Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
2 Kings 18:13-17
The Invasion Of Judah By Sennacherib Results In Hezekiah Yielding And Being Called On To Face Major Penalties, Only For Sennacherib To Do An About Face And Decide To Take Jerusalem After All (2 Kings 18:13).
Tyre, Ashkelon and Gaza having been defeated, and the remaining members of the alliance having submitted, Hezekiah was left on his own to face the full force of Assyria's frontal attack. One by one Sennacherib began to besiege and take Judah's fortified cities, with their surrounding towns and villages, transporting huge numbers of their inhabitants in the process, together with their treasured possessions, and then he laid siege to Lachish, Judah's second city. Recognising the futility of resistance Hezekiah sued for terms. The terms were severe. He was to pay three hundred talent's weight of silver, and thirty talent's weight of gold. Furthermore the Assyrian record lays out much more (see above), including the handing over of Padi, the pro-Assyrian king of Ekron who was being held captive in Jerusalem.
The penalty was huge, and Hezekiah had to empty both the Temple treasury and the palace treasury, and to strip the Temple of its gold, in order to meet it. It may in fact be that that was insufficient for Sennacherib with the result that he decided to collect more, for having seemingly accepted the treaty he then reneged on it, which could be explained if the tribute fell short of requirements. Alternatively it may be that when Hezekiah's servants arrived with the tribute Sennacherib decided that he wanted not only the tribute as brought by Hezekiah's officials but Hezekiah's own personal submission as an act of open contrition (and deliberate humiliation), something that Hezekiah was not prepared to do, possibly fearing the consequences (consider what had happened to Hoshea - 2 Kings 17:4) or it may be that he then heard that a large Egyptian force might shortly be on its way which would include Judean mercenaries, and gathered from that fact that Hezekiah was possibly double-dealing.
Whichever way it was Sennacherib, reneging on his treaty, sent an advance force to Jerusalem in order to besiege it, close if off from outside contact, and starve it into submission. All appeared to be over for Jerusalem.
Analysis.
a Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them (2 Kings 18:13).
b And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, “I have offended, return from me. What you put on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold (2 Kings 18:14).
c And Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of YHWH, and in the treasures of the king's house (2 Kings 18:15).
b At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of YHWH, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria (2 Kings 18:16).
a And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rab-saris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:17 a).
Note that in ‘a' Sennacherib of Assyria took many of the fortified cities of Judah, and in the parallel he besieged the most important one of all. In ‘b' he required from Hezekiah thirty talent's weight of gold, and in the parallel Hezekiah stripped the Temple of its gold-plating in order to try to meet the demand. Centrally in ‘c' all the silver in the treasuries of Judah were handed overt to Sennacherib.
‘Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.'
This was the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's sole reign, and in that year Sennacherib invaded Judah with his full force. In his own words, ‘forty six of his strong-walled towns and innumerable smaller villages in their neighbourhood I besieged and took'. Things looked decidedly grim for Judah.
‘And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, “I have offended, return from me. What you put on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.'
King Hezekiah recognised that the game was up and that the best thing that he could do was sue for the best terms he could obtain. So he sent messengers to Lachish, saying, “I have offended, return from me. What you put on me I will bear.” In other words he was admitting his fault as a rebellious vassal and asking him to withdraw his troops in return for whatever fine Sennacherib decided to exact. The reply that the messengers brought back was that he must pay three hundred talent's weight of silver, and thirty talent's weight of gold. This was, of course, on top of all the spoil that Sennacherib's army had seized, ‘innumerable horses, mules, donkeys, camels and large and small cattle'. Other tribute, which was to follow later to Nineveh, was to include Hezekiah's daughters as concubines, and some male and female musicians. And on top of this a large number of people were taken into exile. The number mentioned is an unusual one (200,150) suggesting that it was not intended to be taken literally (Possibly it signifies two hundred important families and one hundred and fifty notables). Large numbers were regularly used at the time in order to give an impression, rather than as being intended to be taken literally.
Sennacherib's account cited eight hundred talents of silver, but that may have been typical Assyrian exaggeration in order to magnify his own importance, especially as he had raced back to Assyria without subduing Jerusalem, or it may have been due to the use of the Assyrian light talent in the reckoning, instead of the Judaean one, or it may have been that Sennacherib included in his assessment not only the official three hundred talents weight of stamped ingots, but other silver obtained in one way or another. Alternatively it may be that at some stage Sennacherib upped the price, at least in his own mind, in order to give the impression that his invasion had been greatly profitable. (In view of what happened at Jerusalem he may well never have received all that he asked for and may have been nursing a wounded ego. Inscriptions were after all for propaganda purposes, not in order to tell the literal truth. Few kings ever recorded a defeat). Temple and palace treasures were very carefully assessed and recorded so that the Biblical figures can be relied on.
‘And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of YHWH, and in the treasures of the king's house.'
In response to his request Hezekiah emptied the Temple and palace treasuries of silver, which was apparently at the time the standard measure of wealth in Judah, as there does not appear to have been any gold in store. This confirms the relative poverty of Judah at this time. Note again that the emphasis is on all the treasures in Judah, not just those in the Temple. This emptying of both treasuries was a regular indication by the author of YHWH's unhappiness with the situation (compare 2 Kings 12:18; 2Ki 14:14; 2 Kings 18:15; 2 Kings 24:13; 1 Kings 14:6; 1 Kings 15:18), in this case probably due to the fact that Hezekiah had not turned to YHWH for a solution to his problems. (Compare Isaiah 7:7; Isaiah 7:11; Isaiah 7:14 containing a rebuke to Ahaz for not trusting in YHWH, something which Hezekiah would have known about). Once he did the solution would in fact be found).
‘At that time Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doorposts of the temple of YHWH, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.'
In order to obtain the required gold Hezekiah had to strip the pillars (and possibly the doorposts, the word occurs nowhere else) of the Temple because all his limited amount of gold had been used for the purpose of honouring YHWH. Both the references to the silver and the gold would suggest that Hezekiah was finding it hard to achieve the required level of tribute, which may well have contributed to Sennacherib's dissatisfaction with the situation. We must remember that as a result of the circumstances of the invasion Hezekiah had limited opportunities for exacting taxes in order to supplement what was in the treasuries.
‘And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rab-saris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem.
Possibly as a consequence of Hezekiah's failure to achieve the required amount of tribute, or possibly because Sennacherib decided that he wanted to see the proud Hezekiah personally grovelling at his feet (which he in the event admitted never happened), or possibly because of suspicions of a further conspiracy, Sennacherib, instead of withdrawing, sent a large detachment of his troops (‘great army' is how it was seen by the defenders of Jerusalem) to Jerusalem. The aim was to ensure that no one could go in and out of Jerusalem with a view to starving it into submission. And with the army came three important officials of Assyria, Tartan (the commander-in-chief of the Assyrian armies), Rabsaris (possibly rabu-sa-resi = the one who is at the head, in other words another leading military official); and the Rabshakeh (rab-saqu = chief ruler or cupbearer). In regard to the latter we must remember that to be the king's cupbearer was to be in the most trustworthy position in the kingdom. Here it represents a top political figure. Sennacherib's aim was clearly to overawe the people of Jerusalem with the splendour of his messengers.
Isaiah only mentions the Rabshakeh, who was, of course, the spokesman, but Isaiah has a tendency to abbreviation of the original source, although occasionally expanding as compared with Kings. Both 2 Kings 18:13; 2 Kings 18:17 onwards and Isaiah 36-39 appear to be extracted from the same source (almost word for word), with both maintaining the order of the accounts as contained in the source. If one was copied from the other the order of the accounts might be seen as favouring Isaiah as the original with its movement from Assyria to Babylon.
As we see this army detachment ‘surrounding' Jerusalem with these three great men at its head, and the citizens of Jerusalem gathered on its wall looking anxiously over, we are reminded of the vivid words of Sennacherib, ‘He himself (Hezekiah) I shut up like a caged bird within Jerusalem his royal city. I put watch-posts strictly around it, and turned back to his disaster any who went out of its city gate.' It appeared that it would only be a matter of time before Jerusalem went the same way as Damascus.
‘From Lachish.' Lachish was Judah's second city and powerfully fortified, although it eventually fell to the Assyrian forces (2 Kings 19:8), a disaster vividly portrayed on a relief in Nineveh (a fact which demonstrates that Jerusalem was not taken). It was in the south of the Shephelah (lower foothills) and guarded the way into Judah. Many traces of the siege have been discovered such as weapon-heads, armour scales and the crest socket for a helmet plume.
We may see in this situation a picture of the besieged church of Jesus Christ as it takes its stand in the world with its enemies all about, so vividly depicted in Revelation 20:9, ‘and they (those gathered by Satan) went up on the breadth of the earth, and they encompassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city (now composed of all the people of God - Revelation 21).' As a colony of Heaven on earth (Philippians 3:20) God's people are constantly surrounded by the enemy, requiring to be clothed in the full armour of God in order to finally overcome (Ephesians 6:10).