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Bible chapter guide
2 Chronicles 32
Sennacherib invades and Hezekiah stops up the springs, repairs the wall and encourages the people: 'With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God.' The angel of the LORD destroys the Assyrian army. Hezekiah channels the Gihon's water to the west side of the city of David.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
What happens in this chapter
Sennacherib of Assyria invades Judah and besieges its fortified cities, and Hezekiah's first move is about water: with his officers he stops the springs outside the city and the brook that ran through the land, so that the Assyrians will find none. He repairs the broken wall, builds another wall outside it, strengthens the Millo, and tells the people that the king of Assyria has only an arm of flesh, while the LORD their God is with them. Sennacherib's officers mock the God of Jerusalem in the Judeans' own language to the people on the wall; Hezekiah and Isaiah pray, an angel cuts down the Assyrian commanders, and Sennacherib goes home in shame and is killed by his own sons. The chapter then sums up Hezekiah's illness, his pride and his wealth, and records that he stopped the upper outlet of the Gihon and brought the water straight down to the west side of the city of David.
What the lab shows, and where to look
Verse 30 is the Hezekiah's Tunnel lab's text. Start at The Gihon spring, the upper outlet Hezekiah stopped, then follow Hezekiah's tunnel through the ridge to the west side of the City of David, the point Chronicles makes. Walk the tunnel takes you through it by lamplight, and The breakthrough marks where the two crews met; the exact spot is approximate. For the walls of verse 5, Jerusalem Through the Ages has Hezekiah's Jerusalem and The wall of the Western Hill, the wall that took in the newer quarter on the Western Hill, probably the other wall outside of verse 5 (the lab marks the link as plausible).
- The Gihon spring · Hezekiah's Tunnel
- Hezekiah's tunnel · Hezekiah's Tunnel
- Walk the tunnel · Hezekiah's Tunnel
- The breakthrough · Hezekiah's Tunnel
- Hezekiah's Jerusalem · Jerusalem Through the Ages
- The wall of the Western Hill · Jerusalem Through the Ages
Questions people ask
Why did Hezekiah dig a tunnel?
Because of the siege. The Gihon, Jerusalem's only perennial spring, rises in a cave at the foot of the City of David's eastern slope, low in the Kidron valley; by stopping its outlet there and carrying its water through the rock to the west side of the City of David, Hezekiah kept it from the Assyrians and within reach of the city (2 Chronicles 32:3–4, 30). Isaiah 22:9–11 speaks of a reservoir made between the two walls at the same time.
How did the two crews find each other?
The Siloam inscription says that with three cubits left each crew heard the other's voice, and then they broke through pick against pick. Why the tunnel winds in an S, though its ends are only about 320 m apart, is debated: the hewers may have followed natural fissures in the limestone, which also carried sound and air; they may have cut through solid rock and corrected course as they went; or they may have gone round something under the ridge, perhaps the royal tombs. The lab sets the three views side by side.
Is Sennacherib's invasion recorded outside the Bible?
Yes. Sennacherib's own annals, on clay prisms, describe his campaign of 701 BC, list forty-six towns of Judah taken and say he shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem 'like a bird in a cage', but they do not claim the city fell. Reliefs from his palace at Nineveh show the siege of Lachish, which 2 Chronicles 32:9 also mentions.
See it in the Labs
- Hezekiah's TunnelHezekiah's tunnel · Hezekiah's TunnelOpen
- Hezekiah's TunnelWalk the tunnel · Hezekiah's TunnelOpen
- Hezekiah's TunnelThe breakthrough · Hezekiah's TunnelOpen
- Jerusalem Through the AgesHezekiah's Jerusalem · Jerusalem Through the AgesOpen
- Jerusalem Through the AgesThe Gihon spring · Jerusalem Through the AgesOpen
- Jerusalem Through the AgesHezekiah's tunnel · Jerusalem Through the AgesOpen
- Hezekiah's TunnelThe Gihon spring · Hezekiah's TunnelOpen
- Jerusalem Through the AgesThe wall of the Western Hill · Jerusalem Through the AgesOpen
Also in this chapter
How sure can we be?
- Strongly supported
Solomon was anointed at the Gihon; Hezekiah later stopped its upper outlet and brought its water to the west of the City of David.
- Strongly supported
Kings and Chronicles say Hezekiah brought the water into the city; a Hebrew inscription in the tunnel tells how the hewers met.
- Strongly supported
Solomon was anointed king at the Gihon; Hezekiah stopped its upper outlet and brought the water down to the west side of the City of David.
- Strongly supported
Kings and Chronicles say Hezekiah stopped the springs outside the city and brought the water in; Isaiah speaks of a reservoir between the two walls.
- Strongly supported
"A pool, and a conduit": which tunnel?: Kings says Hezekiah made "a pool, and a conduit" (和合本: 挖池、挖溝); Chronicles that he stopped the upper spring of the Gihon and brought the water down to the west of the City of David. Neither names this tunnel or gives its length; the identification rests on the course of the tunnel, the Siloam inscription and the radiometric dates.
- Strongly supported
Hezekiah built “another wall without”; Huldah “dwelt in Jerusalem in the college”, the second quarter.