Bible study · 2 Kings 18:1-37
2 Kings 18: What confidence is this?
Read 2 Kings 18:1-37 before you meet.
In a few lines
2 Kings 18 turns on one word: the book says Hezekiah "trusted in the LORD" (18:5), and Rabshakeh throws the same Hebrew verb back seven times. The king who broke the bronze serpent Moses had made (18:4) paid Assyria with the silver of the LORD's house (18:15), and his people met the mockery with silence, because he had said, "Don’t answer him" (18:36).
The verse to carry
“He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that after him was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him.”
2 Kings 18:5
To talk about
1. Rabshakeh asks, "What confidence is this in which you trust?" (18:19). If someone asked you that about your own life this week, what would your honest answer be?
2. The bronze serpent was made at the LORD's command (Numbers 21:8-9), and by Hezekiah's day "the children of Israel burned incense to it" (18:4). What good things, even things God has given, can people start to look to in his place? Is there one in your life?
3. "The people stayed quiet, and answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”" (18:36). When is silence the right answer to someone mocking what you believe, and when is it not?