Three years after Hezekiah became king of Judah, the Assyrians again attacked the northern kingdom of Israel, and overran it. Assyria had been a kingdom since about the days of Joshua, and began to assume the proportions of an empire about forty years before Saul became Israel's first king, but the monarchy shortly became feeble, and only revived in the time of Jehoshaphat.
When Uzziah was king of Judah, the first Assyrian invasion of the west, to the Mediterranean, occurred, but Judah was not attacked.
Just before Ahaz became king of Judah, Assyria began to reach its greatest glory as an empire; Ahaz sent to the Assyrian monarch for help against the kings of Syria, and Israel who had invaded Judah, and the two and a half tribes of Israel, situated on the east of Jordan, were presently carried away to Assyria, with some of Israel west of the Jordan.
Israel became tributary to Assyria, but under Hosea, the last of the kings of Israel, an attempt was made to get help from Egypt, to throw off the Assyrian yoke, and this provoked the Assyrian ruler, Shalmaneser, to make an end of Israel.
Apparently Sargon (named in Isaiah 20:11In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it; (Isaiah 20:1)) succeeded Shalmaneser during the siege of Samaria which lasted three years (ending in Hezekiah's sixth year as king), and he carried away captive the remainder of the ten tribes of Israel.
Though Hezekiah himself was marked by great energy of faith, the state of the people over whom he reigned was but little changed; that which had at length befallen their brethren of Israel—removal as captives to Assyria from the land that God had given them, seems to have but little affected them, nor yet the presence and ministry among them of the prophet Isaiah, now advanced in years. The stroke of judgment must then be laid on this people; the enemy whom God had used in punishment upon the apostate kingdom of Israel, was now to be sent against Judah, though the faithful king and prophet were there. Indeed it was now to be shown that the faithful seed of David was the one, unfailing resource of the people.
As we have before noticed, the Spirit of God, in the writing of the Chronicles, has chosen to display God's grace, and not, any more than was needed in order to show the working of that sovereign favor, of the faults of the sons of David. Accordingly we do not find here, but in 2 Kings 18:14-16,14And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 15And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house. 16At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria. (2 Kings 18:14‑16) the weakness of Hezekiah at the first approach of the great power of Assyria. Instead we learn of the energy of faith which succeeded the first timidity and lack of dependence upon God (verses 2-8).
Much more detail than our chapter gives will be found both in 2 Kings, and in Isaiah 36-39, the evident intent of the Divine Author in the latter book being to show, through introducing the story of Hezekiah into the prophecy, that as the faithful king was the alone resource of the Jews in the day of the Assyrian attack, so the Lord, David's Greater Son, will be their refuge and resource in the future day of which Isaiah speaks, when the Jew: shall be in their land, and the northern power again attacks them.
Sennacherib’s army was gathered before Lachish, near the sea coast, in the southwest of Judah.
In the British Museum at London is a slab that was discovered at Nineveh representing Sennacherib sitting on his throne, with captives from Lachish kneeling before him, while his troops show the booty they have gathered. They were proud words that he caused to be spoken to the people in Jerusalem.
True it was that none of the powers of his day had been able to stand against him; one by one they had fallen, and Assyria was now the greatest of all countries, surpassing Egypt.
Was it possible, that feeble, insignificant Judah could long resist Sennacherib? It was there that Jehovah God was known, and He became the target for the Assyrian's railing—but not for long. The arm of flesh would be found powerless against the God of Israel (verse 8).
In great distress Hezekiah prayed, and Isaiah likewise, and God answered in His own way. We must turn to 2 Kings 19, or to Isaiah 37 for details which are not here given.
Sennacherib's representative returned to his master, and found him warring against Libnah, another fortified city in the southwest, whose location is not now known.
The Ethiopian king of Egypt was now preparing to dispute Assyria's supremacy, and Sennacherib did not care to attack Jerusalem; he sent messengers there with another intimidating message, but it was his last. An angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians in a single night 185,000 men, and Sennacherib returned with shame of face to his own land. Nineteen years later, he was killed by two of his sons.
God's merciful intervention in behalf of Judah, brought great honor to Hezekiah (verse 23), but his heart was lifted up with pride, and God had to humble him. The people of Jerusalem humbled themselves with Hezekiah, and they were spared the afflictions that were to be poured out upon the land presently.
Hezekiah in the main was remarkable as a man of faith; he failed "in the matter of the ambassadors" (Isaiah 39), when God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart. He knew God, but like God's children today, he needed testing, and humbling,—needed to know what was in his own heart- and the experience was not joyous but grievous, but if exercised thereby, blessing is resultant.
When this Godly king died, he was honored by all his subjects, and was buried in the highest place of the sepulchres of the sons of David.
In considering Hezekiah's life, we admire the strength of his faith in a day of small things, and we love to see how God invariably honors faith, whether in bright days, or days of weakness and failure.
We notice, too, that the luster of Hezekiah's faith was dimmed by the things that belong to the natural man; there is but one Perfect One, the Object of the believer in the glory, Him who lived a matchless life of unvarying glory to God, and died on the cross the substitute for all who trust in Him.