This Sennacherib must have been the successor to Shalmaneser. And perhaps his victory over Samaria prompted him to suppose, that he should be conqueror of Jerusalem. And though it is said the Lord prospered Hezekiah whithersoever he went, yet we find the Lord was pleased; in the opening of this siege, to give Sennacherib a temporary triumph, with a vi e w to a more signal display of his own Almighty power, in the salvation of his servant, and his people. Reader! it is one of the Lord's usual plans of mercy, for the exercise of his peoples faith, and for the manifestation of his own grace and love, to let us see what poor creatures we are, and should forever remain, but for him. Poor Hezekiah needed this lesson, it seems; for when the Lord permitted this enemy to triumph a little, instead of looking to the Lord, he made a pitiful compromise, and bought off the foe with a present. Alas! what poor creatures we are!
Related Commentaries of 2 Kings 18:13
2 Kings 18:13-16
13 Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacheribe king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.
14 And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
15 And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD, and in the treasures of the king's house.
16 At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.