2 Kings 19 Introduction

Structure and Formatting

The story of Hezekiah continues in this chapter. He is one of the great kings of Judah, so the author is describing his reign in detail.

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

Why did Sennacherib’s sons kill him?

The author reports in 19:37 that after Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, while he was worshiping in the temple of the Assyrian god Nisrok, Adrammelek and Sharezer, two of his sons, assassinated him. They did that because of a bitter conflict over who would succeed him as king, as ancient Assyrian sources report. The crown prince Assur-nadin-shumi died, and Sennacherib at first named Adrammelech his heir. But later he replaced him with Esarhaddon, a younger son, for reasons that the sources do not specify. This made Adrammelek very angry, but Sennacherib refused to reinstate him. So he conspired with his brother Sharezer to assassinate their father. They had hoped to seize power for themselves, but they had to flee, and Esarhaddon became the next king.

Translation Issues in This Chapter

As in chapter 18, there are two long quotations in this chapter that contain multiple levels of quotation. They are in verses 10–13 and 20–34. Notes describe ways of indicating the speakers throughout these quotations. See what you did in the case of the quotations in the previous chapter, and present these quotations in the same way.

Images in the king of Assyria’s boast

In 19:23, Yahweh uses vivid imagery to depict how the Assyrian king has been boasting of his military conquests. Here is an explanation of the various images that he uses.

• As Yahweh quotes him, Assyrian king is speaking as if he had actually gone up the highest and most remote mountains of Lebanon and cut down its tallest and most valuable trees.
• He is using Lebanon to represent the entire geographical area of which Israel is a part.
• He is using the giant trees that grow in Lebanon to represent huge, strong entities, so that his boast to have cut them down means that he has defeated powerful foes.
• By the lodging place of its end, he means the place where his army would stop at the end of a successful campaign to conquer the whole country, that is, Jerusalem. (The author says in 18:13 that Sennacherib sought first to conquer all of the other fortified cities in Judah, and then he attacked Jerusalem.)
• By the forest of its garden (that is, its forest that is like a garden), he means the place where the forest has been most transformed by cultivation into a park for human recreation and enjoyment. This seems to represent the grounds of the royal palace and temple, particularly in light of how extensively cedar and cypress wood was used in the construction of those buildings.

Consider how best to represent these images in your translation. A note to this verse suggests one possible way to do that.