Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Kings 19:14

And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

14 19. Hezekiah spreads the letter before the Lord, and prays for deliverance (2Ch 32:20; Isa 37:14-20)

14. Hezekiah received the letter ] Though bringing a written document the messengers of Sennacherib may be supposed to have also enforced their message by words of their own.

went up into [R.V. unto ] the house of the Lord ] The change brings the words into exact likeness with the verse in Isaiah. It is not likely that the king entered the temple. He would go into no place which was set apart only for priests and Levites. It is more reasonable to suppose that standing at the porch he made his prayer towards the Holy of Holies to which he alludes.

spread it before the Lord ] We are not to think of this act as intended by the king to exhibit the letter for the divine inspection. It was rather done that the object being present to his own sight, his prayer might be prompted thereby and rendered more fervent. The letter was no doubt in the Hebrew character, and the sight of its language would help his thoughts.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Hezekiah received the letter – The inscriptions show that scribes accompanied the Assyrian armies, with the materials of their craft, so that such a dispatch might be easily drawn up. As Hezekiah himself read it, we may presume that it was in the Hebrew tongue.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

2Ki 19:14

And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers.

The history of a letter

How easy to say, the letter; and yet, how much the words may mean! The postman, as he goes his rounds, would become the most melancholy of men if he thought much upon the budget he carries. To some houses joy, to others misery,–nay, to the same house joy treads on the heels of sorrow. We dont know what to-morrow may bring us; the postmans knock may be the knell of doom or the signal for peals of joyous laughter. What a letter was that which Hezekiah received! In form it would be very different to our ideas of a letter. The Assyrians did not use paper, or even skins, but did their writing on clay. You may see, in the British Museum, a conveyance of land, written, not on parchment, but on clay, and then baked hard. So it is very likely that the letter was a tablet of terra cotta. It has been thought by some that Rabshakeh was the writer of these railing letters. This was trouble, but it was trouble that might have been prevented. Hezekiah ought never to have paid tribute to Sennacherib. When first the demand was made, he should have called on the name of the Lord. Let us learn to never submit to the claims of sin. We can never satisfy it. Much will have more. Sin, like Sennacherib, will take all you will give, and then come for more, and when it has got all it will come for you. The devil has no right to a penny of our money, or a moment of our time.

I. What did Hezekiah do with the letter? He did not send a hasty answer. Many a quarrel might have been prevented if men would spread disagreeable letters before the Lord. Many a family feud would never have been brought about but for the want of this. If you get letters that give you pain, before you pen a reply send a message to God, and He will teach you to indite what may turn away wrath. He did not send to Egypt; he was cured of that now. If some one who reads this is in trouble, let me counsel you to remember what is a command as well as a promise, Call upon Me in the day of trouble. Far too many of us treat God as though He had no existence. We try everybody else before going to the Lord. He went up into the house of the Lord. Where was he so likely to find God as in His house? There is much force in the promise, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. It is a model prayer; not like many, which must try the patience of God, going all round the world, instead of fastening upon the thing needed, and asking for that. If our prayers were more like telegrams we should have speedier answers. The prayer of the pious king appealed to God for the sake of His honour–that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God. How the Almighty is touched by an appeal of this sort. If we thought more of Gods honour in our prayers, we should be more often answered.

II. Was the letter ever answered? Yes, for Jehovah answered it Himself. He did not trouble Hezekiah to do it; and the answer is worthy of the Lord. There is a postscript to Gods answer (see 2Ki 19:35). It came to pass that night–they were all dead corpses. Fancy if you saw in the newspaper to-morrow Sudden death of 185,000 soldiers! What a stir it would make! What a sight the camp must have been next morning. There has been much discussion as to how it happened. There is no mention of it in the Assyrian record. They were ready enough to boast, but when Sennacherib crept back to his palace, he did not instruct the historian to chronicle his disgrace. Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians, against whom Sennacherib was then at war, ascribed the destruction of their foes to the power of their gods. There has been considerable discussion amongst the learned as to the cause of the destruction of so large an army, and it is generally understood now to have been the simeon. Cambyses, king of the Medea, lost 50,000 men by one of these dreadful winds. But whether the wind was the messenger, or whether an angel had the wind in his power, it matters not; we read of stormy wind fulfilling His word. God willed it, and nature hasted to do His bidding. (T. Champness.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 14. Spread it before the Lord] The temple was considered to be God’s dwelling-place; and that whatever was there was peculiarly under his eye. Hezekiah spread the letter before the Lord, as he wished him to read the blasphemies spoken against himself.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Into the house of the Lord, i.e. into the court of the temple; for further he might not enter.

Before the Lord, i.e. before the ark or temple; which he did, not to acquaint God, but to strengthen his own faith, and quicken himself to prayer.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

14-19. Hezekiah received the letter. . . and went up into the house of the LordHezekiah, afterreading it, hastened into the temple, spread it in the childlikeconfidence of faith before the Lord, as containing taunts deeplyaffecting the divine honor, and implored deliverance from this prouddefier of God and man. The devout spirit of this prayer, therecognition of the Divine Being in the plenitude of His majestysostrikingly contrasted with the fancy of the Assyrians as to Hismerely local power; his acknowledgment of the conquests obtained overother lands; and of the destruction of their wooden idols which,according to the Assyrian practice, were committed to theflamesbecause their tutelary deities were no gods; and the objectfor which he supplicated the divine interpositionthat all thekingdoms of the earth might know that the Lord was the only Godthiswas an attitude worthy to be assumed by a pious theocratic king ofthe chosen people.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

[See comments on 2Ki 19:1]

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hezekiah’s prayer. – 2Ki 19:14. Hezekiah took the letter, read it, went into the temple and spread it out before Jehovah, to lay open its contents before God. The contents of the letter are given in 2Ki 19:10-13 in the form of the message which the ambassadors delivered to Hezekiah from their king, because the ambassadors communicated to Hezekiah by word of mouth the essential contents of the writing which they conveyed, and simply handed him the letter as a confirmation of their words. , like litterae , means a letter; hence the singular suffix attached to , whereas in the case of , which stands nearer, the suffix follows the number of the noun to which it refers. The spreading out of the letter before God was an embodiment of the wish, which sprang from a child-like and believing trust, that the Lord would notice and punish that defiance of the living God which it contained. What Hezekiah meant by this action he expressed in the following prayer.

2Ki 19:15

In opposition to the delusion of the Assyrians, he describes Jehovah, the God of Israel, as the only God of all the kingdoms of the earth, since He was the Creator of heaven and earth. (see at 1Sa 4:4 and Exo 25:22) indicates the covenant-relation into which Jehovah, the almighty Creator and Ruler of the whole world, had entered towards Israel. As the covenant God who was enthroned above the cherubim the Lord was bound to help His people, if they turned to Him with faith in the time of their distress and entreated His assistance; and as the only God of all the world He had the power to help. In Isaiah, , which is very rare in historical prose, but very common in prophetical addresses, is added to the name , and thus Jehovah at the very outset is addressed as the God of the universe. On the meaning of , see at 1Sa 1:3. On , see 2Sa 7:28 and 1Ki 18:39.

2Ki 19:16

The accumulation of the words, “bow down Thine ear, Jehovah, and hear; open, Jehovah, Thine eyes and see, and hear the words,” etc., indicates the earnestness and importunity of the prayer. The plural by the side of the singular is the correct reading, since the expression “to incline the ear” is constantly met with (Psa 17:6; Psa 31:3; Psa 45:11, etc.); and even in the plural, “incline ye your ear” (Psa 78:1; Isa 55:3), and on the other hand “to open the eyes” (Job 27:19; Pro 20:13; Zec 12:4; Dan 9:18), because a man always opens both eyes to see anything, whereas he turns one ear to a person speaking. The of Isaiah is also plural, though written defectively, as the Masora has already observed. The suffix in , which is wanting in Isaiah, belongs to , and refers with this to in the sense of speech: the speech which Sennacherib had made in his letter.

2Ki 19:17-19

After the challenge, to observe the blasphemies of Sennacherib, Hezekiah mentions the fact that the Assyrians have really devastated all lands, and therefore that it is not without ground that they boast of their mighty power; but he finds the explanation of this in the impotence and nothingness of the gods of the heathen. , truly, indeed – the kings of Asshur have devastated the nations and their land. Instead of this we find in Isaiah: “they have devastated all lands and their (own) land” – which is evidently the more difficult and also the more original reading, and has been altered in our account, because the thought that the Assyrians had devastated their own land by making war upon other lands, that is to say, had depopulated it and thereby laid it waste, was not easy to understand. “And have cast their gods into the fire, for they are not gods, but works of human hands, wood and stone, and have thus destroyed them.” Hezekiah does not mention this as a sign of the recklessness of the Assyrians (Knobel), but, because Sennacherib had boasted that the gods of no nation had been able to resist him (vv. 12, 13), to put this fact in the right light, and attach thereto the prayer that Jehovah, by granting deliverance, would make known to all the kingdoms of the earth that He alone was God. Instead of we have in Isaiah , the inf. absol.; in this connection the more difficult and more genuine reading. This also applies to the omission of (2Ki 19:19) in Isa 37:20, since the use of Jehovah as a predicate, “that Thou alone art Jehovah,” is very rare, and has therefore been misunderstood even by Gesenius. By the introduction of Elohim, the thought “that Thou Jehovah art God alone” is simplified.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Hezekiah Prays – Verses 14-19

Hezekiah read the letter of threats from Sennacherib and promptly treated it as he should have. He carried the matter to the Lord, going up to the temple, spreading it before Him, and praying earnestly for the Lord’s help.

R is a very interesting prayer, and contains points of instruction for one’s prayers today. It began by addressing Him as the exalted God of Israel, who dwells between the cherubim on the mercy seat of the temple’s holy of holies. He is the unique God of all kingdoms of the earth, for He is the Creator of heaven and earth. Next, He is implored as a condescending God, who can bow. down His ear to hear the earnest plea of His lowly creatures, like Hezekiah. He can see and hear the reproach of the blasphemous king of Assyria, and take note of it.

Hezekiah admits the truth of the claims of Sennacherib as to the overwhelming power of his conquering armies. It is true they have destroyed all nations where they have gone and have burned the gods of those nations in the fire. Yet these were no true gods, but the workmanship of men’s hands, fashioned in wood and stone and thus liable to destruction. But Israel’s God is supreme, living, and vengeful against His enemies.

Finally, Hezekiah addresses God as a God of salvation. He prays that God will hear his petition and save Jerusalem from the hands of the Assyrians. There is a worthy reason for this, “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only.” This should be the prayer and earnest desire of all missionary-minded Christians (Act 8:4; Rom 1:16-17).

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

(14) The letter.The Hebrew word is plural, like the Latin litterae. The first it is plural, the second singular. 2Ki. 19:10-13 may be regarded as embodying the substance of the letter, which the envoys first delivered orally, and then presented the letter to authenticate it. But perhaps the contents of the letter were not preserved in the Hebrew annals.

Spread it before the Lord.Commentators have taken offence at this act, as if it betokened some heathenish conception of Jehovah. Trs-navement, pour que Dieu la lt aussi (Reuss). But one who could think of his God as having made heaven and earth, and as the only God, would not be likely to imagine Him ignorant of the contents of a letter until it had been laid before Him in His sanctuary. Hezekialls act was a solemn and perfectly natural indication to his ministers and people that he had put the matter into the hands of Jehovah.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

HEZEKIAH’S PRAYER, 2Ki 19:14-19.

14. Spread it before the Lord As containing that which burdens his soul, and brings him in profound humiliation before the most holy place. “The act of spreading out the letter before Jehovah,” says Sisco, “is a symbolic presentation of the great distress into which Hezekiah has been brought by Sennacherib, and to which his prayer refers.”

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Hezekiah’s Prayer and the Deliverance of Jerusalem

v. 14. And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers and read it. And Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. This is a fine example to follow in case of every difficulty, namely, to lay the matter before the Lord first.

v. 15. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubim, that being the place where the glory of the Lord appeared to His servants, Exo 25:22, Thou art the God, even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth, not merely of Judah, Thou hast made heaven and earth.

v. 16. Lord, bow down Thine ear and hear, in the attitude of the most careful attention; open, Lord, Thine eyes and see, the entire form of the prayer showing the importunity of the request; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach, to heap contempt upon, the living God.

v. 17. of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,

v. 18. and have cast their gods into the fire, thereby really wiping out the whole nationality of the conquered peoples, which was connected with their gods; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, Psa 115:4; therefore they had destroyed them. It was the vanity, the nothingness, of the idols of the heathen which made their overthrow such an easy matter, and which also explains the subjection of the nations worshiping them. But the supposition that Jehovah of Israel is also a god like the idols of the heathen will quickly be shown to be foolish.

v. 19. Now, therefore, O Lord, our God, I beseech Thee, save Thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only, and not a vain idol of man s imagination. It is a model prayer of confidence in the Lord and the victory of His cause.

v. 20. Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to Me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, I have heard.

v. 21. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning him. Now follows a prophecy in poetical form, full of powerful beauty. The first section is a scornful rebuke of Sennacherib’s boast. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, the entire city with all its inhabitants, all the true believers in Jehovah being meant, hath despised thee and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee, in utter mockery and derision.

v. 22. Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed, and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, when he lifted it up to utter proud words, and lifted up thine eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel, whose majesty cannot be outraged with impunity.

v. 23. By thy messengers, in both delegations, thou hast reproached the Lord and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar-trees thereof, the finest specimens, and the choice fir-trees thereof; and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders and Into the forest of his Carmel, literally, “the forest of his tree-garden,” said of the thick forest of cedars near the highest points of the Lebanon.

v. 24. I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged, fortified, places. This was setting forth the measureless boast of the Assyrian with the proper scorn, for he not only prided himself on the fact that he had overrun the entire Lebanon district, subdued Phoenicia, Galilee, and Samaria, but he also asserted, with great boldness, that he would, in overcoming the power of Egypt, dig cisterns in the wilderness, and command the very Nile to dry up before him. This arrogant self-assumption is now properly rebuked.

v. 25. Hast thou not heard long ago how I, Jehovah, have done it, that it was in reality God who had planned and executed these decrees upon the nations, the Assyrian king being but a small instrument in His hand, and of ancient times that I have formed it? If the arrogant boaster had never heard it, then it was time now that he knew the Lord to be the one who had fashioned and determined it. Now have I brought it to pass that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. Without this will and permission of God the Assyrian could have accomplished nothing; he was, without knowing it, carrying out the plan of the Lord.

v. 26. Therefore, because the Lord had so decreed it, their inhabitants were of small power, unable to offer a successful resistance; they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field and as the green herb, tender and easily scorched, as the grass on the housetops, which withers quickly on account of lack of soil, and as corn blasted before It be grown up, having the germ of decay in it before it has fairly begun to grow.

v. 27. But I know thy abode, his quiet resting, and thy going out and thy coming in, all the activity of the ordinary person, and thy rage against Me.

v. 28. Because thy rage against Me and thy tumult is come up into Mine ears, the arrogant security of which he boasted, therefore I will put My hook in thy nose, as is done in taming wild animals, and My bridle in thy lips, as in managing spirited horses, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest, without having reached his object. After this rebuke of the enemy, the Lord, through His prophet, encouraged Hezekiah and Judah.

v. 29. And this shall be a sign unto thee, namely, Hezekiah, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, the volunteer grain growing from kernels lost during harvest, and in the second year that which springeth of the same, the fruit-bearing stalks of grain growing up after harvest; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof, the country by that time having been restored to perfect peace, so that the farmer could do his work in security.

v. 30. And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah, those of Jerusalem and elsewhere who had escaped the destructive hand of the Assyrians, shall yet again take root downward and bear fruit upward, be firmly established in the land.

v. 31. For out of 3erusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount Zion, this being the capital and center of the Old Testament Church. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. There is a Messianic thought underlying the prophet’s words, of the deliverance of the daughter of Zion, of those chosen by the Lord, to be kept by His power throughout eternity. The Lord now pronounces His decree in the crisis which was upon Judah-Jerusalem.

v. 32. Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, not make an attack upon it in closed formation, with the shields held out for protection, nor cast a bank, dig trenches and erect bulwarks, against it. The four statements form a climax showing the utter futility of Sennacherib’s hopes.

v. 33. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.

v. 34. For I will defend this city, to save it, for Mine own sake, to uphold His honor against the blasphemy of the Assyrian, and for My servant David’s sake, on account of the promise made to him, 1Ki 11:13.

v. 35. And it came to pass that night, the very same night after Isaiah had pronounced these words, that the angel of the Lord went out, in this case an angel of vengeance, a destroyer, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand, this being an extraordinary destruction and not to be explained by merely natural causes. And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses, it was a ghastly sight which the comparatively small number of survivors beheld.

v. 36. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed, and went, and returned, the heaping of similar terms indicating the haste of his departure, and dwelt at Nineveh, his capital city.

v. 37. And it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his god, the chief Assyrian divinity, shown in human form with double wings and an eagle’s head, that Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, smote him with the sword, as the Lord had foretold, v. 7; and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead. Thus all the enemies of the Lord will find all their plans frustrated and themselves the victims of a terrible destruction.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

See, Reader, see how sweet and precious the blessed effects of grace! And, Lord, so do thou cause me to do by all the letters, and threats, and messages, and temptations of the devil, and all his party. Give me grace and wisdom to copy Hezekiah; to spread the whole before thee. Never to send answers in my own way. Never to combat in my own strength. But oh! let me fly to thee, thou blessed Jesus; do thou undertake for me; thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God. Reader! let me beg of you to remark the sweetness, and strength of Hezekiah’s prayer. He prays for deliverance because the Lord’s honor was concerned in it; God’s faithfulness and covenant promises. Like another Joshua; What wilt thou do (saith he) for thy great name, O Lord God, if Israel turn their backs upon their enemies? See Jos 7:8-9 . As if he had said, it matters not what becomes of us, if our death and our destruction w ere all the consequences of the triumph of the foe. But it is of the highest importance that the faithfulness of a Covenant God, and his honor be taken care of, in his promises to his people, that they be not destroyed by the enemy. Reader! think of this statement of the argument whenever the enemy oppresseth you, as it concerns God’s faithfulness in Christ. Oh! what a volume, of the most unanswerable arguments in prayer doth that one pleading in Jesus afford, when we come before the high throne in the name and righteousness of the Lord Jesus. The grace, the word, the faithfulness, the promise, the oath of the Father; and the blood and righteousness, and covenant salvation of Jesus: What poor soul can go with these pleas to a mercy seat, and go in vain!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

2Ki 19:14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.

Ver. 14. And read it. ] Heb., Them: and spread it. That which had the blasphemies in it: or, if it was all but one letter, he spread that part of it that was most reproachful to the just and jealous God.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

the house of the LORD. Hezekiah’s zeal for the house of Jehovah is seen in his “Songs of the degrees”. Compare Psa 122:1, Psa 122:9; Psa 134:1, Psa 134:2. See App-67.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Spreading the Case before the Lord

2Ki 19:14-24

That bowed form of King Hezekiah, kneeling before God with this insolent and blasphemous effusion spread out before him, is a beautiful suggestion of our duty under similar circumstances. When we receive letters of rebuke and unkindness, whether they are signed or anonymous, let us treat them as Hezekiah treated this one. Let us spread them before God, and plead with Him to interpose for His holy Names sake. How blessed it is when our lot is so identified with Gods that we can forget ourselves in the one sincere desire that His character shall be vindicated and His Name honored! The selfish element has been so strong in our praying and doing!

In all Scripture there is nothing finer than the magnificent answer to Sennacheribs challenge which God gave through Isaiah. The phrase, virgin daughter, fittingly indicates that the foreign invader was not to set his foot in the Holy City. Listen to her gleeful laughter, as strong in the Lord of hosts, she derides her foes, 2Ki 19:21, etc. But that faith may be ours. Others who have not made God their trust are like the green herb that withers in the drought: but they who are planted in God send their roots deep down to the moist earth and draw perennial freshness and strength.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Hezekiah: Isa 37:14

spread it: 1Ki 8:28-30, Ezr 9:5, Psa 74:10, Psa 74:11, Psa 91:1, Psa 91:2, Psa 123:1-4

Reciprocal: 1Ch 17:16 – sat before 2Ch 32:17 – He wrote 2Ch 32:20 – Hezekiah Neh 4:9 – Nevertheless Jer 29:25 – Because

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE SPREAD LETTER

And Hezekiah received the letter and spread it before the Lord.

2Ki 19:14

I. Here is a good man whose first thought in trouble is to carry the distress to God.The Temple and the altar are Hezekiahs natural and inevitable refuge; he never thinks of going anywhere else. I would be like him. I would flee to God before consulting with any human helper, and before sitting down to ponder the matter in my own mind.

II. Here is a good man who does not presume to dictate to God how He is to act.Hezekiah spreads the insulting letter of the Assyrian prince before the heavenly King; he explains his own sorrow and need; and there he stops. He does not prescribe to One so much wiser than himself. Thus, having told my Father everything, let me leave Him to decide what to do. He makes no mistakes. He will choose the right path.

III. Here is a good man who feels that Gods honour and glory are bound up with his deliverance.And if I am joined with Christ, Gods dear Son, the same conviction should be mine. He cannot suffer me to perish. His own character demands that I shall be more than a conqueror.

Illustration

No one of us knows how soon he may have occasion to practise this lesson. No one of us knows how soon some distressing letter, some heavy tidings, may come suddenly upon him, and the only thing he can do with it will be to go and spread it before the Lord: no relief, no consolation, but to betake himself to our Lord Jesus Christ, tell Him the whole grief, cast all the burden upon Him. If such a moment should come, and come it will sooner or later, should we live any long time in the world, to every one of us; what a blessing will it prove, should we have been trained beforehand to seek the Lord, to commit all to Him in regular prayer! What a help, what a privilege at such a time to be conscious that you are not in the agony of the moment setting about something which you have never been used to before! you are not resorting in your extremity to an untried physician, but to Him Whose healing power you have known by happy experience all your life long unto this day!

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

2Ki 19:14. Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord Into the outward court of the temple, for further he might not go, and at the entrance of the court of the priests, he looked toward the sanctuary, where God was peculiarly present, and spread the letter before him; which he did, not to acquaint God with its contents, but as a token that he appealed to him concerning them, and referred himself and his cause to his righteous judgment, expecting him to answer for himself, and manifest that power which the king of Assyria had so daringly blasphemed. He meant also hereby to affect his own mind, strengthen his own faith, and quicken his desires in prayer, to a greater degree of fervency.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

19:14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the {h} LORD.

(h) Before the Ark of the covenant.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

4. Hezekiah’s prayer 19:14-19

Sennacherib sent another warning to Hezekiah (2Ki 19:10-13) that led him to pray again. Some scholars believe that Sennacherib conducted two campaigns against Jerusalem. [Note: Bright, pp. 282-87.] Hezekiah’s model prayer shows the king’s proper view of Yahweh, himself, and their relationship, all of which were in harmony with God’s revelation. Hezekiah’s concern was more for God’s glory than for Judah’s safety. Furthermore, he viewed deliverance as an occasion for Israel to fulfill the purpose for which God had raised her up (2Ki 19:19; cf. Exo 19:5-6).

"God is the one Being in all the universe for whom seeking his own praise is the ultimately loving act. For him, self-exaltation is the highest virtue. When he does all things ’for the praise of his glory,’ he preserves for us and offers to us the only thing in all the world which can satisfy our longings. God is for us! And the foundation of this love is that God has been, is now, and always will be, for himself." [Note: John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, p. 37.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)