King David 2.0

II Kings 18-20

      Well, it has taken us roughly five months to get through the Deuteronomical History, Genesis thru Kings. It is within these final chapters of Second Kings that we catch up, so to speak, in time with the supposed author/s of the these first nine books of the Old Testament. The theory accepted by most biblical scholars says that these books were written during the period of Josiah’s reign and probably edited over the centuries after the exile in Babylon. But, lets not get ahead of ourselves.
      The setting of these final seven chapters is after the Assyrian campaign that started with Samaria and eventually led to the total annihilation of Israel. After the destruction of Israel the surviving refugees would have scattered to the four winds. Some of them would have headed south and found a new life in Judah. They would bring with them their own stories of the heroes and Kings of their histories, helping to flesh out some more of the Deuteronomical History over time.
In chapter 18 we meet King Hezekiah. He is portrayed as one of the most loyal kings to Yahweh since David or Solomon. Remember that at this time there were no Holy Scriptures. There were only stories that had passed down over the generations and a vague understanding of the god Yahweh given by visions and messages from the prophets. The prophets were the ones that would lead the people back to the Yahweh and the Law, but usually the Kings didn’t like what they had to say and their messages fell on deaf ears. King Hezekiah restored the Kingdom back to the early days of Yahweh worship, undoing generations of pagan incorporation into Jewish life and religion.
       According to this book, II Kings, when the king of Assyria (modern day Iraq) finally decided to invade Jerusalem he captured and destroyed a city close by called Lachish. After that he sent word to Hezekiah that Jerusalem’s destruction was imminent. He called out to the king mocking the god of Judah and the Temple made to worship that god. It is said that as retribution for these words against the God of gods, Yahweh sent an angel that slew 180,000 soldiers of the Assyrian King, Sennacherib. This is also where we meet a very famous prophet of this time period, Isaiah, who has a whole book dedicated to him later in the Journey.
What is so great about this story is that its not just a tale told in a very old book. This story happens to be one of the most famous accounts in Ancient History. There are a few different accounts of this ancient battle, but one of the most intricate tellings comes from the King of Assyria himself. In the mid 1800’s a discovery was made in the city of Nineveh, the capital of Ancient Assyria and now located in Northern Iraq. What was found in one of the rooms of the palace of Sennacherib was a set of large stone panels that covered the entire space of the walls in the room. It was deemed to be a waiting room for important figureheads from other lands and the story told on these stone tablets is the story that is contained in the second book of Kings.
      The Lachish relief, as it known now, is the telling of how the King and his armies marched upon the kingdom of Judah, even naming King Hezekiah, and destroyed many important towns and cities of the region. The most important being the city of Lachish which is so close to the central power of the Judean Kingdom, Jerusalem. The relief does not mention the destruction of the troops by an Angel of Yahweh, but it is not a story about the destruction of Jerusalem, either, which would have been an extremely important and strategic victory in the land. To compare it to modern times it would be like capturing Chicago or New York instead of Washington D.C. The Lachish relief also shows that Judah would have been an important player in the region at the time of the relief’s construction, roughly 701-680 B.C.

      Also discovered in ancient Israel is the underground tunnel Hezekiah built to transport water into the city without the Assyrian forces outside of town being able to stop it. This allowed them to stay within the city and survive by growing food.
      Any other references to the events surrounding Hezekiah regarding his illness and miraculous healing are lost to time and history. The warning given to Hezekiah about the future of the country of Judah comes again from the prophet Isaiah and is a foreshadowing of the things to come. According to this book Isaiah is shown a vision of the fate of the future generations of Israel and its not pretty. Some believe this is one of the later additions added after the refugees came back from Babylon and first began recording their holy scriptures.
     Because Hezekiah was so righteous and followed in the steps of David so completely, and with even less information regarding Yahweh than that former king had, the time of the destruction is extended into the days of the next generations. However, Hezekiah is introduced to the future conquerors of Judah, the Babylonians.