Глава 18

The history of the Kingdom of Judah, from the destruction of Israel, to the captivity of Babylon. 1–7a. 13th King of Judah Hezekiah, years of reign and his pious character. 7b-37. Hezekiah's revolt from Assyria, Sennacherib's campaign against Judah and his siege of Jerusalem by his leaders. 2 Kings 18:1. In the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah reigned. 2 Kings 18:2. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years; His mother's name was Abi, daughter of Zechariah. 2 Kings 18:3. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord in all things, just as David his father had done; 2 Kings 18:4. he abolished the high places, broke the statues, cut down the oak grove and destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Nehushtan. 2 Kings 18:5. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; and there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, both after him and before him. 2 Kings 18:6. And he clung to the Lord and did not depart from Him, and kept His commandments which the Lord commanded Moses. 2 Kings 18:7. And the Lord was with him: wherever he went, he acted wisely. And he revolted from the king of Assyria and did not serve him. 2 Kings 18:8. He smote the Philistines as far as Gaza and within its borders, from the watchtower to the fortified city. About the reign of the most pious Hezekiah, in addition to (2 Kings 18–20), there are two more lengthy parallel narratives in the Bible: in the book (Isa.36:1–39) and in (2 Chronicles 29:1,32:1). Compared to the story of the book. the prophet Isaiah, the story of the fourth book of Kings partly contains something that is not found in the prophet Isaiah, as (2 Kings 18:14-16), partly does not have the prayer of King Hezekiah contained there (Is. 38:9-20), from which some researchers, not without reason, conclude that both narratives were borrowed by two priests. writers from one common source - chronicles of the religious and social life of a given time (sources of this kind are named in (2 Chronicles 32:33): “the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, the prophet”; the documents usually cited in the 3rd and 4th books of Kings are also indicated here: “The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah and Israel”: both of these sources served for the history of Hezekiah; since his activities also concerned the kingdom Israel, the destruction of which followed in the 6th year of the reign of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:10), although one can assume the direct influence of the review of the prophet Isaiah on the 4th book of Kings). The narrative (2 Chronicles 29:1–32) examines the reign of Hezekiah not so much from a political-theocratic point of view as 4 Kings and Bk. the prophet Isaiah, from the side of the church activities of this king, and therefore reports primarily on the restoration by Hezekiah of various liturgical and religious functions, especially the Easter holiday, and thereby significantly complements the narrative of the 4th book of Kings. The date of Hezekiah's accession is determined to be 727 (v. 2, compare 10: 6 years before the fall of Samaria). For the reconciliation of the date of Hezekiah’s 25th year of age (2 Kings 18:2) at his accession with the date of the reign and years of life of his father Ahaz, see comments to (2 Kings 16:2) (cf. Prof. Gulyaev, p. 352). The general godly reign of Hezekiah, and the same direction of his reign (v. 5) the sacred writer, as usual, points out in relation to the cult: Hezekiah was the first of all the kings of Judah who decided to abolish even those ancient and sacred heights in the eyes of the masses, on which the pious kings of Judah allowed service to God (1 Kings 3:2,15:12,14), 15, but who did not put up with the idea of ​​the unity of the place of worship, with the law on the centralization of the cult Jehovah in the only temple in Jerusalem (Deut. 12:5–6); in the name of this last law, apparently wanting to destroy every shadow of polytheism in the cult of the people of God, Hezekiah “abolished the high places and altars” throughout the whole country (v. 22). Jealous, further, about the purely spiritual service of Jehovah, Hezekiah without hesitation destroyed even such a sacred relic in the eyes of the people as the copper serpent - Nehushtan, once made by Moses as a saving symbol (Num. 21: 4-9; cf. Pres. 16: 10, etc.; see "Commentary Bible", vol. I, p. 557), perhaps preserved for many centuries. at the tabernacle and then at the temple, but then became the subject of pagan deification by the Jews (see Palmov, op. cit. 143–152). Some, for example, Kleinert y Riеhm'a (Handwörterbuch, II, 1425), put this cult of Nehushtan among the Jews in connection with the Egyptian cult of Serapis on the grounds that in (Num. 21:6) poisonous snakes are named after the Hebrew. Seraphim - “scorching”. But it is much more likely that this superstition and idolatry arose among the Jews in connection with the pagan belief in the supernatural power of snakes, as this belief is found among the Phoenicians, Egyptians and Assylonians. The destruction of idolatry and superstitions committed by Hezekiah (vv. 3-4), however, would not have given the right to recognize him as the only one in piety of all the descendants of David (v. 5), if he had not carried out those reforms to restore the temple cult in all its purity and splendor, which is described in 2 Chronicles; namely: 1) cleansing the temple from all unclean pagan cults (2 Chronicles 29:1–19); 2) restoration of regularly performed true worship according to the law of Moses and according to the statutes of David and his contemporary prophets (2 Chronicles 29:20–36); 3) the unprecedented, in solemnity, celebration of Passover with the participation of even the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 30:1) and 4) the restoration of the priests established by David through the sacred services and the return to the latter of the means and sources of support (from offerings to the temple) taken from the priests during the reign of idolatry. These works of piety won Hezekiah the favor of Jehovah (v. 7), which was expressed in two external successes of Hezekiah’s reign: a) Hezekiah’s separation from Assyria, to which Ahaz subjugated Judah (2 Kings 16:7), this separation was expressed, of course, in Hezekiah’s failure to pay the Assyrian king a certain tribute (cf. 2 Kings 17:3–4; see Prof. Gulyaev, p. 353) b) in Hezekiah’s victory over the Philistines (v. 8), who, under Ahaz, made a number of conquests in the territory of the kingdom of Judah (2 Chronicles 28:18). 2 Kings 18:9. In the fourth year of king Hezekiah, that is, in the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria went to Samaria and besieged it, 2 Kings 18:10. and took her after three years; in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, in the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. 2 Kings 18:11. And the king of Assyria deported the Israelites to Assyria, and settled them in Halah and in Habor, by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, 2 Kings 18:12. because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord their God and transgressed His covenant, everything that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded, they neither listened nor fulfilled. Here, with almost literal accuracy, what was said in (2 Kings 17:3-6) about the fall of the kingdom of Israel is repeated: perhaps the message about this exact event was recorded not only in the Israeli, but also in the Jewish chronicles, the purpose of the repetition was to indicate that the piety of Hezekiah and the religious reforms he made saved Judah from the fate of Samaria and gave the kingdom of Judah the strength to withstand the pressure Assyrians. 2 Kings 18:13. In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria went against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. The campaign of the Assyrian king against Judea under Hezekiah was probably caused, among other things, by Hezekiah’s refusal to pay tribute (v. 7) to the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib (Heb. Sancherib; Assyrian sin-ahi-riba; in Herodotus II, 141: Σαναχάριβος), the son and successor of the conqueror Sargon's Samaria. According to Assyrian chronology (the so-called “canon of eponyms”), Sennacherib reigned from 705 to 681, which is why his campaign in Judea is now usually attributed to the year 701. According to biblical chronology, the years of Hezekiah’s reign are 727–698, in view of the testimony (2 Kings 20:6) that Hezekiah, after the campaign of Sennacherib and the contemporary illness of Hezekiah, the latter lived for another 15 years, the event of Sennacherib’s invasion falls approximately in the year 713 (cf. I. Fla. Jude. Ancient. 10: 1, 1 16 ). In view of Sennacherib sending ambassadors to Hezekiah from Lachish (v. 17, cf. (2 Kings 14:17), Onomasticon, 647), lying southwest of Jerusalem, we can conclude that the goal of the campaign was the Philistine land and, perhaps, the border regions of Egypt; one can also think that at this time there was again, as before the fall, a coalition of various small Asian states against Assyria, waiting for help from Egypt: Judah under Hezekiah, as can be seen from the accusatory speeches of the prophet Isaiah (Is. 31: 1–3, 30: 6), strongly gravitated towards an alliance with Egypt, and according to Assyrian monuments, it concluded an alliance of Sidon, Ascalon, etc. ; In connection with this, there is probably the embassy of the Babylonian king Merodach-Baladan mentioned in the history of Hezekiah to him (2 Kings 20:12 ff., Is. 39:1 ff.). In general, Sennacherib’s invasion was an ordinary campaign of conquest. According to Assyrian data, Sidon was the first to fall under the arms of Sennacherib, followed by the surrounding cities; then Sennacherib along the seashore reached the Philistine cities of Ekron (Ekron) and Ascalon and, having conquered them, came to the Jewish city of Lachish (Schrader op. cit., s. 291 ff. cf. Bishop Plato, “The Ancient East in the Light of Divine Revelation,” Kyiv. p. 236 etc.), Hezekiah and his entourage expected help from Egypt (v. 21), but at the same time they strongly fortified Jerusalem and filled up springs outside the city in case of a long-term siege (2 Chron. 32:2-5). 2 Kings 18:14. And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, I am guilty; get away from me; whatever you put on me, I will bring in. And the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. 2 Kings 18:15. And Hezekiah gave all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house. 2 Kings 18:16. At that time Hezekiah took the gold from the doors of the house of the Lord and from the doorposts, which Hezekiah king of Judah had gilded, and gave it to the king of Assyria. In view of the devastation that was carried out by the Assyrian troops within the kingdom of Judah (Is. 33:8-9), Hezekiah decided, having admitted his guilt before the Assyrian king, to pay Sennacherib a huge indemnity (according to Prof. Gulyaev, p. 354, 300 talents of silver - 450,000 rubles in silver, and 30 tal. of gold - 45,000 rubles in gold; the exact size of the entire indemnity is difficult to determine due to the unknown proportional value of gold and silver among the ancient Jews), for the preparation of which Hezekiah had to encroach even on the integrity of the church, which his unclean predecessors did not resort to: Joash ((2 Kings 12:19) - he gave Hazael only donations to the church) and Ahaz ( (2 Kings 18:17): he gave up only some of the church utensils). However, this great sacrifice did not save Jerusalem from further attacks by the Assyrians. 2 Kings 18:17. And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rhabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a large army to Jerusalem. And they went and came to Jerusalem; and they went and came and stood at the water supply of the upper pond, which is on the road of the whitewash field. 2 Kings 18:18. And they called the king. И вышел к ним Елиаким, сын Хелкиин, начальник дворца, и Севна писец, и Иоах, сын Асафов, дееписатель. Josephus Flavius ​​(Ant. Jude 10:1, 1) completes the biblical story this way: “the Assyrian took the money, but did not even think of keeping this promise, and having gone to war against the Egyptians and Ethiopians, he left his military commander (στρατηγόν) with two other generals at the head of a huge army near Jerusalem to destroy this city.” Tartan, Rabsaris and Rabsak are common nouns, not proper names, of Assyrian military leaders and courtiers. Tartan (cf. Isa. 20:1), Assyrian. turtanu, – the highest commander or military leader; Rabsaris, from Hebrew: head of the eunuchs (cf. 2 Kings 25:19, cf. Gen. 37:36,39:1,7); Rab-shaka is also explained from the Hebrew language: chief of the butlers (Gen. 40:2,21). The stopping place of the Assyrian commanders was at the water supply of the upper pond (v. 17, Is. 36:2), which, according to the usual opinion, lay to the west of Jerusalem in the valley of Ginnomova and is now identified with the pond Birket Mamilla (in contrast to the “lower pond” (Is. 22:9), identified with the current Birkhet Sultan southwest of Jerusalem, cf. Stade, Geschichte I, 591–593 Anmerk); Here, probably, you should look for a field of whitewash or fuller (kobes). “Jerusalem was surrounded by villages of artisans. So, to the south, there was a village of potters. In the east and west there are villages of felters. There were, of course, others that there was no occasion to mention in St. books. Fullers not only made coarse woolen fabrics, but also washed those made before. Their settlements, of necessity, were located near streams or significant water drains” (Prof. Gulyaev, pp. 354–355). Regarding this blockade of Jerusalem by part of the Assyrian army, Sennacherib in his inscription expresses that he “locked Hezekiah in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage.” Proud of the successes of their master, the military leaders of Sennacherib demanded the king of Judah himself for negotiations, but Hezekiah, considering this below his dignity (according to I. Flavius, ὑπό δειλίας, out of cowardice), sent three of his highest officials to them for this purpose (for the meaning of the positions - ruler of the palace, scribe and rapporteur, see note with ( 1 Kings 4:3), et seq.), about Eliachim and Shebna, see (Is. 22:15) et seq. 2 Kings 18:19. And Rabshakeh said to them, Tell Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this hope in which you trust? 2 Kings 18:20. You spoke only empty words: for war you need advice and strength. Now in whom do you trust, that you have abandoned me? 2 Kings 18:21. Behold, you think to lean on Egypt, on this bruised reed, which, if anyone leans on it, will go into his hand and pierce it. Such is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to all those who trust in him. 2 Kings 18:22. And if you say to me: “In the Lord our God we trust,” is it the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah abolished, and said to Judah and Jerusalem: “Before this altar alone shall you worship in Jerusalem”? 2 Kings 18:23. So enter into an alliance with my lord the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, can you get yourself riders for them? 2 Kings 18:24. How can you defeat even one leader among the least servants of my lord? And do you trust in Egypt for chariots and horses? 2 Kings 18:25. Moreover, did I go to this place without the will of the Lord to destroy it? The Lord said to me: “Go to this land and destroy it.” Verses 27–35. Rabshakeh's speech is an example of ancient diplomatic oratory, and it is constructed very skillfully. It was pronounced in the Hebrew language (Yehudit - in Jewish, v. 26 - in relation to the Kingdom of Judah), and not in the usual diplomatic language of Aramaic at that time - on purpose - in order to make an appropriate impression on the largest possible mass of people (most of whom did not understand Aramaic speech, vv. 26-27). Rabbis and blessed Theodoret (question 52) believed that Rabshakeh was a Jew who either betrayed himself to the Assyrians, or was taken captive by them and then rose to the position of a dignitary. Rabshakeh's indication of the weakness of Egypt and the uselessness of an alliance with it or even its harm (v. 21) even in letter resembles a prophetic comparison (Ezek. 29:6, etc.), and in thought it completely coincides with one of the speeches of the prophet Isaiah (Is. 30: 1–7). The reference to the abolition of the high places of Jehovah's altars by Hezekiah (v. 22) is also very clever: expressing an actual fact (v. 4), Rabshakeh, with this reference, wanted to cast a shadow on the sincerity of Hezekiah’s religiosity, his devotion to Jehovah (2 Chronicles 32:7), and to shake his authority in the eyes of the people, to whom those heights were always dear. In Art. 23–24 indicates the complete incommensurability of the Assyrian and Jewish forces, especially the cavalry; the latter, since the time of Solomon (1 Kings 4:27 ff.), was among the Jews (Is. 2:7), but, compared with the Assyrian cavalry and chariots, it was insignificant. Mention of Rabshakeh, v. 25, that he is an instrument in the hands of Jehovah, although it recalls the speech of the prophet Isaiah (Is. 10:5 ff.), it cannot be assumed that the Assyrian commander (if he was not a Jew) was familiar with this prophecy or that he attributed the Assyrian victories to the help of Jehovah (cf. verse 35). Wanting to incite the inhabitants of Jerusalem to surrender and complete obedience to Sennacherib, Rabshakeh, on the one hand, points out to the people the threatening or already occurring extreme famine (v. 27, cf. (2 Kings 6:25 ff.), on the other hand, paints a picture of prosperity in the event of the surrender of Jerusalem, although at the same time it hints that the Assyrian king, according to custom, will resettle part of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah to another country (vv. 31–32); The speech ends with the blasphemous apotheosis of the strength and power of Assyria, before which the glory fades, the power of the gods of all nations turns into insignificance: as proof of this, it refers to the indisputable facts of the fall of various cities and kingdoms (verses 33–35). For Hamath, Ibva (Abba) and Sepharvaim, see comments to (2 Kings 17:24). Arpad (v. 34) (LXX: ῾Αρφάδ, Vulg.: Arphad, slav.: “Arphad” in the wedge-shaped inscriptions Arpadda) is mentioned in the Bible always in conjunction with Hamath (2 Kings 19:13; Isa.10:9,36:19,37:13; Jer.99:23) and therefore probably lay in northern Syria, near Shaf, and it may correspond to the present Tell Erfad, north of Damascus, near Karchemish, 7 hours from Aleppo (Onomast. 133. Palest. Collection. Issue 37, Art. 169). Ena (Heb. Gena, LXX: Ανα, glav.: “Ana”), and in (2 Kings 19:13; Is. 37:13) mentioned in conjunction with Ivva, probably, like the latter, lay in Mesopotamia, on the Euphrates, may be identical with the current Ana (Onomast. 91). The mockery of Jehovah contained in the last words of Rabshakeh (verse 35; cf. Blessed Theodoret, question 52), completely contradictory with what he had expressed earlier (v. 25), had a particularly depressing effect on the people and on Hezekiah’s envoys, completing the painful impression of the whole speech. Deathly silence was the answer to Rabshak, who expected, perhaps, a direct effect on the mind and will of the listeners. The people were silent - simply under the heavy impression of what they heard, and the king’s ambassadors, moreover, had a deliberate royal order not to give any answer to Rabshakeh (Hezekiah, perhaps, left the decision to himself, and was afraid that by opening negotiations on the part of his ambassadors he would increase the demands of the Assyrians). In torn clothes - as a sign of deep national mourning (cf. 2 Kings 6:30) they appeared before Hezekiah and conveyed to him the speech of Rabshakeh. A detailed historical and archaeological outline of “Service on the Heights” among the ancient Jews is given in Palmov’s book “Idolatry among the Ancient Jews,” p. 152–176 On the difference between biblical and Assyrian chronology in the question of the time of Senacherib’s Palestine campaign. See Bishop Plato, The Ancient East in the Light of Divine Revelation. Kyiv, 1898, p. 256, approx. 1 You might be interested in: