Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
2 Kings 19:16 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 16. 16LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse asks the LORD to hear Sennacherib's reproach.
Read It With
- 2 Kings 19:14–19:19
Read 2 Kings 19:16 within 2 Kings 19:14–19:19. Hezekiah reads the letter, prays before the LORD as creator and enthroned God, admits Assyrian conquests, distinguishes manufactured gods, and asks for deliverance.
Why This Verse Appears Here
This verse asks the LORD to hear Sennacherib's reproach. This detail is necessary to the thought unit “Hezekiah spreads the letter before God,” but it is not the unit's whole claim.
Read 2 Kings 19:14–19 together
Why these verses belong together: 2 Kings 19:14–19:19 forms one scene or regnal notice: Hezekiah reads the letter, prays before the LORD as creator and enthroned God, admits Assyrian conquests, distinguishes manufactured gods, and asks for deliverance.
Verse 14. 14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.
Verse 15. 15 And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.
Verse 16. 16 LORD, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, LORD, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.
Verse 17. 17 Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,
Verse 18. 18 And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.
Verse 19. 19 Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the LORD God, even thou only.
Follow the Context
- Hezekiah reads the letter, prays before the LORD as creator and enthroned God, admits Assyrian conquests, distinguishes manufactured gods, and asks for deliverance.
- The unit's narrated outcome or evaluation prepares the next movement without making every described action exemplary.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
2 Kings 19:16 does not stand alone from 2 Kings 19:14–19:19. This prayer does not make every threatening message false, promise national rescue, or authorize dismissing other religions as less than human.
What Remains True
This verse asks the LORD to hear Sennacherib's reproach. In the complete scene, that detail supports this larger account: Hezekiah reads the letter, prays before the LORD as creator and enthroned God, admits Assyrian conquests, distinguishes manufactured gods, and asks for deliverance.
How It Can Shape Life
- When teaching 2 Kings 19:16, keep this contribution and 2 Kings 19:14–19:19 together. This prayer does not make every threatening message false, promise national rescue, or authorize dismissing other religions as less than human.
Teach It Back
Explain 2 Kings 19:16's precise role in 2 Kings 19:14–19:19. Include the first historical horizon, surrounding verses, one person or cost that a royal or miracle-centered reading could obscure, material uncertainty, and one conclusion this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read 2 Kings 19:14–19:19 — Hezekiah spreads the letter before GodSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The received narrative supplies its theological interpretation, but the precise source history, chronology, motives, and external correlation remain open to graded historical judgment.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 2 Kings 19:14–19:19, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Kings
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, royal formulas, clause relationships, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 19:14–19:19
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: 2 Kings with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: A unit-bounded translation comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence is not treated as evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible 2 Kings PDF, printed pp. 657–659, translation and translator notes for 19:14–19:19
Open source ↗