2 Chronicles 29 text
2 Chronicles 30 text
2 Chronicles 31 text
2 Chronicles 32 text
Compare
2 Kings 18,
2 Kings 19,
2 Kings 20
Highlights
- Hezekiah reigns, and Assyria moves against Judah
Summary
Ch. 29
- Hezekiah puts Yahweh-worship centre-stage
- He has the temple restored
- He has it reconsecrated
Ch. 30
- Hezekiah sends messengers throughout Israel and Judah to implore the people to observe the Passover in Jerusalem
- Some respond by attending, some find it ridiculous and ignore it
- It is emphasised that this last previously happened under David, centuries before
Ch. 31
- Symbols of other religions destroyed throughout Judah on Hezekiah's orders
- Resurrection of the tithing system of taxes
- Consecration of more priests
Ch. 32
- Assyria under Sennacherib invades Judah (Israel having fallen already)
- Hezekiah repairs and improves the battlements of Jerusalem and stops up local springs to deny the Assyrian army water
- Sennacherib delivers a message to Jerusalem, in which he points out the futility of opposing his superior forces and how others that have resisted were not aided by their religious convictions
- But Jerusalem is lucky - many die in the Assyrian camp, they return home, and Sennacherib is assassinated. Disaster is averted for now.
- Hezekiah becomes very ill, but recovers
- Hezekiah becomes rich and old, and dies
Questions and Observations
1) As we would expect from the Judah focus of the Chronicler, we skip over an event that is a key waymarker in the narrative of how Judah came to fall to Babylon - the fall of Israel to Assyria, which is given in 2 Kings 17. The installation of Hoshea as puppet king in Israel under Assyria's power, who then failed to tread astutely enough to please greater powers, mirrors almost exactly what we'll see repeated again shortly in Judah.
2) The content of chapters 30 and 31 is not found in Kings, at least in any detail.
3) Hezekiah's attempt to encourage Israel to offer him power is what provokes Sennacherib to invade Judah. This is the kind of ill-judged trouble-making that will see Judah annihilated before much longer. This is a useful piece of the puzzle - in Kings we were simply given to understand that Sennacherib attacked without explicitly stated motivation beyond that Hezekiah had "rebelled" against him - which didn't make entire sense of the face of things as Hezekiah was not prior to this his subject in any sense.
4) Kings has Hezekiah giving Sennacherib tribute; Chronicles omits this. There is also more detail in Kings about messages going back and forth to Sennacherib from his deputy Rabshakeh.
5) Whatever it was that decimated the Assyrians is still not clearly described - we wondered if it was some type of fast-acting sickness, maybe cholera connected to the blocked springs. Aside from the two Biblical accounts, there is also
an account from the Assyrian side, which details Sennacherib's triumphant campaign in Judah. His interaction with Hezekiah is described thus: "As for the king of Judah, Hezekiah, who had not submitted to my authority, I besieged and captured forty-six of his fortified cities, along with many smaller towns, taken in battle with my battering rams. ... I took as plunder 200,150 people, both small and great, male and female, along with a great number of animals including horses, mules, donkeys, camels, oxen, and sheep. As for Hezekiah, I shut him up like a caged bird in his royal city of Jerusalem. I then constructed a series of fortresses around him, and I did not allow anyone to come out of the city gates. His towns which I captured I gave to the kings of Ashod, Ekron, and Gaza." The reason for raising the siege is not mentioned, and nor is the carnage described in the Biblical account. The political outcome of the battle as given by the estimable Wikipedia is that "Both sides claim victory; Kingdom of Judah subjugated; King Hezekiah of Judah remains in power". This was really the beginning of the end for Judah, although it took a long time coming, largely due to Babylon's internal rising against Assyria providing much more pressing concerns for the larger powers.
6) As in Kings, Sennacherib is depicted as returning home to be killed. But this is a considerable truncation of events - he was assassinated 24 years later.
7) Hezekiah's illness is still mysterious, and in fact Kings makes more of an effort than Chronicles at explaining it.
8) We are directed for more information on Hezekiah to "the vision of Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz, in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel". Is this the Book of Isaiah that we now have, or something else?
9) Omitted in Chronicles is the final Hezekiah episode given in Kings, where in his illness he is friendly with Babylonian envoys. This would also have been a political gamble, but this time one that paid off - Babylon was becoming ascendant, to eclipse Assyria shortly.
10) Given that Israel is now effectively no more, the foci of Kings and Chronicles now coincide.
