2 Kings 18 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study

2 Kings 18 Short Summary:

Hezekiah was a godly king, in fact, we are told he was the godliest king since David led the nation. 2 Kings 18 documents his early days on the throne, followed by his difficult days fighting with the king of Assyria. He tried to pay the king of Assyria to leave Jerusalem alone, but the Assyrians sent their army to the city. This chapter recounts how the Rabshakeh, an Assyrian official, mocked Judah and their God, and tried to scare them into surrendering.

2 Kings 18 Extended Summary

WHEN:

• Hezekiah’s reign probably fits within the window of 730-695 B.C.

• He reigned for 29 years in Judah.

CHARACTERS:

• Hezekiah – King of Judah. He was the son of Ahaz.

• Sennacherib – The king of Assyria.

• The Rabshakeh – An Assyrian military official who threatened Jerusalem and Hezekiah.

WHERE:

• Hezekiah reigned over Judah from Jerusalem. The king of Assyria sent an army and military officers to threaten the city of Jerusalem in an attempt to scare Hezekiah into surrendering.  

• The Assyrians conquered Samaria and deported the residents of Israel far away into the land belonging to the Assyrian Empire.

OUTLINE:

• HEZEKIAH BECOMES KING IN JUDAH (18:1-8):

  • Hezekiah became king of Judah when he was 25 years old and reigned 29 years.

  • “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.” He even removed the high places from Judah. No king of Judah followed the Lord like Hezekiah (18:5).

  • He destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had created in the wilderness (Num 21:8) because it had become an idol to the people. They called the serpent Nehushtan.

  • God blessed Hezekiah and helped him. Hezekiah fought with the Philistines and defeated them. He also rebelled against the king of Assyria.

• ISRAEL IS TAKEN CAPTIVE TO ASSYRIA (18:9-12):

  • These verses give another short summary of the events discussed in 2 Kings 17. The king of Assyria besieged Samaria, defeated it, and took the people of Israel captive. He relocated them across the Assyrian Empire.

  • God allowed the Assyrians to do this because the people of Israel disrespected Him and His laws.

• ASSYRIA ATTACKS JUDAH (18:13-37):

  • In Hezekiah’s 14th year as king, Sennacherib of Assyria attacked Judah.

  • Hezekiah agreed to pay Sennacherib a large sum of money, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold, to withdraw his troops.

  • Hezekiah had to strip the gold off the Temple doors to come up with the money.

  • But the king of Assyria appears to have broken his promise. After receiving the money, he sent his officers to Jerusalem to threaten the city.

  • One of the officers, called the Rabshakeh, stood outside of the city and spoke to Hezekiah’s officers on the wall.

  • He mocked Judah, calling them weak, and ridiculed them for making an alliance with Egypt.

  • The Rabshakeh spoke very loudly so all the people on the wall could hear him. He told the warriors of Judah not to put their trust in Hezekiah or in the Lord.

  • He mocked God, comparing him to all the other gods of the land who had failed to protect their worshippers from the Assyrian’s mighty army.  

  • The Rabshakeh was trying to scare Jerusalem into a surrender.

  • We will see how Jerusalem and the Lord respond in 2 Kings 19.  

APPLICATION:

• If you start changing the Church to appease the world, pretty soon its people will be unrecognizable as the people of God.

• Two centuries after its construction, the Temple had been neglected, it had fallen apart, its altar had been swapped, all the treasures were gone, and the magnificent bronze basin had been desecrated.

• In 2 Kings 18, we see Hezekiah stripping off the gold from the doors of the Temple to pay-off a pagan king.

• The oppression of outside nations affected God’s house significantly. It was probably unrecognizable compared to what it had been in its former glory.

• If we don’t stand firm and faithful with God, if we allow the world to pressure us into changing the Lord’s Church, before long, our churches won’t look like the Church Jesus intended.

• If we strip the Church of its essential doctrines every time someone calls us intolerant, or bigoted, or misogynistic, or hateful, or mean, our churches will be a sad shell of the glorious Church Jesus for, like a Temple stripped of everything that made it beautiful.