign is read as a fault and a recovery. Rashi says the king did not repay God for the healing he had been given (Rashi on II Chronicles 32:25:1). He then reads the humbling through the king's own answer to the prophet in Kings, and says that once he was humbled the wrath did not come in his days (Rashi on II Chronicles 32:26:1). The opening words of the chapter are read as a hinge. Rashi glosses the invasion as coming after acts of integrity, and later uses the same phrase to contrast this reign with Josiah's (Rashi on II Chronicles 32:1:1).
Metzudat David comments at 32:2:1, 32:3:1, 32:8:1, 32:9:1, 32:11:1, 32:15:1, 32:16:1 and 32:22:1. Radak comments at 32:4:1 and 32:23:1, and Malbim at 32:7:1. The corpus holds no English text for any of them, so all three stand cited and unquoted.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and holds the locator alone for each. The Babylonian Talmud carries it at Sanhedrin 94b:10 and 96a:10, Bava Kamma 16b:18, 16b:24 and 17a:2, and Berakhot 10b:8, with Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition) Sanhedrin 11:29, 11:33 and 11:37 beside them. The Jerusalem Talmud carries it at Sanhedrin 7:2:2, Kiddushin 1:7:3 and Nedarim 6:8:8. The Rabbah collections carry it at Eikhah Rabbah Petichta 24 and 25, Devarim Rabbah 9:3, Shemot Rabbah 18:5 and Bereshit Rabbah 19:12 and 37:3. They carry it further at Kohelet Rabbah 2:26:1 and 9:18:3, Vayikra Rabbah 28:4, Bamidbar Rabbah 20:13, Ruth Rabbah 5:6 and Lerner 5:6:6, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 4:8:3 and Esther Rabbah 1:2. The Tanchuma carries it at Tazria 8:1, and Midrash Tanchuma Buber at Tazria 10:3 and Balak 11:8. The halakhic midrashim carry it at Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael Tractate Shirah 6:7 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 22:19:5. The rest are Avot DeRabbi Natan 2:4, Midrash Lekach Tov Genesis 3:13:1, Pesikta Rabbati 18:1 and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 52:9 and 52:10. Last are Bereshit Rabbati Parashat Bereshit 14, Sifrei Aggadah on Esther Midrash Panim Acherim Version II 1:2, Seder Olam Rabbah 23:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 28:2.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles, the Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg (Sefaria, CC-BY); Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 32, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 32, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 32, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/32.json, fetched 2026-09-19; The reading data of this site, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God
2 Chronicles 32:1-2
After all these acts of faithfulness: Chronicles opens Sennacherib’s invasion with a clause Kings does not carry: “After all these acts of faithfulness”, tying the Assyrian threat to the temple reform. Albert Barnes renders the Hebrew word as faithfulness, the reform completed and secured before the trial arrived. The Kings exposition carries the campaign’s full detail.
2 Chronicles 32:1
“The establishment thereof - literally, “the faithfulness thereof” or, in other words, “after these things had been faithfully accomplished.” 2Ch 32:1-8 form a passage supplementary to 2Ki 18:13-16.”
Sennacherib had come to make war: Adam Clarke dates this to the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. At first the king paid Sennacherib three hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold, stripping the temple, as 2 Kings 18:14 to 16 tells. Chronicles leaves the payment out.
2 Chronicles 32:2
“When Hezekiah saw - This was in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah; and at first the Jewish king bought him off at the great price of three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold; and even emptied his own treasures, and spoiled the house of the Lord, to gratify the oppressive avarice of the Assyrian king. See the whole account, 2Ki 18:13, etc.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 32:3-4
stopping up the waters of the springs outside the city: Stopping the fountains outside the city is material Kings never records. Hezekiah works by counsel, not command, gathering princes before the wider people join to stop the water so that an invading king should find none. The engineering here is bound up with the Gihon project verse 30 will describe.
2 Chronicles 32:3
“To stop the waters ... - Compare 2Ch 32:30. Hezekiah’s object was probably twofold - to hide the springs outside the city in order to distress the Assyrians, and to convey their water underground into the city, in order to increase his own supply during the siege.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 32:3
“The water had come into that which is called the old pool ( Isa. xxii. 11 ) and the upper pool ( Isa. vii. 3 ); but he gathered the waters into a new place, for the greater convenience of the city, called the lower pool, Isa. xxii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the stream that flowed through the land: The Septuagint calls this stream a river, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take it for a larger flow than the Kidron. Its channel ran through the middle of the land outside the walls. A besieging army needs water close at hand.
2 Chronicles 32:4
“And that this is the correct meaning of the phrase is not only apparent from the force of circumstances, but is positively so declared in the Septuagint, where, moreover, it is called a 'river,' which, at least, implies a much larger stream than the Kedron, and comports well with the marginal reading, where it is said to overflow through the midst of the land.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Chronicles 32:5-6
reinforced the supporting terraces of the City of David: The wall repair and the commanders set over the people belong to a building record that 2 Kings 20:20 summarizes in a single line. The “supporting terraces of the City of David”, the Millo of older translations on the city’s eastern slope, had needed repair since Solomon’s day.
2 Chronicles 32:5
“The breaches in the wall of Jerusalem were not entirely due to the old hostility of Joash (marginal reference); but may have been caused either by neglect and carelessness in the reign of Ahaz 2 Chr. 28, or by the simple process of natural decay. Hezekiah pulled down houses for the purpose of his repairs Isa 22:10. On Millo, see the marginal references notes.”
in the square of the city gate: Hezekiah sets commanders over the people before he speaks, so the planning comes ahead of the prayer of verse 20. Matthew Henry notes that those who trust God for their safety must still use the means at hand. The square by the gate was where the city met.
2 Chronicles 32:6
“Note, Those that trust God with their safety must yet use proper means for their safety, otherwise they tempt him, and do not trust him. God will provide, but so must we also.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 32:7-8
The charge opens with “Be strong and courageous”, words spoken earlier to Joshua and to Asa. Adam Clarke hears Elisha’s word of 2 Kings 6:16 in “there is a greater One with us than with him”. Then “the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah king of Judah”.
2 Chronicles 32:7
“There be more with us than with him - We have more power than they have. (These words he quotes from the prophet Elisha, 2Ki 6:16). This was soon proved to be true by the slaughter made by the angel of the Lord in the Assyrian camp.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
only the arm of flesh: Jeremiah 17:5 uses the same picture of flesh for the man who trusts in man. Charles Spurgeon marks how often the people went with Hezekiah in this story, a nation that had followed idols under Ahaz. Here they lean on the king's words.
2 Chronicles 32:8
“IT is very beautiful reading, the story of Hezekiah, to see how the people always went with him. God had prepared the nation for a change and when the hour came, the man came with it. Under his father Ahaz, the people had been idolaters and had forsaken God. But, when Hezekiah became king, he had a zeal for the worship of Jehovah, and on the very threshold of his reign he began what proved to be a glorious reformation in the land.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2250: “Words To Rest On” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Assyria's taunt: no god has delivered his people from my hand
2 Chronicles 32:9-15
besieged Lachish: What Chronicles keeps is the charge Hezekiah’s reform provoked: “Did not Hezekiah himself remove His high places and His altars”. The enemy turns the work into evidence that Judah’s God had been offended. John Gill refers to his notes on the parallel in Isaiah 36 for the speech’s fuller detail.
2 Chronicles 32:9
“After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem,.... Who are mentioned by name, 2Ki 18:17 this was after Hezekiah had given him a large quantity of silver and gold to depart, and he did depart from him, 2Ki 18:14 but he himself laid siege against Lachish, and all his power with him; one of the cities of Judah, see Isa 36:2, from hence he dispatched them unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem; who had retired thither for safety, upon the invasion of their country by the king of Assyria.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 32:9
“The author of Chronicles compresses into 13 verses the history which occupies in Kings a chapter and a half (2Ki 18:17-19; where see the notes). 2Ch 32:10 In the siege - Perhaps “in straitness” (compare Jer 19:9). Jerusalem is thought by some to have been not so much besieged at this time, as distressed and straitened for supplies, because the Assyrians were masters of the open country. 2Ch 32:13 fathers - i. e. “predecessors.” Sennacherib really belonged to a dynasty that had only furnished one king before himself.”
What is the basis of your confidence: Albert Barnes reads the word for siege as distress, a city cut off from its supplies. The Assyrians held the open country and were camped at Lachish, so Jerusalem was hemmed in. The taunt aims at the people's trust.
2 Chronicles 32:10
“Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, whereon do ye trust,.... On what power in heaven or on earth? that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem? hold out against the siege of it, and do not deliver it up.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 32:10
“Thus saith Sennacherib - See all these circumstances largely explained 2 Kings 18:17-36 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
death by famine and thirst: The threat of thirst meets a city that had hidden the springs outside the walls and brought water inside, as verses 3 and 30 record. Albert Barnes reads that work as aimed at both ends of the siege. The besiegers were the ones left dry.
2 Chronicles 32:11
“Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine, and by thirst,.... Suggesting that would be their case if they did not surrender: saying, the Lord our God shall deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria? See Gill on Isa 36:15.”
worship before one altar: The one altar is the rule of Deuteronomy 12, which bound Israel to sacrifice at the place the LORD would choose. The envoy counts the loss of the high places as an insult to the LORD. He knew the reform and misread its law.
2 Chronicles 32:12
“Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places,.... For the sense of this and the three following verses, see the notes on Isa 36:17; see Gill on Isa 36:18, Isa 36:19, Isa 36:20.”
the peoples of the lands?: The fathers in this verse are the kings who ruled Assyria before Sennacherib. Albert Barnes notes that his own line had given only one king before him. The boast borrows the conquests of other dynasties.
devoted to destruction: renders the Hebrew herem, the word for the ban Israel carried out at Jericho in Joshua 6. The Assyrian claims the language of holy war for his own conquests. Isaiah 10:5 calls Assyria the rod of the LORD's anger.
do not let Hezekiah deceive you: The speech ends by working on the people, trying to part them from their king. Verse 8 had left them strengthened by Hezekiah's words. Chronicles records no reply from the wall, and 2 Kings 18:36 says the people kept silent at the king's command.
2 Chronicles 32:16-19
spoke further against the LORD God: Sennacherib’s servants press the same argument in writing and aloud. Letters go out “mocking the LORD, the God of Israel”. Verse 19 states the blasphemy: “They spoke against the God of Jerusalem as they had spoken against the gods of the peoples of the earth”.
2 Chronicles 32:16
“And his servants spake yet more against the Lord God, and against his servant Hezekiah. Than what is here recorded, as may be read in 2Ki 18:1, and Isa 36:1.”
He also wrote letters mocking the LORD: Chronicles adds letters to the spoken taunt, and 2 Kings 19:14 tells how Hezekiah took one into the temple and spread it before the LORD. The letter set the God of Israel beside gods already beaten. Hezekiah answered it with prayer.
2 Chronicles 32:17
“He wrote also letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel,.... See 2Ki 19:9.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 32:17
“Wrote also letters - See 2Ki 19:9, 2Ki 19:14.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
called out loudly in Hebrew: Hezekiah's officials had asked the envoys to speak in Aramaic, the language of diplomats, as Isaiah 36:11 records. John Gill notes that they kept to Hebrew so the people on the wall would hear and take fright. The words were aimed past the officials.
2 Chronicles 32:18
“Then they cried with a loud voice in the Jews' speech unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall,.... The messengers of Sennacherib, particularly Rabshakeh the chief speaker; though they were desired to speak in the Syrian language, Isa 36:11, but this they did to affright them, and to trouble them, that they might take the city; to throw them into terror and confusion, that they might prevail upon them to deliver up the city to them.”
the God of Jerusalem: The phrase the work of human hands is the Chronicler's verdict on the gods Assyria had beaten. Hezekiah's prayer at 2 Kings 19:18 makes the same point, that those gods were wood and stone. The God of Jerusalem made the hands.
2 Chronicles 32:19
“And they spake against the God of Jerusalem,.... The only living and true God, whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem professed to be their God, and who was worshipped by them in the temple there: as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of the hands of man; they made no difference between the one and the other, but spoke as freely and as contemptibly of the one as of the other, see Isa 36:19.”
Two men pray, and an angel cuts off the mighty in one night
2 Chronicles 32:20-21
cried out to heaven in prayer: Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah pray together, and 2 Kings 19 with Isaiah 37 carry the fuller record of that prayer. Sennacherib withdraws “in disgrace” and is struck down by his own sons in the temple of his god, shame answering the blasphemy.
2 Chronicles 32:20
“It was a happy time when the king and the prophet joined thus in prayer. So we engage God for us; so we encourage ourselves in him. Praying to God is here called crying to Heaven, because we are, in prayer, to eye him as our Father in heaven, whence he beholds the children of men, and where he has prepared his throne.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the LORD sent an angel: Adam Clarke names the god of this temple as Nisroch and the sons as Adrammelech and Sharezer, from 2 Kings 19:37. The murder came years after the king of Assyria withdrew in disgrace, and Chronicles sets the two side by side. He was shamed first, then slain.
2 Chronicles 32:21
“The Lord sent an angel - See 2Ki 19:36 (note), and the note there. House of his god - Nisroch. They that came forth of his own bowels - His sons Adrammelech and Sharezer.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 32:21
“Thus was he mortified first, and then murdered--shamed first, and then slain. Evil pursues sinners; and, when they escape one mischief, they run upon another unseen. By this work of wonder, (1.) God was glorified, as the protector of his people.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 32:22-23
gave them rest on every side: Verse 23 is Chronicles’ own addition: “from then on he was exalted in the eyes of all nations”. Kings closes the episode with Sennacherib’s death. Chronicles adds the nations’ response, the same recognition that follows Jehoshaphat’s deliverance in chapter 20.
2 Chronicles 32:22
“Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria,.... As most clearly appeared; for no stroke was struck but by him: and from the hand of all other; the Arabic version adds,"who were round about them;''who by this defeat were deterred from attacking them: and guided them on every side: and guarded them all around, as a shepherd leads his flock, where they may be secure from all dangers.”
Many brought offerings to Jerusalem: The gifts reverse the payment of 2 Kings 18:14, when Hezekiah stripped the temple to buy off Sennacherib. Now treasure flows into Jerusalem, and the offerings for the LORD are named before the gifts for the king. The honor also set up the pride of verse 25.
2 Chronicles 32:23
“Many brought gifts unto the Lord - They plainly saw that Jehovah was the protector of the land. And presents to Hezekiah - They saw that God was his friend, and would undertake for him; and they did not wish to have such a man for their enemy.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
A sign, a proud heart humbled, and water brought into the city
Hezekiah became mortally ill: The sickness and the sign belong to the fuller account of 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 38. Chronicles states the bare facts: Hezekiah “became mortally ill”, prayed, and was given a sign. Its interest lies in what the king does after the healing, which the next two verses take up.
2 Chronicles 32:24
"In those days," we are told, "Hezekiah was sick unto death, and he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord heard him and gave him a sign," that, namely of which we read in the fourth book of the kingdoms, which was given by Isaiah the prophet through the going back of the sun. "But," it says, "he did not respond to the benefits which he had received, for his heart was proud. And wrath was kindled against him and against Judah and Jerusalem.
John Cassian · written before 435 · INSTITUTES 11.10patristic
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 32:24
“Compare 2 Kings 20 and notes. The “sign” is not (as in the margin) the miraculous cure, but the going back of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz (see 2Ch 32:31).”
2 Chronicles 32:25-26
because his heart was proud: These two verses are Chronicles’ own: “because his heart was proud, Hezekiah did not repay the favor shown to him”, and wrath followed. John Wesley names three mercies behind the pride: the Assyrian victory, the recovery from sickness, and the honor of Babylon’s embassy.
2 Chronicles 32:25
“His heart was lifted up - Compare the marginal reference. Hezekiah’s pride was shown in his unnecessarily exhibiting his treasures to the ambassadors from Babylon (see 2Ki 20:13). There was wrath upon him - Compare 2Ki 20:17-18.”
The wrath was held back for a time. Isaiah 39:7 tells where it would fall, on descendants of Hezekiah serving in the palace of the king of Babylon. John Gill reads the verse as a delay until the days of his son's sons.
2 Chronicles 32:26
“Notwithstanding, Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,.... In what manner is not said; perhaps by putting on sackcloth, and by fasting and prayer, and making confession of sin, and declaring repentance for it: so that the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah; but in the days of his son's sons, Isa 39:7.”
2 Chronicles 32:27-29
very great riches and honor: The list of treasuries, storehouses, stalls and pens is material Kings never gives, and Chronicles catalogs the wealth Hezekiah will show the envoys of Babylon. Verse 29 credits the increase: “for God gave him very great wealth”. The book applies the same teaching to every king who seeks the LORD.
2 Chronicles 32:27
“And Hezekiah had exceeding much riches,.... Increased by the spoil of the Assyrian camp, and the presents sent him after that by neighbouring nations, 2Ch 32:21. and honour; both from his subjects, and the nations around him: and he made himself treasuries for silver, and for gold, and for precious stones, and for spices, and for shields, and for all manner of pleasant jewels: which were houses both for rich and curious things, and for armour, he showed to the ambassadors of Babylon; see Gill on Isa 39:2.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Chronicles 32:27
“Besides, he had accumulated large treasures in gold, silver, and precious things, which he had taken as spoils from the Philistines, and which he had received as presents from neighboring states, among which he was held in great honor as a king under the special protection of Heaven.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Chronicles 32:27
“Pleasant jewels - כלי חמדה keley chemdah, desirable vessels or utensils.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
storehouses for the harvest of grain: The storehouses held the grain, new wine and oil the people had tithed in 31:5, now gathered for the crown as well. A king facing Assyria needed food laid up in his towns. John Gill places these stores in the cities of verse 29.
2 Chronicles 32:28
“Storehouses also for the increase of corn, and wine, and oil,.... The produce of his fields, vineyards, and oliveyards, such as David had, with persons over them, see 1Ch 27:25. and stands for all manner of beasts; as oxen, horses, camels, and asses, see 2Ch 9:25. and cotes for flocks; folds for sheep.”
He made cities for himself: John Gill reports that some copies of the Latin Vulgate read six cities here. The cities held the storehouses and housed the men who kept the herds. Wealth in that age was counted in flocks.
2 Chronicles 32:29
“Moreover, he provided him cities,.... Where he had the above storehouses and stalls, and convenient dwellings for those that looked after them, and were over his cattle, small and great, as follows; the Vulgate Latin version reads six cities in some copies (b): and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance; in which the riches of men, and even of kings, lay in those times: for God had given him substance very much; for all was owing to his disposing providence, let it come which way it might. (b) So the Edition of Sixtus V.”
blocked the upper outlet of the Spring of Gihon: Hezekiah “blocked the upper outlet of the Spring of Gihon and channeled it down to the west side of the City of David”. This is the Siloam tunnel. Adam Clarke and John Wesley trace the route from the spring outside the walls into the city.
2 Chronicles 32:30
“The upper watercourse - He made canals to bring the waters of Gihon from the west side of Jerusalem to the west side of the city of David.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
God left him alone to test him: The verse gives the purpose behind the embassy: “God left him alone to test him, that He might know all that was in Hezekiah’s heart”. The envoys came “to inquire about the wonder that had happened in the land”, the recovery and the victory the chapter has just told.
2 Chronicles 32:31
“At the same time, there is reason to believe that they proposed a defensive league against the Assyrians. God left him, to try him, &c.--Hezekiah's offense was not so much in the display of his military stores and treasures, as in not giving to God the glory both of the miracle and of his recovery, and thus leading those heathen ambassadors to know Him.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 32:31
“These miracles were wrought to alarm and awaken a stupid careless world, and turn them from dumb and lame idols to the living God; and men were startled by them, but not converted till a greater wonder was done in that land, in the appearing of Jesus Christ, Matt. ii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 32:32-33
the vision of the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz: The closing formula names “the vision of the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz” and “the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel” as sources. Then “his son Manasseh reigned in his place”, opening the chapter in which Chronicles alone tells of a repentance Kings never records.
2 Chronicles 32:32
“And in the book - The “and” is not in the original. The meaning is, that the acts were recorded in the prophecy of Isaiah, which formed a part of the compilation known as “the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.” See Introduction.”
buried in the upper tombs: The upper tombs, in the reading Albert Barnes reports, lay on the slope leading up to the graves of David's line. The old royal tomb was full by now. Manasseh and Amon were buried in a garden, as 2 Kings 21:18 and 26 record.
2 Chronicles 32:33
“The chiefest of the sepulchres - Most modern commentators render - “on the ascent to the sepulchres;” but some think that an excavation above all the other tombs - in the same repository, but at a higher level (see the margin) - is intended. The catacomb of David was full; and the later princes had sepulchres quite distinct from the old burial-place (see 2Ch 33:20; 2Ki 21:18, 2Ki 21:26; 2Ki 23:30).”
How this psalm is built
The form: A compressed war narrative carrying a royal speech, an enemy taunt in two forms, a prayer named without its words, and a closing summary of the reign's wealth, pride and humbling, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, with Albert Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| After these things, and the establishment thereof | The opening clause of verse 1 ties the invasion to the reform just finished, and 2 Kings carries no such clause. The site's exposition note on 32:1 to 2 records Albert Barnes reading the phrase literally as the faithfulness thereof, the reform completed and secured before the trial arrived. The chapter therefore opens by telling a reader where to stand when the Assyrian army appears.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 32:1 to 2. | 2 Chronicles 32:1 |
| An arm of flesh against the LORD our God | Verse 8 sets two forces against each other in one sentence, with him an arm of flesh, and with us the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles. The sentence stands nowhere in the Kings account. The site's exposition note on 32:7 to 8 records Adam Clarke hearing the closing clause against Elisha's word at 2 Kings 6:16. The same note records the detail Kings omits, that the people rested themselves on the words of Hezekiah.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 32:7 to 8. | 2 Chronicles 32:7, 2 Chronicles 32:8 |
| The reform turned into the enemy's evidence | The Rabshakeh's taunt takes the work of chapters 29 to 31 and offers it as proof that Judah's God has been offended. It asks whether this same Hezekiah has not taken away his high places and his altars. The site's exposition note on 32:9 to 15 records that this is the part of the speech Chronicles keeps while compressing the rest. A chapter and a half at 2 Kings 18 and 19 becomes seven verses here.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 32:9 to 15. | 2 Chronicles 32:12, 2 Chronicles 32:15, 2 Chronicles 32:19 |
| Lifted up, and humbled | Verses 25 and 26 carry the verb the book turns on twice in two verses, first as a heart lifted up and then as a king humbling himself for the pride of it. The guide's keynotes give the second verb as kana, the first promise verb of 7:14. The site's exposition note on 32:25 to 26 records that both the fall and the repentance stand in this book alone, with no counterpart in the parallel at 2 Kings 20.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 32:25 to 26. | 2 Chronicles 32:25, 2 Chronicles 32:26, 2 Chronicles 32:31 |
The historical value
16 more paragraphs on the patterns
This is the best corroborated chapter in the book, and three of the dossier's entries bear on it.
Sennacherib's annals, carried on the Taylor Prism and its duplicates and dated about 691 BC, are the Assyrian king's own account of his third campaign. The dossier records that they list the Judean cities he took and describe Hezekiah shut up in Jerusalem like a caged bird, with tribute sent after him to Nineveh. Its verdict is stated carefully and a page that cites the prism carries the verdict with it. The two accounts agree on the campaign, the tribute and the siege, and part on the ending. Sennacherib records no capture of Jerusalem, which the dossier says no Assyrian king would omit if he had taken it, and 32:21 reports an angel cutting off the officers of his camp. The prism corroborates the setting and leaves the outcome where Chronicles puts it.
The Siloam tunnel and its inscription, dated about 700 BC, stand behind verse 30. The dossier records a rock cut water channel running from the Gihon spring into the city, with a Hebrew inscription describing the two digging teams meeting. The site's exposition note on 32:30 records the same work from the verse's side and records that the inscription was found in 1880. Verse 30 and the tunnel describe one job.
The Lachish reliefs and the excavated siege remains, dated about 700 to 681 BC, stand behind verse 9. The dossier records Sennacherib's palace carvings and the siege ramp, arrowheads and destruction layer at Lachish, down to the siege engines shown on the wall. Verse 9 puts Sennacherib at Lachish with all his forces while his servants go up to Jerusalem.
The debated concept
The first question the chapter raises is what the outside record does and does not settle. The dossier's verdict on the prism is the site's answer, and it is a limited one. Corroboration of the campaign, the tribute and the siege is one thing, and confirmation of how the siege ended is another. A reader is given both halves and no verdict beyond them.
The second question is the one the guide carries as its contested point on immediate retribution, and this chapter is a clean case of it. Verses 25 and 26 supply a cause and a consequence the parallel at 2 Kings 20 leaves out. A heart is lifted up, wrath comes on Judah and Jerusalem, and a humbling turns that wrath aside within the king's own lifetime. The pedagogical reading holds that the Chronicler is arranging true material so a community can see the moral order plainly. The critical reading, which the guide associates with Sara Japhet, holds that the Chronicler supplies sins to account for judgments his sources leave unexplained. The guide's flag names the common ground, that arranging true material for teaching is compositional method, and that the observation about the method stands apart from doubt about the events.
The third sits in verse 31 and is a question of reading rather than of history. God left him, to try him. The site's exposition note on that verse records Jamieson, Fausset and Brown locating the fault in the glory withheld. No glory was given God for the recovery or the victory, so the ambassadors went home without knowing who had done both. The verse names testing as the LORD's own purpose in withdrawing, and the site adds nothing to it.
The divine connection
The chapter states its theology in the king's speech and lets the events answer it. Verse 8 sets an arm of flesh against the LORD our God, and verse 21 reports one angel against an army. Between the claim and the outcome stands verse 20, which records that Hezekiah and Isaiah prayed and cried to heaven and gives none of the words.
The chapter is also careful about what it credits. Verse 29 says God had given him substance very much. Verse 23 says many brought gifts to the LORD at Jerusalem and presents to Hezekiah, so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations. The site's exposition note on 32:22 to 23 records John Gill reading the gifts as proof that the surrounding nations understood who had fought the battle.
Against all of that the chapter sets verse 25, that Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done to him. The honour is named as the occasion of the pride. The site's exposition note on 32:25 to 26 records John Wesley gathering that pride from three mercies at once, the victory, the recovery and the embassy from Babylon.
How the rest of Scripture reads this chapter
The campaign is told at length at 2 Kings 18:13 to 19:37 and again at Isaiah 36 and 37. The site's exposition note on 32:9 to 15 sends a reader to the Kings exposition for the taunt's full argument, and to Isaiah 36 for Gill's own fuller notes. The sickness and the sign that verse 24 states in one clause are told at 2 Kings 20:1 to 11 and Isaiah 38. The site's exposition note on 32:24 records that the detail of the shadow belongs to those accounts.
The embassy from Babylon that verse 31 refers to is narrated at 2 Kings 20:12 to 19, where Isaiah's oracle names where the treasures will go. Chronicles gives the episode one clause and supplies the reason for it that Kings does not.
The water works of verse 30 are summarised in one line at 2 Kings 20:20. The site's exposition note on 32:5 to 6 records that the wall repair, the outer fortification and the captains belong to the same building record Kings only summarises. Two accounts of the same reign divide the same material differently, and this chapter is the place to see how.
Keep studying
Studies8
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, with Albert Barnes, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible and Notes on the Old Testament, cited together by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 32:1 to 2 and the site's 2 Chronicles guide, the APEX table of `Book2ChroniclesGuide.tsx`, the Hezekiah panel at 29:1 to 32:33.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2250; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.