Useful Bible Studies > 2 Kings Commentary > chapter 19
Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, had spoken boldly against the true God (19:9-12). The true God was like all the false gods of the nations that Assyria’s army had defeated, Sennacherib said. Therefore, he declared that he would defeat the true God (in other words, Hezekiah’s God).
Sennacherib did not speak these things without any knowledge of the true God. At the time of Jonah, Nineveh’s people and its king turned to the true God (Jonah chapter 3). Jonah lived about 50 or 100 years earlier, when the second King Jeroboam ruled northern Israel (14:25). Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria, and Sennacherib’s palace was there.
Still, we read that Sennacherib served a false god. He even continued to serve that false god after his unsuccessful war against Judah. He had seen how the true God had defeated his army – but he refused to turn back to the true God.
The Bible does not explain the reason why two of his sons murdered him. Perhaps they simply hated him. They could have been jealous of his power. They may have been angry because he lost so much of his power in his unsuccessful war against Judah.
However, if those two sons were trying to organise a revolution, they failed badly. Their brother Esarhaddon, who became the king of Assyria after his father, considered their act to be a terrible crime. He sent soldiers to find them and to kill them. So, they had to escape. They went to Ararat, where there are great mountains (Genesis 8:4). Ararat was the country to the north of Assyria. The mountains there provided plenty of places where they could hide from their enemies (compare Hebrews 11:38 and Revelation 6:15).
Next part: Hezekiah's illness (2 Kings 20:1-3)
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