Chapter 19
This chapter reads very much like the account in Isaiah. Some believe that this was in fact copied from Isaiah's writing about the event.
2024 - I also believe this is the first mention of Isaiah in the Bible. (Confirmed)
Hezekiah is terrified by the words sent from Sennacherib. He sends his closest advisors to make sure that Isaiah knows the Assyrian King has challenged God with his words. Has belittled the God of Israel. Isaiah does know, and sends word back that God will make Sennacherib leave, and that he will then be killed in his own country.
Sennacherib hears a rumor that the King of Cush is coming against him. I think Cush is modern day Ethiopia for the most part. Its King at the time was Tirhakah. Wikipedia says Kush was present day Sudan. He reigned from 690-664 BC. So this is a real person.
Hezekiah goes into the Temple, and prays that God will show that, unlike the gods of other lands that conquering Assyrian armies have thrown into fires and burned up, because they were just idols, He is the one true God of Israel, and He will not be overcome, nor mocked, nor belittled.
2024 - Just noticed a recurring theme that had not occurred to me before, based on this verse:
19 So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone." [2Ki 19:19 ESV]. God answers this kind of prayer, a prayer that, when answered, leaves no doubt that the Living God, and not some idol, has answered. Moses prayed similar prayers - though I don't have the specific verses at hand - that would show to the nations that God was more powerful than all the Egyptian gods and Moses also prayed for God to relent at times lest the nations say that God had to quit because he couldn't pull something off. These cases where the "result" requested could have come about ONLY by God's direct intervention, these demonstrative answers to prayer, seem likely to be answered. Something to remember when we pray. Perhaps we should not ask for the ambiguous minimum, but for the unmistakable fireworks that only God can provide?
Possible FB post!
Isaiah is given a message for Hezekiah from God, after Hezekiah has prayed his prayer in the Temple. vs 21-28 are the answer.
God indicates that the particular choice of words Sennacherib used makes his a personal challenge to God. He didn't just threaten Jerusalem, he said the God of Israel was powerless against him. Always a very dangerous position to take. God says that all of Sennacherib's accomplishments were foretold, by God, long ago, and that his success is due to God's plan, not to his own pitiful human plans. And God says that even now, Sennacherib will act according to God's plan, and not to his own, and in so doing, Sennacherib will demonstrate that Israel's God is also his God, whether Sennacherib cares to acknowledge it or not. Good one for FB, using vs 28.
The sign referred to the two years that Sennacherib went about his destructive business in Israel and Judah. He did destroy much, he ransacked and pillaged and devastated the land. BUT, in the third year, after God sent him home, the people could immediately go back to business as usual. There was no tribute, no slavery, no ongoing consequence to Judah. And they quickly repopulated the land.
God's angel kills 185,000 overnight in the camp of the Assyrians. Sennacherib goes home. As he is worshiping the Assyrian gods in their temple, two of his own sons murder him. Esarhaddon becomes King of Assyria.
There are some outside sources that talk about Sennacherib. Apparently Sennacherib himself never claimed to have defeated Jerusalem, but only to have besieged it. He was killed in a temple by one or two of his sons, depending on which account you read. There is also speculation in this article about what "really" killed so many in the Assyrian army - though this mass death is not reported by Sennacherib in his account of the time.