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CHAPTER 11 - HEZEKIAH (THIRTEENTH) KING OF JUDAH
Outward Events of the Reign of Hezekiah - Victory over the Philistines - League against
Sargon - Assyrian Advance and Submission of Judah - Sennacherib - The Assyrian
Inscriptions Their Account of the Assyrian Invasion of Judah - Victories of Sennacherib -
Assyrian Misrepresentation of Events - The Biblical Record- Works in Defense of
Jerusalem - The Various Scriptural Narratives of these Events - The Assyrian Host before
Jerusalem - Its Leaders and the Representatives of Hezekiah -The Conference between
them. (2 KINGS 18:7-19; 2 CHRONICLES 32:1-26; ISAIAH 36:, 37)
ALTHOUGH the beginning of Hezekiah's reign was mainly devoted to the first and most
important task of religious reform, other matters of pressing necessity were not
overlooked. The same wisdom which marked his restoration of the Temple services also
guided his other administration, and the same happy results attended both. In fact,
Hezekiah made use of the years of quiet to prepare against the troublous period which he
must have felt to be at hand. And in the Book of Kings we have this general notice:
"And Jehovah was with him; in all to which he proceeded he prospered;* and he rebelled
against the king of Assyria and served him not" (2 Kings 18:7).**
- This, the rendering of the Vulgate, seems better than that of the A. and R.V. -
"Whithersoever he went forth," which would scarcely seem historically quite accurate.
** In 2 Kings 18:9-12 the Assyrian conquest of Samaria and the deportation of Israel are
again related - either because in chap. 17 they were related out of their chronological
order, or else because they followed immediately on the Philistine expedition, recorded in
2 Kings 18:8.
In truth, the relations between Hezekiah and the mighty world-empire of Assyria furnish
the explanation of all the outward events of his reign. Of the first of these, the victory
over the Philistines "unto Gaza," and the complete subjugation of their country, "from the
tower of the watchmen to the fenced city" (2 Kings 18:8), it is impossible to fix the date.
To judge from its position in the text, it seems to have taken place during the reign of
Shalmaneser, before the accession of Sargon, by whom Samaria was taken. The apparent
ill-success of Shalmaneser before Tyre may have rendered possible and encouraged such
an undertaking on the part of Hezekiah. In any case, we have to bear in mind that
Philistia, so important to Assyria as being the road to and from Egypt, always formed an
objective point in the western expeditions of the "great kings," and that its cities seem to
have been divided, some being disposed to make cause against Assyria, while others -
notably Ashdod and Gaza, - together with Moab, Ammon, and Edom, were on the side of
the eastern empire.*
(^)