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The Second Book of the Kings

Unlocked Dynamic Bible :: World English Bible Catholic

- Kapitel 18 -

(2 Chronicles 29:1–2)
1
After King Hoshea had been ruling Israel for almost three years, Hezekiah son of Ahaz, began to rule Judah.
2
He was twenty-five years old when he became the king of Judah and he ruled from Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah, the daughter of a man whose name was Zechariah.
3
Hezekiah did things that Yahweh said are right, like his ancestor King David had done.
4
He destroyed the places where people worshiped Yahweh, and he broke into pieces the poles for worshiping the goddess Asherah. He also broke into pieces the bronze replica of a snake that Moses had made. He did that because the people had named it Nehushtan, and they were burning incense in front of it to honor it.
5
Hezekiah trusted in Yahweh, the God whom the Israelites worshiped. There was no king who ruled Judah before him or after him who was as devoted to Yahweh as he was.
6
He remained loyal to Yahweh and never disobeyed him. He carefully obeyed all the commandments that Yahweh had given to Moses.
7
Yahweh always helped Hezekiah. He was successful in everything he did. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to do what the king of Assyria wanted him to do.
8
His army defeated the soldiers of Philistia as far south as the city of Gaza and the nearby villages. They conquered the entire area, from the smallest village with only a watchtower to the largest cities surrounded by walls.
9
After King Hezekiah had been ruling Judah for almost four years, and when King Hoshea had been ruling Israel for almost seven years, the army of King Shalmaneser of Assyria invaded Israel and surrounded the city of Samaria.
10
In the third year they captured the city. That was when Hezekiah had been ruling Judah for almost six years, and when Hoshea had been ruling Israel for almost nine years.
11
The king of Assyria commanded that the people of Israel be taken to Assyria. Some of them were taken to the city of Halah, some were taken to a place near the Habor River in the region of Gozan, and some were taken to cities where the Mede people group live.
12
That happened because the Israelites did not obey Yahweh their God. They had disobeyed the covenant that Yahweh had made with their ancestors, and all the laws that Moses, the man who served Yahweh very well, had told them to obey. They would not obey those laws. They would not even listen to them.

Sennacherib Invades Judah

(2 Chronicles 32:1–8; Psalm 46:1–11)
13
After King Hezekiah had been ruling Judah for almost fourteen years, the army of King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked all the cities in Judah that had walls around them. They did not capture Jerusalem, but they captured all the other cities.
14
King Hezekiah sent a message to Sennacherib, while Sennacherib was in the city of Lachish, saying, “What I have done was wrong. Please tell your soldiers to stop attacking us. If you do that, I will pay you whatever you tell me to.” So the king of Assyria said that Hezekiah must pay to him 10,000 kilograms (or about ten metric tons) of silver and 1,000 kilograms (about one metric ton) of gold.
15
So Hezekiah gave to him all the silver that was in the temple and that was stored in his palace.
16
Hezekiah’s men also stripped the gold from the doors of the temple and the gold that he himself had put on the doorposts, and he sent all that gold to the king of Assyria.

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

(2 Chronicles 32:9–19; Isaiah 36:1–22)
17
But the king of Assyria sent a large army with some of his important officials from the city of Lachish to persuade King Hezekiah to surrender. When they arrived at Jerusalem, they stood alongside the aqueduct in which water flows from the upper pool into Jerusalem, near the road to the field where the women wash clothes.
18
They sent a message requesting King Hezekiah to come to them, but the king sent three of his officials to talk to them. He sent Hilkiah’s son Eliakim, who supervised the palace, Shebna, the official secretary, and Asaph’s son Joah, who communicated the king’s messages to the people.
19
One of Sennacherib’s important officials told them to take this message to Hezekiah: “This is what the king of Assyria, the great king, says: ’What are you trusting in to rescue you?
20
You say that you have weapons to fight us and that some country has promised to help you, but that is only talk. Who do you think will help you to rebel against my soldiers from Assyria?
21
Listen to me! You are relying on the army of Egypt. But that is like using a broken reed for a walking stick on which you could lean. It would pierce the hand of anyone who would lean on it! That is what the king of Egypt would be like for anyone who relied on him for help.
22
But perhaps you will say to me, “No, we are relying on Yahweh our God to help us.” I would reply, “Is he not the one whom you insulted by tearing down his houses on the hills where the idols were worshiped and the altars on which you offered sacrifices, forcing everyone in Jerusalem and other places in Judah to worship only in front of the altar in Jerusalem?”
23
So I suggest that you make a deal between you and my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses, but I do not think that you are able to find two thousand of your men who can ride on them!
24
You are hoping that the king of Egypt will send chariots and men riding horses to assist you. But they certainly would not be able to defeat even the most unimportant official in my army!
25
Furthermore, do you think that we have come to destroy Jerusalem without Yahweh’s help? It is Yahweh himself who told us to come here and destroy this land!”
26
Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the official from Assyria, “Sir, please speak to us in your Aramaic language, because we understand it. Do not speak to us in our Hebrew language, because the people who are standing on the wall will understand it and be frightened.”
27
But the official replied, “Do you think that my master sent me to say these things only to you and not to the people who are standing on the wall? If you reject this message, the people in this city will soon need to eat their own dung and drink their own urine, just like you will, because there will be nothing more for you to eat or drink.”
28
Then the official stood up and shouted in the Hebrew language to the people sitting on the wall. He said, “Listen to this message from the great king, the king of Assyria. He says this:
29
’Do not allow Hezekiah to deceive you. He will not be able to rescue you from my power.
30
Do not allow him to persuade you to rely on Yahweh, saying that Yahweh will rescue you, and that the army of Assyria will never capture this city!’
31
Do not pay attention to what Hezekiah says! This is what the king of Assyria says: ’Come out of the city and surrender to me. If you do that, I will arrange for each of you to drink the juice from your own grapevines, and to eat figs from your own trees, and to drink water from your own wells.
32
You will be able to do that until we come and take you to a land that is like your land, a land where there is grain to make bread and vineyards to produce grapes for making wine. It will be a land that has plenty of olive trees and honey.’ If you do what the king of Assyria commands, you will not die. You will continue to live. Do not allow Hezekiah to persuade you to trust in Yahweh, saying that he will rescue you!
33
The gods that people of other nations worship have never rescued them from the power of the king of Assyria!
34
Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Did any of their gods deliver Samaria out of my hand?
35
None of these gods kept their people from being destroyed by the king of Assyria. Do you think your God Yahweh, can do any better?
36
But the people who were listening were silent. No one said anything, because King Hezekiah had told them, “When the official from Assyria talks to you, do not answer him.”
37
Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah went back to Hezekiah with their clothes torn because they were extremely distressed, and they told him what the official from Assyria had said.
(2 Chronicles 29:1–2)
1
Now in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.
2
He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.
3
He did that which was right in the LORD’s eyes, according to all that David his father had done.
4
He removed the high places, broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because in those days the children of Israel burned incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan.
5
He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him.
6
For he joined with the LORD. He didn’t depart from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses.
7
The LORD was with him. Wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria, and didn’t serve him.
8
He struck the Philistines to Gaza and its borders, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city.
9
In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it.
10
At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
11
The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,
12
because they didn’t obey the LORD their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear it or do it.

Sennacherib Invades Judah

(2 Chronicles 32:1–8; Psalm 46:1–11)
13
Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.
14
Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have offended you. Withdraw from me. That which you put on me, I will bear.” The king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents (a) of gold.
15
Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the LORD’s house and in the treasures of the king’s house.
16
At that time, Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the LORD’s temple, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

(2 Chronicles 32:9–19; Isaiah 36:1–22)
17
The king of Assyria sent Tartan, Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field.
18
When they had called to the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder came out to them.
19
Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?
20
You say (but they are but vain words), ‘There is counsel and strength for war.’ Now on whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
21
Now, behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt. If a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust on him.
22
But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?
23
Now therefore, please give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses if you are able on your part to set riders on them.
24
How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
25
Have I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? the LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”’”
26
Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, Shebnah, and Joah, said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Syrian language, for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Jews’ language, in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
27
But Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you, to speak these words? Hasn’t he sent me to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own urine with you?”
28
Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and spoke, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria.
29
The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of his hand.
30
Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
31
Don’t listen to Hezekiah.’ For the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and everyone of you eat from his own vine, and everyone from his own fig tree, and everyone drink water from his own cistern;
32
until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and of honey, that you may live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah when he persuades you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us.”
33
Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
34
Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?
35
Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
36
But the people stayed quiet, and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”
37
Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, came with Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him Rabshakeh’s words.

Fußnoten

(a)18:14 A talent is about 30 kilograms or 66 pounds or 965 Troy ounces