2nd Kings Chapter 19 verse 14 Holy Bible
And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up unto the house of Jehovah, and spread it before Jehovah.
read chapter 19 in ASV
And Hezekiah took the letter from the hands of those who had come with it; and after reading it, Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, opening the letter there before the Lord.
read chapter 19 in BBE
And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up into the house of Jehovah, and spread it before Jehovah.
read chapter 19 in DARBY
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.
read chapter 19 in KJV
And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.
read chapter 19 in WBT
Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of Yahweh, and spread it before Yahweh.
read chapter 19 in WEB
And Hezekiah taketh the letters out of the hand of the messengers, and readeth them, and goeth up to the house of Jehovah, and Hezekiah spreadeth it before Jehovah.
read chapter 19 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 14. - And Hezekiah received the letter. It had not been previously stated that Sennacherib had written a letter. But the author forgets this, and so speaks of "the letter." Kings generally communicated by letters, and not merely by messages (see 2 Kings 5:5; 2 Kings 20:12; 2 Chronicles 2:11; Nehemiah 1:9, etc.). Of the hand of the messengers, and read it. Probably Sennacherib had caused it to be written in Hebrew. And Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. Not as if God would not otherwise know the contents of the letter, but to emphasize his detestation of the letter, and to make it silently plead for him with God. Ewald rightly compares what Judas Maccabaeus did with the disfigured copies of the Law at Maspha (1 Macc. 3:48), but incorrectly calls it ('History of Israel,' vol. 4. p. 183, note 1, Eng. trans.) "a laying down of the object in the sanctuary." Maspha was "over against" the temple, at the distance of a mile or more.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) The letter.--The Hebrew word is plural, like the Latin litterae. The first "it" is plural, the second singular. 2Kings 19:10-13 may be regarded as embodying the substance of the letter, which the envoys first delivered orally, and then presented the letter to authenticate it. But perhaps the contents of the letter were not preserved in the Hebrew annals.Spread it before the Lord.--Commentators have taken offence at this act, as if it betokened some heathenish conception of Jehovah. "Tres-na?vement, pour que Dieu la l-t aussi" (Reuss). But one who could think of his God as having "made heaven and earth," and as the only God, would not be likely to imagine Him ignorant of the contents of a letter until it had been laid before Him in His sanctuary. Hezekiall's act was a solemn and perfectly natural indication to his ministers and people that he had put the matter into the hands of Jehovah.
