2 Ki. 18: Sennacherib Runs His Mouth

2 Kings 18:22 "And if you say to me, "We are depending on the LORD our God"-isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, "You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem"

While Hoshea flushed Israel down the toilet, Hezekiah took control in Judah. Apparently, he was a good man. He did what I was hoping he would do. (Man, I'm rooting for these Israelites.)  What made him like this? Ahaz was among the worst people ever. He certainly fell far from that fig tree. And it wasn't like Hezekiah engineered a gradual turnaround...he tore up the high places, the Asherah poles and the sacred stones. Remember that bronze serpent Moses made? Hezekiah destroyed that too. People were worshipping it. Of course. I wonder if Moses ever conceived that thing would one day become Nehushtan. 

It's probably no coincidence that Hezekiah followed the LORD, doing what Moses did, and then the LORD gave him success. That was the deal. 

I don't know what happened that Sennacherib was able to lay siege to the cities in Judah. Hezekiah was able to repel the Philistines, but when the Assyrians came, he apparently lost his cool. Or maybe he made a deal. I don't know, I wasn't there. But anyway, he pays tribute to Assyria with the gold from the temple. Its an interesting sort of sad thing that these things that are intended to imbue the temple with majesty and value end up being used to pay extortionists, time and again. Not what was meant to be.

Sennacherib follows by making a blustering propagandized speech to Hezekiah's staff through his field commander. He mocks Judah's military, their strategy, their alliance with Egypt, and like those in modern days, distorts who God is, referencing how Hezekiah destroyed "the LORD's" high places. 

Hezekiah's men, who wanted to spare the nearby Judahites from hearing this speech in Hebrew, requested that Sennacherib's commander speak to them in Aramaic. He refuses, continuing to diminish and ridicule Hezekiah's abilities and the LORD's power, instead promising a better life under Assyrian rule. No god, according to Sennacherib, has been able to deliver his people from the rule of Assyria, even Israel's false gods. Surprise. 

This made Hezekiah's men sad, of course, and they went back to the king mourning...he's going to do something awesome, right? That's how it works, right?