Assyria at the Gate
36 1 Now it happened in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 2 And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the Launderer's Field. a a v2 The Rabshakeh was a senior Assyrian military title, roughly equivalent to a field commander or chief of staff. 3 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.
4 And the Rabshakeh said to them, "Say now to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: What is this confidence in which you trust?
5 You say, 'I have counsel and strength for war' — but these are only empty words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me? 6 Look, you are trusting in the staff of this crushed reed, in Egypt, which will pierce your hand and go right through it if you lean on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. 7 But if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You must worship before this altar'? b b v7 The Rabshakeh invokes the LORD's name to deceive, not to worship. FHB preserves 'the LORD' rather than 'our Father' when pagan mockers use the name without knowing the Father they name. 8 Now therefore make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you can find riders for them. 9 How then can you repel a single captain among the least of my master's servants, while you trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 10 And now, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, 'Go up against this land and destroy it.'"
11 Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall." c c v11 'Judean' here means the Hebrew language — the everyday speech of the people of Judah.
12 But the Rabshakeh said, "Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?" 13 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judean, "Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 Thus says the king: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. 15 Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, 'The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.' 16 Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make peace with me and come out to me, and each of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and each of you will drink the water of his own well, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18 Don't let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, 'The LORD will deliver us.' Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? 20 Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?"
21 But they were silent and gave him no answer, for the king's command was, "Do not answer him."
22 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they told him the words of the Rabshakeh.