2 Kings 18

Canaanite religion, featuring Baal the chief god, included ritual poles. These may have been trees or poles meant to represent trees, as symbols of the Canaanite fertility goddess Asherah, goddess of motherhood. She was the love interest of Baal. Canaan is now known as Israel and Palestinian Territories.

Numbers 21:9.

Shalmaneser, ruled from 727-722 BC.

See note for 2 Kings 17:6.

Medes were a people living in what is now northern and western Iran. They took their orders from the Assyrian king, as much of the ancient Middle East did in the 700s BC.

The content of Isaiah 36 and 37 is pulled from sections of 2 Kings, according to some scholars. Compare Isaiah 36:1 to 2 Kings 18:13. And compare verses 36:2-22 to 2 Kings 18:17-37. Hezekiah’s story in Isaiah 37-38 seems to come from 2 Kings 19-20. Some scholars say it’s the other way around: Isaiah wrote it, and the writer or editors of 2 Kings copied it and added it to the historical record. Some who said Isaiah borrowed it explain that he probably did it with the idea that the Jews would listen to this retold story sometime after their exile abroad—perhaps in Babylon or maybe back in their homeland. There, they would listen to a tale about how great things used to be when King Hezekiah started disobeying God before the hammer came down in the form of an Assyrian invasion force.

Sennacherib ruled the Assyrian Empire from the time his father, King Sargon II, died in 705 BC until two of his sons murdered him in 681 BC. He kept records of his campaigns against Judah and Israel, and some of them survive, confirming key elements of history in the Old Testament report. He confirms, for example, that he didn’t manage to get inside Jerusalem this time. He reports, instead, that he trapped King Hezekiah behind Jerusalem’s walls “like a bird in a cage.”

Lachish was about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Jerusalem, a walk of about a day and a half. Assyrians chiseled pictures of their attack on Lachish and their impaling of the people there. It has been on display in the British Museum.

In ancient Hebrew measurements, Assyria’s king asked for 300 talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. If a wagon could haul as much as an average pickup truck, about a ton, the king would have needed a dozen wagons to haul the precious metal home.

“Tartan” shows up in an Assyrian epic written in the 800s BC (Adad-nirari II). He’s a military commander in chief who reported directly to the king. “Rabsaris” means “chief eunuch,” but can also mean “head of state” or “chief officer.” Eunuchs who took care of the king’s ladies sometimes became royal advisors because of the close contact they had with the royal family. “Rabshakeh” meant “leading cupbearer,” the person trusted with making sure no one poisoned the king’s drink. They sometimes rose to power, to become vizier or governors like Nehemiah did (Nehemiah 2:1; 5:14).

More literally “Fuller’s Field.” This was apparently a place by the water where people came to wash their clothes.

These men also appear together in Isaiah 36:3. Scholars debate what the three titles meant. They’re often translated: “palace administrator,” “secretary,” and “recorder.” Some associate “secretary” with a scribe in charge of recording official documents. “Recorder” might refer to a legal official, such as a minister of justice. Some scholars, however, say they see a connection to a similar Egyptian title that refers to an official in charge of communicating and reporting to the king and then to the people on behalf of the king, a bit like a press secretary today.

Yes, Hezekiah apparently thought Egypt would come. And they did, during the following siege of Jerusalem. But Assyrians drove them off. Isaiah had argued against making an alliance with Egypt, saying God opposed it (Isaiah 30:2). Hezekiah did it anyhow.

Well, impaled in the hand at least. Pierced. Assyrians were famous for impaling captives. Impaling was especially popular and showed up in battlefield pictures displayed on Assyrian palace walls. Executioners sometimes impaled people through the bottom of the torso and sometimes through the stomach or the chest. Death usually followed quickly. A skilled executioner could sometimes impale a person in ways that produced a lingering death.

The Assyrian king was mistaken. Hezekiah tore down hilltop shrines and other worship centers forbidden by Israelite law. Moses had told the people during the exodus out of Egypt that once they settled in their new homeland, they should worship at only “one worship center for the entire nation of Israel” (Deuteronomy 12:5) That place became the Jerusalem Temple that King Solomon built.

More literally, as in Isaiah 36:12, they’ll eat their own “filth” and drink the “water for their feet.” The question is how best to express those words today. Would the officer have spoken politely, using the more delicate words? Or would he have matched his words to the energy and the spirit he expresses earlier. If so, he may have used words that would get us in even more trouble than the common slang words used here. “Excrement,” often used, seems a little on the light side of “filth.” And what are you gonna do with “water for their feet”? “Urine?” That word doesn’t feel wet enough.

A cistern was a storage pit to collect rainwater or water hauled from a spring or a stream. It was often chiseled out of stone and lined with waterproof plaster.

Assyrians planned to dismantle the nation of Judah and deport the people, to make sure the nation didn’t reconstitute itself and live to rebel another day. Assyrians did that earlier to the northern Jewish nation of Israel, in 721 BC. Babylonians also deported people. Assyrians and Babylonians both took the captives to their own part of the world so they could keep an eye on them.

Samaria, capital of the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel, fell to Assyria two decades earlier, in about 722 BC.