- As soon as Hezekiah heard the news, he tore off his clothes in sorrow and put on sackcloth. Then he went into the temple of the LORD.
- He told Prime Minister Eliakim, Assistant Prime Minister Shebna, and the senior priests to dress in sackcloth and tell the prophet Isaiah:
- These are difficult and disgraceful times. Our nation is like a woman too weak to give birth, when it's time for her baby to be born.
- Please pray for those of us who are left alive. The king of Assyria sent his army commander to insult the living God. Perhaps the LORD heard what he said and will do something, if you will pray.
- When these leaders went to Isaiah,
- he told them that the LORD had this message for Hezekiah: I am the LORD. Don't worry about the insulting things that have been said about me by these messengers from the king of Assyria.
- I will upset him with rumors about what's happening in his own country. He will go back, and there I will make him die a violent death.
- Meanwhile, the commander of the Assyrian forces heard that his king had left the town of Lachish and was now attacking Libnah. So he went there.
- About this same time the king of Assyria learned that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was on his way to attack him. Then the king of Assyria sent some messengers with this note for Hezekiah:
- Don't trust your God or be fooled by his promise to defend Jerusalem against me.
- You have heard how we Assyrian kings have completely wiped out other nations. What makes you feel so safe?
- The Assyrian kings before me destroyed the towns of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and everyone from Eden who lived in Telassar. What good did their gods do them?
- The kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah have all disappeared.
- After Hezekiah had read the note from the king of Assyria, he took it to the temple and spread it out for the LORD to see.
- He prayed: LORD God of Israel, your throne is above the winged creatures. You created the heavens and the earth, and you alone rule the kingdoms of this world.
- But just look how Sennacherib has insulted you, the living God.
- It is true, our LORD, that Assyrian kings have turned nations into deserts.
- They destroyed the idols of wood and stone that the people of those nations had made and worshiped.
- But you are our LORD and our God! We ask you to keep us safe from the Assyrian king. Then everyone in every kingdom on earth will know that you are the only God.
- Isaiah went to Hezekiah and told him that the LORD God of Israel had said: Hezekiah, I heard your prayer about King Sennacherib of Assyria.
- Now this is what I say to that king: The people of Jerusalem hate and make fun of you; they laugh behind your back.
- Sennacherib, you cursed, shouted, and sneered at me, the holy God of Israel.
- You let your officials insult me, the Lord. And here is what you have said about yourself, "I led my chariots to the highest heights of Lebanon's mountains. I went deep into its forest, cutting down the best cedar and cypress trees.
- I dried up every stream in the land of Egypt, and I drank water from wells I had dug."
- Sennacherib, now listen to me, the Lord. I planned all this long ago. And you don't even realize that I alone am the one who decided that you would do these things. I let you make ruins of fortified cities.
- Their people became weak, terribly confused. They were like wild flowers or tender young grass growing on a flat roof, scorched before it matures.
- I know all about you, even how fiercely angry you are with me.
- I have seen your pride and the tremendous hatred you have for me. Now I will put a hook in your nose, a bit in your mouth, then I will send you back to where you came from.
- Hezekiah, I will tell you what's going to happen. This year you will eat crops that grow on their own, and the next year you will eat whatever springs up where those crops grew. But the third year you will plant grain and vineyards, and you will eat what you harvest.
- Those who survive in Judah will be like a vine that puts down deep roots and bears fruit.
- I, the LORD All-Powerful, will see to it that some who live in Jerusalem will survive.
- I promise that the king of Assyria won't get into Jerusalem, or shoot an arrow into the city, or even surround it and prepare to attack.
- As surely as I am the LORD, he will return by the way he came and will never enter Jerusalem.
- I will protect it for myself and for my servant David.
- That same night the LORD sent an angel to the camp of the Assyrians, and he killed one hundred eighty-five thousand of them. And so the next morning, the camp was full of dead bodies.
- After this King Sennacherib went back to Assyria and lived in the city of Nineveh.
- One day he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, when his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords. They escaped to the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king.
After the events of chapter 18 in which Sennacherib's field commander demoralized the people of Jerusalem who listened to his words from the city wall, Hezekiah, king of Judah, tore his clothes in distress and went before the Lord at the temple. He also sent messengers to the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah sent the message back to Hezekiah not to fear the king of Assyria for God would "put a spirit in him, and he will hear a rumor and return to his own land where I will cause him to fall by the sword." (19:7) Sure enough, Sennacherib heard a rumor of attack by another enemy though it is uncertain who this was. Before Sennacherib left to attend to this crises, he sent another message to Hezekiah. In it he said, "Don't let your God, whom you trust, deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria." (19:10) He also repeated the proud assertions his field commander had stated outside the walls of Jerusalem that the gods of all the other nations they had defeated were not able to deliver the people from the Assyrians and it would be no different for the God of Israel.
After reading the message from Sennacherib, Hezekiah again went to the temple in distress and laid out the message before the Lord, pleading with Him to deliver them from the Assyrians, not only for their sake but for God's sake "so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God--You alone." (19:19) The Lord answered Hezekiah's prayer through Isaiah who sent the message to Hezekiah that the Lord had heard his prayer. The remainder of the message from the Lord was addressed to Sennacherib. The Lord said to him that all of which he bragged had been designed by the Lord and planned in days gone by. It was the Lord who brought it all to pass. Now, because of Sennacherib's raging against the Lord and because of his arrogance, the Lord will "put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will make you go back the way you came." (19:28)
The Lord was swift in carrying out this judgment. That very night "the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians." (19:35) When they awoke the next morning there were dead bodies everywhere. No doubt Sennacherib recognized this as an act by the God of Israel/Judah and so he pulled out his army and returned home. The rest of the Lord's judgment against him didn't happen for another 20 years. One day when he went to the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons entered the temple and killed him with a sword. God will not be mocked. Sennacherib may have thought he had personally escaped the judgement of Israel's God but in God's time that judgment came to pass.
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