2 Kingschapter 18
37 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
Key verse
Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.
It stands in Nehushtan: the bronze serpent broken in pieces, verses 1 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Hezekiah is the reformer Kings has waited for: he removes the high places, breaks the pillars, cuts down the Asherah, and breaks in pieces the brazen serpent Moses had made, because Israel had been burning incense to it, calling it Nehushtan. '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.' In his fourteenth year Sennacherib takes the fortified cities and Hezekiah pays three hundred talents of silver, stripping the temple doors. Then Rabshakeh stands at the conduit of the upper pool and speaks deliberately in the Jews' language: Egypt is a bruised reed that will pierce the hand.
Context
History · Jeremiah · 2 Kings overview
The world behind this chapter
2 Kings 18The history
The reform is described by what was destroyed, and one item is startling. The bronze serpent Moses made in the wilderness had become an object the people burned incense to. An authentic relic of the founding generation had turned into an idol, and Hezekiah broke it and called it a piece of bronze. Anything can be worshipped, including something God once used.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The invasion of 701 BC is the best-documented event in the Old Testament. Sennacherib's own account, preserved on clay prisms including the Taylor Prism in the British Museum, says he took forty-six walled cities of Judah and shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage. It lists tribute including thirty talents of gold, which matches this chapter, with a different silver figure. The prism stops short of claiming Jerusalem, which is the one success a boasting record would record.
The main blow fell on Lachish in the lowlands, and the Assyrians carved the siege on the palace walls at Nineveh. The panels show the ramp of packed earth, the siege engines pushed up it, the archers, and the population going into exile. The reliefs and the excavated ramp at the site match each other closely.
Two water works stand behind this chapter. The Assyrian officer shouts from the conduit of the upper pool on the road to the Washer's Field. Hezekiah had cut a tunnel over five hundred yards through solid rock to bring the Gihon spring inside the walls. An inscription found in it describes the two crews of diggers hearing each other through the stone and meeting in the middle.
The officer speaks in Judean rather than the diplomatic Aramaic on purpose, so the men on the wall understand every word. It is a psychological attack aimed past the negotiators at the defenders.
What it meant to them
The first hearers heard the Assyrian argument in full, and it was a strong one. Every other nation's god had failed, Egypt was a splintered reed that would pierce the hand leaning on it, and the officer even claimed the LORD had sent him.
They also heard its one flaw. The officer counted the God of Israel among the gods of Hamath and Sepharvaim. The whole answer of the next chapter turns on that mistake.
Sources cited
- The Taylor Prism of Sennacherib (Assyrian annals, c. 691 BC)
- The Siloam Tunnel Inscription (Jerusalem, c. 700 BC)
- The Lachish Reliefs (Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, British Museum)
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
Where the chapter sits
2 Kings 18 falls in Hezekiah and the Assyrian crisis (chapters 18–20). Hezekiah's reforms; Nehushtan destroyed; Sennacherib's threat and the 185,000 dead; Isaiah's intervention; the backward shadow; the Babylonian envoys.
Hezekiah destroys Nehushtan. The bronze serpent Moses made has become an idol; Hezekiah breaks it in pieces.
Before it: Northern kingdom's fall, chapters 14–17. After it: Manasseh, Josiah, and the fall of Jerusalem, chapters 21–25.
The whole shape of 2 Kings→The structure of this chapter
Threads running through this chapter
- The serpent lifted upType, v. 4
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Nehushtan: the bronze serpent broken in pieces
1. (vv. 1-3)
2 Kings 18:1
In the third year - If Hoshea ascended the throne toward the close of the 12th year of Ahaz 2Ki 17:1, and if Ahaz reigned not much more than 15 years 2Ki 16:2, the first of Hezekiah might synchronise in part with Hoshea’s third year. Hezekiah - The name given by our translators follows the Greek form, Ἐζεκίας Ezekias, rather than the Hebrew, which is Hizkiah. Its meaning is “strength of Yahweh.”
2 Kings 18:2
“Twenty and five years old was he - This statement, combined with that of 2Ki 16:2, would make it necessary that his father Ahaz should have married at the age of 10, and have had a child born to him when he was 11 years of age. This is not impossible; but its improbability is so great, that most commentators suggest a corruption in some of the numbers. The Zachariah here mentioned was perhaps one of the “faithful witnesses” of Isaiah Isa 8:2.”
2 Kings 18:3
“He did that which was right ... - This is said without qualification of only three kings of Judah, Asa 1Ki 15:11, Hezekiah, and Josiah 2Ki 22:2. See some details of Hezekiah’s acts at the commencement of his reign in 2 Chr. 29, etc. It is thought that his reformation was preceded, and perhaps caused, by the prophecy of Micah recorded in Jer 26:18; Mic 3:12.”
in the third year of Hoshea: Hezekiah's reign opens dated against Hoshea's rebellion, the last king Israel will ever have, so Judah's reformer and Israel's collapse are set side by side in one sentence. The formula that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did echoes across the book of Kings as the standard every king is measured against, and few earn it without qualification. David is named as the standard rather than Solomon, whose later years the text has already judged.
2. (v. 4)
2 Kings 18:4
“Brake in pieces the brazen serpent - The history of this may be seen in Num 21:8 (note), Num 21:9 (note). We find that this brazen serpent had become an object of idolatry, and no doubt was supposed to possess, as a telesm or amulet, extraordinary virtues, and that incense was burnt before it which should have been burnt before the true God. And he called it Nehushtan - נהשתן. Not one of the versions has attempted to translate this word.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 18:4
“But in process of time, when they began to worship the creature more than the Creator, those that would not worship images borrowed from the heathen, as some of their neighbours did, were drawn in by the tempter to burn incense to the brazen serpent, because that was made by order from God himself and had been an instrument of good to them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 18:4
“We must never dishonour God, in honour to our earthly parents. Brazen serpent - Which had been hitherto kept as a memorial of God's mercy; but being now commonly abused to superstition, was destroyed. To it - Not doubtless as to a God, but only as to an instrument of God's mercy, by and through which, their adoration was directed to God, and given to that only for God's sake.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
brake in pieces the brasen serpent: Hezekiah breaks in pieces the brasen serpent Moses made in the wilderness, the bronze figure of Numbers 21:9 that healed a look of faith, because by Hezekiah's day Israel burned incense to it as an idol. The text names it only at the moment of its destruction, Nehushtan, a mere piece of brass, and Scripture never uses the word again. John 3:14 later stands behind the serpent itself rather than the relic, as the Son of man must be lifted up, so the same image carries both a warning about a mercy turned into idolatry and a picture the Lord fills with meaning centuries after Hezekiah melts it down.
3. (vv. 5-6)
2 Kings 18:5
“After him was none like him - The same is said of Josiah (marginal reference). The phrase was probably proverbial, and was not taken to mean more than we mean when we say that such and such a king was one of singular piety.”
2 Kings 18:6
“For he clave to the Lord,.... To his worship and service; to the fear of the Lord, as the Targum: and departed not from following him; from his worship, as the same paraphrase: but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses; both moral, ceremonial, and judicial.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 18:6
“Other good kings, as Solomon, Jehoshaphat, Joash, and Amaziah, had fallen away in their later years. Hezekiah remained firm to the last. The phrase “cleaving to God” is frequent in Deuteronomy, but rare elsewhere.”
after him was none like him: Trust is the word the text chooses for Hezekiah, and it declares that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah. Chapter 23:25 will say almost the same sentence of Josiah, and the readings are held together rather than set against each other: Keil and the bench take 18:5 to praise Hezekiah's trust under the Assyrian threat and 23:25 to praise Josiah's return to the book of the law, two different virtues each called unmatched in its own moment. Clave, in verse 6, is the word Genesis uses of a man and his wife, so the text describes covenant loyalty in the language of marriage.
4. (vv. 7-8)
2 Kings 18:8
“He smote the Philistines even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof,.... Who in his father's time had invaded Judah, and taken many cities and towns in it, which Hezekiah now recovered, and drove them to their own territories, of which Gaza was one; see 2Ch 28:18. from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city; that is, places both great and small, cities, towns, and villages; of this phrase, see 2Ki 17:9.”
the Lord was with him: summarizes Hezekiah's early reign before a single battle is named, and the rebellion against Assyria that follows is presented as the fruit of that nearness rather than a political gamble judged on its own terms. Tribute to Assyria had been standard policy since Ahaz invited Tiglath-pileser in at 2 Kings 16:7, so Hezekiah's refusal breaks with his own father's course. The strike against the Philistines, from Gaza to the fenced cities, reverses the losses Ahaz suffered at Philistine hands in 2 Chronicles 28:18.
B. Samaria's fall recalled: because they obeyed not
1. (vv. 9-10)
2 Kings 18:9
“These verses repeat the account given in the marginal reference. The extreme importance of the event may account for the double insertion.”
2 Kings 18:10
“And at the end of three years they took it,.... That is, at the first end of them, at the beginning, in which sense the phrase is taken in Deu 15:1, even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken: see 2Ki 17:6.”
Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up: The narrator dates the fall of Samaria against Hezekiah's own reign, the fourth year through the sixth, tying Judah's new king to the disaster chapter 17 has just finished recounting at length. Three years of siege is the span the text gives twice, here and at 17:5, and the repetition fixes the number rather than leaving it to memory. Assyrian royal inscriptions credit Sargon II, who came to the throne as the siege closed, with the city's actual fall, a detail this chapter does not need to settle because its own interest is the covenant charge that follows in verse 12.
2. (vv. 11-12)
2 Kings 18:11
“And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria,.... Of the places he disposed of them in, after mentioned; see Gill on 2Ki 17:6.”
2 Kings 18:12
“Because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord,.... In his law, and by his prophets: but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded; which evils are at large insisted on in the preceding chapter as the cause of their captivity: and would not hear them, nor do them; contrary to the agreement of their fathers at Sinai, who promised to do both, Exo 24:3.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 18:12
“This was related more largely in the foregoing chapter, but it is here repeated, 1. As that which stirred up Hezekiah and his people to purge out idolatry with so much zeal, because they saw the ruin which it brought upon Israel. When their neighbour's house was on fire, and their own in danger, it was time to cast away the accursed thing.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
carry away Israel unto Assyria: The exile formula, carried away and put them in Halah and in Habor, matches the wording chapter 17 already gave in full, and the narrator repeats it here as if unwilling to let a new reign begin without restating why the northern kingdom is gone. Verse 12 states the covenant charge in the driest legal language available: they obeyed not the voice of the Lord, transgressed his covenant, and would not hear. Deuteronomy 28 named exile as the covenant's own penalty long before either king in this chapter was born, so the text reads the disaster as a verdict rather than a misfortune.
C. Three hundred talents stripped from the temple doors
1. (vv. 13-14)
2 Kings 18:13
“The king of Assyria took all or most of the fenced cities of Judah, the frontier-towns and the garrisons, and then all the rest fell into his hands of course. The confusion which the country was put into by this invasion is described by the prophet, Isa. x.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 18:13
“In the fourteenth year - This note of time, which places the invasion of Sennacherib eight years only after the capture of Samaria, is hopelessly at variance with the Assyrian dates for the two events, the first of which falls into the first of Sargon, and the second into the fourth of Sennacherib, twenty-one years later. We have therefore to choose between an entire rejection of the Assyrian chronological data, and an emendation of the present passage. Of the emendations proposed the simplest is to remove the note of time altogether, regarding it as having crept in from the margin.”
2 Kings 18:13
“Among the interesting illustrations of sacred history furnished by the recent Assyrian excavations, is a series of bas-reliefs, representing the siege of a town, which the inscription on the sculpture shows to be Lachish, and the figure of a king, whose name is given, on the same inscription, as Sennacherib.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Kings 18:14
“Return from me - Or “retire from me,” i. e., “withdraw thy troops.” Three hundred talents ... - According to Sennacherib’s own account, the terms of peace were as follows: (1) A money payment to the amount of 800 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. (2) the surrender of the Ekronite king. (3) a cession of territory toward the west and the southwest, which was apportioned between the kings of Ekron, Ashdod, and Gaza.”
Sennacherib king of Assyria come up: The fourteenth year of Hezekiah brings Sennacherib against every fenced city of Judah, and Lachish, where Hezekiah sends his message, is the same city Sennacherib's own palace reliefs at Nineveh later depict under siege. I have offended, return from me is a plain surrender, and the price the king of Assyria names, three hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold, is a debt Hezekiah pays in full rather than a demand he resists. The submission sits inside the same chapter that has just called him a king who trusted in the Lord, and the text lets both stand without resolving the tension for the reader.
2. (vv. 15-16)
2 Kings 18:15
“And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house. To make up the three hundred talents of silver, for which purpose he exhausted both, which had been done more than once before by the kings of Judah; these were their resources in times of distress; see 2Ki 12:18.”
2 Kings 18:16
“At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord,....”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 18:16
“Ahaz had already exhausted the treasuries 2Ki 16:8; Hezekiah was therefore compelled to undo his own work.”
2 Kings 18:16
“34 Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand? 35 Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the L ORD should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
all the silver that was found: Hezekiah strips the house of the Lord itself to meet Assyria's price, giving the silver found there and then, in verse 16, cutting the gold from the temple doors and the pillars he himself had overlaid. The action recalls both Asa at 1 Kings 15:18 and his own father Ahaz at 2 Kings 16:8, kings who reached for the temple treasury under foreign pressure, so Hezekiah's crisis puts him for one verse in company he otherwise stands apart from. Sennacherib's own annals, the Taylor Prism, list thirty talents of gold received from Hezekiah, matching this chapter's number, though the annals give eight hundred talents of silver against the text's three hundred, a discrepancy the evidence leaves open rather than resolves.
D. Rabshakeh at the conduit: on whom dost thou trust?
1. (vv. 17-18)
2 Kings 18:17
“On the walls of the palace of Sennacherib, at Khorsabad, certain figures have been identified with the officers of that sovereign mentioned in Scripture. In particular, the figures, Rab-shakeh, Rab-saris, and Tartan, appear as full-length portraits of the persons holding those offices in the reign of Sennacherib.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 18:17
“An interval of time must be placed between this verse and the last. Sennacherib, content with his successes, had returned to Nineveh with his spoil and his numerous captives. Hezekiah, left to himself, repented of his submission, and commenced negotiations with Egypt 2Ki 18:21, 2Ki 18:24; Isa 30:2-6; Isa 31:1, which implied treason against his Assyrian suzerain. It was under these circumstances that Sennacherib appears to have made his second expedition into Palestine very soon after the first.”
2 Kings 18:18
“Eliakim--lately promoted to be master of the royal household (Isa 22:20). Shebna--removed for his pride and presumption (Isa 22:15) from that office, though still royal secretary. Joah . . . the recorder--that is, the keeper of the chronicles, an important office in Eastern countries.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Tartan and Rabsaris and Rab–shakeh: Three Assyrian officers arrive together, Tartan the commander, Rabsaris a chief officer, and Rab-shakeh whose title means chief cupbearer, and it is the third, the propaganda officer rather than the general, who does all the speaking that follows. The delegation stops at the conduit of the upper pool, the very spot named at Isaiah 7:3 where Isaiah once met Ahaz with a word of trust that king refused to take. Three of Hezekiah's own officers come out to meet them, Eliakim over the household, Shebna the scribe, and Joah the recorder, the same three names 2 Kings 19:2 will send to Isaiah once the speech below is heard.
2. (vv. 19-21)
2 Kings 18:19
“The Rab-shakeh, the third in rank of the three Assyrian ambassadors, probably took the prominent part in the conference because he could speak Hebrew 2Ki 18:26, whereas the Tartan and the Rabsaris could not do so. The great king - This title of the monarchs of Assyria is found in use as early as 1120 B.C. Like the title, “king of kings,” the distinctive epithet “great” served to mark emphatically the vast difference between the numerous vassal monarchs and the suzerain of whom they held their crowns.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 18:19
“What an idol did he make of that prince whose creature he was! God is the great King, but Sennacherib was in his eye a little god, and he would possess them with the same veneration for him that he had, and thereby frighten them into a submission to him. But to those who by faith see the King of kings in his power and glory even the king of Assyria looks mean and little.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 18:20
“Hezekiah no doubt believed that in the “counsel” of Eliakim and Isaiah, and in the “strength” promised him by Egypt, he had resources which justified him in provoking a war. Vain words - literally, as in margin, i. e., a mere word, to which the facts do not correspond.”
2 Kings 18:21
“This bruised reed - The “tall reed of the Nile bulrush” fitly symbolized the land where it grew. Apparently strong and firm, it was quite unworthy of trust. Let a man lean upon it, and the rotten support instantly gave way, wounding the hand that stayed itself so insecurely. So it was with Egypt throughout the whole period of Jewish history (compare 2Ki 17:4-6). Her actual practice was to pretend friendship, to hold out hopes of support, and then to fail in time of need.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 18:21
“So is the king of Egypt, says he; and truly so had the king of Assyria been to Ahaz, who trusted in him, but he distressed him, and strengthened him not, 2 Chron. xxviii. Those that trust to any arm of flesh will find it no better than a broken reed; but God is the rock of ages.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
What confidence is this wherein: Rab-shakeh opens with a single word aimed at the throne, confidence, the very ground Hezekiah's own trust in the Lord claims for itself, and the whole speech that follows is built to attack that word from every side. Egypt is named a bruised reed that pierces the hand of the man who leans on it, and the taunt fits a real weakness: Egypt's dynasty of this period could not reliably help the small states that counted on it against Assyria. The speech is remembered as the longest recorded taunt in the Old Testament, and it argues theology throughout rather than only threatening force.
3. (v. 22)
2 Kings 18:22
“Whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away - This was artfully malicious. Many of the people sacrificed to Jehovah on the high places; Hezekiah had removed them, (2Ki 18:4), because they were incentives to idolatry: Rab-shakeh insinuates that by so doing he had offended Jehovah, deprived the people of their religious rights, and he could neither expect the blessing of God nor the cooperation of the people.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
whose high places and whose altars: Rab-shakeh anticipates the one answer he expects, we trust in the Lord our God, and turns Hezekiah's own reform against him: is not that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away. A pagan officer states the facts of verse 4 correctly and then reads them backward, as if removing idolatrous shrines had offended the God those shrines dishonored rather than pleased him. The verse is the speech's sharpest irony, true information delivered toward a false conclusion.
4. (vv. 23-24)
2 Kings 18:23
“The phrase translated “give pledges,” or “hostages” (margin) may perhaps be best understood as meaning “make an agreement.” If you will “bind yourself to find the riders” (i. e., trained horsemen), we will “bind ourselves to furnish the horses.” The suggestion implied that in all Judaea there were not 2000 men accustomed to serve as cavalry.”
give pledges to my lord: Give pledges is a wager dressed as an offer, two thousand horses if Judah can find riders to set on them, a boast built to expose how small and poorly mounted Hezekiah's forces are rather than a serious proposal. Verse 24 presses the same point in different language, one captain of the least of my master's servants, ranking the whole army of Judah beneath a single junior Assyrian officer. Egypt is named again as the trust Rab-shakeh assumes stands behind the throne even after Hezekiah has already refused Egypt's chariots as a policy.
5. (v. 25)
2 Kings 18:25
“Am I now come up without the Lord - As Rab-shakeh saw that the Jews placed the utmost confidence in God, he wished to persuade them that by Hezekiah’s conduct Jehovah had departed from them, and was become ally to the king of Assyria, and therefore they could not expect any help from that quarter.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Am I now come up without: the Lord is the speech's boldest claim, an Assyrian officer asserting that his own king marches by the God of Israel's own commission. Isaiah 10:5 gives the same claim from the other side of the war, O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, so Rab-shakeh's boast and Isaiah's oracle agree that Assyria is an instrument even while Isaiah goes on to judge the instrument for its pride. The claim is left standing in this chapter without correction, and correction comes from Isaiah's book rather than from any voice on this page.
E. Speak not in the Jews' language: and the people held their peace
1. (vv. 26-27)
2 Kings 18:26
“Talk not with us in the Jews’ language - The object of this blasphemous caitiff was to stir up the people to sedition, that the city and the king might be delivered into his hand.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 18:27
“That they may eat ... - “My master hath sent me,” the Rab-shakeh seems to say, “to these men, whom I see stationed on the wall to defend the place and bear the last extremities of a prolonged siege - these men on whom its worst evils will fall, and who have therefore the greatest interest in avoiding it by a timely surrender.” He expresses the evils by a strong coarse phrase, suited to the rude soldiery, and well calculated to rouse their feelings. The author of Chronicles has softened down the words 2Ch 32:11.”
to thy servants in the Syrian language: Eliakim asks for Syrian, the diplomatic language the officials share, so the people on the wall will not hear a threat in their own tongue, and the request itself concedes how much the speech has already landed. Rab-shakeh refuses in the coarsest terms the text records, naming the siege's own coming horror, that the men on the wall will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with the defenders, a threat aimed at the common soldiers rather than at the throne. The refusal is the turn on which the speech moves from private negotiation to public psychological warfare.
2. (vv. 28-32)
2 Kings 18:28
“Jews language - The tradition of the Jews is, that Rabshaketh was an apostate Jew. If so, his ignorance of the God of Israel was the less excusable, and his enmity the less strange: for apostates are usually the most bitter and spiteful enemies.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 18:29
“There were two grounds, and two only, on which Hezekiah could rest his refusal to surrender, (1) ability to resist by his own natural military strength and that of his allies; and (2) expectation based upon the language of Isaiah Isa 30:31; Isa 31:4-9, of supernatural assistance from Yahweh. The Rab-shakeh argues that both grounds of confidence are equally fallacious.”
2 Kings 18:32
“This Rabshakeh was sensible was their great stay, and therefore he was most large in his endeavours to shake this, as David's enemies, who used all the arts they had to drive him from his confidence in God ( Ps. iii. 1 ), and thus did Christ's enemies, Matt. xxvii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
cried with a loud voice: Rab-shakeh abandons diplomacy and shouts in the Jews' own language over the officials' heads, straight to the men on the wall, urging them to make an agreement, a pledge of surrender, and trade the siege for an ordinary harvest, his own vine, his own fig tree, his own cistern. The offer is a lie dressed as mercy: verse 32 admits the real plan is deportation, a land like your own land, the standard Assyrian policy of resettlement already carried out on Israel in verse 11. Let not Hezekiah deceive you and hearken not unto Hezekiah frame the whole appeal as a contest for the people's loyalty, king against invader, fought in words before either army moves.
3. (vv. 33-35)
2 Kings 18:33
“The boast is natural. The Assyrians had had an uninterrupted career of success, and might well believe that their gods were more powerful than those of the nations with whom they had warred. It is not surprising that they did not understand that their successes hitherto had been allowed by the very God, Yahweh, against whom they were now boasting themselves.”
2 Kings 18:34
“Where are the gods of Hamath - Sennacherib is greater than any of the gods of the nations. The Assyrians have already overthrown the gods of Hamath, Arpad, Hena, and Ivah; therefore, Jehovah shall be like one of them, and shall not be able to deliver Jerusalem out of the hand of my master. The impudent blasphemy of this speech is without parallel. Hezekiah treated it as he ought: it was not properly against him, but against the Lord; therefore he refers the matter to Jehovah himself, who punishes this blasphemy in the most signal manner.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
gods of the nations delivered: Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land is the speech's argument from history, a list of conquered cities, Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivah, each one offered as proof that no god has ever stopped Assyria. The argument's flaw is the category it assumes, that the Lord is one more national god comparable to Hamath's or Arpad's, the very point chapters 18 through 19 exist to answer. Verse 35 closes the taunt with the direct question, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand, and the chapters ahead answer it rather than this one.
4. (vv. 36-37)
2 Kings 18:36
“Answer him not - The blasphemy is too barefaced; Jehovah is insulted, not you; let him avenge his own quarrel. See the succeeding chapter, 2 Kings 19 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 18:37
“Then came Eliakim - and Shebna - and Joah - to Hezekiah with their clothes rent - It was the custom of the Hebrews, when they heard any blasphemy, to rend their clothes, because this was the greatest of crimes, as it immediately affected the majesty of God, and it was right that a religious people should have in the utmost abhorrence every insult offered to the object of their religious worship. These three ambassadors lay the matter before the king as God’s representative; he lays it before the prophet, as God’s minister; and the prophet lays it before God, as the people’s mediator.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
held their peace, and answered: The king's own command, answer him not, holds the people silent under a speech built to provoke exactly that kind of answer, and the silence is obedience rather than defeat. Eliakim, Shebna and Joah return to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, the ordinary sign of grief and dismay used across the book of Kings for news too heavy for words. The chapter ends without Hezekiah's reply; 2 Kings 19 opens with what he does instead, spreading the matter before the Lord in the temple he had just stripped to pay Assyria's price.
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The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
C. H. Spurgeon, The Mysteries of the Brazen Serpent and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; F. W. Farrar, The Second Book of Kings (Expositor's Bible); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.