Alrighty, lesson 10, this is it. We've come a long way. We've covered a lot of ground, and this is our final lesson on this Bible study on First and Second Kings. This is the exile part of the story.
This is the end of the Davidic Kingdom. Or is it really the end? Or is there a pause, a delay? Hope for restoration.
Of course, there's hope for restoration. That's going to lead up to the ministry of Jesus Christ. But in our Bible study from glory to exile, we started off with the glory parts with Solomon and his reign and his temple, and things were just fantastic. At least for the first 20, 30 years, say 30 years of his reign, then he went off the deep end.
It didn't go so well. It led to the split and the divide, the divorce we called it, the divorce of the kingdoms. And now we're in the exile period. We saw that last week, or last lesson, I should say.
With the exile of the north, and now this is the exile of the southern kingdom of Judah, we're going to tackle chapters 18 through 25 and wrap all this up. Now, to kick this off, I really found this particular quote very interesting, very well, it's worth sharing, of course. I'm going to start off this lesson with this quote from your Catholic and Orthodox New Testament, which I like a lot. And it says this, with Israel now gone, Judah alone remains as the successor state of the Davidic Empire.
Unlike the description of Israel in the north, which never bears witness to a single righteous king. The remaining chapters of Second Kings bear witness to the quote-unquote struggle for the soul of the southern kingdom of Jerusalem. And in the form of both extremely righteous and extremely wicked rulers, end quote. And I like that a lot.
This is a struggle for the soul. Really, it's been a struggle for the soul the entire time. That's probably the only thing that I would talk about. It's been a struggle for the souls in the very, very beginning when it split with Jeroboam up north and Rayoboam down south.
And the northern kingdom didn't have any righteous kings at all. I mean, you had hope with someone, let's say Jehu, Jehu went through and clean house really, really well, got rid of Ahab's house and got rid of Baal worship, but he didn't go all the way. He continued to worship the golden calves. So for roughly 200 years, as we discussed in the last lesson, the northern kingdom just fell into sin after sin after sin.
And so just to recap really quickly, Israel up north is gone. So just remember, there are two major waves of destruction and exile. In 732, Assyria had the first wave, deporting, conquering and deporting various territories up north, like Galilee, Zebulan and Aptali we talked about. And then in 722, just one decade later, Assyria wipes Samaria and the northern kingdom off the map, completely with selective deportation, with importing other foreign nations in their gods.
So they're beginning to intermariate and interworship and they pretty much lose their identity. And so right as this happens, you've got the reign of King Hezekiah down south, and that's exactly where we're going to pick up. So I would say really quickly just in terms of greater context. So 722, the northern kingdom is gone and done for.
And then the southern kingdom continues on until 586. So that's approximately round numbers, approximately 150 years. That's a long time of God continuing to be patient and merciful for his people in the south and the southern kingdom. And there are a couple of reasons why that's the case.
Primarily it's because there are a couple of really great reformer kings, starting with Hezekiah. And especially, I like Josiah more than Hezekiah for a couple different reasons, but they're both really amazing kings. And it brings hope to the kingdom. And certainly I would argue, delays God's justice against a very sinful people, usually led by the kings themselves.
Alright, so that leads us to Hezekiah. We're in chapter 18. And Hezekiah's name means God's strengthens, which I think is really important to always consider names as much as I try to remember to share them with you. Now because remember names mean things.
And in this case Hezekiah means God's strengthens and God is going to strengthen his people of Judah, the kingdom of Judah, against Assyria. That is just wiped the semeri off the face of the planet, right, the face of the map. And Assyria is not going to stop there. Assyria wants to come down and conquer Judah as well.
This is going to be one of Hezekiah's biggest challenges. But he is a good king. He is a righteous king. Let's open up with chapter 18 verses 1 and following.
Where it says, In the third year of Hosea, king of Israel, Hezekiah, son of Ahas, king of Judah began to reign. He was 25 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah. And here it gets really great, very encouraging, especially after reading all the stuff that just happened up north.
And remember Ahas, his father was super super bad as well. Remember that Ahas put an idol, a shrine, an altar to the Assyrian gods inside the temple. And that was really bad. So in verse 3 it praises him saying, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
According to all that David, his father had done. He removed the high places. And that immediately you're like fantastic round of applause for Hezekiah. He did what all of the previous other kings, if they were good kings, that he did what they could not do.
He is going all the way, finally. So he gets an A, maybe even an A plus because of removing the high places from the countryside. Remember all these different little shrines and altars under every green tree and on every high hill where people would go to quote unquote worship God, but usually they're worshiping the pagan gods. So it says here, he removed the high places, which is fantastic.
He broke down the pillars, cut down the ashara. He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days the sons of Israel had burned incense to it. It was called the Nehushtan.
He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses. And in verse 7 it says, something that we haven't seen in a long time.
The Lord was with him wherever he went forth and he prospered. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria, etc. So this is great. A lot of wonderful praise for Hezekiah after some very troubling times.
Number one, I've already said, he abolished all the high places. And that is, you just can't overstate how phenomenal that is for the king of Judah to do that. Number two, this is really interesting. You read too quickly, you pass right over it.
But he destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had made. If you go back to Numbers 21, we did our Bible study on Numbers. You could go check all this out for details in the typology and symbolism. But what happened is Israel is rebelling against God and Moses in the wilderness.
God sends serpents and they're bitten and they die. But if they look up at this bronze serpent that Moses made and put up on a pole and they repent and believe and they're going to be saved. And Jesus references this in chapter 3, it's really awesome. Well that bronze serpent had been around for, gosh, we're talking hundreds of years now.
I can't do the math quickly enough in my p-brain. But for hundreds of years. So in fact, you know what, let me just like the trial and do the math here for you really quickly. So the Exodus occurred, I would be in a camp that occurs in the 1400s.
So give or take, 1450, and Hezekiah is reigning here. He starts reigning in 729. This is due broad stroke, 700 years approximately. That's a long time.
They've held onto this bronze serpent. But because Judah and Israel have north tends to worship almost anything, it's so tragic that they begin to worship this fantastic relic from the era of the Exodus. To the point there, that Hezekiah has to destroy it. It would be so awesome.
Don't you think if that were in a museum somewhere in Jerusalem or wherever else they have all these different artifacts, that would be so epic. But unfortunately, they were worshiping it and He had to destroy it. So that's too bad. Then it goes on to say, He trusted in the Lord in all things, especially in this tumultuous political landscape.
Things are very, very difficult with Assyria right now, being the world's superpower, and He's got to trust God, and He does. And then there's that line I pointed out to you. The Lord was with Him. That echoes so many other fantastic figures in salvation history.
Abraham and Joseph and Joshua Moses, I forgot him and David and some of the judges, that there's just so many different people. That line, the Lord was with Him, is a very strong, powerful statement of God's blessing upon this person, whatever they're doing, and upon their vocations. So this is fantastic with Hezekiah. We're off to a very, very good start.
Now, the next section here in verse 9, following does a quick little recap of Assyria's conquest of the northern Kingdom of Israel, of Samaria in 722, when Hezekiah was king, specifically in his sixth year. So let's just read that quickly. He says in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh of Hosea, King of Israel, Shamanazir, King of Assyria, came up against Samaria, besieged it, and at the end of three years, he took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hosea, Samaria was taken.
The King of Assyria carried Israel out to Assyria and put them in Hala and all these other different places in the city of the Mede, etc. This is one quick little verse summarizing basically the entirety of chapter 17, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed His covenant, even all that Moses, the servants of the Lord, commanded them, neither listened nor obeyed. And that's again summarizing chapter 17. So in the sixth year of Hezekiah, He watched everything go down, and it kind of makes you wonder, like, why was Hezekiah so good?
One observation is maybe because He saw the North go down. He saw Assyria go in there and squash their cousins up North, like little bugs, and He's like, you know what? I'm learning my lesson. I am not going to get in trouble like this, unless we also be destroyed, and that's possible.
But don't forget, as we discussed a little bit at length in the last lesson, that He is the prophesied child of Isaiah, chapter 7, 14. Remember, there's initial fulfillment and ultimate fulfillment. Isaiah spoke to A.H.H. as his father, saying, the Virgin shall be with child, and His name shall be Emmanuel.
And that is initially Hezekiah. Hezekiah is God with Israel, God with us. Remember, His name means God strengthens. So Hezekiah is the initial fulfillment of the Isaiah 7, 14 prophecy.
He is born of a virgin wife, you could argue, I think, very easily. And He becomes tremendously awesome for the people of Judah in so many different ways. Now, the ultimate fulfillment is Jesus Christ, who is truly born of a virgin without the engagement of the man and so on and so forth. So He is the prophesied son, and God's providence.
God wants to give, I think you could argue, God wants to give Judah time to repent as they're watching Assyria destroy the North and come down on their very doorstep, basically. God wants to give Israel time to repent. And so Hezekiah is that grace period for the Kingdom of Judah. I think that's worthwhile thought there.
All right, so this in the sixth year Assyria conquers in the Kingdom. Now, the rest of chapter 18 and 19 really is about Hezekiah's great challenge of dealing with Assyria. Like I said, Assyria does not want to stop at the North. Assyria wants to come all the way down and conquer Jerusalem and just plunder everything and destroy everything.
So what happens here is to summarize a lot of this story, and we'll get into some verses in just a second. So Hezekiah does revolt against Assyria. Now his father, A, has and had this great alliance with Assyria, which was a big no-no, that was a big problem. Isaiah condemned it.
So Hezekiah revolts against Assyria, but he failed and has to pay a massive tribute. He has to apologize. I'm going to go down to verse 14. Hezekiah, King of Judah sent to the King of Assyria at Lakeish, saying, I have done wrong with draw from me, whatever you impose on me, I will bear.
And the King of Assyria required Hezekiah, King of Judah, three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold, and Hezekiah basically depletes all of his bank accounts essentially, right? He gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and all the treasures of the King's house, and at that time Hezekiah stripped the gold doors, the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the doorposts, which Hezekiah, King of Judah had overlaid, gave it all to the King of Assyria. So this is an extremely expensive tribute. It's a defeat for him to have to pay this tribute and basically plunder his own storehouses, the temple, his own palaces in order to pay.
However, the King of Assyria is not going to stop at that. So Assyria sends down the various envoys to try to get Judah to surrender completely and then haul off a bunch of captives. And this is exactly what Hezekiah is freaking out about and stressing out about naturally, because he just paid a tribute, but it wasn't enough for the King of Assyria. So what happens here in verses 17 and following was the three Assyrian envoys, the Tartan, the Robsaris, and the Robschakiah came with a great army to Jerusalem at the gates.
And it goes on to say, when they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Fuller's Field. And when they called for the King, they came out to them, Eliachem, the son of Hylkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah, the son of Asaf, the secretary, the secretary, the secretary, the head of the household. Before I move on with the story, this is not in your notes, but I think it's worthwhile to spend five minutes or so talking about this character, Eliachem, who was over at the household. So Hezekiah sends out basically his top three dogs, his top three people in his palace to deal with these three Assyrian envoys who are coming to talk trash.
And I'm going to share with you the trash that they talk is pretty brutal. They come out in this very public way to intimidate the people of Jerusalem, to intimidate them, to insult them, to insult God, to insult the King, in the hopes that the people will not hold fast, but they're going to just give in surrender. Before we talk about the talk, the smack talk, and the trash talk, really quickly here, this Eliachem, Son of Hylkiah, is very, very interesting, because when it says that he's over the household, we talked about this in other Bible studies, in fact, we talked about it with Solomon. Solomon had a cabinet of 12 men who oversaw his kingdom, 12 men over the kingdom, sounds like the apostles, no problem, we talked about that, I forget what lesson that was, lesson two or three, something like that.
But then he also has a character who is the al-Habbaiit, he who is head over the household, he is the chief minister, the grandpuba, the head honcho, the prime minister, and he rules the kingdom in place of the king. He has incredible power, and that as we discussed, it would be Peter, but there's some more connections here to draw this conclusion, which is fantastic. I can tell you, when I became Catholic, I was studying the Pope and the papacy and the authority of the Pope and infallibility and all these things, these connections here helped me tremendously for capturing the Old Testament historical and biblical context of the keys of the kingdom that Jesus gives to Peter. Alright, so this character, as we just discussed in chapter 18, is Eliachem the Son of Hylkiah.
Well, we know from Isaiah 22 that Eliachem was put into this office because his predecessor was corrupt. Now, I know tongue and cheek here, I know that it's hard to believe that a government official would be corrupt, right? Well, what's true today is certainly true back then. Now, there's this character.
So if you go to Isaiah 22 and don't forget that Isaiah is ministering during the reigns of Ehas Hezekiah, even Manasseh, Hezekiah, son, we'll talk about that in a little bit. But in chapter 22 of Isaiah, you got the story about this Eliachem figure, which is really interesting. So his predecessor's name was Shevna. I don't think it's the same Shevna here.
That was the secretary back in chapter 18. I think it's a different Shevna. I'm commentary is different debate about that, but it's got to be a different Shevna. So this Shevna of Isaiah 22, who is over the household in verses 15 and following, is very corrupt and he's doing bad things.
But then it goes down to verse 19. And Isaiah says to him, Isaiah 22, verse 19, I will thrust you out of your office and you will be cast down from your station. In that day, I will call my servant, Eliachem, the son of Hylkiah, the same dude from verse 18. And I will close him with your robe and will bind your belt on him and will commit your authority to his hand.
He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut. He shall shut and none shall open.
And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house. And it goes on to talk about all of his honor and glory. Now, this is really amazing because it tells us this office of Al-Haba'i to be over the household. It is an office.
It does go from successor to successor. There's a lot to say here, but I'm going to keep it tight. You can have corrupt people holding the office and saintly people holding the office. But it has real authority symbolized by the possession of the keys.
The one who is over the household has the keys of the house of David, the kingdom, what he opens, none shall shut, what he shuts, none shall open. And that is precisely what our Lord Jesus Christ says to Peter, because Jesus is the new king and so he has a new Al-Haba'i. So Peter's office and has successors, right? So from Peter all the way down to Pope Francis at the time of this recording.
And for however many more years it's going to be, it's got successors. There are saintly popes. By the way, he says, you shall be a father to the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. Pope just means father, right?
This is a very biblical concept. But you have saintly ones and you have evil ones, corrupt ones, stupid ones, smart ones, faithful ones on faithful ones. It's just an office that you can have good or bad people sitting in it. So in any case, Peter is the one who is Al-Haba'i over the household of the newly established, renovated, restored kingdom of David of Jesus Christ.
And that is fantastic. It's the exact same word. Jesus says what you open and shall shut, what you shut and then shall open. Only Peter of the Twelve Apostles, only he has the keys because only he is the Al-Haba'i.
So I wanted to spend this five minutes or so talking about that because it's really important to understand that the office of Pope is 100% biblical. And I think it's also really cool because when you study Elia, Kim, Son of Hylkiah here in 2 Kings, chapter 18, and then you kind of compare that with Isaiah 22, how he became this very godly figure, this holder of the office, and then see what Jesus pulled it all together for his church and for Peter. It's really exciting. I geek out about it for sure.
And I wanted to share that with you so you're very, very aware of it if you aren't already. Alright, let's move on with the story. Back to 2 Kings, chapter 18. So, Elia Kim is over the household.
He comes out with a couple of his pals, Shebna and Joah. And then here's the trash talk. So the Assyrian envoys come and talk a lot of trash, a number of things. You're weak and pathetic, and you better, in fact, you're weak and pathetic comes from verse 22.
The Assyrians say, if you say to me, we rely on the Lord our God, is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Jude and Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem. So really quickly, a parenthetical point. So Hezekiah was right to remove all of those high places because Moses did command in Deuteronomy 12. That God was the only the worship of the central sanctuary.
But again, those high places more often than not denigrated to the worship of idols. So the Assyrians go on in verse 23. Come now and make a wager with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you 2,000 horses if you're able on your part to set writers upon them.
How's that for some trash talk? You guys are so weak and pathetic. We're not afraid of you at all. Your army is ridiculous.
I'm going to give you a calorie. I'm going to give you 2,000 horses, but you don't even have enough men to put on them. So you might as well just give up surrender now and make life easier for yourself. Now, the talking trash in the Hebrew language right there at the gates of the city, if this one verse 26, a lie came in his two colleagues say, please speak to your servants in the Aramaic language because we understand it.
Don't speak to us in Hebrew because of course they don't want the people to create a mob and this reaction of panic. You don't want panic in the city. That was precisely the psychological warfare tactics of the Assyrians. And they say explicitly in verse 27, the Rob Shikah, the Rob Shikiah, excuse me, said to them, has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you and not to them in sitting on the wall who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine.
Like, wow, that's not nice at all. You see what I mean about the trash talk? Like, that's not nice at all, but it's psychological tactics, right? Warfare.
They are intimidating them and insulting them and basically giving them extremely limited menu options. If you rely on God and rely on Hezekiah and you don't surrender, then you're doomed to eat your own dung and drink your own urine. And that's not going to be pleasant or fun in any way, shape or form. However, if you surrender and make peace, go down to verse 31, says, don't listen to Hezekiah for thus says the king of Assyria.
Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat of his own vine and every one of his own fig tree and every one will drink the water of his own cistern, etc. So if you surrender, your menu options are going to be greatly improved and you're going to be happy by submitting yourselves to the king of Assyria. And then later on it goes on to talk about how Assyria really is, the land flowing with milk and honey and the promised land, not Judah.
So you get the point, a lot of trash talk, a lot of psychological warfare. Thankfully, none of the people of Jerusalem respond because the king commanded him not to respond. And so what does Hezekiah going to do? Well, the essence of chapter 19, it's a long chapter.
I'm just going to summarize it for you quickly, was that Hezekiah trusts in God. He humbles himself just a couple of verses, chapter 19, verse 1. When Hezekiah heard all this, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord, and he sent Eliah Kim, who was al-Haba'i to go inquire of Isaiah what's going to happen. So he humbles himself, he trusts in God, he doesn't panic, he doesn't make an alliance with some other world's superpower at the time.
He just waits in humility for God's word. And that's exactly what happens. In verse 6, Isaiah returns and says, Sadie your master thus says the Lord do not be afraid because of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.
And that's the prophecy that the king of Assyria will die this really shameful death. So Isaiah trusts, excuse me, has Achaia trusts, Isaiah then has this really beautiful prophecy, this kind of hymn of God's protection. It's really wonderful to death and to read them, verse by verse. But the point is that God delivers.
Has Achaia did the right thing, Isaiah reassured him, and that night, actually skipped all the way down to verse 35, it says that very night the angel of the Lord went forth and slew 185,000 of the camp of the Assyrians, and when men arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead bodies. And then the king, Sinekharib, departed, went home, dwelt in Nineveh, and as he was worshiping his pagan God, his two sons slew him with the sword, best fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy. So 185,000 Assyrians died in a single night. There's got to be a plague of some kind, thereby becoming an echo, I think, of the Exodus in some way.
We don't really know what plague it was, was it some kind of disease that spread through the camp, right? All these men are probably weak and tired, and they're not healthy. You know, all kinds of diseases pop up in camps. So who knows, dysentery, fiery, who knows what happened, but 185,000 of them died by God's providence, thereby delivering Hezekiah and Judah, and then the king of Assyria dies in his own land.
So this is a big deal in chapters 18 and 19 of Hezekiah trusting God. Now here in chapter 20, if we go on, we're going to see some interesting things. I think there's a slight blemish on Hezekiah's reputation here when we talk about, well, particularly sort of, but first let's look at him falling ill. So we're in chapter 20 now.
He's ill and at the point of death in verse 1, and Isaiah comes to him and says, that says, the Lord set your house in order for you shall die and you will not recover. And Hezekiah's response is again one of humility and contrition and trust. In verse 3, he says, remember now, O Lord, I beg you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart and have done what is good in your sight. I can say a lot about the word, remember, we've talked about it in so many other Bible studies, it's a car.
It's a car is covenantal remembrance, and especially covenantal fidelity on behalf of someone that you're in a covenant with. So Hezekiah is saying, is a car, remember the covenant, have compassion and mercy on me, because he has been really good. And it goes on to say, he went bitterly. Now before Isaiah leaves the courtyard, God says, go back, here's the message.
I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you on the third day. There's definitely resurrection imagery right there. I'm going to heal you on the third day, and then you shall go up to the house of the Lord, and I will add 15 years to your life.
I will deliver you in the city out of the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend the city for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake. And there's a little sign that accompanies this as well. Isaiah asks for a sign, which is kind of cool because remember, and I have a little footnote for you on this point.
A has his father when asked to give a sign, and said, oh no, this is Isaiah chapter 7. Oh no, I'm not going to give a sign. I'm not going to attempt and test the Lord. And Isaiah face palms, he's like, oh my gosh, you're so exasperating.
And he gives the sign about the virgin child. So, A has really doesn't have faith. But he has a kind of does. And so when asked for a sign, he says, yeah, I want a sign to show that this is true.
And then there's a sign, a miracle of the sun. The shadow on the sundial goes back 10 paces, which is impossible. It kind of echoes a little bit. There's another son miracle of Joshua.
If you go to Joshua chapter 10, Joshua makes the sun stand still in the skies where they can finish business in the battle that they're in the midst of that right at that particular moment. But he is given the sign and he is allowed to live another 15 years. So he dies in 686 BC, exactly 15 years after God delivered a Syria, delivered Israel from Assyria, I should say, in 701, 15 years later, which is pretty cool. Now, this whole story is beautiful in and of itself about Hezekiah trusting God, consulting Isaiah the prophet.
Praying deeply and profoundly sincerely in his heart for his own deliverance. But all of that takes on a greater meaning when you understand that he is a type of Judah, because Judah is on her deathbed. Judah is sick and is about to die. But then God gives Judah an extended life in the hopes of repentance, of course.
Just like Hezekiah is given extended life, Hezekiah is a sign of the whole kingdom of Judah. Judah is given extended life. And that's pretty cool. And that's what we see as the kingdom continues on, lumps on for however many years until it's destroyed in 586.
Hey, this is Doc Nick. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at ScriptureandTradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T Audio Library, where you can listen to them on demand, however, whenever you want. So thank you so much.
God bless you and keep studying your Bible.