Praying at the Crossroads SESSION EIGHT: THE PRAYER OF HEZEKIAH • 2 KINGS 18:1-37; 19:1-37 • MAIN POINT We must make prayer a first instinct rather than a last resort.

INTRODUCTION As your group time begins, use this section to introduce the topic of discussion.

When was a time you had to deal with a bully in your life? How did you respond?

If someone or something seemed determined to harm you or someone you love, to whom or what would you turn for help? Why?

In times of trouble, is prayer usually your first instinct or last resort? Explain.

No matter who you are, where you live, what your economic status is, or what your religious life is like, trouble and troublemakers will find you. A Christian’s response in the face of such realities may tend toward panicking or devising a plot to make things better. Sadly, the last course many of us choose is prayer.

Rather than panicking, plotting, or using persuasion, the Bible urges prayer in times of trouble. In fact, prayer should be our first response not our last resort. A wonderful portion of Scripture that drives this point home is 2 Kings 18–19, which concerns a man named Hezekiah. His story reveals that prayer does what no plotting or persuasiveness can do.

WATCH VIDEO SESSION 8 OF PRAYING AT THE CROSSROADS—THE PRAYER OF HEZEKIAH.

UNDERSTANDING Unpack the biblical text to discover what the Scripture says or means about a particular topic.

ASK A VOLUNTEER TO READ 2 KINGS 18:1-37.

Based on verses 1-8, what kind of king was Hezekiah? Considering his commitment to the Lord, are the events in the rest of the chapter surprising to you? Why or why not?

Page 1 of 7 What can we learn from Hezekiah about the nature of trouble even in the life of the godly?

Are you inclined to believe your faithfulness to God should exempt you from attacks and trials? Explain.

Chapter 18 gives an impressive resume of Hezekiah. Hezekiah did what was right in the Lord’s sight (v. 3). He uprooted kingdom wide idolatry (v. 4). He trusted in the Lord and held fast to Him (vv. 5-6). He was accomplished on the battlefield (vv. 7-8). And the rest of the chapter lets us know that even a man this highly regarded in Scripture faced a menacing terror, namely the Assyrian Empire.

The Assyrians were the biggest bullies on the block during Hezekiah’s day. They were known for their dominance. Assyria brutalized, terrorized, and tormented other nations. Often they impaled victims as a means of psychological warfare. Understandably, Hezekiah was shaken when this empire set its sights on Judah.

As God’s people, we face antagonism from various sources. We must remember that, ultimately, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens” (Eph. 6:12). Why is it important to remain aware of our true foe and his schemes?

Under King Shalmaneser, Hezekiah watched Assyria defeat the Northern Kingdom of Israel (18:9- 12). Now under a new bully, Sennacherib, Hezekiah and the Southern Kingdom were under attack (v. 13).

What was Hezekiah’s initial response to the Assyrian threat (vv. 14-16)? What was wrongheaded about his response?

When faced with opposition, why do we often turn to human means before we place our trust in God?

What are your tendencies when you face attacks?

ASK A VOLUNTEER TO READ 2 KINGS 19:1-20, 35-37.

What stands out to you in Hezekiahs’ prayer?

What did Hezekiah acknowledge and believe about God? What did he acknowledge and believe about Assyria?

Page 2 of 7 Some people believe that speaking and acknowledging evil aloud is faithlessness. In what way did Hezekiah actually demonstrate faith in verse 17 by acknowledging Assyria’s power?

Hezekiah didn’t pray immediately, but after an unsuccessful attempt to make a deal he pivoted from bargaining to bowing. In chapter 19, Hezekiah stopped trying to pay his way out and decided to pray his way out. His prayer was recorded in 2 Kings 19:15-19, and verses 35-37 demonstrate that his prayer was successful. What his plotting and persuading didn’t accomplish, his prayer did. Assyria retreated, and Sennacherib was killed through divine action in response to Hezekiah’s prayer.

The Lord fights our battles for us and welcomes us to call on Him in times of trouble. We aren’t sufficient on our own, but the Lord Jesus has already won the battle. Hezekiah teaches us that prayer does what neither our panicking, nor plotting, nor persuasiveness can do.

APPLICATION Help your group identify how the truths from the Scripture passage apply directly to their lives.

In the video session we were encouraged this way: “Want what you want, but want what God wants more than what you want.” In what circumstance do you need to apply this to your prayer life currently?

Think about the struggles you’re facing. How do you need to respond in prayer? Who will join you in praying?

How does a reliance on God’s strength over our own strength and wisdom point others to His glory? PRAYER Praise God for the privilege and power of prayer. Acknowledge your fears, challenges, and enemies to Him in prayer, seeking His strength and solutions. Yield to God’s timetable, trusting that He will demonstrate His power and justice at the right time.

COMMENTARY 2 KINGS 18-19

18:1-4. Following his father’s death in 715 B.C., Hezekiah assumed the throne and reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years until 686 B.C. Ahaz had been a disaster as a king and even more so

Page 3 of 7 as a father and spiritual influence. In addition, he had seen the brutal power of Assyria as it obliterated the nation of Israel. Hezekiah also would have been aware of his own nation’s sin as it followed the destructive path of Israel (17:18-19). It would be easy to excuse Hezekiah if he had simply perpetuated the past, taking the path of least resistance.

Instead, we read the strongest affirmation of a king in 2 Kings, rivaled only by that of his great- grandson Josiah: He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David. There are no qualifications. Indeed, we read, for the first time, that he removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. Hezekiah was the polar opposite of his father; he was also a king like David who led his nation in external reform and spiritual renewal. His crusade to rebuild his nation is described in considerable detail in 2 Chronicles 29- 31..

18:5-8. Hezekiah’s God-pleasing life was not an accident. He had made godly choices. He had three major characteristics. First, he trusted in the Lord. It was the quality of faith that would be most directly tested by the Assyrian onslaught, but it set him apart. The second quality was exclusive loyalty: He held fast to the Lord (in contrast to Solomon, who held fast to his wives; 1 Kgs. 11:2). The third quality was Hezekiah’s consistent obedience: he kept the command the Lord had given Moses. As a result, the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook.

18:9-12. The writer of 2 Kings takes us back to 724 B.C., when the Assyrian king Shalmaneser attacked Samaria, and to 722 B.C., when it fell. By reviewing the events of chapter 17, he reminds us of the power of Assyria, against which Hezekiah had rebelled, and of the penalty for sin. He also contrasts Hezekiah with the weakness that characterized the Northern Kingdom. He does not say it in so many words, but he wants us to see the great difference a godly king makes. Israel had neither listened to the commands of the Lord nor carried them out. Now we will see what could happen when a king listened and obeyed.

18:13-16. Sennacherib of Assyria, who succeeded Sargon in 705 B.C., had no intention of allowing Hezekiah’s rebellion to go unpunished. In 701 B.C. he attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. He made his headquarters at Lachish, twenty-five miles southwest of Jerusalem, and wrote in his annals that he had Hezekiah “shut up in Jerusalem, his royal capital, like a bird in a cage.”

Hezekiah suffered an uncharacteristic but understandable lapse of faith. He sent a message to the Assyrian king, confessing the “ sin” of rebellion: I have done wrong. He then asked the king to withdraw, offering to pay whatever price he demanded. The demand was for three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. Hezekiah could pay this amount only by emptying the

Page 4 of 7 temple and royal treasuries of their silver and stripping off the gold he had used to cover the temple doors and doorposts. Notably absent is any reference to seeking divine guidance or aid.

18:17-27. The Assyrians didn’t play by the rules. Rather than withdrawing, the king sent his military officers with a large army to negotiate with Hezekiah. Actually, he had no intention of settling for anything less than Judah’s surrender.

The Assyrian field commander was a skilled propagandist. He used a combination of truths, half-truths, threats, promises, and mockery to deride Judean confidence. He not only spoke the Hebrew language; he was well-versed in Judean affairs. His major goal in this opening salvo was to undermine confidence in the Lord and Hezekiah. He wanted to show that trusting anything other than the great king of Assyria was foolishness.

The Assyrian commander first mocked Judah’s feeble defenses. He then claimed that reliance on the Lord was senseless, since Hezekiah had offended him by removing his high places and altars. He was speaking as a pagan, but he was probably tapping in to underlying concern on the part of many Judeans that Hezekiah’s reforms had offended some powerful deities and maybe even the Lord. The field commander’s final barb was to point out that Judah’s resistance was only bluster. They lacked the power to resist. He offered to supply Jerusalem with two thousand horses, knowing they could not find enough soldiers to put riders on them. He once again derided Egypt and depending on this nation for horses and chariots. Finally, he claimed that Sennacherib was the agent of the Lord: The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.

18:28-37. The commander shifted his target, now speaking directly to the assembled crowd in the name of the king of Assyria. The main word now became deliver, and his specific target was Hezekiah, whom he slandered. He accused Hezekiah of deception by holding out the false hope of deliverance and of intervention from the Lord. He also attacked Hezekiah by claiming that the Assyrians had a better offer. If they would surrender, every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern.

Until now the Assyrian commander’s attack had been directed at the people’s false confidence and at Hezekiah’s leadership. But now he crossed into the realm of blasphemy by demeaning God: Judah’s God was only one god among many. Hezekiah’s negotiators returned to the king to make their report, their clothes torn as a symbol of their grief and concern. Judah was in real trouble!

19:1-7. After hearing the report, he went downward in humility before the Lord (he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth) and outward into his presence (he went into the temple of the Lord ). He was now aware that Assyria could not be bought off by tribute money; only God could deal with

Page 5 of 7 the problem. He went one step further in seeking a word from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah’s response came quickly and with divine authority: Do not be afraid of what you have heard. The issue was not between Hezekiah and Sennacherib but between Assyria and the Lord.

God would do two things. First, he would cause Assyria’s king to withdraw. Jerusalem would be spared as a result. This would be entirely the work of God; Hezekiah would contribute nothing. The second promise was that the Lord would bring about Sennacherib’s death in Nineveh.

19:14-19. Hezekiah’s view of the Lord was different from that of the pagan king, as he revealed by his response to the Assyrian letter. Having read it, he went up to the temple... and spread it out before the Lord. The temple was where God dwelt in a special way among his people. By spreading the letter before the Lord, Hezekiah was not displaying a crude belief in God’s physicality but a profound sense of trust and dependence. Earlier he had asked the prophet Isaiah to pray (v. 4); now he himself prayed.

Hezekiah’s prayer is a striking illustration of the principles of effective prayer. He began with adoration of God. In spite of the claims of the Assyrians, he was the God of Israel, but he was also the exalted, universal, unrivaled, all-powerful Lord. He was the Creator of all things, having made heaven and earth.

Having begun with praise, Hezekiah expressed his sense of urgency. The heaping up of appeals to hear and see reflect the intensity of need. Before God, he was realistic about his situation. He was, on the one hand, aware of Assyrian power. He did not minimize their reign of terror or the history of their conquests. The major feature of Hezekiah’s prayer was his passion for God’s glory and honor. The Assyrian had dared to insult the living God. Hezekiah obviously desired deliverance from his enemy. But more was at stake than the peace and security of Jerusalem: O Lord... deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone... are God. Prayer that is more concerned with God’s glory than with our peace, prosperity, or pleasure is prayer that the Lord delights to answer.

19:35-37. The account of the attack of Sennacherib has been told with a level of detail rare in 2 Kings. But the outcome is told with great brevity. The Lord fulfilled his promise of 19:7 precisely. The “spirit” that caused Sennacherib to break camp and retreat came because of an angelic visit reminiscent of the visit of the angel of death on the first Passover night (Exod. 12:29-30). Details are sparse. We are told only that the angel of the Lord... put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp . Those not directly affected slept through the night, but they awoke to find dead bodies everywhere! No wonder Sennacherib broke camp and withdrew. There is no mention of such a massive death toll in the Assyrian annals. This is hardly surprising since no ancient king would record a disaster of such magnitude.

Page 6 of 7 One final piece needed to fall into place. Sennacherib had returned to Nineveh. Twenty years later, in 681 B.C., while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons assassinated him. The Assyrian chronicles record that he was killed by his sons in a rebellion and succeeded by another son, Esarhaddon. The irony must not be missed. Hezekiah, in complete distress, had gone into the temple of his God—and he found help and deliverance. Sennacherib, the “great king,” had gone into the temple of his god—but he found death from his own family in the presence of a god he had foolishly boasted.

Page 7 of 7