The Book of Joshua marks a new beginning, to the story of Israel in Canaan. Yet the story continues straight on without a break. Deuteronomy had looked forward to the Israelites occupying Canaan

18.36 Perhaps Yahweh Will Listen

36 They were silent. They didn’t answer him a word, because it was the king’s order, ‘Don’t answer him’. 37 But Elyaqim ben Hilqiyyah who was in charge of the household, Shebna the secretary, and Yo’ah ben Asaph the recorder came to Hizqiyyahu, their clothes torn, and told him the Rab-shaqeh’s words.

19 When King Hizqiyyahu heard, he tore his clothes and covered himself in sack. He came into Yahweh’s house 2 but he sent Elyaqim, who was in charge of the household, Shebna the secretary, and the priestly elders, covering themselves in sack, to Isaiah [Yesha’yahu] ben Amots the prophet. 3 They said to him, ‘Hizqiyyahu has said this: “This is a day of pressure, reproof, and disdain, because ‘children have come to breaking but there’s no energy to give birth’. 4 Perhaps Yahweh your God will listen to all the words of the Rab-shaqeh, whom the king of Ashshur his lord sent to revile the living God, and will issue a reproof for the words that Yahweh your God heard, and you will lift up a plea on behalf of the remains that are to be found here”’.

5 King Hizqiyyahu’s servants came to Isaiah, 6 and Isaiah said to them, ‘You’re to say this to your lord: “Yahweh has said this: ‘Don’t be afraid before the words you’ve heard with which the king of Ashshur’s boys have insulted me. 7 Here, I’m going to put a spirit in him, and he’ll hear a report and go back to his country, and I shall cause him to him fall by the sword in his country’”’.

8 The Rab-shaqeh went back and found the king of Ashshur battling against Libnah, because he heard that he had moved on from Lakish, 9 and he heard about Tirhaqah king of Sudan [Kush], ‘There, he’s gone out to battle with you’.

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  19:9b What to Do with Tricky Mail
  

9b He again sent envoys to Hizqiyyahu, saying 10 ‘You’re to say this to Hizqiyyahu king of Judah: “Your God on whom you’re relying mustn’t deceive you, saying, ‘Jerusalem won’t be given into the hand of the king of Ashshur’. 11 Here, you yourself have heard what the kings of Ashshur have done to all the countries, ‘devoting’ them, and are you the one who’ll be rescued? 12 Did the gods of the nations that my ancestors devastated rescue them—Gozan, Harran, Retseph, and the Edenites who were in Tela’ssar? Where is the king of Hamat, the king of Arpad, the king of La’ir, Sepharvayim, Hena, and Yivvah?

14 Hizqiyyahu took the documents from the envoys’ hand, read them out, and went up to Yahweh’s house. Hizqiyyahu spread it before Yahweh, 15 and Hizqiyyahu pleaded before Yahweh: ‘Yahweh, Israel’s God, sitting above the sphinxes: you are God, you alone, for all the kingdoms of the earth. You are the one who made the heavens and the earth. 16 Yahweh, bend your ear and listen. Yahweh, open your eyes and see. Listen to the words of Sanherib that he has sent to revile the living God.

17 Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Ashshur have put to the sword the nations, and their own country, 18 and put their gods into the fire, because they were not gods but rather the making of human hands, wood and stone, and they obliterated them. 19 But now, Yahweh our God, please deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may acknowledge that you alons are Yahweh God’.

20 Isaiah ben Amots sent to Hizqiyyahu saying, ‘Yahweh, Israel’s God, with whom you pleaded concerning Sanherib king of Ashshur, has said this: “I have heard”. This is the word that Yahweh has spoken about him.

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  19:21b Yahweh’s Own Ridicule
  

^21b Maiden Miss Zion

despises you, she ridicules you.

Behind you Miss Jerusalem

has shaken her head.

²²Whom have you reviled and insulted,

against whom have you lifted your voice?

You’ve raised your eyes on high

against Israel’s sacred one.

²³By the hand of your envoys

you’ve reviled the Lord, and said:

‘With the large number of my chariotry I’m the one who’s gone up

to the mountains’ height, Lebanon’s farthest parts.

I’ve cut down the highest of its cedars,

the choicest of its junipers.

I’ve come to its ultimate lodge,

its forest of farmland.

²⁴I’m the one who’s dug

and drunk foreign water.

I’ve dried with the sole of my feet

all Egypt’s streams.

²⁵Haven’t you heard?

—long ago I did it.

In days of old I formed it;

now I’ve made it come about.

It’s happened, crashing fortified towns

into wasted heaps.

²⁶Their inhabitants, short of ability,

are scared and shamed.

They were vegetation of the fields,

green herbage,

Grass on the roofs,

blasted before it grows up.

²⁷Your staying, your going out, and your coming I know,

and your raging at me.

²⁸Since you raged at me,

and your din came up into my ears,

I shall put my hook in your nose,

my bit in your mouth,

I shall make you go back

by the way that you came.

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  19:29 The Promise for Hezekiah
  

²⁹This will be the sign for you:
This year, eat the natural growth;

in the second year, the secondary growth.

In the third year sew and reap,

plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³⁰An escape group from Judah’s household that remains

will add root downward and produce fruit above.

³¹Because a remainder will go out from Jerusalem,

and an escape group from Mount Zion.

The passion of Yahweh Armies

will do this.

³²Therefore Yahweh has said this concerning the king of Ashshur:
“He will not come into this town;

he will not shoot an arrow there.

He will not approach it with a shield;

he will not heap up a ramp against it.

³³By the way that he comes he will go back;

into this city he will not come

(Yahweh’s declaration).

³⁴I will shield this town so as to deliver it,

for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.

³⁵That night Yahweh’s envoy went out and struck down 185,000 in the Ashshurites’ camp. People started early in the morning – there, all of them were dead corpses.

³⁶Sanherib king of Ashshur moved on and went, and returned and lived in Nineveh. ³⁷He was bowing low in the house of Nisrok his god when Adrammelek and Sar’etser his sons struck him down with the sword. While they escaped to the country of Ararat, Esar-haddon his son began to reign in place of him.

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  20:1 How to Gain God’s Sympathy
  

20 In those days Hizqiyyahu became deathly ill. Isaiah ben Amots the prophet came to him and said to him, ‘Yahweh has said this: “Give orders to your household, because you’re dying. You won’t live on”’. 2 He turned his face round to the wall and pleaded with Yahweh, ‘Oh, Yahweh, please be mindful of how I’ve walked about before you in truth and with a perfect mind, and done what is good in your eyes’. Hizqiyyahu cried and cried much.

4 Isaiah had not gone out of the middle courtyard when Yahweh’s word came to him: 5 ‘Go back and say to Hizqiyyahu, the chief of my people, “Yahweh, the God of David your ancestor, has said this: ‘I have listened to your plea, I’ve seen your tears. Here, I’m going to heal you. On the third day you’ll go up to Yahweh’s house. 6 I shall add fifteen years to your time. From the fist of the king of Ashshur I shall rescue you and this town, and I shall shield this town for my sake and for David my servant’s sake”’. 7 Isaiah said, ‘Get a block of figs’. They got one and put it on the inflammation and he lived on.

8 Hizqiyyahu had said to Isaiah, ‘What will be the sign that Yahweh will heal me and I shall go up to Yahweh’s house on the third day?’ 9 Isaiah said, ‘This will be the sign for you from Yahweh that Yahweh will do the thing that he has spoken of. The shadow has gone ten steps. Can it go back ten steps?’ 10 Yehizqiyyahu said, ‘It’s a slight thing for the shadow to extend ten steps, not that the shadow should turn back ten steps’. 11 So Isaiah the prophet called to Yahweh and he made the shadow go back ten steps on the steps where it had gone down, on the steps of Ahaz.

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  20:12 How to Lose God’s Sympathy
  

12 At that time Ber’odak Bal’adan ben Bal’adan king of Babel sent documents and an offering to Hizqiyyahu because he had heard that Hizqiyyahu was ill. 13 Hizqiyyahu heard about them and let them see his entire repository house, the silver, the gold, the spices, and the fine oil, and his equipment house and everything that was to be found in his storehouses. There was not a thing that Hizqiyyahu didn’t let them see in his house and in his entire realm.

14 Isaiah the prophet came to King Hizqiyyahu and said to him, ‘What did these men say? Where did they come from to you?’ Hizqiyyahu said, ‘From a far country, they came from Babel’. 15 He said, ‘What did they see in your house?’ Hizqiyyahu said, ‘They saw everything that’s in my house. There wasn’t a thing that I didn’t let them see in my storehouses’.

16 Isaiah said to Hizqiyyahu, ‘Listen to Yahweh’s word: 17 “There, days are going to come when everything that’s in your house, and that your ancestors have stored up until this day, will be carried to Babel. Not a thing will be left”, Yahweh has said. 18 “Some of your descendants who will issue from you, whom you will father, will be taken and will become courtiers in the palace of the king of Babel”’. 19 Hizqiyyahu said to Isaiah, ‘The word of Yahweh that you have spoken is good’. He said, ‘Isn’t it so, if there’ll be well-being and truthfulness in my days?’

20 The rest of the things about Hizqiyyahu and all his strength, and how he made the pool and the channel and brought the water into the town, are written on the document about things of the time regarding the kings of Judah. 21 Hizqiyyahu lay down with his ancestors and Menashsheh his son began to reign in place of him.

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  21:1 How to Be the Bad Guy
  

21 Menashsheh was twelve years of age when he began to reign and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephtsibah. 2 He did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes in accordance with the offensive practices of the nations that Yahweh dispossessed from before the Israelites. 3 He rebuilt the shrines that Hizqiyyahu his father obliterated, and set up altars for the Master and made a totem pole, as Ah’ab king of Israel had done. He bowed low to all the heavenly army and served them. 4 He built altars in Yahweh’s house of which Yahweh had said, ‘In Jerusalem I will put my name’. 5 He built altars for all the heavenly army in the two courtyards of Yahweh’s house. 6 He made his son pass through fire and practised augury and divination and dealt with ghosts and spirits. He did much that was bad in Yahweh’s eyes, so as to provoke him.

7 He put a sculpture of Asherah that he made in the house of which Yahweh said to David and to Solomon [Shelomoh] his son, ‘In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose from all Israel’s clans, I will put my name permanently. 8 And I shall not continue to make Israel’s foot wander from the land that I gave their ancestors, only if they keep watch to act in accordance with all that I ordered them, and regarding the entire instruction that my servant Moses ordered them’. 9 But they didn’t listen, and Menashsheh got them to wander so as to deal badly more than the nations that Yahweh annihilated from before the Israelites.

10 Yahweh spoke by means of his servants the prophets, 11 ‘Since Menashsheh king of Judah has done these offensive things (he has dealt badly more than all that the Amorites did who were before him) and has also caused Judah to do wrong with his idols, 12 therefore Yahweh the God of Israel has said this: “Here, I am going to bring bad fortune on Jerusalem and Judah such that everyone who hears it – both his ears will screech.

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  21:13 Wiping the Dish Clean
  

13 Over Jerusalem I will stretch Shomron’s measuring line and the household of Ah’ab’s scale. I will wipe Jerusalem clean as one wipes a dish clean, wipe it and turn it on its face. 14 I will leave the remains of my domain and give them into the hand of their enemies. They will be plunder and spoil for all their enemies, 15 since they’ve done what is bad in my eyes and they’ve been provoking me from the day that I got their ancestors out of Egypt until this day”’.

16 Further, Menashsheh poured out very much blood of people who were free of guilt, until he filled Jerusalem end to end, beside the wrong that he caused Judah to commit in doing what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes. 17 The rest of the things about Menashsheh, all that he did and the wrongdoing that he committed, are written on the document about things of the time regarding the kings of Judah, aren’t they. 18 Menashsheh lay down with his ancestors and was buried in the garden of his house, in Uzza’s Garden, and Amon his son began to reign in place of him.

19 Amon was a man of twenty-two years when he began to reign and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemet bat Haruts, from Yotbah. 20 He did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes, as Menashsheh his father did. 21 He walked in all the way that his father walked, and served the idols that his father served and bowed low to them. 22 He abandoned Yahweh, his ancestors’ God, and did not walk in Yahweh’s way. 23 Amon’s servants conspired against him and put the king to death in his house, 24 but the people of the country struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon. The people of the country made Yo’shiyyahu [Josiah] king in place of him.

25 The rest of the things about Amon that he did are written on the document about things of the time regarding the kings of Judah, aren’t they. 26 They buried him in his grave in Uzza’s Garden, and his son Yo’shiyyahu began to reign in place of him.

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  22:1 Last Chance to Take the Torah and the Prophets Seriously
  

22 Yo’shiyyahu was eight years of age when he began to reign and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Yedidah bat Adayah, from Botsqat. ² He did what was upright in Yahweh’s eyes and walked in the entire way of David his ancestor. He did not depart right or left.

³ In the eighteenth year of King Yo’shiyyahu, the king sent Shaphan ben Atsalyahu son of Meshullam to Yahweh’s house, saying ⁴ ‘Go up to Hilqiyyahu the big priest so he may weigh the silver that’s been brought to Yahweh’s house, which the people keeping watch over the threshold have gathered from the people. ⁵ They’re to put it into the hand of the people doing the work who were appointed to Yahweh’s house, so they may give it to the people doing the work who are in Yahweh’s house, to strengthen the defects in the house, ⁶to the craftsmen, to the builders, to the masons, and for the acquiring of wood and hewn stones to strengthen the house. ⁷Only there will be no reckoning made with them of the silver given into their hand, because they’re acting with trustworthiness’.

⁸ Hilqiyyahu, the big priest, said to Shaphan, the secretary, ‘I’ve found an instruction document in Yahweh’s house’. Hilqiyyahu gave the document to Shaphan and he read it out. ⁹Shaphan the secretary came to the king and took back word to the king: ‘Your servants have melted down the silver that was found in the house and they’ve given it into the hand of the people doing the work who were appointed to Yahweh’s house’. ¹⁰And Shaphan the secretary told the king: ‘Hilqiyyah the priest gave me a document’. Shaphan read it out before the king.

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  22:12 The Tough and Gentle Prophetess
  

¹¹ When the king heard the words in the instruction document, he tore his clothes. ¹²The king ordered Hilqiyyah the priest, Ahiqam ben Shaphan, Akbor ben Mikayah, Shaphan the secretary, and Asayah the king’s servant, ¹³ ‘Go inquire of Yahweh on my behalf and on behalf of the people and on behalf of all Judah about the words in this document that’s been found, because great is Yahweh’s wrath that has set on fire against us because our ancestors didn’t listen to the words in this document by acting in accordance with everything that’s written for us’.

¹⁴Hilqiyyahu the priest went, with Ahiqam, Akbor, Shaphan, and Asayah, to Huldah the prophetess, wife of Shallum ben Tikvah son of Harhas, keeper of the robes; she was living in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter. They spoke to her.

¹⁵She said to them, ‘Yahweh the God of Israel has said this: “Say to the man who sent you to me: ¹⁶‘Yahweh has said this: “Here, I’m going to bring bad fortune to this place and to its inhabitants, all the things in the document that the king of Judah read out, ¹⁷because of the fact that they abandoned me and burned incense to other gods in order to provoke me with all the actions of their hands. My wrath will set on fire against this place and it will not douse”’”.

¹⁸But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of Yahweh, you’re to say this to him: “Yahweh the God of Israel has said this: ‘The words that you have heard: ¹⁹since your mind softened and you bowed down before Yahweh when you heard what I had spoken against this place and against its inhabitants (becoming a desolation and a slighting) and you tore your clothes and cried before me, I for my part have also listened (Yahweh’s declaration). ²⁰ Therefore, here, I am going to gather you to your ancestors and you will gather yourself to your great grave with things being well. Your eyes will not see all the bad fortune that I am going to bring on this place’”’. They took the word back to the king.

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  23.1 The Covenant and the Clean-up
  

23 The king sent and gathered to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem, ² and the king went up to Yahweh’s house, with everyone in Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests and the prophets, and the entire people, young and old. He read out in their ears all the words in the pact document found in Yahweh’s house. ³ The king stood by the pillar and solemnized a pact before Yahweh, to follow Yahweh and keep his orders, his affirmations, and his decrees with their entire mind and with their entire being, by setting up the words of this pact that were written on this document. The entire people stood by the pact.

⁴ The king ordered Hilqiyyahu the big priest, the priests of the second order, and the people keeping watch over the threshold to take out from Yahweh’s palace all the articles made for the Master and for Asherah and for the entire heavenly army, and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the Qidron Fields, and carried their dust to Bet-el. 5 He did away with the clergy whom the kings of Judah had made to burn incense in the shrines in the towns of Judah and the areas round Jerusalem, and the people who burned incense for the Master, for the sun, for the moon, for the constellations, and for the entire heavenly army. 6 He took the totem pole out of Yahweh’s house, outside of Jerusalem, to Wadi Qidron, and burned it in Wadi Qidron, crushed it to dust, and threw its dust over the grave of the ordinary people. 7 He demolished the houses of the hierodules that were in Yahweh’s house, where the women were weaving “houses” for the totem-pole.

8 He brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and defiled the shrines where the priests burned incense, from Geba as far as Be’er-sheba. He demolished the shrines at the gateways, which were at the entrance of the gateway of Yehoshua, the official over the town, which were on one’s left at the town gateway. 9 Yet the priests of the shrines did not go up to Yahweh’s altar in Jerusalem; rather, they ate flat bread among their brothers.

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  23:10 Honouring the Long ago Prophets
  

10 He defiled the Hearth which is in the Ben-hinnom Ravine so that no one would make his son or his daughter pass through fire to the Shameful King. 11 He did away with the horses that the kings of Judah gave for the sun, from the entrance of Yahweh’s house, near the hall of Natan-melek the courtier, which was in the precincts. He burned the sun chariots in fire. 12 The altars that were on the roof of Ahaz’s upper quarters, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars that Menashsheh had made in the two courtyards of Yahweh’s house, the king demolished. He ran from there and threw their dust into Wadi Qidron.

13 The shrines that were facing Jerusalem, which were south of Destroyer Mountain, which Solomon king of Israel had built for Shameful Ashtar the abomination of the Tsidonites, for Kemosh the abomination of Mo’ab, and for Milkom the offense of the Ammonites, the king defiled. 14 He broke up the columns and cut up the totem poles and filled their site with human bones.

15 Also the altar which was at Bet-el (the shrine that Yarob’am ben Nebat, who caused Israel to do wrong, made)—also that altar and the shrine, he demolished. He burned the shrine and beat it to dust, and burned the totem pole.

16 Yo’shiyyahu turned his face and saw the graves that were there on the mountain. He sent and got the bones from the graves and burned them on the altar, and defiled it in accordance with Yahweh’s word that the supernatural man called out, who called out these things. 17 He said, ‘What’s that sign that I’m looking at?’ The people of the town said to him, ‘The grave of the supernatural man who came from Judah and called out these things that you have done to the Bet-el altar’. 18 He said, ‘Let him be. No one is to disturb his bones’. So they saved his bones, and the bones of the prophet who came from Shomron.

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  23:19 The Incomparable Reformer
  

19 All the houses at the shrines that were in the towns of Shomron, which the kings of Israel had made so as to provoke, Yo’shiyyahu also removed. He acted toward them in accordance with the actions that he undertook at Bet’el. 20 He sacrificed all the priests of the shrines who were there, on the altars, and burned human bones on them, and went back to Jerusalem.

21 The king ordered the entire people: ‘Make Pesah [Passover] for Yahweh your God as is written on this pact document’. 22 Because it had not been made like this Pesah since the days of the leaders who had led Israel or all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah. 23 Rather, in the eighteenth year of King Yo’shiyyahu this Pesah was made for Yahweh in Jerusalem.

24 The ghosts, the spirits, the effigies, the idols, and all the abominations that were to be seen in the country of Judah and in Jerusalem, Yo’shiyyahu also burned away, in order to implement the things in the instruction that were written on the document that Hilqiyyahu the priest had found in Yahweh’s house.

²⁵ Before him there was no king like him who turned back to Yahweh with his entire mind, with his entire being, and with his entire might in accordance with Moses’ entire instruction, and after him none rose up like him. ²⁶ Yet Yahweh did not turn back from the great angry rage with which his anger raged against Judah because of all the provocative acts with which Menashsheh had provoked him. ²⁷Yahweh said, ‘Judah, too, I shall remove from before my face, as I removed Israel. I shall reject this town that I chose, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, “My name will be there”’.

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  23:28 The Loss of Josiah
  

²⁸The rest of the things about Yo’shiyyahu and all that he did are written on the document about things of the time regarding the kings of Judah, aren’t they. ²⁹In his days Pharaoh Neko king of Egypt went up against the king of Ashshur at the River Euphrates. King Yo’shiyyahu went to meet him, but he put him to death at Megiddo when he saw him. ³⁰His servants transported him dead from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his grave.

The people of the country got Yeho’ahaz ben Yo’shiyyahu , and anointed him and made him king in place of his father. 31 Yeho’ahaz was a man of twenty-three years when he began to reign and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal bat Yirmeyahu, from Libnah. 32 He did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes in accordance with all that his ancestors had done. 33 Pharaoh Neko confined him at Riblah in the region of Hamat to stop him reigning in Jerusalem, and put a levy on the country of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

34 Pharaoh Neko made Elyaqim ben Yo’shiyyahu king in place of his father, but turned his name into Yehoyaqim. He took Yeho’ahaz, and he came to Egypt and died there. 35 The silver and the gold Yehoyaqim gave to Pharaoh, only he assessed the country so as to give the silver in accordance with Pharaoh’s bidding. Each person according to his assessment, he exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the country so as to give it to Pharaoh Neko.

36 Yehoyaqim was a man of twenty-five years when he began to reign and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebudah bat Pedayah, from Rumah. 37 He did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes, in accordance with all that his ancestors did.

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