2 Kings 19
1 And when king Hezekiah had heard this, he tore his garments, and he covered himself with sackcloth, and he entered the house of the Lord.
When King Hezekiah heard what they reported, he tore his clothes and put on clothes made of rough cloth [because he was very distressed]. Then he went to the temple [to ask God what to do].
2 And he sent Eliakim, the first ruler of the house, and Shebnah, the scribe, and the elders from the priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz.
He summoned Eliakim and Shebna and the (older/most important) priests, who were also wearing clothes made of rough sackcloth, and told them to talk to me.
3 And they said to him: “Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy. The sons are ready to be born, but the woman in labor does not have the strength.
He said to them, “Tell this to Isaiah: ‘King Hezekiah says that we are having great distress/trouble now. [Other nations are causing] us to be insulted and disgraced. We are like [MET] a woman who is about to give birth to a child, but she does not have the strength that she needs to do it.
4 Perhaps the Lord, your God, may hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of the Assyrians, his lord, sent so that he would reproach the living God, and rebuke with words, which the Lord, your God, has heard. And so, offer a prayer on behalf of the remnant that has been found.”
Perhaps Yahweh your God has heard everything that the official from Assyria said. Perhaps he knows that his boss/master, the king of Assyria, sent him to insult the all-powerful God, and that Yahweh will rebuke/punish him for what he said.’ And he requests that you pray for the few of us who are still alive [here in Jerusalem].”
5 And the servants of king Hezekiah went to Isaiah.
When the messengers from Hezekiah came to Isaiah,
6 And Isaiah said to them: “So shall you say to your lord. Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid before the face of the words that you have heard, by which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me.
Isaiah said to them, “[Go back to] your boss/master [and] tell him, ‘This is what Yahweh says: Those messengers from the king of Assyria have said evil things about me. But you should not be disturbed because of what they said.
7 Behold, I will send a spirit to him, and he will hear a report, and he will return to his own land. And I will bring him down by the sword in his own land.”
Listen to this: I will cause Sennacherib to hear a rumor that will worry him, [that a foreign army is about to attack his country]. So he will return to his own country, and there I will cause him to be assassinated by [men using] swords.’”
8 Then Rabshakeh returned, and he found the king of the Assyrians fighting against Libnah. For he had heard that he had withdrawn from Lachish.
The official from Assyria found out that the King of Assyria [and his army] had left Lachish [city], and that they were attacking Libnah, [which is a nearby city]. So the official went there [to report to him what had happened in Jerusalem].
9 And when he had heard from Tirhakah, the king of Ethiopia, saying, “Behold, he has gone out so that he may fight against you,” and when he went forth against him, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying:
Soon after that, King Sennacherib received a report that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was leading his army, and was coming to attack them. So before King Sennacherib left Libnah [to fight against the army from Ethiopia], he sent other messengers to King Hezekiah with a letter.
10 “So shall you say to Hezekiah, the king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom you trust, lead you astray. And you should not say, ‘Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hands of the king of the Assyrians.’
[In the letter] he wrote this to Hezekiah: “Do not allow your god on whom you are relying to deceive you by promising that [the city of] Jerusalem will not be captured by my army [MTY].
11 For you yourself have heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done to all the lands, the manner in which they have laid waste to them. Therefore, how would you alone be able to be freed?
You have certainly heard what the armies of the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries. Our armies have completely destroyed them. So, (do you think that you will escape?/do not think that your god will save you!) [RHQ]
12 Have the gods of the nations freed any of those whom my fathers have destroyed, such as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden, who were at Telassar?
Did the gods of the nations that were about to be destroyed by the armies of the previous kings of Assyria rescue them? Did those gods rescue the people in the Gozan region and in Haran and Rezeph [cities in northern Syria] and the people of Eden who had been (deported/forced to go) to Tel-Assar [city]? None of the gods of those cities were able to rescue them.
13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena, and of Avva?”
What happened to the kings of Hamath and Arpad and Sepharvaim and Ivvah [cities] [RHQ]? [Most of them are dead, and the other people were deported]!”
14 And so, when Hezekiah had received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and had read it, he ascended to the house of the Lord, and he spread it out before the Lord.
Hezekiah took the letter that the messengers gave him, and he read it. Then he went up to the temple and spread out the letter in front of Yahweh.
15 And he prayed in his sight, saying: “O Lord, God of Israel, who sits upon the cherubim, you alone are God, over all the kings of the earth. You made heaven and earth.
Then Hezekiah prayed, “Yahweh, the God whom to whom we Israelis belong, you are seated on your throne above the [statues of] creatures with wings, [above the Sacred Chest]. Only you are truly God. You rule all the kingdoms on this earth. You are the one who created [everything on] the earth and [in] the sky.
16 Incline your ear, and listen. Open your eyes, O Lord, and see. And hear all the words of Sennacherib, who sent so that he might reproach the living God before us.
So, Yahweh, please listen to what I am saying, and look [at what is happening]. And listen to what King Sennacherib has said to insult you, the all-powerful God.
17 Truly, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have devastated all peoples and lands.
“Yahweh, it is true that [the armies of] the kings of Assyria have completely destroyed many nations, and ruined their land.
18 And they have cast their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but instead were the works of men’s hands, out of wood and stone. And so they destroyed them.
And they have thrown the idols of those nations into fires and burned them. But [that was not difficult to do, because] they were not gods. They were only statues made of wood and stone, idols that were shaped by humans, [and that is why they were destroyed easily].
19 Now therefore, O Lord our God, bring us salvation from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord God.”
So now, Yahweh our God, please rescue us from the power [MTY] [of the king of Assyria], in order that the people in all the kingdoms of the world will know that you, Yahweh, are the only one who is truly God.”
20 Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I have heard what you beseeched from me, concerning Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians.
Then Isaiah sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what Yahweh, the God to whom we Israelis belong, says: 'I have heard what you prayed to me about Sennacherib, the king of Assyria.
21 This is the word that the Lord has spoken about him: The virgin daughter of Zion has spurned and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back.
This is what I say to him: “The people of Jerusalem [MTY] despise you and make fun of you. They wag/shake their heads to mock you while you flee from here.
22 Whom have you reproached, and whom have you blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel!
Who do you think that you are despising and ridiculing? Who do you think you were shouting at? Who do you think you were looking at very proudly/arrogantly? It was I, the holy God whom the Israelis worship.
23 By the hand of your servants, you have reproached the Lord, and you have said: ‘By the multitude of my chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the summit of Lebanon. And I have cut down its sublime cedars, and its elect spruce trees. And I have entered even to its limits. And its forest of Carmel,
The messengers that you sent made fun of me. You said, 'With my many chariots I have gone to the highest mountains, even to the highest mountains in Lebanon. We have cut down its tallest cedar trees and its nicest pine/cyprus trees. We have been to the most distant/remote peaks and to its dense forests.
24 I have cut down. And I drank foreign waters, and I dried up all the enclosed waters with the steps of my feet.’
We have dug wells in other countries and drank water from them. And by marching through [MTY] the streams of Egypt, we dried them all up [HYP]!”’
25 But have you not heard what I have done from the beginning? From the days of antiquity, I have formed it, and now I have brought it to be. And fortified cities of fighting men will become piles of ruins.
[‘But I reply], “Have you never heard that long ago I determined [that those things would happen]? I planned it long ago, and now I have been causing it to happen. I planned that your army would have [the power to] capture many cities that were surrounded by high walls, and cause them to become piles of rubble.
26 And whoever may settle in these, they have trembled, with a weak hand, and they have been confounded. They have become like the hay of the field, and like weeds sprouting on the rooftops, which dry up before they reached maturity.
The people who lived in those cities have no power, and as a result they became dismayed and discouraged. They are as frail as plants and grass in the fields, as frail as grass that grows on the roofs of houses and is scorched by the hot east wind.
27 Your habitation, and your exit, and your entrance, and your way, I knew beforehand, along with your fury against me.
“But I know [everything about you]. I know when you are in your house and when you go outside; I also know that you are (raging/speaking very angrily) against me.
28 You have been maddened against me, and your arrogance has ascended to my ears. And so, I will place a ring in your nose, and a bit between your lips. And I will lead you back along the way by which you came.
So, because you have raged against me, and because I have heard [MTY] you speak very proudly/arrogantly, [it will be as though] I will put a hook in your nose and an iron (bit/piece of metal) in your mouth [in order that I can lead you where I want you to go], and I will force you to return [to your own country] on the same road on which you came here, [without conquering Jerusalem].” '
29 But as for you, Hezekiah, this shall be a sign: Eat this year whatever you will find, and in the second year, whatever may spring up of itself. But in the third year, sow and reap; plant vineyards, and eat from their fruit.
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “This is what will happen to prove [that I am telling the truth]: This year and next year you [and your people] will be able to harvest only (wild grain/grain that grows without having been planted). But the following year, you [Israelis] will be able to plant grain and harvest it, and to plant vineyards and eat the grapes that you harvest.
30 And whatever will have been left behind, from the house of Judah, shall send a root downward, and shall bear fruit upward.
The people [MTY] in Judah who remain alive will prosper and have many children; they will be like plants whose roots go deep down into the ground and which produce much [MET].
31 Indeed, a remnant shall go forth from Jerusalem, and what may be saved shall go forth from mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall accomplish this.
There will be many people in Jerusalem [DOU] who will survive, because Yahweh, the commander of the armies of angels in heaven, wants [PRS] it to happen.
32 For this reason, thus says the Lord about the king of the Assyrians: He shall not enter into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor overtake it with the shield, nor encircle it with fortifications.
So this is what Yahweh, says about the king of Assyria: ‘His armies will not enter this city; they will not even shoot any arrows into it! His soldiers will not march outside the city gates carrying shields, and they will not even build high mounds of dirt against [the city walls] [to enable them to attack the city].
33 By the way that he came, so shall he return. And he shall not enter this city, says the Lord.
Their king will return to his own country on the same road on which he came here. He will not enter this city! [That will happen because] I, Yahweh have said it!
34 And I will protect this city, and I will save it for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David.”
I will defend this city and prevent it from being destroyed. I will do this for the sake of my own reputation and because of what I promised to King David, who served me well.'”
35 And so it happened that, in the same night, an Angel of the Lord went and struck down, in the camp of the Assyrians, one hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he had risen up, at first light, he saw all the bodies of the dead. And withdrawing, he went away.
That night, an angel from Yahweh went out to where the army of Assyria had put up their tents, and killed 185,000 of their soldiers! When the rest of their soldiers woke up the next morning, they saw that there were corpses everywhere!
36 And Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians, returned and dwelled in Nineveh.
Then King Sennacherib left and went home to Nineveh, [the capital of Assyria].
37 And while he was worshipping in the temple of his god, Nisroch, his sons, Adram-melech and Sharezer, struck him with the sword. And they fled into the land of the Armenians. And Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his place.
One day, when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords. Then they escaped and went to [the] Ararat [region, northwest of Nineveh]. And another of Sennacherib's sons, Esarhaddon, became the king of Assyria.
