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📚After these things and this faithful conduct, Sennacherib 📖, king of Assyria, came and invaded Judah, and camped against the fortified cities, and planned to take them over for himself. 2 📚And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that he intended to fight against Jerusalem, 3 📚he took counsel with his officials and his mighty men to stop the waters of the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him. 4 📚So many people gathered together, who stopped up all the springs, and the brook that ran through the middle of the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?” 5 📚Also he strengthened himself, and built up all the wall that had been broken down and raised it up to the towers and built another wall outside, and repaired Millo in the city of David, and made a great many weapons and shields.6 📚And he appointed military officers over the people, and gathered them together to him in the square at the city gate, and spoke words of encouragement to them, saying, 7 📚“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or dismayed because of the king of Assyria, or because of all the horde that is with him. For there is a greater power with us than with him. 8 📚With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles”. And the people relied on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
9 📚After this Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem (but he himself besieged Lachish, and all his forces with him) to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were at Jerusalem, saying,
10 📚“Thus says Sennacherib, king of Assyria, ‘What are you trusting in, that you stay in the siege in Jerusalem? 11 📚Is not Hezekiah persuading you to give yourselves up to die by famine and by thirst, saying, “The LORD our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria?” 12 📚Has not this same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, “You shall worship before one altar, and burn incense on it?”
13 📚“‘Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the people of other lands? Were the gods of the peoples of those lands in any way able to deliver their lands out of my hands? 14 📚Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of my hands, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hands? 15 📚Now therefore do not let Hezekiah deceive you, or persuade you in this manner. And do not believe him. For no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hands and out of the hands of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand!’ ”
16 📚And his servants spoke still more against the LORD God, and against his servant Hezekiah. 17 📚He also wrote letters to rail against the LORD God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, “Just as the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of my hands, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver his people out of my hands”. 18 📚Then they called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten them and to trouble them, so that they could take the city. 19 📚And they spoke against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the world, which were the work of the hands of man.
32:19 Ps 115:2-8. Those who think that the God of Jerusalem, the God of Israel is the same as other gods are making a terrible mistake. See 1 Kings 18:21. If the God of Israel is the true God (and he has proved this again and again), then all other gods are false and worthless (Isa 44:6-9).⚜
Hezekiah and Isaiah pray, the Assyrians are defeated
20 📚And for this reason Hezekiah the king, and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed 📖 and cried out to heaven. 21 📚And the LORD sent an angel, who destroyed all the mighty men of valour and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned in shame to his own land. And when he went into the house of his god, those who came from his own body killed him there with the sword.
32:21 The mistake Sennacherib made in v 19 cost him his army, his reputation, and his life. The total number killed by this one angel was 1,85,000 (Isa 37:36).⚜
22 📚Thus the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hands of Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, and from the hands of all others, and took care of them on every side. 23 📚And many brought gifts to the LORD at Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah, king of Judah, so that from then on he was exalted in the sight of all nations.
Hezekiah falls into the sin of pride
24 📚In those days Hezekiah became sick to the point of death, and prayed to the LORD, and the LORD spoke to him and gave him a sign 📖. 25 📚But Hezekiah did not give a return for the benefit done to him, for his heart became proud 📖. Therefore God’s wrath 📖 was on him, and on Judah and Jerusalem. 26 📚However, Hezekiah humbled the pride 📖 of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the LORD did not come on them in the days of Hezekiah.
Other activities of Hezekiah, his death
27 📚And Hezekiah had riches and honour in great abundance, and he made for himself treasuries for silver and for gold and for precious stones and for spices and for shields and for all kinds of desirable articles, 28 📚and storehouses for the produce of grain and wine and oil, and stalls for all kinds of animals, and sheepfolds for flocks. 29 📚Moreover, he made towns for himself, and had flocks and herds in abundance, for God had given him very many possessions.
30 📚This same Hezekiah also stopped up the upper watercourse of the Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works.
32:25-30 These verses are not in the account in Kings and Isaiah.⚜
31 📚However, in the matter of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, those sent to him to inquire about the wonder that had been done in the land, God left him to test him 📖, so that he might know all that was in his heart.
32 📚Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his goodness, look, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in the book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. 33 📚And Hezekiah slept 📖 with his ancestors, and they buried him in the uppermost of the tombs of the sons of David, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem honoured him at his death. And his son Manasseh reigned in his place.