185,000 Soldiers Could Not Defeat This Angel - One Of The Greatest Stories In The Bible

185,000 soldiers could not defeat this Angel. One of the greatest stories in the Bible, the Bible speaks of God's intervention in the affairs of His people, and the story of Hezekiah and his numerous enemies is one of the greatest examples of this. Hezekiah was a man in stark contrast to his terrible father, Ahaz.

During his 8-year reign, he was granted the unusual honor of doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his ancestor David had done. It happened that in the third year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was 25 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for 29 years in Jerusalem.

The name of his mother was Abi, daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all the things his father David had done (2 Kings 18:1–3). Hezekiah was one of the few kings who supported the elevated places of worship.

He also cut down the Asherah poles and destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had created centuries earlier, known as Nehushtan, which means "bronze image" (Numbers 21:8-9). Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live. " Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and it happened that when a serpent bit someone, if that person looked at the bronze serpent, they would live.

What a pity that this object, which God used to deliver the people, became a source of worship. For these and other reasons, Hezekiah is considered a king who stood out and was above the other kings in his adherence to God's commandments (2 Kings 18:4-5). He removed the high places, broke the sacred stones, cut down the Asherah poles, and smashed the bronze serpent that Moses had made.

For up to that time, the Israelites had been burning incense to it and called it Nehushtan. Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. After reading about the unfaithfulness and atrocious acts of so many kings of Israel and Judah, King Hezekiah was a relief.

His reign was a testament to his faithfulness to God's commandments. He prospered wherever he went because the Lord was with him (2 Kings 18:6-7). Because he was faithful to the Lord and did not turn away from Him, but kept the commandments that the Lord had given to Moses, the Lord was with him.

He succeeded in everything he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him anymore. He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and its borders, from watchtower to fortified city.

In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. They took it after three years; that is, Samaria was captured in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea, king of Israel. The king of Assyria deported the Israelites to Assyria and settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the towns of the Medes, because they had not obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, but had broken His covenant.

They neither listened to nor carried out all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded. In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. So Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent a message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong; withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.

" The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. At that time, Hezekiah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord and gave it to the king of Assyria.

The successor of Shalmaneser, the conqueror of Israel, was the Assyrian king against whom Hezekiah would have to fight. Unfortunately for Judah, things did not go as planned; Sennacherib attacked and conquered all the fortified cities of Judah, leaving only Jerusalem. It was at this moment that Hezekiah might have concluded he had miscalculated the situation.

He had previously admitted to Sennacherib that he had acted wrongly and offered a ransom to prevent his people from suffering the same fate as Israel. The demand was enormous, and Hezekiah sent all the silver and gold he could find, even stripping gold from the temple. However, things were about to get worse.

God surrounded the Assyrians around Jerusalem to test Hezekiah's faith and demonstrate His own power to His people. Sennacherib did not believe that Hezekiah's ransom was sufficient but was looking for a reason to attack Jerusalem anyway. The Assyrian king sent a delegation and a massive army to Jerusalem to demand the city's surrender.

Then Hezekiah, king of Judah, said to the king of Assyria at Lachish, "I have done wrong; withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me. " The king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah, king of Judah, 10,000 talents of silver and 1,000 talents of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace.

At that time, Hezekiah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord and gave it to the king of Assyria. Lord, and gave it to the king of Assyria. Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabaris, and the Rab Shaka with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem.

They went up and came to Jerusalem, and when they arrived, they stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool on the road to the Washer's Field. They called for the king, and Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah, son of Asaf the recorder, went out to them. The Rab Shaka said to them, "Tell Hezekiah, this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours?

You say you have counsel and might for war, but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending that you rebel against me? Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff which pierces a man's hand and wounds him if he leans on it—such is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all who depend on him.

But if you say to me, 'We trust in the Lord our God,' isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem'? Now then, make a bargain with my lord the king of Assyria. I will give you 2,000 horses if you can put riders on them.

How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master's servants, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this place without the Lord? The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.

" (2 Kings 18:26-30) The royal spokesman of Sennacherib laid out what he believed to be the facts to make Hezekiah and his people open their gates and surrender. First, Egypt was a useless ally that would not deliver them; this was true. Secondly, he was sure that the people of Judah had angered their God by destroying the places of worship, namely the high places and forbidden altars that Hezekiah had demolished.

Of course, Hezekiah was right to demolish them; however, even the followers of the king probably questioned the king's actions in light of what was happening. Thirdly, the spokesman of Sennacherib reminded them that Judah's army was too weak to repel the Assyrian army, given Hezekiah's effort to bribe Assyria; this was probably true as well. Lastly, he claimed that the Lord himself had told him to attack and destroy that land, essentially saying, "Hey, your God is on my side.

" This was a lie, but to the demoralized inhabitants of Jerusalem, it might have seemed he was right; after all, their northern neighbors had fallen to Assyria, and those same cruel conquerors were now at their gates. Then Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rab Shaka, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.

" But the Rab Shaka said, "Has my master sent me only to your master and to you, and not also to the men sitting on the wall, who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine? " Then the Rab Shaka stood and called out in Hebrew, "Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you; he cannot deliver you from my hand.

Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, 'The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. '" (2 Kings 18:31-33) The request of the three men that the negotiations be conducted in Aramaic rather than Hebrew was intended to protect the listeners on the wall from the threats, but the Assyrian spokesman did not care. He wanted everyone to fear the ultimatum of his king, the people, in Hebrew, in the most repulsive manner imaginable.

Then he warned the people not to believe in the promises made by Hezekiah about the Lord's intervention to save them. "How long would the people of Judah continue to trust their king in light of this diatribe? Do not listen to Hezekiah," said the king of Assyria.

"Make peace with me and surrender to me; then each of you will eat from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern until I come and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, 'The Lord will deliver us.

'" (2 Kings 18:31-32) The spokesman offered the people peace and prosperity in exchange for their surrender. These words might have sounded appealing to the people of Jerusalem, who were about to be besieged and isolated from the rest of the world. The Assyrians also unequivocally stated that deportation to a land similar to theirs was part of the agreement.

They promised a land of grain and new wine, olive groves, and honey. In the same way, Satan tempts believers with attractive offers, but sin never fulfills all its promises. "Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?

Who among all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand? " Their land from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand; but the people remained silent and did not answer him a word, for the king had commanded, "Do not answer him.

" Then Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah, son of Asaf the recorder, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him the words of the Rabshakeh (2 Kings 18:33-37). The speech concluded with several rhetorical questions, the essence of which was that the gods of the nations had not delivered their followers from the clutches of the Assyrian king, nor would the Lord save Jerusalem. Furious from this encounter, Hezekiah's men returned to the king with their clothes torn in anguish.

When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. Then he sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah, son of Amos. They told him, "This is what Hezekiah says: This is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace, as when children come to the moment of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.

Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the Living God, and he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has heard; therefore, pray for the remnant that still survives" (2 Kings 19:1-4). When King Hezekiah heard the report, he did the same as his men; he tore his clothes and fought. He must have wondered how such a terrible change had occurred.

After all, he had been obedient to God, renewed worship in Judah, followed the Lord's instructions, and prospered previously as a result of God's providence. But God was definitely silent at that moment. The story serves as a good reminder that faithfulness to God does not protect you from adversity but prepares you for those challenges.

You will be better equipped to face problems and suffering if you live your life from a divine perspective, trusting Him in both bad and good times. You will also have the opportunity to witness God in action. King Hezekiah entered the temple of the Lord to worship despite his anguish.

Additionally, he did something that many of his predecessors had done: he sent a delegation covered in sackcloth to seek a word from the Lord through the prophet Isaiah. They explained the terrible situation of Judah to the prophet of God and informed him that the Assyrian chief had come to mock the Living God. So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah, and Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, this is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard, those words with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

Listen, when he hears a certain report, I will make him want to return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword" (2 Kings 19:5-7). Isaiah already knew all of this because God knew. As a result, he gave the servants a message for Hezekiah that began with the command not to fear.

This command appears frequently in the Bible; it is God's way of calming His people, instilling confidence and assuring them that He has everything under control. "You can trust me. " The Lord had not only heard the blasphemous words of the Rabshakeh but also planned to respond to them.

Instead of defeating Jerusalem, King Sennacherib would return to his land and die by the sword. When he learned that the king of Assyria had left Lish, he returned and found the king fighting against Libnah. Then the king heard about Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, who had come out to fight against him, so he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, "Tell Hezekiah, king of Judah, do not let the God you depend on deceive you when he says, 'Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.

' Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely, and will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my predecessors deliver them? The gods of Gozen, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar?

Where is the king of Hamath, or the king of Arpad? Where are the kings of Laish, Sepharvaim, and Eva? " (2 Kings 19:13).

The royal spokesman of Sennacherib, probably camped at the walls of Jerusalem waiting for a response from Hezekiah, received news that the king had withdrawn his army from Lish and was fighting at Libnah, which was 40 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem. Sennacherib learned that the king of Cush was preparing to fight against him, which caused the Assyrian king to divert his attention from Jerusalem for a time. Sennacherib made sure that Hezekiah knew he would return, repeating the threats previously made by his subordinate (2 Kings 19:14-19).

Then Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. He went up to the house of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord and Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, "O Lord, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, you alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to insult the Living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of human hands. " Hands, wood, and stone; therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.

When he read Sak's letter, Hezekiah did not tear his clothes in agony; instead, he took it to the temple, placed it before God, and prayed. Hezekiah prayed to the Lord God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim. Recognizing his submission to the Divine King, he reminded God of his special relationship with Israel, unlike the ostensible relationships between the conquered peoples and the false gods of the nations defeated by Assyria.

He knew that none of the gods of the nations had delivered their people because they were created by human hands and had no power. But the Lord is not like that; He is not a human creation, but the Creator of man. He created the heavens and the earth.

Hezekiah saw Sarb's letter as an attack on God's character and pleaded with God to vindicate Himself and His people. Hezekiah reminded God that granting his request would bring great glory to God. This prayer serves as a model for afflicted believers.

Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent a message to Hezekiah saying, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sakb king of Assyria. This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him: The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you. Whom have you insulted and blasphemed?

Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel! Through your messengers you have insulted the Lord, and you have said, 'With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains, the utmost heights of the Lebanon.

I have cut down its tallest cedars, the choicest of its pines. I have reached its remotest parts, the finest of its forests. I have dug wells in foreign lands and drunk the water there; with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.

' Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass that you should turn fortified cities into piles of stone; their inhabitants are powerless, are dismayed, and put to shame.

They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass on the rooftops, scorched before it grows up. I know when you sit down, when you go out and come in, and your rage against me. Because you have raged against me and your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came.

" God heard Hezekiah and responded once more through Isaiah. Sakb was ridiculed with a poetic response that exalted God's sovereign rule over the nations. The Assyrian king had not only mocked Judah and its king but also blasphemed against the God of Israel.

Although Sakb had arrogantly assumed his own leadership and perhaps had paved his way through many nations, he had no idea that his victories were preordained by God as part of His long-term plan. The Assyrian king was therefore merely a pawn in God's kingdom; Sakb could not make a move or have a particular thought that God was not aware of, including any anger directed toward the Lord. Sakb would in turn discover how insignificant he was when God dragged him back to Assyria.

"This will be a sign for you, Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows by itself, and in the second year what springs from that; but in the third year, sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Once more, a remnant of the house of Judah that has survived will take root below and bear fruit above, for out of Jerusalem will come a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

" (2 Kings 19:29-31) God gave words of comfort to a king and his people facing an inevitable siege and famine. The people of Jerusalem could not leave the walls to plant, but God’s sign to Hezekiah was that the people of Jerusalem would eat from the harvests of seeds that grew by themselves. In the next two years, they could sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

In the third year, Judah would not be destroyed; a remnant would survive, bear fruit, and come out of the walls of Jerusalem, because the Lord is zealous for His glory and for His covenant people. Therefore, this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria: He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here; he will not come before it with a shield or build a siege ramp against it. By the way that he came, he will return; he will not enter this city, declares the Lord.

I will defend this city and save it for my sake and for the sake of David, my servant. (2 Kings 19:32-34) God would defend Jerusalem against Sakb; He would do it for His own sake and for His servant David's sake. God would not allow an inexperienced king to thwart His plans; He would also fulfill His promise to David to keep one of his descendants on the throne of Jerusalem forever—a promise that would ultimately culminate in the reign of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

That night, the angel of the Lord went out and killed 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies. So, Sarb king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived in Nineveh.

While he was worshiping in the temple of his god, Nisroch. . .

His sons, Adrc and Sherzer, killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. Eshad and his sons succeeded him as king (2 Kings 19:35-37). Only one blow from the angel of the Lord was necessary to deliver Hezekiah from his enemy; 185,000 Assyrian soldiers died in an instant.

Sarb suddenly found himself forced to return home without his army. Later, while worshiping in the temple of his God, Nrock, his own sons assassinated him. The Assyrian king, like the Philistine Goliath, had challenged the Lord by not protecting Jerusalem; but in the end, Sarb's God was unable to protect his devoted follower even in his own temple.

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