In Second Kings, chapter eighteen, verse thirteen, the Assyrian king Sennacherib responded to Judah’s rebellion by capturing many of its important cities. His records indicate that he took forty-six walled cities and took two hundred thousand one hundred and forty-six people captive, probably to Babylon to replace the two hundred and eight thousand people he had captured from there. Hezekiah, seeing no hope in further assistance, apologetically submitted to Sennacherib and depleted Judah’s treasury to pay Assyria’s assessment.
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, succeeded Shalmaneser, probably his son. He was encouraged to make this attempt against Judah by his predecessor’s success against Israel, whose honors he wished to emulate and whose victories he would push forward. This invasion of Judah was a great calamity to that kingdom, by which God tried the faith of Hezekiah and chastised the people, who are called a hypocritical nation, as in Isaiah ten, verse six, because they did not heartily concur with Hezekiah in effecting a reformation, nor willingly part with their idols, much less did they give up all their sins, and turn to God in true repentance. Against the fenced cities of Judah, and took most of them for that they were not all taken, appears from Second Kings nineteen, verse eight. When he had made himself master of the frontier towns and garrisons, most of the others fell into his hands, of course. By this success, he lifted to his own better and more shameful destruction, and for the manifestation of God’s power and glory in that miraculous deliverance He designed to effect for His people.
The situation here with this battle is like believers and the enemy: the godly versus the ungodly. The continuous war of the devil trying to devour the believer to surrender and follow his way of life and oppose God. The question is, are we going to continue to fight? Or, give in to the enemy and face future eternal destruction? The choice is ours.