2 Kings 18:13-16

This Sennacherib must have been the successor to Shalmaneser. And perhaps his victory over Samaria prompted him to suppose, that he should be conqueror of Jerusalem. And though it is said the Lord prospered Hezekiah whithersoever he went, yet we find the Lord was pleased; in the opening of this siege, to give Sennacherib a temporary triumph, with a vi e w to a more signal display of his own Almighty power, in the salvation of his servant, and his people. Reader! it is one of the Lord's usual plans of mercy, for the exercise of his peoples faith, and for the manifestation of his own grace and love, to let us see what poor creatures we are, and should forever remain, but for him. Poor Hezekiah needed this lesson, it seems; for when the Lord permitted this enemy to triumph a little, instead of looking to the Lord, he made a pitiful compromise, and bought off the foe with a present. Alas! what poor creatures we are!