Bible Strands
2 Kings 18:16
At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold with which he had plated the doors and doorposts of the temple of the LORD, and he gave it to the king of Assyria.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Hezekiah strips gold from the temple doors and doorposts to pay the king of Assyria during an active siege. This occurs immediately after he surrenders all remaining silver from the temple and royal treasuries.
The words — The Hebrew verb קִצַּץ (ki.Tzatz) literally means "he cut off," denoting the physical removal of the metal plating. The noun דּלְתוֹת (dal.Tot) specifies the temple doors, identifying the exact sacred structure being dismantled.
The thread — The stripping of these doors reverses Hezekiah’s earlier repair of the temple doors (2 Chronicles 29:3) and contrasts with Solomon’s original construction of olive wood doors for the sanctuary (1 Kings 6:31). This progression tracks a movement from sacred maintenance to desperate extraction.
Why it lands — The text records a monarch sacrificing consecrated architecture to appease an invading army, requiring the reader to assess how crisis forces the repurposing of holy space. It demands a clear evaluation of the tangible cost of political survival.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.
Cross-references
- 1 Kings 6:31 For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, Solomon constructed doors of olive wood with five-sided doorposts.
- 2 Chronicles 29:3 In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened and repaired the doors of the house of the LORD.