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2 Kings 19 · a question people ask

What happened in the camp of the Assyrians (19:35)?

In the text

The chapter tells it in one verse, 19:35, and gives no more than that verse says. It comes "That night" (19:35), after the LORD's word that the king "will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there" (19:32) and "For I will defend this city to save it" (19:34), and the one who acts is the LORD's angel (19:35). Isaiah 37:36 tells it in almost the same words, and 2 Chronicles says, "The LORD sent an angel" (2 Chronicles 32:21). None of the three says how. Who the LORD's angel is, Judges 2 asks. After it, the king of Assyria "departed, went home, and lived at Nineveh" (19:36), as the LORD had said: "He will return the same way that he came" (19:33).

The verses

“Then the LORD’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.”
Isaiah 37:36 · World English Bible
“The LORD sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, the leaders, and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. When he had come into the house of his god, those who came out of his own body killed him there with the sword.”
2 Chronicles 32:21 · World English Bible
“The LORD’s angel came up from Gilgal to Bochim. He said, “I brought you out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore to give your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you.”
Judges 2:1 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 2 Kings 19

2 Kings 19: Spread it before the LORD

Sennacherib's words were sent "to defy the living God" (19:16), with the verb David used of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:26). Hezekiah took the letter into the LORD's house and "spread it before the LORD" (19:14) and asked to be saved "that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, LORD, are God alone" (19:19).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions