---
title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible -  2 Kings 18"
description: "CHAPTER 18   :-. HEZEKIAH"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/2-kings/18"
---

CHAPTER 18

. HEZEKIAH'S
GOOD REIGN.

**1, 2. Hezekiah . . . began to reign.
Twenty and five years old**—According to this statement (compare
[2 Kings 16:2](../../../kjv/2-kings/16/2)), he must have been
born when his father Ahaz was no more than eleven years old.
Paternity at an age so early is not unprecedented in the warm
climates of the south, where the human frame is matured sooner than
in our northern regions. But the case admits of solution in a
different way. It was customary for the later kings of Israel to
assume their son and heir into partnership in the government during
their lives; and as Hezekiah began to reign in the third year of
Hoshea ([2 Kings 18:1](../../../kjv/2-kings/18/1)), and Hoshea
in the twelfth year of Ahaz ([2 Kings 18:1](../../../kjv/2-kings/18/1)), it is evident that Hezekiah began to reign in the
fourteenth year of Ahaz his father, and so reigned two or three years
before his father's death. So that, at the beginning of his reign in
conjunction with his father, he might be only twenty-two or
twenty-three, and Ahaz a few years older than the common calculation
makes him. Or the case may be solved thus: As the ancient writers, in
the computation of time, take notice of the year they mention,
whether finished or newly begun, so Ahaz might be near twenty-one
years old at the beginning of his reign, and near seventeen years
older at his death; while, on the other hand, Hezekiah, when he began
to reign, might be just entering into his twenty-fifth year, and so
Ahaz would be near fourteen years old when his son Hezekiah was
born—no uncommon age for a young man to become a father in southern
latitudes [PATRICK].
[2 Kings 18:1](../../../kjv/2-kings/18/1). HE DESTROYS
IDOLATRY.

**4. He removed the high places and
brake the images,** c.—The methods adopted by this good king for
extirpating idolatry, and accomplishing a thorough reformation in
religion, are fully detailed ([2 Chronicles 20:3](../../../kjv/2-chronicles/20/3)
[2 Chronicles 31:19](../../../kjv/2-chronicles/31/19)). But they are
indicated very briefly, and in a sort of passing allusion.
**brake in pieces the brazen
serpent**—The preservation of this remarkable relic of antiquity
([Numbers 21:5-10](../../../kjv/numbers/21/5-10)) might, like
the pot of manna and Aaron's rod, have remained an interesting and
instructive monument of the divine goodness and mercy to the
Israelites in the wilderness: and it must have required the exercise
of no small courage and resolution to destroy it. But in the progress
of degeneracy it had become an object of idolatrous worship and as
the interests of true religion rendered its demolition necessary,
Hezekiah, by taking this bold step, consulted both the glory of God
and the good of his country.
**unto those days the children
of Israel did burn incense to it**—It is not to be supposed that
this superstitious reverence had been paid to it ever since the time
of Moses, for such idolatry would not have been tolerated either by
David or by Solomon in the early part of his reign, by Asa or
Jehoshaphat had they been aware of such a folly. But the probability
is, that the introduction of this superstition does not date earlier
than the time when the family of Ahab, by their alliance with the
throne of Judah, exercised a pernicious influence in paving the way
for all kinds of idolatry. It is possible, however, as some think,
that its origin may have arisen out of a misapprehension of Moses'
language ([Numbers 21:8](../../../kjv/numbers/21/8)).
Serpent-worship, how revolting soever it may appear, was an
extensively diffused form of idolatry; and it would obtain an easier
reception in Israel because many of the neighboring nations, such as
the Egyptians and Phoelignicians, adored idol gods in the form of
serpents as the emblems of health and immortality.

**5, 6. He trusted in the Lord God of
Israel**—without invoking the aid or purchasing the succor of
foreign auxiliaries like Asa ([1 Kings 15:18](../../../kjv/1-kings/15/18);
[1 Kings 15:19](../../../kjv/1-kings/15/19)) and Ahaz ([2 Kings 16:17](../../../kjv/2-kings/16/17);
[Isaiah 7:1-25](../../../kjv/isaiah/7/1-25)).
**so that after him was none
like him among all the kings of Judah**—Of course David and
Solomon are excepted, they having had the sovereignty of the whole
country. In the petty kingdom of Judah, Josiah alone had a similar
testimony borne to him ([Isaiah 7:1-23](../../../kjv/isaiah/7/1-23)). But even he was surpassed by Hezekiah, who set about a
national reformation at the beginning of his reign, which Josiah did
not. The pious character and the excellent course of Hezekiah was
prompted, among other secondary influences, by a sense of the
calamities his father's wicked career had brought on the country, as
well as by the counsels of Isaiah.

**7, 8. he rebelled against the king
of Assyria**—that is, the yearly tribute his father had
stipulated to pay, he, with imprudent haste, withdrew. Pursuing the
policy of a truly theocratic sovereign, he was, through the divine
blessing which rested on his government, raised to a position of
great public and national strength. Shalmaneser had withdrawn from
Palestine, being engaged perhaps in a war with Tyre, or probably he
was dead. Assuming, consequently, that full independent sovereignty
which God had settled on the house of David, he both shook off the
Assyrian yoke, and, by an energetic movement against the Philistines,
recovered from that people the territory which they had taken from
his father Ahaz ([2 Chronicles 28:18](../../../kjv/2-chronicles/28/18)).

**13. Sennacherib**—the son and
successor of Shalmaneser.
**all the fenced cities of
Judah**—not absolutely all of them; for, besides the capital,
some strong fortresses held out against the invader ([2 Kings 18:17](../../../kjv/2-kings/18/17);
[2 Kings 19:8](../../../kjv/2-kings/19/8)). The following account
of Sennacherib's invasion of Judah and the remarkable destruction of
his army, is repeated almost verbatim in [2 Chronicles 32:1-33](../../../kjv/2-chronicles/32/1-33);
[Isaiah 36:1-37](../../../kjv/isaiah/36/1-37). The expedition
seems to have been directed against Egypt, the conquest of which was
long a leading object of ambition with the Assyrian monarchs. But the
invasion of Judah necessarily preceded, that country being the key to
Egypt, the highway through which the conquerors from Upper Asia had
to pass. Judah had also at this time formed a league of mutual
defense with Egypt ([2 Kings 18:24](../../../kjv/2-kings/18/24)).
Moreover, it was now laid completely open by the transplantation of
Israel to Assyria. Overrunning Palestine, Sennacherib laid siege to
the fortress of Lachish, which lay seven Roman miles from
Eleutheropolis, and therefore southwest of Jerusalem on the way to
Egypt [ROBINSON]. Among
the interesting illustrations of sacred history furnished by the
recent Assyrian excavations, is a series of bas-reliefs, representing
the siege of a town, which the inscription on the sculpture shows to
be Lachish, and the figure of a king, whose name is given, on the
same inscription, as Sennacherib. The legend, sculptured over the
head of the king, runs thus: "Sennacherib, the mighty king, king
of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throne of judgment before
the city of Lachish [Lakhisha], I give permission for its slaughter"
[*Nineveh and Babylon*]. This minute confirmation of the truth
of the Bible narrative is given not only by the name Lachish, which
is contained in the inscription, but from the physiognomy of the
captives brought before the king, which is unmistakably Jewish.

**14-16. Hezekiah . . . sent to
Lachish, saying, . . . that which thou puttest on me will I
bear**—Disappointed in his expectations of aid from Egypt, and
feeling himself unable to resist so mighty a conqueror who was
menacing Jerusalem itself, Hezekiah made his submission. The payment
of 300 talents of silver, and 30 talents of gold—£351,000—brought
a temporary respite; but, in raising the imposed tribute, he was
obliged not only to drain all the treasures of the palace and the
temple, but even to strip the doors and pillars of the sacred edifice
of the gold that adorned them.
. SENNACHERIB
BESIEGES JERUSALEM.

**17. king of Assyria sent
Tartan**—general ([Isaiah 20:1](../../../kjv/isaiah/20/1)).
**Rab-saris**—chief of the
eunuchs.
**Rab-shakeh**—chief
cupbearer. These were the great officers employed in delivering
Sennacherib's insulting message to Hezekiah. On the walls of the
palace of Sennacherib, at Khorsabad, certain figures have been
identified with the officers of that sovereign mentioned in
Scripture. In particular, the figures, Rab-shakeh, Rab-saris, and
Tartan, appear as full-length portraits of the persons holding those
offices in the reign of Sennacherib. Probably they represent the very
individuals sent on this embassy.
**with a great host to
Jerusalem**—Engaged in a campaign of three years in Egypt,
Sennacherib was forced by the king of Ethiopia to retreat, and
discharging his rage against Jerusalem, he sent an immense army to
summon it to surrender. (See on [Isaiah 20:1](../../../kjv/isaiah/20/1)).
**the conduit of the upper
pool**—the conduit which went from the reservoir of the Upper
Gihon (Birket et Mamilla) to the lower pool, the Birket es Sultan.
**the highway of the fuller's
field**—the public road which passed by that district, which had
been assigned them for carrying on their business without the city,
on account of the unpleasant smell [KEIL].

**18. when they had called to the
king**—Hezekiah did not make a personal appearance, but
commissioned his three principal ministers to meet the Assyrian
deputies at a conference outside the city walls.
**Eliakim**—lately promoted
to be master of the royal household ().
**Shebna**—removed for his
pride and presumption ([Isaiah 22:15](../../../kjv/isaiah/22/15))
from that office, though still royal secretary.
**Joah . . . the recorder**—that
is, the keeper of the chronicles, an important office in Eastern
countries.

**19. Rab-shakeh said**—The
insolent tone he assumed appears surprising. But this boasting [], both as to matter and manner, his highly colored
picture of his master's powers and resources, and the impossibility
of Hezekiah making any effective resistance, heightened by all the
arguments and figures which an Oriental imagination could suggest,
has been paralleled in all, except the blasphemy, by other messages
of defiance sent on similar occasions in the history of the East.

**27. that they may eat,** &c.—This
was designed to show the dreadful extremities to which, in the
threatened siege, the people of Jerusalem would be reduced.

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