Commentaria in IV Regum
Chapter 18. Synopsis of the Chapter
Ezechias reigns, overthrows the idols, rebels against king Sennacherib, who, v. 17, sends Rabsaces. He blasphemes God, insults Ezechias, and urges the Jews to surrender to Sennacherib.
1. In the third year of Osee the son of Ela king of Israel, Ezechias the son of Achaz king of Juda reigned. 2. He was five and twenty years old when he began to reign; and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem: his mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zacharias. 3. And he did that which was good before the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. 4. He destroyed the high places, and broke the statues in pieces, and cut down the groves, and broke the brazen serpent which Moses had made: for till that time the children of Israel burnt incense to it; and he called its name Nohestan. 5. He trusted in the Lord the God of Israel: so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Juda, nor among them that were before him; 6. And he stuck to the Lord, and departed not from his steps, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. 7. Wherefore the Lord also was with him, and in all things whatsoever he undertook he behaved himself wisely. And he rebelled against the king of the Assyrians, and served him not. 8. He smote the Philistines as far as Gaza, and all their borders, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. 9. In the fourth year of king Ezechias, which was the seventh year of Osee the son of Ela king of Israel, Salmanasar king of the Assyrians came up to Samaria, and fought against it, 10. And took it. For after three years, in the sixth year of Ezechias, that is, in the ninth year of Osee king of Israel, Samaria was taken: 11. And the king of the Assyrians carried away Israel into Assyria, and placed them in Hala and in Habor by the rivers of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes; 12. Because they hearkened not to the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant: all that Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded they would not hear nor do. 13. In the fourteenth year of king Ezechias, Sennacherib king of the Assyrians came up against all the fenced cities of Juda, and took them. 14. Then Ezechias king of Juda sent messengers to the king of the Assyrians to Lachis, saying: I have offended, depart from me, and all that thou shalt put upon me I will bear. And the king of the Assyrians put a tax upon Ezechias king of Juda of three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold. 15. And Ezechias gave all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the king’s treasures; 16. At that time Ezechias broke the doors of the temple of the Lord, and the plates of gold which he himself had fastened, and gave them to the king of the Assyrians. 17. And the king of the Assyrians sent Tharthan, and Rabsaris, and Rabsaces from Lachis to king Ezechias, with a strong army, to Jerusalem: and they went up and came to Jerusalem, and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the way of the fuller’s field. 18. And they called for the king: and there went out to them Eliacim the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the recorder. 19. And Rabsaces said to them: Speak to Ezechias: Thus saith the great king, the king of the Assyrians: What is this confidence, wherein thou trustest? 20. Perhaps thou hast taken counsel to prepare thyself for battle. On whom dost thou trust, that thou darest to rebel? 21. Dost thou trust in Egypt, a staff of a broken reed, upon which if a man lean, it will break and go into his hand and pierce it? So is Pharao king of Egypt to all that trust in him. 22. But if you say to me: We trust in the Lord our God: is not he the one whose high places and altars Ezechias hath taken away, and hath commanded Juda and Jerusalem: You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem? 23. Now therefore come over to my master the king of the Assyrians, and I will give you two thousand horses, and see whether you are able to have riders for them. 24. And how can you stand against one lord of the least of my master’s servants? Dost thou put thy trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 25. Is it without the will of the Lord that I am come up to this place, to destroy it? The Lord said to me: Go up to this land, and destroy it. 26. Then Eliacim the son of Helcias, and Sobna, and Joahe said to Rabsaces: We pray thee speak to us thy servants in the Syrian language, for we understand it; and speak not to us in the Jews’ language, in the hearing of the people that are upon the wall. 27. And Rabsaces answered them, saying: Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words, and not rather to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their urine with you? 28. Then Rabsaces stood and cried out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said: Hear the word of the great king, the king of the Assyrians. 29. Thus saith the king: Let not Ezechias deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. 30. Neither let him make you trust in the Lord, saying: The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of the Assyrians. 31. Do not hearken to Ezechias. For thus saith the king of the Assyrians: Do with me that which is for your advantage, and come out to me: and every man of you shall eat of his own vineyard, and of his own fig tree, and you shall drink water of your own cisterns: 32. Till I come and take you away to a land that is like your own land, a fruitful land, and plentiful in wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olives, and of oil and honey, and you shall live and not die. Hearken not to Ezechias, who deceiveth you, saying: The Lord will deliver us. 33. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land from the hand of the king of the Assyrians? 34. Where is the god of Emath, and of Arphad? where is the god of Sepharvaim, Ana, and Ava? have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 35. Who are they among all the gods of the nations, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the Lord may deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? 36. But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for they had received commandment from the king that they should not answer him. 37. And Eliacim the son of Helcias, who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and Joahe the son of Asaph the recorder, came to Ezechias with their garments rent, and told him the words of Rabsaces.
2. HE WAS FIVE AND TWENTY YEARS OLD WHEN HE BEGAN TO REIGN.—You will say: From the preceding chapter it is clear that Achaz lived only thirty-six years; therefore Achaz begot Ezechias in the eleventh year of his age: for when he died in the thirty-sixth year of his age, Ezechias who succeeded him was 25 years old; take 25 from 36, and there remain eleven years. Cajetan, Sanchez and St. Jerome, epistle 132 to Vitalis, admit the consequence, where by many examples he proves that this can happen. Abulensis, however, thinks that Achaz was fourteen years old when he begot Ezechias; because, he says, the incomplete years are passed over in silence in Scripture. For Achaz, says Abulensis, when he began to reign, was twenty years old, namely completed, and one incomplete, which Scripture does not number. Again, he reigned sixteen years, namely completed, and besides a seventeenth incomplete; wherefore he died in the thirty-eighth year of his age. Ezechias also was only 24 completed years old when he began to reign; but he had begun his 25th.
4. AND BROKE THE BRAZEN SERPENT WHICH MOSES HAD MADE (to heal those who were bitten by serpents, Numbers 21:8); FOR TILL THAT TIME THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL BURNT INCENSE TO IT—as to a beneficent divinity, as one who had cured their fathers of the bite of serpents. Philastrius adds, bishop of Brescia, a contemporary of St. Ambrose, De haeresibus, ch. 21, that Ezechias ordered to be destroyed, scraped off with iron and wholly cut away, certain impressions or engravings which the people of the Jews made on a certain great stone, like an obelisk, which stood in the temple in place of a column: from which taking various forms like letters and placing them on a plate, they wore them at the neck, practising with them certain incantations and sorceries, and held them in honour as certain safeguards, carrying them on their breast, which the Lord had everywhere forbidden in the law, because this was the impiety of a pagan state.
AND HE CALLED ITS NAME NOHESTAN,—that is, a bit of brass, namely cast of small, cheap and tinkling brass. “Nohestan” is a diminutive name, which Ezechias uses to show contempt for the image, as if to say: What do you think, O Jews, to hold a divinity of paltry, cheap and sordid brass? You err, there is nothing divine in it, nothing great, for it is nothing else than a small portion of black and dirty brass. Anastasius of Nicaea adds from Eusebius: “The books of Solomon,” he says, “which were written on proverbs, and on songs in which he treated of the nature of plants and of every kind of animal, and of the cure of all diseases, Ezechias removed; because the people took remedies for diseases from them, and made nothing of asking cures from God.”
5. HE TRUSTED IN THE LORD THE GOD OF ISRAEL,—and therefore it is said in v. 7: “Wherefore the Lord also was with him, and in all things whatsoever he undertook he behaved himself wisely.” Hence he was fittingly called “Ezechias,” Chizkiyahu, that is, the Lord is my strength, says Pagninus, as if this were his motto and emblem.
NOR WAS THERE ANY LIKE HIM,—to Ezechias, namely in this, that he took away the high places and broke the brazen serpent, which all the other kings before him had permitted. For otherwise David seems to have been more religious and holy than Ezechias: for David was a man after God’s own heart, to whom therefore was made by God the promise of Christ to be born of him; and so David was set by God as a pattern to be imitated by all the kings to be born of him. So Abulensis. Or certainly it is a hyperbole, as if to say: So pious and zealous was Ezechias in upholding the worship of God that he seems scarcely to have had an equal or like. The same is said of Abraham, Ecclesiasticus 44:20: “There was not found,” he says, “the like to him in glory, who kept the law of the Most High.” See what was said there.
7. AND HE REBELLED AGAINST THE KING OF THE ASSYRIANS,—to whom his father Achaz had subjected himself and paid tribute, which Ezechias refused, thinking it unworthy that a faithful king of Juda should serve an unbelieving king, and trusting in God that he would free him from this servitude, as he did, by a miraculous victory.
8. FROM THE TOWER OF THE WATCHMEN—the rustic one, as I said in chapter 17, v. 9.
11. AND PLACED THEM IN HALA AND IN HABOR BY THE RIVERS OF GOZAN, IN THE CITIES OF THE MEDES—For “rivers,” Serarius and others think we should read “river.” Hence Vatablus renders it by the river Gozan, and so our version in chapter 17, v. 6. For the Hebrew is nehar, that is, river, in the singular; or certainly the cities lying by rivers are called rivers by metonymy, for men dwell in cities, not in rivers, except among the Chinese, where there is such a multitude of men that the land cannot hold them: wherefore many are forced to dwell on the bridges and boats of the rivers, as our Nicholas Trigault testifies in his history of China.
13. IN THE FOURTEENTH YEAR OF KING EZECHIAS SENNACHERIB CAME UP,—who had already succeeded his father Salmanasar, deceased, in the kingdom of the Assyrians. He came up against Juda because Ezechias had rebelled and refused the tribute, v. 7. This was done by the providence of God, who, notwithstanding the piety of Ezechias, wished to punish the tribe of Juda for the idolatry and crimes committed by it.
17. AND THE KING OF THE ASSYRIANS SENT.—Note here the perfidy of Sennacherib, who, having received from Ezechias three hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold, nevertheless sent an army against him, which was therefore slain by an Angel, and while he invaded the goods of others, he lost his own at home.
WHICH IS IN THE WAY OF THE FULLER’S FIELD.—The field was so called because in it fullers washed cloths in the water of the pool.
25. THE LORD SAID TO ME: GO UP TO THIS LAND, AND DESTROY IT.—Rabsaces lies that he is invading the Jews by God’s command, to terrify them and drive them to surrender. So Abulensis.
The rest of this chapter is transcribed from Isaias chapter 36, where I explained it: for Isaias was the go-between between God and Ezechias, and foretold and promised him victory over Sennacherib.
36. THEY HAD RECEIVED COMMANDMENT FROM THE KING (Ezechias) THAT THEY SHOULD NOT ANSWER HIM.—Why? St. Cyril of Alexandria answers first, on the cited chapter of Isaias: “Because,” he says, “to unlearned speeches, and barbarous pride, and a tongue wanton against God, it was fitting rather to weep than to reply.” Procopius answers second, on the cited place of Kings: “The pious king,” he says, “did not allow any answer to be made to these blasphemies, lest he should provoke greater.” Abulensis answers third, in the same place, Question 44: “Because it pertained to the honour of the king,” he says, “that affairs be done prudently, in order and with deliberation; but if anyone of the people could answer Rabsaces as he liked, there would be a great disorder, and Rabsaces could mock the disorder which Ezechias had among his subjects and affairs.”