CINXE.COM

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0; user-scalable=0;"/><title>2 Kings 18 ISV</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/chapnew2.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="../cmenus/2_kings/18.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="../topmenuchap/2_kings/18-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="http://biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="../">ISV</a> > 2 Kings 18</div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../2_kings/17.htm" title="2 Kings 17">◄</a> 2 Kings 18 <a href="../2_kings/19.htm" title="2 Kings 19">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="99%" valign="top">International Standard Version</td><td width="1%" valign="top"><a href="/p/isv/esv/2_kings/18.shtml" style="color:#001320" title="Parallel Chapters"> Par ▾ </a></tr></table></div><div class="chap"><p class="heading">Hezekiah Becomes King of Judah</p><p class="cross_ref">(<a href="http://isv.scripturetext.com/2_chronicles/29.htm">2 Chronicles 29:1-2</a>)</p><p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-1.htm"><b>1</b></a></span>Now it happened that during the third year of the reign of<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:1 The Heb. lacks the reign of">a</a></span> Elah’s son Hoshea, king of Israel, that Ahaz’ son Hezekiah became king. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-2.htm"><b>2</b></a></span>He was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for 29 years. His mother was Zechariah’s daughter Abi. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-3.htm"><b>3</b></a></span>He did what the LORD considered to be right, according to everything that his ancestor David had done.</p> <p class="heading">Hezekiah’s Reforms</p><p class="cross_ref">(<a href="http://isv.scripturetext.com/2_chronicles/29.htm">2 Chronicles 29:3</a>; 31:1)</p><p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-4.htm"><b>4</b></a></span>He removed the high places, demolished the sacred pillars, and tore down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had crafted, because the Israelis had been burning incense to it right up until that time. Hezekiah<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:4 Lit. He">b</a></span> called it a piece of brass.<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:4 Lit. Nehushtan; so MT; LXX reads Neeshthan">c</a></span> <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-5.htm"><b>5</b></a></span>He trusted the LORD God of Israel, and after him there were none like him among all the kings of Judah, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-6.htm"><b>6</b></a></span>because he depended on the LORD, not abandoning pursuit of him, and keeping the LORD’s commands that he had commanded Moses. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-7.htm"><b>7</b></a></span>So the LORD was with him, and Hezekiah prospered wherever he went, even when he rebelled against the king of Assyria, refusing to serve him. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-8.htm"><b>8</b></a></span>He attacked the Philistines, invading Gaza and its borders from watchtower to fortified garrison.</p> <p class="heading">Shalmaneser Attacks Samaria</p><p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-9.htm"><b>9</b></a></span>In the fourth year of King Hezekiah’s reign (that is, during the seventh year of Elah’s son Hoshea’s reign as king of Israel), King Shalmaneser from Assyria invaded Samaria and besieged it. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-10.htm"><b>10</b></a></span>Three years later, they captured Samaria during the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign,<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:10 The Heb. lacks reign">d</a></span> which was the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign as king of Israel. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-11.htm"><b>11</b></a></span>After this, the king of Assyria carried Israel off into exile in Assyria, settling them in Halah, on the Habor River in Gozan, and in cities controlled by the Medes, <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-12.htm"><b>12</b></a></span>because they would not obey the voice of the LORD their God. Instead, they transgressed his covenant, including everything that Moses, the servant of the LORD, had commanded, by neither listening nor putting what he had commanded<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:12 The Heb. lacks what he had commanded">e</a></span> into practice.</p> <p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-13.htm"><b>13</b></a></span>During the fourteenth year of the reign of<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:13 The Heb. lacks the reign of">f</a></span> King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria approached all of the walled cities of Judah and seized them. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-14.htm"><b>14</b></a></span>So Hezekiah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have offended you. Withdraw from me, and I’ll accept whatever tribute you impose.” So the king of Assyria required Hezekiah to pay him 300 talents<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:14 i.e. about 11,500 pounds; a talent weighed about 75 pounds">g</a></span> of silver and 30 talents<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:14 i.e. about 1,150 pounds; a talent weighed about 75 pounds">h</a></span> of gold. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-15.htm"><b>15</b></a></span>Hezekiah gave him all the silver that could be removed from the LORD’s Temple and from the treasuries in the king’s palace. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-16.htm"><b>16</b></a></span>At that time, Hezekiah removed the doors to the LORD’s Temple and the doorposts that he had overlaid with gold,<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:16 The Heb. lacks with gold">i</a></span> and gave the gold<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:16 Lit. gave it">j</a></span> to the king of Assyria.</p> <p class="heading">Assyria’s King Taunts Hezekiah</p><p class="cross_ref">(<a href="http://isv.scripturetext.com/2_chronicles/29.htm">2 Chronicles 29:9-19</a>)</p><p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-17.htm"><b>17</b></a></span>Sometime later, the king of Assyria sent Tartan, Rab-saris, and Rab-shakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, accompanied with a large army. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-18.htm"><b>18</b></a></span>When they called for the king, Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who managed the household, Shebnah the scribe, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder went out to them. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-19.htm"><b>19</b></a></span>Rab-shakeh told them, “Tell Hezekiah right now, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria says:</p> <p class="doubleindent margintop">‘“Why are you so confident? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-20.htm"><b>20</b></a></span>You’re saying—but they’re only empty words—‘I have enough<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:20 The Heb. lacks I have enough">k</a></span> advice and resources to conduct warfare!’</p> <p class="doubleindent">‘“Now who are you relying on, that you have rebelled against me? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-21.htm"><b>21</b></a></span>Look, you’re trusting on Egypt to lean on like a staff, but it’s a crushed reed, and if you lean on it, it will collapse and pierce your hand. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is just like that to everyone who relies on him!</p> <p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-22.htm"><b>22</b></a></span>‘“Of course, you might tell me, “We rely on the LORD our God!” But isn’t it he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has demolished, all the while telling Jerusalem, “You’re to worship in front of this altar in Jerusalem?”’</p> <p class="doubleindent marginbot"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-23.htm"><b>23</b></a></span>‘“Come now, and make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria, and I’ll give you 2,000 horses, if you can furnish them with riders. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-24.htm"><b>24</b></a></span>How can you refuse even one official from the least of my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-25.htm"><b>25</b></a></span>“Now then, haven’t I come up—apart from the LORD—to attack and destroy this place? The LORD told me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it!’”’”</p> <p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-26.htm"><b>26</b></a></span>At this, Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, Shebnah, and Joah asked Rab-shakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand it, but don’t speak the language of Judah to us within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”</p> <p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-27.htm"><b>27</b></a></span>But Rab-shakeh spoke to them, “Has my master sent me to talk about this just to your master and to you, and not also to the men who are sitting on the wall, who will soon be eating their own feces and drinking their own urine<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:27 An alternate MT reading is own water at their feet">l</a></span> —along with you?” <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-28.htm"><b>28</b></a></span>Then Rab-shakeh stood up and cried out loud, “Listen to what the great king, the king of Assyria has to say. <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-29.htm"><b>29</b></a></span>This is what the king says:</p> <p class="doubleindent margintop">‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, because he will prove to be unable to deliver you from my control.<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:29 Lit. hand">m</a></span> <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-30.htm"><b>30</b></a></span>And don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by telling you, “The LORD will certainly deliver us and this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.” <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-31.htm"><b>31</b></a></span>Don’t listen to Hezekiah, because this is what the king of Assyria says: “Make peace with me and come out to me! Each of you will eat from his own vine. Each will eat from his own fig tree. And each of you will drink water from his own cistern <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-32.htm"><b>32</b></a></span>until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, one overflowing with grain and new wine, a land filled with bread and vineyards, with olive trees and honey, so you may live and not die.”</p> <p class="reg marginbot">‘But don’t listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, “The LORD will deliver us!” <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-33.htm"><b>33</b></a></span>Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land from control by<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:33 Lit. from the hand of">n</a></span> the king of Assyria? <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-34.htm"><b>34</b></a></span>Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sephar-vaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my control?<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:34 Lit. hand">o</a></span> <span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-35.htm"><b>35</b></a></span>Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered their land from my control<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:35 Lit. hand">p</a></span> , so that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from me?’”<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:35 Lit. from my hand">q</a></span> </p> <p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-36.htm"><b>36</b></a></span>But the people remained silent and did not answer with even so much as a word, because the king’s order was, “Don’t answer him.”</p> <p class="reg"><span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/2_kings/18-37.htm"><b>37</b></a></span>But Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who managed the household, Shebna the scribe, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder came back to Hezekiah with their clothes torn<span class="fn"><a href="#ftn" title="18:37 i.e. as a visible response to the pending calamity">r</a></span> and told him what Rab-shakeh had said.</p><hr size="1" color="DDEEFF"><span class="mainfootnotes"><A name="ftn"></a><span class="mainfootnoteshdg">Footnotes:</span><br><span class="fn1"><span class="fnb">a</span> 18:1 The Heb. lacks <i>the reign of</i><br /><span class="fnb">b</span> 18:4 Lit. <i>He</i><br /><span class="fnb">c</span> 18:4 Lit. <i>Nehushtan</i>; so MT; LXX reads <i>Neeshthan</i><br /><span class="fnb">d</span> 18:10 The Heb. lacks <i>reign</i><br /><span class="fnb">e</span> 18:12 The Heb. lacks <i>what he had commanded</i><br /><span class="fnb">f</span> 18:13 The Heb. lacks <i>the reign of</i><br /><span class="fnb">g</span> 18:14 i.e. about 11,500 pounds; a talent weighed about 75 pounds<br /><span class="fnb">h</span> 18:14 i.e. about 1,150 pounds; a talent weighed about 75 pounds<br /><span class="fnb">i</span> 18:16 The Heb. lacks <i>with gold</i><br /><span class="fnb">j</span> 18:16 Lit. <i>gave it</i><br /><span class="fnb">k</span> 18:20 The Heb. lacks <i>I have enough</i><br /><span class="fnb">l</span> 18:27 An alternate MT reading is <i>own water at their feet</i><br /><span class="fnb">m</span> 18:29 Lit. <i>hand</i><br /><span class="fnb">n</span> 18:33 Lit. <i>from the hand of</i><br /><span class="fnb">o</span> 18:34 Lit. <i>hand</i><br /><span class="fnb">p</span> 18:35 Lit. <i>hand</i><br /><span class="fnb">q</span> 18:35 Lit. <i>from my hand</i><br /><span class="fnb">r</span> 18:37 i.e. as a visible response to the pending calamity<br /></span><br><br><hr size="1" color="DDEEFF"><div align="center"><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">The Holy Bible: International Standard Version® Release 2.1<br />Copyright © 1996-2012 The ISV Foundation<br />ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTERNATIONALLY.<span class="p"><br /><br /></span><a href="/">Bible Hub</a></div></div></div></div></td></tr></table></div><div id="left"><a href="../2_kings/17.htm" onmouseover='lft.src="/leftgif.png"' onmouseout='lft.src="/left.png"' title="2 Kings 17"><img src="/left.png" name="lft" border="0" alt="2 Kings 17" /></a></div><div id="right"><a href="../2_kings/19.htm" onmouseover='rght.src="/rightgif.png"' onmouseout='rght.src="/right.png"' title="2 Kings 19"><img src="/right.png" name="rght" border="0" alt="2 Kings 19" /></a></div><div id="botleft"><a href="#" onmouseover='botleft.src="/botleftgif.png"' onmouseout='botleft.src="/botleft.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botleft.png" name="botleft" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div><div id="botright"><a href="#" onmouseover='botright.src="/botrightgif.png"' onmouseout='botright.src="/botright.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botright.png" name="botright" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div></td></tr></table></div><div id="rightbox"><div class="padright"><div id="pic"><iframe width="100%" height="860" scrolling="no" src="//biblescan.com/mpc/2_kings/18-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></div></div><div id="rightbox4"><div class="padright2"><div id="spons1"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td class="sp1"><iframe width="122" height="860" scrolling="no" src="../sidemenu.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></div><div id="bot"><div align="center" style="background-color:#F2FAFF"><br /><br /><div class="bot2"><table align="center" width="100%"><tr><td><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>  <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3753401421161123" data-ad-slot="6710025936" data-ad-format="auto"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script></td></tr></table><br /><br /><table align="center" width="100%"><tr><td><script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>  <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3753401421161123" data-ad-slot="6710025936" data-ad-format="auto"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script></td></tr></table></div><br /><br /> </div><iframe width="100%" height="1500" scrolling="no" src="//biblehu.com/botmenubhnm2.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe><div align="center"><span class="p"><br /><br /><br /></span></div></div></td></tr></table></div></body></html>