2 Kings 18

2 Kings 18:4

Richard Challoner: And he called its name Nohestan: That is, their brass; or a little brass. So he called it in contempt, because they had made an idol of it.

2 Kings 18:13

Jerome: Of Hezekiah it is written, “And he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done. He destroyed the high places, and broke the statues in pieces, and burned the groves and broke the brazen serpent that Moses had made.” And again, “He trusted in the Lord the God of Israel, and after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah who were before him. He stuck to the Lord, and departed not from him and kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses, and the Lord was with him, and in all things to which he went forth, he behaved himself wisely.” And, when Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians, had taken all the cities of Judah, “Hezekiah sent messengers to him, to Lachish, saying, ‘I have sinned, depart from me, and all that you shall command of me, I will give.’ And the king of the Assyrians put a tax on Hezekiah, king of Judah, of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the money that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasure houses of the king. At that time, he broke the doors of the temple of the Lord and the plates of gold and gave them all to the king of the Assyrians.” Although such great demands were placed on him, Hezekiah did not hesitate, in the face of stern necessity, to give the Assyrian king all that he had consecrated to the Lord, and it is said to him, “I will protect this city for my own sake and for David my servant’s sake.” Not for your sake, for you had already performed a noble deed when 185, soldiers of the Assyrian army were laid low and slaughtered by an angel. — Against the Pelagians 2.21

2 Kings 18:19

Ephrem the Syrian: As I have already said, Sennacherib is a type of the devil, and this hypothesis is perfectly confirmed by the words that in this passage the Rabshakeh boastfully speaks against God when he makes false promises to the people, trying to take away from [God] the praise of his supreme power and giving assurance of a land of fertile soil and abundant crops in order to persuade them to abandon the region given to them by God and to move to the new dwelling places promised by the Assyrian. With a very similar artifice the accomplices and envoys of the devil endeavor to seduce a simple soul. And for this reason, in the first place, they try to uproot all the opinions that are inspired by divine providence. — ON THE SECOND BOOK OF KINGS 18:19

2 Kings 18:34

Bede: “Where is the god of Hemath and Arphad? Where is the god of Sepharvaim?” [2 Kings 18:34] Rabsheh said this among other things with which he blasphemed God, crying out against Jerusalem: Where is the god of Hemath and Arphad? Where is the god of Sepharvaim, Ana and Ava? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? He showed that the Samaritans served the gods of all these cities or nations, and that they were not gods but idols, rightly subverted as those who worshipped vanity deserved. Hemath is a city of Coele-Syria, which is now called Epiphania, near Emesa, as we previously noted; Arphad is a city of Damascus, which Jerome also writes was conquered by the king of Assyria (Jeremiah 40). Sepharvaim, in the plural, means books or letters, is the name of places from which the Assyrians who were moved settled in Samaria, as we find in the Books of Places. In Isaiah, however, this term also appears to be a city name, where it is clearly said: Where is the god of the city of Sepharvaim? (Isaiah 37). Although it is said in the plural, like Thebes or Athens. For Ana and Ava, the old edition placed the name Aneugava as if it were one city, and indeed it is written so in Hebrew; but since the syllable u in the middle of the name signifies a conjunction, it may also be distinguished as Ana and Gava, as Aquila translated; or Ana and Ava, as our translator rendered. — Questions on the Book of Kings #24