Hezekiah & The Silent Slaughter

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Previously on The Chosen People But. 00:00:03 Speaker 2: If you or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe my commands, if you serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them. I will reject this temple I have consecrated for my name. 00:00:23 Speaker 3: Silence! Hear now the judgment of the Lord, oh giant slayer. 00:00:30 Speaker 4: The sword shall never leave your house. 00:00:34 Speaker 3: Blood shall answer blood. Because you have dealt in violence, so too shall violence rise in your own walls. 00:00:45 Speaker 1: You do the king and Israel no good with all your negativity and doom. You should be giving the king confidence. 00:00:53 Speaker 4: Give our nation something to cheer for. 00:00:56 Speaker 5: I cheer for the holiness of our nation. I cheer for justice to our poor and repentance from the wickedness of our kings. 00:01:07 Speaker 4: Israel, hear me! 00:01:09 Speaker 6: How long will you stumble like drunkards, wavering between two paths, pretending you serve both when your hearts belong to neither? 00:01:19 Speaker 4: How long will you hobble. 00:01:20 Speaker 6: Back and forth, torn between a God of silence and a God of all creation? How long will you let a slothful drunk and a witch queen make your decisions for you? 00:01:33 Speaker 4: If Yahweh is God, follow him. If Baal is God, then bow to him fully. 00:01:41 Speaker 7: But enough of this cowardly, pathetic half-faith. 00:01:45 Speaker 6: You cannot serve two masters. 00:01:49 Speaker 4: This is the moment. This is the line. 00:01:54 Speaker 2: Choose! 00:01:57 Speaker 1: It was a reckoning with their own depravity, a cry for deliverance from the whirlwind of sin that had ensnared them. And though this story ended in ashes, It pointed to a greater need, a king who would not fall to sin, a savior who would lead them with love and strength. One day, he would come. Jerusalem was less a city and more a wound wrapped in stone. Its walls were ancient and cracked. still echoing with the boots of David, the prayers of Solomon, and the screams of every foolish king who tried to flirt with idolatry and got burned. The streets had seen too much, too many coronations, too many corpses, and now they watched again, waiting to see if the next chapter was salvation or siege. Hezekiah had been king for fourteen years, He was young when he started, impossibly young, 25 and already surrounded by the detritus of his father's apostasy. His father, Ahaz, had gutted the temple, sold off the sacred vessels like they were pawn shop trinkets, and made treaties with gods that didn't exist. The man had turned the Lord's sanctuary into something between a trash heap and a museum of foreign humiliations. Hezekiah had spent his entire reign trying to atone for the sins of his father. And now the Assyrian Empire had come. Sennacherib's war machine. They'd taken Samaria. The northern kingdom was gone, wiped off the map like chalk in the rain. And now their eyes were on Judah, on Jerusalem. Hezekiah stood in the shadow of the wall, his hand resting on the warm limestone, eyes scanning the horizon. He was older now, scarred, his youth buried under layers of strategy and sleepless nights. But something burned in his chest, something that hadn't been there in Ahaz. Faith may be just enough. Beside him, a voice broke the heavy silence. 00:04:33 Speaker 8: I assume you're praying, my king? Or just waiting to hear the sound of the gates giving out? 00:04:39 Speaker 1: Shebna. Royal steward. Political operator. The kind of man who wore his robes like armour and never let a sentence end without a smirk. Hezekiah kept him close because you don't survive in a court without at least one man who knows where all the bodies are buried. 00:04:59 Speaker 5: I'm listening for the Lord. 00:05:02 Speaker 9: Not that you'd recognise the difference. 00:05:05 Speaker 10: The Lord's been very quiet since Lachish fell. Maybe he's thinking or packing his bags to run for the hills. 00:05:15 Speaker 1: The tension between them had become ritual. Shebna, who thought in silver and politics. Hezekiah, who thought in covenant and blood. The king didn't answer. He just turned slow and steady. Another figure approached, robes dusty, hair wild, eyes that had seen too much. Eliakim, son of Hilkiah. Master of the palace. Not a politician, not a flatterer. Just a man who had the unfortunate task of trying to keep the gears of Judah turning while everyone else panicked. He was already mid-breath, already angry. 00:05:58 Speaker 3: The Rabshakeh is on his way. with a message, loud, public, right in front of the wall. 00:06:06 Speaker 1: Hezekiah sighed. Of course, the Rabshaker, Assyria's chief of propaganda and psychological warfare. The man could make threats sound like lullabies and turn a crowd faster than a plague. 00:06:22 Speaker 9: Does he speak Hebrew? Fluently and with cruelty. 00:06:28 Speaker 5: Oh, he'll use the people's tongue to break their spine. 00:06:32 Speaker 4: Clever. 00:06:34 Speaker 9: Tell him nothing. Let him talk. Let him threaten. 00:06:39 Speaker 5: Then come back to me. 00:06:42 Speaker 1: Shebna blinked, surprised. Eliakim just nodded, already turning. He knew better than to argue. Hezekiah didn't look at either of them. His eyes were still fixed east toward the path the Assyrians would take and inside the city the people began to whisper. They heard the footsteps of the Rabshakeh approaching. They heard the thunder of horses and the sharp hiss of the Assyrian tongue curling around Hebrew syllables. They climbed the walls hoping to hear the voice of a foreign empire speak their doom in their own language. Above it all The temple stood restored, cleaned and pure again, thanks to Hezekiah's reforms. The sacrifices had returned, the priests sang again, but the Lord hadn't spoken yet. The silence was a test, and the king, standing in the tension between faith and fear, was about to find out who he really served. The Rabshaker arrived like a thunderclap. No chariot, no ceremony, just boots, armor, and a voice that could peel paint off stone. He came with two other Assyrian officials. They approached, standing at the aqueduct, right by the upper pool, the place where Hezekiah had once redirected water to prepare for this very moment. Poetic, the Rabshaker knew it too. Everything he did was intentional, every word a scalpel. He raised his voice, loud, too loud, designed to carry over the heads of Judah's officials and into the ears of every scared, half-starved citizen huddled behind the city wall. 00:08:42 Speaker 7: I have a message for your master, your precious Hezekiah. Tell him this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, has to say. What on earth do you think you're doing? What is your plan? Hoping in smoke? Leaning on Egypt like some cripple on a staff? Egypt is a stick of dead wood. Lean on it too hard and it'll stab right through your hand. 00:09:12 Speaker 1: He paced like a lion sizing up sheep. He wasn't talking to Eliakim or Shebna or the scribal nobody tagging along with them. He was talking to the walls, to the people behind them, listening in fear. 00:09:29 Speaker 4: Or maybe, maybe you're counting on your God. That God of yours, eh? 00:09:36 Speaker 7: Funny, because didn't Hezekiah just go and tear down all his altars? 00:09:41 Speaker 4: Yes, that's right. I heard. 00:09:44 Speaker 8: What? 00:09:46 Speaker 7: He told everyone, you can only worship at this altar in Jerusalem. Sounds like a real downgrade to me. 00:09:54 Speaker 1: Shebna clenched his jaw. Eliakim's fists were white-knuckled, but they said nothing, just like Hezekiah ordered. 00:10:03 Speaker 4: Let's make a deal. I'll give you 2,000 horses right now. You pick the riders. 00:10:10 Speaker 7: If you can even find that many men who know which end is the front of a horse. 00:10:16 Speaker 4: Let's see what you've got. Let's see your... Big comeback. 00:10:21 Speaker 1: He chuckled an ugly, joyless sound. 00:10:25 Speaker 7: You think Assyria came here on a whim? You think we just decided to stroll into Judah? 00:10:32 Speaker 4: Listen, you fools. Yahweh sent us. Yes, your God. 00:10:38 Speaker 7: He's the one who said, attack Judah, destroy it. So don't blame me when the boots start trampling over you. 00:10:47 Speaker 1: Eliakim finally stepped forward, his voice low, respectful, desperate. 00:10:53 Speaker 3: Please, sir, speak to us in Aramaic. We understand it. No need to use Hebrew. There are people listening on the wall. 00:11:02 Speaker 1: The rapturer smiled, and it was the kind of smile that made your soul itch. 00:11:12 Speaker 4: Why, you simple little man. 00:11:15 Speaker 7: That's exactly why I'm speaking Hebrew. I want them to hear every single word. Let's not pretend this message isn't for you psychophantic lapdogs of Hezekiah. This is for the people, for the scared men with rusted swords, for the women rationing bread, for the children wondering why the sky looks darker every morning. 00:11:42 Speaker 1: He turned his voice into a trumpet. bellowing toward the walls like a preacher at a dying revival. 00:11:48 Speaker 7: Hear ye, hear ye, Jerusalem. 00:11:51 Speaker 4: Don't let Hezekiah lie to you. He says, the Lord will save us. The Lord will save us. Where was he with the north hill? Where was he when Hamath collapsed? Arpad? Gone. Got it. Burned down to the foundations. Think, you fools. 00:12:12 Speaker 2: Think! 00:12:13 Speaker 1: He gestured wildly, arms raised like some twisted prophet. 00:12:19 Speaker 4: What makes you think your god is any different? 00:12:21 Speaker 7: What makes you think your king can save you? Don't be fooled by his speeches, his prayers, his pathetic temple theatrics. You follow him, you'll be eating your own bones in a month. 00:12:35 Speaker 1: The crowd on the stone wall was stone silent. Mothers froze mid-rocking. Soldiers blinked sweat into their eyes. Even the wind stopped. 00:12:46 Speaker 4: Make peace with me. Walk out. Surrender. 00:12:51 Speaker 7: I promise you, things will go well for you. You'll eat from your own fig tree. You'll drink from your own well. Not this rationed misery. Not this slow death behind these crumbling stones. 00:13:08 Speaker 4: We'll take you to a land like yours. Vignettes. 00:13:11 Speaker 5: Olive trees. 00:13:12 Speaker 4: The future. No more war. 00:13:15 Speaker 5: No more lies. 00:13:17 Speaker 4: Just... life. 00:13:20 Speaker 1: He let it hang in the air. A seductive offer. 00:13:24 Speaker 2: Bloodless. 00:13:25 Speaker 5: Rational. Human. 00:13:28 Speaker 1: Then, he snapped it. 00:13:30 Speaker 8: But. 00:13:31 Speaker 1: if you wait. 00:13:33 Speaker 4: if you cling to your king.... 00:13:37 Speaker 5: If. 00:13:38 Speaker 4: You trust your way. Then watch your children starve. 00:13:44 Speaker 7: Watch your city crumble. Watch your God fall. 00:13:49 Speaker 4: Silent one last time. Mark my words. 00:13:55 Speaker 7: The last sound you hear will not be the sound of your pathetic God. 00:13:58 Speaker 4: It will be the sound of my laughter. . 00:14:05 Speaker 8: . 00:14:09 Speaker 9: As Judah burns. 00:14:14 Speaker 1: He paused and waited, pleased with his performance. Eliakim said nothing. Shebna said nothing. They turned and walked back to the palace, robes dragging dust like the weight of coming death. And above them, the people on the wall still said nothing. But inside the palace, Hezekiah was waiting, pale, Eyes hollow, knees bent. Not before the Assyrians, before God. The palace was quiet. Hezekiah stood in the chamber like a man who had aged twenty years in twenty minutes. The scroll from Sennacherib lay unrolled before him on the ground, its words like a dagger dressed in silk. Surrender, survive, or be destroyed. The Rabshakeh's venom had soaked deep into the stones of Jerusalem, and now the king's knees hit the floor. He didn't speak to his advisors. He didn't summon Shevna or Eliakim or even the priesthood. He dragged the letter straight to the temple, straight to the heart of everything. And there, under the shadow of the cherubim, Surrounded by the scent of ancient blood and sacred oil, he did the only thing left to do. He prayed. 00:15:41 Speaker 11: Lord, God of Israel, you who sit above the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. 00:15:50 Speaker 1: His voice cracked, his body trembled, but his soul stood up. 00:15:56 Speaker 9: You made heaven and earth. 00:15:57 Speaker 11: You hear. 00:15:59 Speaker 9: You see. Look at this letter. Read what Sennacherib wrote. Read how he mocks you, the living God. Yes, he's destroyed nations. He's burned their gods. But they were wood, stone, made by hands. 00:16:17 Speaker 1: He inhaled slowly, like swallowing a stone. You're not like them. 00:16:23 Speaker 4: You're real. 00:16:24 Speaker 11: You are here. You've saved our people in the past. You parted the Red Sea. You slew Goliath with a stone. Save us, Lord, not for us, not for our name, but so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know you alone are Yahweh. 00:16:45 Speaker 1: First there was silence, then wind. Somewhere on the other side of the city, Isaiah, son of Amoz, was already sitting up straighter. He'd been praying too, listening. watching the heavens shift in that peculiar way only prophets can perceive, like watching a storm roll in from a thousand miles away and still smelling the rain. And then he heard it, that voice, not booming, not theatrical, but surgical, inevitable. 00:17:24 Speaker 2: Isaiah, go to King Hezekiah. I have a message for him. 00:17:31 Speaker 1: So Isaiah rose, wrapped his cloak around his shoulders, and walked like a man carrying fire in his palms. Back at the palace, the scroll still lay there, its ink dry but its message still dripping poison in the air. Hezekiah hadn't moved since laying it before the Lord. His knees were stiff, his breath tasted like copper. The prayers had been whispered, groaned, screamed, and now he waited, eyes red, jaw clenched. When Isaiah entered, he didn't wait to be announced. Prophets don't knock, they arrive. Hezekiah turned his head. 00:18:18 Speaker 8: The Lord has spoken. 00:18:19 Speaker 1: The silence cracked thin as glass. The king rose slowly, his joints groaning under the weight of fasting and dread, robes dragging like chains. 00:18:35 Speaker 9: Tell me. 00:18:36 Speaker 1: Isaiah looked at him for a moment longer than necessary. Hezekiah looked utterly wrecked. The kind of agony that, like Jacob many years ago, only comes from wrestling with God and not letting go. Isaiah respected that. 00:18:53 Speaker 9: You prayed. 00:18:54 Speaker 8: You cried out. 00:18:56 Speaker 5: And the God of Israel has answered. 00:18:58 Speaker 11: Did he answer with mercy or with silence? 00:19:03 Speaker 5: He answered with laughter. 00:19:06 Speaker 9: Laughter? 00:19:08 Speaker 5: He laughed, Ezekiel. 00:19:10 Speaker 8: Laughed like a father watching a toddler threaten him with a stick. Yes, Zion, the virgin daughter. She laughs at that fool Sennacherib. She tosses her head like a girl mocking a drunk at the gate. She sees him for what he is. 00:19:27 Speaker 4: Noise. 00:19:28 Speaker 1: Hezekiah stepped closer, eyebrows drawn low. 00:19:33 Speaker 9: Are you telling me God mocks him? Mocks the Assyrians? 00:19:38 Speaker 5: I'm telling you, Sennacherib mocked the wrong throne. He lifted his voice against the High One, the maker of mountains, the shaper of breath. He bragged of burning spirits. drowning rivers, and tearing down strongholds. He thought it was strength, but it was permission. The fool thinks he's a self-made man. Nonsense! Every step he took, God allowed. And now, he revokes it. 00:20:08 Speaker 1: The weight of the words pressed against the walls. Hezekiah reached out and touched the edge of the scroll with two fingers, as if it might sting him. 00:20:19 Speaker 11: Zennacherib said he came in God's name. 00:20:22 Speaker 9: He said that the Lord sent him. 00:20:24 Speaker 5: He confused silence for agreement. He mistook long-suffering for weakness. But God is not mocked. And he's not slow. Just precise. 00:20:43 Speaker 9: Then what does the Lord say? What's the verdict? 00:20:48 Speaker 1: Isaiah stepped forward, his voice beginning to carry something ancient, like thunder warming up behind his ribs. 00:20:57 Speaker 8: This is what the Lord says. You will not see one arrow fly over this wall. Not one. No ladder will touch these stones. No soldier will pass your gates. Sennacherib will go back the way he came. I will put a hook in his rotten nose and I will drag him out like the beast he is. I will defend this city. I will shield it not for your sake, not because of your strength, but for my name and because of the promise I made to your forefather David. 00:21:37 Speaker 1: Hezekiah closed his eyes, holding back tears. 00:21:41 Speaker 9: So, the Lord heard me. 00:21:44 Speaker 5: Yes, he did. 00:21:47 Speaker 1: The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was holy. It was a silence that waits before the mighty God moves. The Assyrian camp had spread across the valley like a living thing, a serpent with 185,000 teeth. The night air was thick with sweat and arrogance, the stench of cooked meat and war-polished bronze. Fires flickered in uneven rhythms, casting shadows across faces already marked with the casual cruelty of men. The Assyrians had crushed cities beneath their boots and forgotten the names of the children they'd orphaned. Their blades weren't dull, but the men kept sharpening anyway. They were, to a man, certain. Not arrogant in the foolish way of green recruits, but confident in the mechanical inevitability of their machine. No one escaped Assyria. The northern kingdom of Israel had already fallen, The cities of the plain had bowed. Jerusalem was a song in its final note, a candle with no wax left, a name about to become dust. No one was watching the sky. And why would they? The gods of Assyria had never needed stars. They had siege towers and logistics. But heaven does not need chariots when it chooses to march. And on that night, in the quiet, the angel of the Lord entered the camp. There was no trumpet, no war cry, no flash of wings or the melodrama of men's imagination. Only a stillness, a holy, terrifying stillness. And then it began, not in fire, but in breath leaving lungs. One by one, the Assyrian soldiers died, not like men on a battlefield flailing for glory or gurgling oaths to the moon, but like candles snuffed by an invisible wind. Fingers twitched, knees buckled, hearts stopped mid-beat. Across the valley, in silence, the machinery of empire collapsed like a lung punctured by the dagger of God. And if anyone had remained alive as a witness, they would have nothing to report. Nothing but the sight of living men dropping dead without sword or arrow. Morning arrived. The city of Jerusalem woke slowly, cautiously, the fear still heavy in their bellies. Hezekiah stood on the wall, shoulders hunched in prayer, flanked by Eliakim and Shebna. Eliakim looked out and surveyed the Assyrian camp. 00:24:54 Speaker 9: My lord, they're not moving. 00:24:57 Speaker 1: Hezekiah turned. 00:24:59 Speaker 4: What do you see? 00:25:01 Speaker 9: Nothing, my king. 00:25:01 Speaker 3: They're not moving because they're not alive. 00:25:07 Speaker 1: The king walked to the edge of the wall, placed a hand on the cold stone. The valley below was a graveyard. A nation's worth of power had been reduced to stillness. Campfire still burned, swords still gleamed, but there was no one left to wield them. Suddenly, Isaiah appeared, robes swirling, eyes already wet with something halfway between holy awe and grim understanding. Hezekiah didn't speak, couldn't. The king nodded. He turned from the wall, stepped down, and the city exhaled for the first time in weeks. Far away, Sennacherib heard the news, and something inside him cracked. He left Jerusalem's shadow without a word, retreated to Nineveh, with nothing but the silence of God ringing in his ears. And in the end, in the house of his god Nisroch, while he prayed for answers his idols couldn't give, his own sons rose against him. blood on stone, betrayal at the altar. And the man who mocked the Lord died with a question still forming on his lips. Jerusalem survived, not because it was strong, but because God is. And because, one way or another, he answers the prayers of those who fear his name. This Pray.com production is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Gatina, Max Bard, Zach Schelleberger, and Ben Gammon are the executive producers of The Chosen People, narrated by Paul Coltofianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotton, Aaron Salvato, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwald, Sylvia Zaradok, Thomas Copeland Jr., Rosanna Pilcher, and Mitch Lashinsky. Music by Andrew Morgan Smith. Written by Aaron Salvato, Brie Rosely, and Chris Baig. You can hear more Prey.com productions on the Prey.com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed The Chosen People, please rate and leave a review.