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Context No. 217 of 4322 · 2 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

2 Chronicles 32:21-26: in context

21The LORD sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, the leaders, and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. When he had come into the house of his god, those who came out of his own body killed him there with the sword. 22Thus the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side. 23Many brought gifts to the LORD to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah, so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from then on. 24In those days Hezekiah was terminally ill, and he prayed to the LORD; and he spoke to him, and gave him a sign. 25But Hezekiah didn’t reciprocate appropriate to the benefit done for him, because his heart was lifted up. Therefore there was wrath on him, Judah, and Jerusalem. 26However, Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the LORD’s wrath didn’t come on them in the days of Hezekiah.

Assyria was the great power of the age, and under Sennacherib it had already swallowed the northern kingdom of Israel and come down to besiege Jerusalem in the days of King Hezekiah. These verses stand just after that siege, telling how it ended and what it did to the king who survived it.

The deliverance is told quickly. An angel of the LORD cut down the Assyrian camp, and Sennacherib went home with shame on his face, and there, in the temple of his own god, his sons killed him with the sword. That last detail is not only Scripture. Assyrian and Babylonian records also report that Sennacherib was assassinated by his sons about twenty years after the campaign, cut down while at worship. The threat that had made the whole region tremble ended in a family murder.

Then the chronicler turns to Hezekiah, and tells the unwelcome part. The king who was rescued, and later healed from a deadly illness, let his heart grow proud, and wrath came against him and Judah for it. He humbled himself, and the judgment was held back, but only for his own lifetime. The danger after the rescue was not Assyria. It was what his own success did to him. After I have been carried through something, what does the rescue tempt me to believe about myself?

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