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2 Chronicles 32:1-5 para bellum

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, June 1, 2025

32:1 After these things—even these acts of faithfulness—Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, intending to conquer them for himself. 2 When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and had turned his face against Jerusalem for war, 3 he took counsel with his princes and military staff about blocking off the water from the springs outside the city, and they helped him. 4 A large force of men were brought together, and they blocked all the springs and the streams that flowed through the land. “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find plenty of water?” they said. 5 Then he worked hard repairing all of the wall that was broken down, and he raised towers on it. He built another wall outside that one and reinforced the supporting Millo of the City of David. He also made large numbers of weapons and shields.

The Assyrians were a people from the north; the northern part of what we usually call Mesopotamia. They had conquered the people of Urartu, joined with the Medes, and were unconcerned about the spiritual leadership of Babylon. In fact, the Assyrian king in our text moved the capital of Assyria to Babylon during his reign. They had moved through the buffer-state of Aram, and they had removed the people of Israel from Galilee, Samaria, Ephraim, and Manasseh. Now it was around 701 BC, and King Sennacherib had “turned his face against Jerusalem for war” (a literal translation of the last phrase of verse 2).

Hezekiah had just completed years of dedicated work repairing the temple and restoring temple worship. Now, following these reforms, his faith was tested by this invasion from the north. He did not begin by shaking in this boots. He bought a little time and made what preparations he could, and then he would see. The main things a city needs to withstand a siege are water, food, good walls, and soldiers. They also need something to happen on the outside. A murder, an attack against their attackers, a turn in the weather, or some other event that could drive away a siege. Otherwise, once begun, a siege is a more or less sure-fire way to reduce and capture a city.

So Hezekiah dealt with water first. The main problem was not water inside the city so much as the many springs that were outside the walls. These were the springs and fountains that he blocked up and hid, so that the Assyrians would not have water close by (we will hear about Hezekiah’s famous tunnel later in the chapter).

Then a broken wall was repaired. Jehoash of Israel had severely damaged one of the city’s walls some seventy years before (2 Chronicles 25:23), but whether this was the problem or another wall section, we don’t know. But Hezekiah fixed what was damaged, and put up some new towers.

A new wall was set up, probably because some homes or springs were outside of the old city wall, and this would also act as an additional line of defense. Attackers damaging that new wall would be occupied while the defenders could simply move behind the older, repaired wall. Since Jerusalem is also defended by deep valleys on the east and south sides, we can guess that this additional wall was on the north or west side.

Another issue was the supporting Millo (or terrace) that kept the upper city from sliding down into the lower, southern end. Repairs at this time were a good idea as long as Hezekiah had plenty of manpower (only so many men could actually work on a wall at one time). As we saw in 1 Chronicles 11:8, this supporting Millo was a serious engineering project that took skill and specialized work.

Finally, Hezekiah had plenty of weapons made. The list seems short: swords and shields, but we could just see these as the two main categories of a soldier’s tools: offensive and defensive. Remember the catalogue of King Uzziah’s war machines that were assembled just a generation before: “Uzziah provided the shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging for the whole army. In Jerusalem he set up war machines, invented by clever engineers, on the towers and the corners to shoot arrows and large stones” (2 Chronicles 26:14-15).

This was simply the king doing what seemed prudent. He made no plans to go out and fight the Assyrians. He trusted in the Lord for help. We will read more about that in the verses that follow.

Isn’t it curious that Sennacherib “turned his face against Jerusalem”? In Luke 9:51, we hear that Jesus “turned his face toward Jerusalem,” but for a different reason. He was headed there for a different kind of war. He was heading there to destroy Satan, to tear down the walls of death, and to put an end to sin and its troubles forever. Like Sennacherib, Jesus would do this just outside the city walls. Like Sennacherib, Jesus would do this in thirst. Like Sennacherib, this would not take as long as the leadership of Jerusalem thought it would take. Like Sennacherib, Jesus would hear a great deal of taunting—except that it was Sennacherib doing the taunting. Jesus was the one who received all the taunting while he was on the cross. But there on the gruesome instrument of torture, he paid the price for our sins. As John writes: “If anybody sins, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2). He did this to rescue us, to destroy the power of sin, of death, and of the devil forever. He has rescued us. The rescue of Jerusalem we’re about to hear about is yet another foretaste, a little snapshot of the greatness of our Almighty God. Praise his holy name forever.

The crazier our world gets, and the more confusing everything seems, what a comfort to be able to know that God himself is for us, that we can depend on him, and that he is our bedrock, our foundation, firmer than the ground we stand on. More certain than anything.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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