In Hezekiah’s fourteenth year, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured Judah’s fortified cities. Hezekiah sent him a message acknowledging wrong and asking him to withdraw. Sennacherib demanded silver and gold, and Hezekiah gave the silver from the temple and palace treasuries and stripped gold from the temple doors and pillars.
Yet Sennacherib sent a large force to Jerusalem. His field commander stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool and asked what Hezekiah was trusting. He mocked reliance on Egypt as a broken reed and claimed that Hezekiah had offended God by removing high places.
The commander spoke loudly in Judah’s language so that the people on the wall could hear. He told them not to let Hezekiah deceive them and said that their God could not deliver them. He urged them to surrender to Assyria, promising that they would remain for a time in a land of vines, figs, and wells before being taken to another land. He asked whether any god of the other nations had delivered its land from Assyria. The people gave no answer because the king had ordered them not to reply.
Hezekiah’s officials came back with torn clothes and reported the words. Hezekiah also tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and went into God’s temple. He sent men to Isaiah, calling it a day of distress and asking him to pray for the surviving remnant. Isaiah told them not to fear the words of Sennacherib and said that God would cause him to return to his land and fall there by the sword.
Sennacherib sent another message, saying that Jerusalem’s God would not save it. Hezekiah took the letter into the temple and spread it before God. He prayed that God alone was God of all the kingdoms and had made heaven and earth. He acknowledged that Assyria had destroyed nations, but said their gods were only wood and stone made by human hands. He asked to be saved so that all kingdoms would know that God alone was God.
Isaiah sent word that God had heard Hezekiah’s prayer. Sennacherib would not enter Jerusalem, shoot an arrow there, carry a shield against it, or build a siege ramp. God would defend the city for his own sake and for David’s sake.
That night the angel of the Lord struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. In the morning they were all dead. Sennacherib returned to Nineveh. While he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword and fled. His son Esarhaddon became king after him.