Day 196 – Hezekiah (Southern King 29 years) #2

• Remember Hezekiah’s actions during peacetime that we read about yesterday? Today we read about what sort of king he was like during wartime.
• Before we jump into the passages, it’s worth making a quick comment about the Assyrians. These invaders from the north east were a particularly nasty bunch. They were determined to conquer countries nearby by force and fear. As a people, they were involved with evil practises, including killing children, cutting off hands, feet and eyes of their enemies, torturing by impaling people on vertical spikes, and even peeling the skin of victims whilst alive. Ew! I say this not only as a further comment about why Jonah was probably so loathed to go to Ninevah, but also to show how much of a threat they were to Hezekiah and Judah. Don’t forget, having just defeated Israel, Hezekiah rightly assumed his nation would be the next on the hit list.
• What did the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, do to Judah in 2 Kings 18:13? How did Hezekiah, perhaps disappointingly, react?
• Sennacherib then sent a party of people to Judah to challenge all the people, and persuade  – with scary, discouraging, callous words – the people to give themselves up. He spoke of the Assyrian king as if he were a god. What words of discouragement did he say in 2 Kings 18:28-37? Have you ever had discouraging words said to you in regards to your trust in Jesus? How did you respond?
• How did Hezekiah respond to that challenge, both at the end of the chapter and at the start of 2 Kings 19?
• How did God, through Isaiah’s message, encourage Hezekiah as he prayed? What did the message say would happen to Sennacherib in 2 Kings 19:6-7? Isiah’s prophecy continued in verses 20-34.
• How did God defeat the Assyrians, as told at the end of the chapter? What happened to Sennacherib?
• How do you think Hezekiah had such a strong faith, in the face of such evil?
• The proverbs we read today are some of the ones that Hezekiah’s men copied out. How do you think they would have helped the king, and those (including us!) afterwards who have read them?

Hezekiah was in a pretty precarious situation. As the king of the final part of the original land promised to them by God, with the vast expanse of the northern territory under Assyrian control, he was being heavily attacked.

This attack came in various forms. It would have been physical, as we read in 2 Kings 18:13. It was also spiritual, as we read in 2 Kings 18:19. The first type of attack required armies and strong defences, and a trust in God that He would help defeat the invaders. The second type of attack, the spiritual one, required a deep trust in God too. This trust would have helped them to remember that God was still in control despite the mocking, and baiting words, and the insults.

The devil will try his best to knock your faith in Christ. It might be through temptation to sin. It might be through the relentless pressure from people in your life to pull you away from God. It might be a spiritual attack, where you feel low, or distant from God, or be overcome with doubt. It might be through physical or emotional hardships. Be prepared and alert for these attacks, because they will come throughout your life.

Hezekiah battled against these attacks through a mixture of a solid trust in God, a focus on the importance of prayer (in 2 Kings 19:14-19) and wise and godly advice to help him in his hour of need from Isaiah.

What will be the way that you hold firm to the truth of the good news of Jesus when you’re under attack and challenged in your faith? Tonight might be a good moment to pray about this topic.