History · Chapter 18 of 25
2 Kings 18
Hezekiah becomes Judah's most faithful king, trusting the LORD, removing the high places, and even destroying the bronze serpent that had become an idol. He rebels against Assyria. When Sennacherib invades and captures Judah's fortified cities, his commander Rabshakeh stands before Jerusalem's walls, mocking Judah's trust in God and Egypt, and urging surrender. The people, under orders, answer him not a word.
What happens in 2 Kings 18
Hezekiah reigns in Judah and does right like David, trusting the LORD so fully that none of Judah's kings compare to him. He removes the high places, smashes idols and sacred pillars, and breaks the bronze serpent Moses had made, because the people had begun worshiping it, calling it Nehushtan. He rebels against Assyria and prospers. But Sennacherib invades and takes Judah's fortified cities; Hezekiah tries to pay him off with temple treasures, even stripping the temple's gold.
Assyria sends a great army anyway, and the field commander Rabshakeh taunts Jerusalem in Hebrew before the people on the wall. He mocks trust in Egypt as a broken reed, questions their trust in the LORD, claims God has sent him to destroy the city, and boasts that no nation's god has delivered anyone from Assyria. Hezekiah's officials, forbidden to answer, return with torn clothes and report his words.
2 Kings 18 in context
Hezekiah is presented as a reformer king who reversed the corruptions of his father Ahaz and centralized worship in Jerusalem. His removal of the high places and even the bronze serpent shows a zeal to purify Judah's faith. His reign coincides with Assyria at the height of its power under Sennacherib, around 701 before Christ.
Rabshakeh's speech is a masterpiece of psychological warfare, aimed at breaking the people's confidence in both their king and their God before a shot is fired.
Main themes of 2 Kings 18
2 Kings 18 (KJV)
1Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah. 3And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did. 4He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. 5He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. 6For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses. 7And the LORD was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not. 8He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 9And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it. 10And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. 11And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes: 12Because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear them, nor do them. 13Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. 14And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king’s house. 16At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria. 17And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller’s field. 18And when they had called to the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder. 19And Rabshakeh said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? 20Thou sayest, (but they are but vain words,) I have counsel and strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? 21Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him. 22But if ye say unto me, We trust in the LORD our God: is not that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem? 23Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my lord the king of Assyria, and I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them. 24How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 25Am 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. 26Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people that are on the wall. 27But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? 28Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and spake, saying, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria: 29Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand: 30Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. 31Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern: 32Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The LORD will deliver us. 33Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 34Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand? 35Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand? 36But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king’s commandment was, saying, Answer him not. 37Then came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.
Verses to carry from 2 Kings 18
“He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.”2 Kings 18:4
“He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.”2 Kings 18:5
“Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.”2 Kings 18:30
Christian typology
How 2 Kings 18 points to Jesus
Hezekiah breaks the bronze serpent because Israel had turned a symbol of salvation into an idol, and that very serpent becomes one of Jesus' own pictures of himself. He told Nicodemus that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him might have eternal life. The people once looked at the bronze serpent and lived; now we look to Christ lifted on the cross and are saved.
Hezekiah rightly destroys the object once its purpose was corrupted, but the reality it foreshadowed cannot be destroyed. Where Hezekiah trusts God against an empire's threats and mockery, Christ trusts the Father through far greater darkness, and where Rabshakeh insists no one can deliver, Christ becomes the deliverance he denied was possible.
Questions about 2 Kings 18
Why did Hezekiah destroy the bronze serpent that God had once commanded?
Because the people had turned it into an idol, burning incense to it as though the object itself held power. What God gave as a temporary sign of his mercy had become a rival to God. Hezekiah's act shows that even sacred, God-given things must be renounced when they displace God himself. The reality behind the sign, later revealed in Christ, is what actually saves.
How should believers respond to voices that mock their faith like Rabshakeh's?
Hezekiah's men were commanded to answer not a word, then took the taunt to God and to the prophet. Sometimes the wisest response to intimidation and ridicule is not argument but silence before people and honesty before God. Rabshakeh mixed truth with lies to erode confidence; faith answers such attacks by refusing to be baited and by carrying the threat straight into God's presence.
Reflection
Hezekiah destroyed even the bronze serpent, a relic of real grace, once it became an idol. It is a searching example. Are there good things, even blessings God once gave, that have quietly taken his place in your heart? Faithfulness sometimes means dismantling what we have come to worship instead of the God who gave it.
Look instead to Christ lifted up.
A prayer from 2 Kings 18
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