18:9 In the fourth year of King Hezekiah’s reign (it was the seventh year of the reign of Israel’s King Hoshea, son of Elah), King Shalmaneser of Assyria marched 8 up against Samaria 9 and besieged it. 18:10 After three years he captured it (in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign); in the ninth year of King Hoshea’s reign over Israel Samaria was captured. 18:11 The king of Assyria deported the people of Israel 10 to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes. 18:12 This happened because they did not obey 11 the Lord their God and broke his agreement with them. 12 They did not pay attention to and obey all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded. 13
18:13 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 18:14 King Hezekiah of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria, who was at Lachish, “I have violated our treaty. 14 If you leave, I will do whatever you demand.” 15 So the king of Assyria demanded that King Hezekiah of Judah pay three hundred talents 16 of silver and thirty talents of gold. 18:15 Hezekiah gave him all the silver in 17 the Lord’s temple and in the treasuries of the royal palace.
19:32 So this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:
“He will not enter this city,
nor will he shoot an arrow here. 18
He will not attack it with his shield-carrying warriors, 19
nor will he build siege works against it.
19:33 He will go back the way he came.
He will not enter this city,” says the Lord.
19:34 I will shield this city and rescue it for the sake of my reputation and because of my promise to David my servant.’” 20
19:35 That very night the Lord’s messenger went out and killed 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp. When they 21 got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses. 22
1:11 The king 24 sent another captain and his fifty soldiers to retrieve Elijah. He went up and told him, 25 “Prophet, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’” 26
10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, 27
a cudgel with which I angrily punish. 28
10:6 I sent him 29 against a godless 30 nation,
I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, 31
to take plunder and to carry away loot,
to trample them down 32 like dirt in the streets.
10:7 But he does not agree with this,
his mind does not reason this way, 33
for his goal is to destroy,
and to eliminate many nations. 34
10:8 Indeed, 35 he says:
“Are not my officials all kings?
10:9 Is not Calneh like Carchemish?
Hamath like Arpad?
Samaria like Damascus? 36
10:10 I overpowered kingdoms ruled by idols, 37
whose carved images were more impressive than Jerusalem’s 38 or Samaria’s.
10:11 As I have done to Samaria and its idols,
so I will do to Jerusalem and its idols.” 39
10:12 But when 40 the sovereign master 41 finishes judging 42 Mount Zion and Jerusalem, then I 43 will punish the king of Assyria for what he has proudly planned and for the arrogant attitude he displays. 44
1 map For location see Map1-D2; Map2-D3; Map3-A2; Map4-C1.
2 tn Heb “them.”
3 tn Heb “went up against.”
4 tn Heb “and the king of Assyria found in Hoshea conspiracy.”
5 sn For discussion of this name, see HALOT 744 s.v. סוֹא and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 196.
6 tn Heb “and bound him in the house of confinement.”
7 tn Heb “went up against.”
8 tn Heb “went” (also in v. 13).
9 map For location see Map2-B1; Map4-D3; Map5-E2; Map6-A4; Map7-C1.
10 tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.
11 tn Heb “listen to the voice of.”
12 tn Heb “his covenant.”
13 tn Heb “all that Moses, the
14 tn Or “I have done wrong.”
15 tn Heb “Return from upon me; what you place upon me, I will carry.”
16 tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 22,500 pounds of silver and 2,250 pounds of gold.
17 tn Heb “that was found.”
18 tn Heb “there.”
19 tn Heb “[with] a shield.” By metonymy the “shield” stands for the soldier who carries it.
20 tn Heb “for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”
21 tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.
22 tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies.”
23 tn Heb “elders of the priests.”
24 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
25 tc The MT reads, “he answered and said to him.” The verb “he answered” (וַיַּעַן, vayya’an) is probably a corruption of “he went up” (וַיַּעַל, vayya’al). See v. 9.
26 sn In this second panel of the three-paneled narrative, the king and his captain are more arrogant than before. The captain uses a more official sounding introduction (“this is what the king says”) and the king adds “at once” to the command.
27 tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
28 tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”
29 sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).
30 tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”
31 tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”
32 tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”
33 tn Heb “but he, not so does he intend, and his heart, not so does it think.”
34 tn Heb “for to destroy [is] in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.”
35 tn Or “For” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).
36 sn Calneh … Carchemish … Hamath … Arpad … Samaria … Damascus. The city states listed here were conquered by the Assyrians between 740-717
37 tn Heb “Just as my hand found the kingdoms of the idol[s].” The comparison is expanded in v. 11a (note “as”) and completed in v. 11b (note “so”).
38 map For the location of Jerusalem see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
39 tn The statement is constructed as a rhetorical question in the Hebrew text: “Is it not [true that] just as I have done to Samaria and its idols, so I will do to Jerusalem and its idols?”
40 tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.
41 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 16, 23, 24, 33 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
42 tn Heb “his work on/against.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “on”; NIV “against.”
43 tn The Lord is speaking here, as in vv. 5-6a.
44 tn Heb “I will visit [judgment] on the fruit of the greatness of the heart of the king of Assyria, and on the glory of the height of his eyes.” The proud Assyrian king is likened to a large, beautiful fruit tree.