2 Chronicles 32 Bible study: A greater one with us

The chapter opens, "After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, entered into Judah, encamped against the fortified cities, and intended to win them for himself" (32:1) (tap faithfulness). Chapter 31 had just said of Hezekiah, "he did that which was good, right, and faithful before the LORD his God" (31:20), and "to seek his God, he did it with all his heart and prospered" (31:21). In Hebrew faithful in 31:20 and faithfulness in 32:1 are the same word, emet. So 2 Chronicles puts the invasion straight after the faithfulness, and doesn't say why it came then. "When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that he was planning to fight against Jerusalem" (32:2), "he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the springs which were outside of the city, and they helped him" (32:3) (tap helped). Many people "stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the middle of the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find abundant water?”" (32:4). "He took courage, built up all the wall that was broken down" (32:5) (tap took courage), "and made weapons and shields in abundance" (32:5).

2 Chronicles 32:7→leads to1 John 4:4

Hezekiah told the people, "there is a greater one with us than with him" (32:7), and "An arm of flesh is with him, but the LORD our God is with us to help us and to fight our battles" (32:8). John writes of spirits that don't confess "that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" (1 John 4:3), and tells believers, "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). 1 John doesn't cite 2 Chronicles 32, so setting the two side by side is a reading. What they share: each tells God's people that the one on their side is greater than the one against them. Where they differ: Hezekiah speaks of the LORD with Judah against the king of Assyria and his army (32:7-8); John speaks of the one in believers against the spirit of the Antichrist (1 John 4:3-4), and joins it to confessing Jesus: "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God" (1 John 4:15). Some read the two together for that shared confidence; others keep them apart, since one is a city facing an army and the other a testing of spirits (1 John 4:1). 2 Chronicles is written in Hebrew and 1 John in Greek, and no link between their words is claimed.

אֱמֶתemetsay e-MET

Brown-Driver-Briggs gives "firmness, faithfulness" and "truth". Strong's: "stability; (figuratively) certainty, truth, trustworthiness". "After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came" (32:1). It is the word of the verse before: Hezekiah "did that which was good, right, and faithful before the LORD his God" (31:20). The Hebrew of 2 Chronicles has it five times (9:5, 15:3, 18:15, 31:20, 32:1). 2 Kings has it on Hezekiah's lips: "how I have walked before you in truth" (2 Kings 20:3).