In the third year of Hoshea, king of Israel, Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, began to reign in Judah. He was twenty-five years old when he became king and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother was Abi (or Abijah) daughter of Zechariah, and he did what was right in God’s eyes, following his father David (v1-3). He removed the high places, broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image, and broke the serpent which Moses had made.
The serpent was made by Moses at God’s instruction when the Children of Israel were travelling in the wilderness and were bitten by fiery serpents and were dying. Moses had been told to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole so that the people could look at it and live (Numbers 21). However, the people later worshiped it as an idol calling it Nehushtan (v4). There were times when God told them to raise memorials, for example, the twelve stones when they had passed through the Jordan into the Promised Land (Joshua 4), but they were not to be worshiped as idols. Memorials are one thing but not to be made into idols or false gods.
Hezekiah was a good king, one who trusted in the LORD God. There was none like him before or since as king of Judah, holding fast to the LORD, following Him, and obeying his commandments given through Moses (v5,6). As a result, the LORD was with him, he rebelled against the king of Assyria, refusing to serve him. He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza (v7,8). He saw what God had done to the Northern Kingdom, and it was a lesson to him. I gather that there is a problem with the chronology, but I am not qualified to look into that.
Hezekiah was a very courageous king, doing what he did about the false worship would not have been popular, but it was very necessary, even to destroying the bronze serpent which would have been a wonderful reminder of their history. The making of an idol of it only goes to show what man can do to something to something made at God’s command and misusing it. Good things can become idols and must be destroyed.
What good things do we make into idols? I will leave that to you, but may I suggest that people can be made idols, family, customs, even forms of worship. Anything which takes the place of God in our lives is capable of being idolised and worshiped.
Nehushtan means ‘piece of brass’. One writer commented ‘that something made by God’s command, which by looking at it gave them life, Hezekiah turned an object of worship into a piece of scrap metal’.
Hezekiah was not following in his own father’s footsteps. Ahaz was one of Judah’s worst kings (2 Kings 16) but remarkably, Hezekiah, his son, followed God.
Even though one is born into a godless family, that does not prevent God from changing that person and using him for His glory. I know plenty who did not have a good start but have turned out to be fine servants of the Living God, having been saved. Hezekiah did have a good man available to him – Isaiah.
Hebrews 7:25 says, ‘God is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him (The Lord Jesus Christ) since He always lives to make intercession for them.’
Because of Hezekiah’s trust in God, he was blessed, even to making him strong and courageous against the mighty Assyria and other aggressive neighbours, the Philistines. (v7,8)
In his fourth year, Shalmaneser king of Assyria took Samaria (Israel the Northern Kingdom) because they didn’t obey the LORD their God (v9-12). It took three years to complete it. In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria, came against Judah and took the fortified cities, including Lachish, around thirty miles south-west of Jerusalem, and only Jerusalem remained (v13-16).
I understand that the British Museum displays Assyrian carvings relating to Lachish portraying the Assyrian king on his throne in his camp with prisoners of war marching on foot and the booty on ox-wagons.
Hezekiah falters and relents for not paying the tribute and decided to trust the Assyrian king rather than God. The king of Assyria made his own demands, three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. He gave him all the silver from the house of the LORD and the treasuries from the king’s house. He stripped the gold from the doors of the temple and the pillars.
Did he think this would appease the situation and still make him strong? If so, he was wrong. It merely meant that Assyria became bolder against Judah.
The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris and the Rabshakeh from Lachish (v17).
I believe the Rabsaris was a high-ranking official, maybe chief eunuch serving the king of Assyria. In Jeremiah 39:3,13 a Rabsaris was named Nebushazbaz in Babylonia, who was involved in taking care of Jeremiah. Thus, Rabsaris was a title, as was Tartan, a high-ranking Assyrian military commander. In Isaiah 20:1 Sargon the king of Assyria sent the Tartan to capture Ashdod. Rabshakeh was also an Assyrian title, like field commander.
These men stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. The aqueduct was right in the city and the main water supply. Thus, they had made their way to the centre of the city of Jerusalem. They called out to the king, and he sent three of his officials to go and meet them. They were – Eliakim, who was over his household, Shebna, the scribe, and Joah, the recorder. None of these appeared to be military men like the Assyrians, they were more like civil servants.
The Rabshakeh told them to tell Hezekiah that the great king of Assyria questioned their confidence in Egypt. He asked, “What confidence do you trust in?” “Who do you trust in?” They said that their plans for war and their boast of power were mere words. Hezekiah was relying on his alliance with Egypt (v17-20). The prophet Isaiah had done all he could to discourage this (see Isaiah 19:11-17, 20:1-6, 30:1-7).
The Rabshakeh was trying to demoralise Judah, just as Satan does to us. He even spoke the truth that confidence in Egypt would be insufficient, and believe it or not, Satan does with us at times, but it is not lead us to trust in the LORD God, that’s the last thing he wants. He merely seeks to lead us to despair.
The Rabshakeh continued by saying that they were trusting in a broken reed, which if a man leaned on, would pierce his hand. That was his picture of Pharaoh. It was a truer picture than the leaders of Judah could see (v21). If you are saying that you trust in the LORD, your God. Hasn’t Hezekiah taken away the high places and altars, and told the people to worship before the altar in Jerusalem? (v22) The Rabshakeh was probably thinking that Hezekiah’s actions had displeased the LORD, when, in fact, the opposite. Haven’t I come without your LORD against you to destroy you? How do you know that the LORD hasn’t told me to come and destroy you? (v25). His aim was for Judah to surrender to save having a battle and possible bloodshed. He had a much superior army, but he was simply trying to demoralise Judah into giving up.
His argument was that if you trust in me, I will give you two thousand horses if you’ve got enough riders for them. If you put your trust in Egypt with their horses and chariots, you won’t repel one of the least of my captains (v23,24).
He was being so brash as to say that God had allowed him to come so far so, what chance did Hezekiah have against him. Eliakim, Shebna and Joah asked the Rabshakeh to speak in Aramaic which they would understand and not in Hebrew which all would understand (v26). In one way they didn’t want the people to hear this in case they became utterly discouraged and surrender, however, the Rabshakeh refused and called out in Hebrew, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will be unable to deliver you from the great king of Assyria’ (v27-31). He urged them to make peace with him and all would be well, and he would take them to a new land like their own, and not to listen to Hezekiah who says that the LORD will deliver them (v31,32). His final tactic was to say that God was on his side and not Hezekiah’s. The circumstances seemed that that was a possibility and it would have been easy for the people of Judah to believe that. Whilst this was prophesied in Isaiah 7 & 8 that God would use the Assyrians to carry out these invasions, it is wrong to say that they were obeying the LORD’s will, they were merely being used by God to fulfil His plan. God is not responsible for evil, although He may allow it to happen to bring about good (v33-35).
The Rabshakeh’s speech was deliberately intended to destroy their trust in God. One writer has said, His message was simple, and brilliant in its Satanic logic: “The gods of other nations have not been able to protect them against us. Your God is just like one of them and can’t protect you either.”
In one way the Rabshakeh’s words were logical, but not spiritual. He went too far in saying that he was fulfilling the will of God.
Satan used the same tactics with Jesus in the temptations in Luke 4, and he will use them with us.
The people kept quiet and didn’t answer the Rabshakeh, as Hezekiah had instructed them (v36), and
Eliakim, Shebna and Joah came and reported to Hezekiah, with torn clothes, telling him all that the Rabshakeh had said (v37). The people obeyed the king. Things were hard and difficult, but the battle wasn’t yet over.
The Lord Jesus was mostly silent in his trial before the crucifixion. He did not answer questions which were false. Isaiah in his prophecy (chapter 53) said that He would not open his mouth.
Silence is often the best answer in such circumstances, rather than trying to argue one’s way out of a situation.
Perhaps, silence is golden, sometimes.
