2 Kings 19 · WEB
Hezekiah's Prayer; Isaiah's Prophecy; 185,000 Assyrians Die; Sennacherib Killed
Listen — WEB narration 0:00 / 0:00 Narration: World English Bible (David Williams), public domain — AudioTreasure.
Tap a verse to copy it, open the Hebrew, or write a note.
When king Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh's house.
2He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.
3They said to him, "Hezekiah says, 'This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth and there is no strength to deliver them.
4It may be that Yahweh your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.'"
5So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
6Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, 'Yahweh says: "Don't be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
7Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he will hear news and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."'"
8So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.
9He heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, "Behold, he has come out to fight against you." He sent messengers to Hezekiah again, saying,
10"Tell Hezekiah king of Judah, 'Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, "Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."
11Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Will you be delivered?
12Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?
13Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?'"
14Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Hezekiah went up to Yahweh's house and spread it before Yahweh.
15Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh and said, "Yahweh, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
16Incline your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and see. Hear the words of Sennacherib, with which he has sent to defy the living God.
17Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands,
18and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands — wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them.
19Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh God, even you only."
20Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, "Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: 'Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,
21this is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: "The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.
22Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel!
23By your messengers you have defied the Lord, and have said, 'With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees. I will enter into its farthest lodging place, the forest of its fruitful field.
24I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.'
25Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.
26Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops and like grain blasted before it has grown up.
27But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your raging against me.
28Because of your raging against me and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came."'
29"'This will be the sign to you: This year you will eat what grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
30The remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
31For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and out of Mount Zion those who shall escape. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.
32"'Therefore Yahweh says concerning the king of Assyria: "He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.
33By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city," says Yahweh.
34"For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for my servant David's sake."'"
35That night the angel of Yahweh went out and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned and lived at Nineveh.
37As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
✶
Summary
When Sennacherib sends a threatening letter directly to Hezekiah, the king takes it into the Temple and literally spreads it before God in prayer — one of the most moving acts of faith in the Old Testament. Isaiah then delivers God's response: a stunning poetic oracle that turns Sennacherib's boasts back on him, declaring that his entire career of conquest was God's own sovereign work, and that God has heard Sennacherib's arrogance and will return him home by a hook in his nose. That very night, the angel of Yahweh kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in their camp. Sennacherib returns to Nineveh and is later assassinated by his own sons while worshipping his god.
Themes
- Prayer as the most powerful strategic response to overwhelming threat
- God's absolute sovereignty over even the greatest earthly empires
- The contrast between trusting God and trusting human military strength
- God's defense of Jerusalem for the sake of his own name and David's covenant
Key verses
- 2 Kgs 19:14-15 — “Hezekiah went up to Yahweh's house and spread it before Yahweh. Hezekiah prayed… 'You are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth.'”
- 2 Kgs 19:28 — “Because of your raging against me… I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.”
- 2 Kgs 19:35 — “That night the angel of Yahweh went out and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians.”
Context & background
Sennacherib's destruction of Lachish (modern Tel Lachish, southern Israel) is archaeologically confirmed with massive evidence of destruction and a mass burial of 1,500 bodies. His own annals boast of trapping Hezekiah "like a bird in a cage" in Jerusalem but do not claim to have captured it — a conspicuous omission that aligns with the biblical account. Nineveh (modern Mosul, northern Iraq) was the Assyrian capital, and Sennacherib's assassination by his sons in 681 BC is confirmed in Assyrian records. The land of Ararat where the murderers fled is modern Armenia. The killing of 185,000 Assyrians has prompted comparison with a Greek historian Herodotus' account of mice eating the Assyrians' bowstrings — possibly a garbled memory of a plague that wiped out the army. Isaiah 36-37 contains an expanded parallel version.
Cross-references
- 2 Chr 32:9-23 — The Chronicler's account of Sennacherib's humiliation
- Exod 14:24-25 — The angel of Yahweh in the Assyrian camp echoes the destruction of Pharaoh's army
- Isa 36-37 — The parallel account in Isaiah, containing additional prophecy
- Ps 46:5-7 — "God is in the middle of her; she shall not be moved… The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved; he uttered his voice, the earth melted"
- Rev 19:15 — God himself as the ultimate warrior who destroys the enemies of his people