In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, King Sennacherib of Assyria came to attack the fortified cities of Judah and conquered them. King Hezekiah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have done wrong. I will pay whatever tribute money you demand if you will only go away." The king of Assyria then demanded a settlement of more than eleven tons of silver and about one ton of gold. To gather this amount, King Hezekiah used all the silver stored in the Temple of the LORD and in the palace treasury. Hezekiah even stripped the gold from the doors of the LORD's Temple and from the doorposts he had overlaid with gold, and he gave it all to the Assyrian king.
2 Kings 18:13-16
I was really surprised when I read this bit. I was pretty sure Hezekiah was one of the kings that honored
YHWH, and for some reason I thought YHWH wouldn't be to happy with him giving away all the Temple's silver. But it doesn't say anything about God getting angry about it, and he looked after
Jerusalem all through his reign.
1 comment:
Initially I was surprised reading this too. Thinking similar to you. But then I thought, Hezikiah is setting things right. That's something God is for.
It's great that you are blogging the stuff you are reading and learning from the Bible. It's interesting to read and makes me think too.
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