Study Desk

So the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel (Jacob) and [repeatedly] afflicted them and handed them over to plunderers, until He had cast them out of His sight.

until the LORD removed Israel from His sight, just as He had foretold through all His servants the prophets. So Israel went into exile from their own land to Assyria to this day [the date of this writing].

He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.

Hezekiah did right in the sight of the LORD, in accordance with everything that David his father (ancestor) had done.

For he clung to the LORD; he did not turn away from [faithfully] following Him, but he kept His commandments, which the LORD had commanded Moses.

because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, but broke His covenant, everything that Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded; and they would not listen nor do it.

Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan and the Rab-saris and the Rabshakeh [his highest officials] with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem, and when they went up and arrived, they stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool, which is on the road of the Fuller's Field.

"Now pay attention: you are relying on Egypt, on that staff of crushed reed; if a man leans on it, it will only go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust and rely on him.

'Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: "Surrender to me and come out to [meet] me, and every man may eat from his own vine and fig tree, and every man may drink the waters of his own well,

'Has any one of the gods of the nations ever rescued his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

When king Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and he covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house (temple) of the LORD.

Then he sent Eliakim who was in charge of his household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

'It may be that the LORD your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to taunt and defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard. So offer a prayer for the remnant [of His people] that is left [in Judah].'"

"Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land."'"

"Now, O LORD our God, please, save us from his hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know [without any doubt] that You alone, O LORD, are God."

It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with a sword; and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying,

Hezekiah listened to and welcomed them and [foolishly] showed them all his treasure house—the silver and gold and spices and precious oil and his armory and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house (palace) nor in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

The rest of the acts of Hezekiah and all his might, and how he made the [Siloam] pool and the aqueduct and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

Hezekiah slept with his fathers [in death], and Manasseh his son became king in his place.