And in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.
Hezekiah spent fourteen years reforming Judah, and then Sennacherib took every fortified city he had. Why did the heaviest blow fall on a godly king just after his best years?
The date is not a throwaway detail. One writer defends it against the common claim that a scribe miscopied the number:
"Fourteenth" agrees with Isaiah 36:1; and it is the only number that will harmonize with Isaiah 38:5. It may be for lack of faith that men try hard to make Scripture square with secular history, or what claims to be history. A date in the Bible may not come out even with Babylonian or Assyrian chronology. It may disagree with some untrustworthy pagan inscription. At once commentators cry "Transcriber's error" — as if monuments and clay tablets that are only half read must correct the word of God!
The invasion came after the reform, not before it. That order looks backwards, and it handed Hezekiah's critics an easy argument:
A great work had been done throughout Judah, restoring the ruined features of the worship of the true God. Yet no sooner was it finished than the enemy came to swallow them up! People who judged by circumstances instead of Scripture would stumble at once. Was it not plain that Hezekiah had done wrong in rejecting the traditions of his fathers? Was God now chastening him and them for his rash reformation?
Another writer turns that timing into a warning for anyone enjoying a season of blessing:
One would have thought all was over — the idols broken, and plenty of fruit and good works... But after he is established in the indescribable grace of God, even then, as one may say, the real struggle begins... In the same way, Satan often brings up his armies in seasons of sweetest enjoyment. He camps around us and watches for every opportunity to win us to himself. It is very strange, but we often find it so, that we are more off our guard at such a time of blessing than at any other.
Why did God allow the invasion? Commentators answer in two ways. One separates Judah's case from Israel's:
The Lord did not send him because of any guilt on Judah's part, as was the case with Israel, but it was to be a test of the faith of the godly king Hezekiah.
Another reads it as the long tail of the nation's earlier sin still working itself out under God's government:
Because of their former sins, Israel had become subject to the Assyrian, whom God had called "the rod of His anger." They had now been restored to righteousness under Hezekiah. Even so, God in His wise yet gracious government may have seen fit to let them suffer for a while for their past. In this way they would fully realise, by bitter and humiliating experience, what a serious thing it is for a people to turn from the living God to idols.
Hezekiah answered the loss of his cities by buying the invader off. That was a step down from where he began:
For fourteen years he had walked with God and prospered. Then, for the first time, failure appears in his course. Instead of driving back the invasion of the king of Assyria, as he once would have done, he tries to buy it off. At the beginning of his reign, with no visible resources, he had freed himself from the king of Assyria and did not serve him. Now he is established in success and surrounded with power on every side. Yet he cannot hold that position, and he admits he is powerless. He had taken it when nothing but faith supported and authorised him.
Everything outside the walls was gone. One writer lists what they still had:
All Judah sacked, the Assyrian army besieging the only city still standing... Did they have any resource, this weak "remnant that is left"? Yes, indeed! They still had the Lord's temple, His beloved city, Mount Zion, the son of David and his throne, the prophet who carried the word of God. They still had far more than David himself had in the cave of Adullam! The flesh might lose heart; faith could not in any way.
One writer looks beyond this invasion to a future one:
The Assyrian who came in Isaiah's day to take Jerusalem is the type of the final Assyrian who threatens the land and the people with destruction.
- After. The attack comes after the revival, not before it. Blessing is no guarantee of calm. We drop our guard just when we feel most settled.
- Fourteenth. The date stands. It agrees with Isaiah's record, and a pagan inscription is no reason to rewrite Scripture.
- Rod. Commentators differ on the cause. One sees a test of a godly king's faith. Another sees the nation still bearing the weight of its old idolatry under God's government.
- Faltered. With no resources, the king refused to serve Assyria. With power on every side, he paid it off. His strength had been faith, not walls.
- Left. Only Jerusalem remained. The temple, the city, David's throne and the prophet's word were left — and that was more than enough for faith.
And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have sinned; retire from me I will bear what thou layest upon me. And the king of Assyria laid upon Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
Hezekiah had thrown off Assyrian rule. Now Sennacherib has taken every fortified city of Judah, and the king who trusted God sends a message of surrender to Lachish. He agrees to pay whatever Assyria demands. Was this humility, or was it a failure of the faith that had marked him from the start?
Hezekiah says "I have done wrong" — not to God, but to the invading king. One commentator takes the words as the king's own verdict on himself. He reads the tribute figure as a measure of what the misstep cost.
So I judge that we have his own confession. Whatever the piety of the king may have been, offence was mixed in with it. I do not think Hezekiah would have said, "I have done wrong," if God had been fully guiding him… This was a very heavy tax. It was a war tax. It was compensation for the trouble and expense the king of Judah had put him to… It was not the old tribute, but a great deal more. Such is the effect of an immature action even from a faithful man.
Commentators differ on where the failure began. One writer calls this Hezekiah's first false step, and traces it to fear.
Hezekiah takes his first false step in the very thing that marks his walk above all else — his trust… When he saw all the cities of Judah fall into the hands of the king of Assyria, his heart failed him… Fear gripped him. Like Peter, he looked at the wind and lost sight of the Lord. He compared himself to the king of Assyria, instead of comparing the king of Assyria to the Lord.
The same writer sets Hezekiah's fatal illness at this same moment. Two blows landed together.
By this fact, we can measure the depth of the trial this man of God had to pass through. On one side, the invasion of his whole country except for Jerusalem. On the other, a fatal illness — and this at the very time when he had restored the worship of the true God to his people, wiped out idolatry, and freed Judah from Assyrian bondage! No wonder his faith wavered under such a trial.
Hezekiah promised to bear whatever Assyria imposed. The next verses show where he found the money.
We never gain by hasty acts. We cannot deliver ourselves, and we are not meant to… Hezekiah suffered, and so did God's house — a grievous thing in his eyes… "At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid." This was all the harder because he was the one who had sought to bring them back to something like their former splendour. Now it was all undone.
The invasion was not just politics. One writer suspects the revolt came too soon, and sees the nation still under discipline for sins committed long before Hezekiah's reforms.
It seems this attempt to throw off the yoke of Assyria came too soon; or perhaps the good king went beyond his faith… His desire was right. But in his zeal for the prosperity and glory of his kingdom, he may have gone ahead of God's time… Because of their former sins, Israel had become subject to the Assyrian, whom God had called "the rod of His anger." Even though Hezekiah had restored them to righteousness, God in His wise yet gracious government may have seen fit to let them suffer a while for their past. In this way they would fully realise, by bitter and humiliating experience, what a serious thing it is for a people to turn from the living God to idols.
Sennacherib took the silver and marched on Jerusalem anyway.
Hezekiah found that the tribute he sent to the king of Assyria was no guarantee of protection from attack. He could have kept the gold and silver, and Assyria still would not have defeated him — as he learned by experience when he trusted the Lord. The king of Assyria proved himself treacherous by sending a great army against Jerusalem.
Excavated inscriptions supply Sennacherib's side of this same transaction.
The explorations brought to light the annals of Sennacherib, written by himself or at his direction… His account of his first campaign, when a tribute satisfied him, matched 2 Kings 18 in the most striking way. The details agreed — the names of places, especially Lachish, and the amount of tribute received.
- Pressure. Invasion on one side and a fatal illness on the other made this the deepest trial of Hezekiah's life.
- Panic. Under that pressure he compared himself to Assyria instead of comparing Assyria to the Lord.
- Price. Panic cost him more than the old tribute, and it cost God's house the gold he himself had put on its doors.
- Pointlessness. The payment bought nothing; the enemy pocketed it and came for Jerusalem anyway.
- Purpose. Behind Assyria stood God's own hand. He was disciplining a nation for old idolatry, even under a good king.
And Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house.
Sennacherib's armies have taken Judah's fortified cities. Hezekiah had restored the temple; now he strips it to pay the invader — faith, failure, or both?
The price was a heavy fine, and paying it meant undoing Hezekiah's own work on the temple. One writer ties the fine to Israel's earlier turn to idols:
Because of their former sins, Israel had become subject to the Assyrian, whom God had called "the rod of His anger." Under Hezekiah they were restored to righteousness. Even so, God in His wise and gracious government may have seen fit to let them suffer for a while for their past. In that way they might fully realise by bitter and humiliating experience what a serious thing it is for a people to turn from the living God to idols. So poor Hezekiah pays the heavy fine imposed on him — "three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold." To get this enormous amount, he had to almost strip bare the house of God he had just restored. He stripped his own palace too, taking the treasures and utensils of silver and gold from both.
One writer sets this moment beside Peter walking on water and looking at the storm:
In His government, God allowed the king of Assyria to take the fortified cities of Judah. Good king Hezekiah had a moment of weakness. His eye was on the great forces of Sennacherib, like Peter with his eye on the strong wind. He "gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king's house," and even stripped the doors of the temple to show that he was under the king of Assyria. It was indeed a moment of weakness, not the normal attitude of this godly man.
What is missing from the record is any prayer. Another writer notices the silence and compares it with what happens a chapter later:
We do not read that Hezekiah appealed to the Lord at this time, so this may have been a time when his faith wavered... This would be humiliating to him. We cannot help wondering whether he could have avoided it by earnestly asking the Lord to step in. Later he did ask, and the Lord worked a miracle: He delivered Jerusalem and sent the king of Assyria away in humiliating defeat.
The verse names two treasuries: God's house and the king's. They did not weigh the same for Hezekiah:
We never gain by hasty acts. Hezekiah had acted ahead of the Lord, at the wrong moment, and now he meets His rebuke and His chastening. "And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD." This was a sore trial to a pious man. It was not only that Hezekiah suffered, but God's house suffered — a grievous thing in his eyes. For Hezekiah, I am sure, the treasures of the king's house were small compared with the LORD's house. "At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the pillars that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid." This was harder still. He himself was the man who had sought to bring them back to something like their former splendour, and now it was all undone.
The payment did not end the threat. One writer weighs what all this effort actually gained:
The pious king also did what he could to fortify himself. He sent the humblest message to the proud Assyrian, gave him all the silver in the LORD's house, and stripped off the gold from its doors and pillars for him. It was all in vain. There was little of the simplicity, strength, or wisdom of faith in all this. No wonder God's blessing was not with him there, and the enemy grew bold enough to demand everything.
Another writer goes further: the silver need never have left the temple.
Hezekiah might have kept the gold and silver, and Assyria still would not have defeated him. He learned this by experience as he trusted the Lord.
Hezekiah stood out for his trust, and trust is exactly where he slipped. One writer turns this into a warning for everyone:
So the truest saint, the man most known for his trust, may fail in that very thing. It is exactly where God gives us grace to stand out that we have to watch. Satan has a grudge against us. He will try to break us down in the very thing in which God has given us grace.
- Pressure. God's government let Sennacherib advance, so that a people who had turned to idols would learn by experience what that costs.
- Panic. Hezekiah had a moment of weakness. He watched the Assyrian army instead of God, and the record shows no prayer before he paid.
- Price. The temple silver went first. The grief was that God's house suffered — at the hand of the man who had restored it.
- Pointlessness. The payment bought nothing. Stripping the temple only emboldened the enemy to demand everything.
- Pattern. The man famous for trust failed in trust — the grace you are known for is the very point where you must watch.