2 Kings 18
Assyrians at Jerusalem’s gates
Hezekiah, one of Judah’s great kings
2 Chronicles 29:1, 2; 31:1 1When Judah’s King Ahaz died, his son Hezekiah became the next king. By that time, King Hoshea was into his third year of ruling Israel. 2Hezekiah was 25 years old when his dad died, and he ruled out of Jerusalem for 29 years. His mother was Abi, Zechariah’s daughter.
3King Hezekiah was one of the great ones. He lived his life delighting the LORD, just as his ancestor David had done. 4He destroyed the hilltop shrines, busted the pagan pillars, and chopped down the sacred poles honoring the goddess Asherah. [1] He even broke into pieces the ancient image of a bronze snake [2] that Moses made because people seemed to worship it like an idol. They even brought it offerings. 5Hezekiah was devoted to God. As kings go, Hezekiah was one of a kind. In a good way. 6He stayed true to God. He obeyed the laws God gave Moses to pass along to Israel.
7The LORD helped him find his way through life, and Hezekiah benefited from that and prospered. Hezekiah rebelled against his overlord, the king of Assyria, by declaring his independence. Hezekiah said he would no longer take orders from him. 8Then Hezekiah went on the offensive, to expand Judah’s borders west. He pushed into Philistine territory, as far as the city of Gaza along the seacoast. He captured all of their outlying guard towers and outposts, and all the land up to the city walls. Assyrians deport citizens of Samaria
9Assyrian King Shalmaneser [3] began a three-year siege of Samaria when the king up there in Israel, Hoshea, was in his seventh year of ruling Israel. Hezekiah, down south in Judah, was in his fourth year as king. 10Samaria fell in the third year of the siege. That put Hezekiah in his sixth year as king, and Hoshea in his ninth. 11Assyria’s king deported Samaria’s captives. He sent them into the towns of Halah, Habor, and Gozan [4] by the river. They sent some to the distant Mede [5] frontier.
12All of this was on Israel—they brought it on themselves by turning their backs on God. They broke the contract they made with him, ignoring the covenant promise to serve him. They ignored him. Assyria invades Judah
2 Chronicles 32:1-19; Isaiah 36:1-22 13Hezekiah was almost 40 years old and into his 14th year as king of Judah when Assyrians invaded. [6] Their king, Sennacherib, [7] led his soldiers on a campaign to capture every walled city in Judah. 14Hezekiah sent a message of apology to Sennacherib, who was attacking one of Jerusalem’s outlying cities, Lachish. [8] Hezekiah said, “I’m so sorry. I was wrong. Please stop the attacks. I’ll give you whatever it takes to end this.” Sennacherib demanded 11 tons of silver and a ton of gold. [9]
15Hezekiah emptied the Temple and palace treasuries of all their silver and sent it to the Assyrian king. 16For the gold, he had to strip the gold panels off the Temple doors and doorway. He sent that to the Assyrian king, too.
17The Assyrian king sent a message in return, delivered by three top military officials: the Tartan, the army’s top commander; the Rabsaris, palace chief of staff; and the Rabshakeh, prime minister. [10] They came with an escort: a massive Assyrian army, marching up from Lachish. The officials walked to the upper pool’s aqueduct, on the road to the Laundry. [11] 18They called out for the king. Instead, they got three of Judah’s highest officials: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, palace chief of staff; Shebna, palace secretary and scribe; and Joah son of Asaph, palace director of communications. [12 “Hezekiah, who’s going to help you now?”
19Assyrian Prime Minister Rabshakeh said, “Deliver this message to Hezekiah: The Great King —the king of Assyria—has a question for you. Who’s your daddy? Who’s going to save you now? 20Do you think mere words can stop a powerful army with a solid war strategy? You’ve rebelled against me. Who’s left to protect you now? 21You think your neighbor down south will save you? [13] Don’t lean on Pharoah’s Egypt. Egypt is a cracked cane. If you lean on it, you’re going to get impaled. [14]
22If your answer is that you rely on the LORD your God, I have to wonder about that. Didn’t you destroy all the hilltop shrines where people worshiped him, leaving only Jerusalem’s Temple as the sole surviving sacred space? [15] 23Let’s make a bet. I’ll bet 2,000 horses that you don’t have 2,000 men to ride them. 24If you’re relying on Egypt’s horses and chariots, which aren’t coming, how could you stop even one of my captains and his men?
25Here’s the clincher. I’m not fighting against your LORD. He’s the one who sent me here. He said, “Go, attack this nation, and destroy the towns.” So, here I am. Judah: Not so loud. They’ll hear you.
26Judah’s representatives, Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah told Rabshakeh, “Please, lower your voice and speak in your Aramaic language. We understand it. Please don’t speak in our language. The people standing on the wall might overhear you.”
27Rabshakeh said “Well, is that so? Do you think my king wants me to deliver this message privately, to just you and your king? You don’t think he wants your defenders on the wall to know that before this siege is over, they’ll be so hungry and thirsty that they’ll be eating their own crap and drinking their piss?” [16]
28Rabshakeh shouted in the Hebrew language of Judah, “Listen to this message from the Great King—the king of Assyria: 29Don’t let Hezekiah convince you that you’re going to be okay, and that he’ll keep you safe. 30And don’t believe him when he says, ‘The LORD will certainly protect us. He won’t let this city of his fall into the hands of the Assyrian king.’
“Ignore Hezekiah”
31Ignore Hezekiah. Make your own decisions. Come on out here peacefully. Then you can go back to eating the grapes and figs you grow and drinking water from your own springs and cisterns. [17] 32Later, I’ll come and peacefully lead you to a different land, [18] but one very much like your own. It’s a land of grain fields and vineyards for your bread and wine. Don’t fall for Hezekiah’s promise about the LORD saving you.
33Think about this: Has any god in any country or kingdom been able to stop the king of Assyria? 34We never got to meet the gods of Hamath or Arpad. Where did the gods of Sepharvaim go when we showed up? Did Samaria’s gods save them? [19] 35Think about it, people. What god in any of these kingdoms saved them? So why do you think you’ll be the exception? Why would the LORD save Jerusalem when no god has saved anyone from the king of Assyria?” Judah’s reps say nothing
36Hezekiah’s men said nothing. Hezekiah had ordered it. 37The three men returned to Jerusalem, ripped their clothes in dismay and grief, and then reported back to King Hezekiah. They were Eliakim son of Hilkiah, palace chief of staff; Shebna, palace secretary and scribe; and Joah son of Asaph, palace director of communications. 
Footnotes
118:4Canaanite religion, featuring Baal the chief god, included ritual poles. These may have been trees or poles meant to represent trees, as symbols of the Canaanite fertility goddess Asherah, goddess of motherhood. She was the love interest of Baal. Canaan is now known as Israel and Palestinian Territories.
218:4Numbers 21:9.
318:9Shalmaneser, ruled from 727-722 BC.
418:11See note for 2 Kings 17:6.
518:11Medes were a people living in what is now northern and western Iran. They took their orders from the Assyrian king, as much of the ancient Middle East did in the 700s BC.
618:13The content of Isaiah 36 and 37 is pulled from sections of 2 Kings, according to some scholars. Compare Isaiah 36:1 to 2 Kings 18:13. And compare verses 36:2-22 to 2 Kings 18:17-37. Hezekiah’s story in Isaiah 37-38 seems to come from 2 Kings 19-20. Some scholars say it’s the other way around: Isaiah wrote it, and the writer or editors of 2 Kings copied it and added it to the historical record. Some who said Isaiah borrowed it explain that he probably did it with the idea that the Jews would listen to this retold story sometime after their exile abroad—perhaps in Babylon or maybe back in their homeland. There, they would listen to a tale about how great things used to be when King Hezekiah started disobeying God before the hammer came down in the form of an Assyrian invasion force.
718:13Sennacherib ruled the Assyrian Empire from the time his father, King Sargon II, died in 705 BC until two of his sons murdered him in 681 BC. He kept records of his campaigns against Judah and Israel, and some of them survive, confirming key elements of history in the Old Testament report. He confirms, for example, that he didn’t manage to get inside Jerusalem this time. He reports, instead, that he trapped King Hezekiah behind Jerusalem’s walls “like a bird in a cage.”
818:14Lachish was about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Jerusalem, a walk of about a day and a half. Assyrian chiseled pictures of their attack on Lachish and their impaling of the people there. It has been on display in the British Museum.
918:14In ancient Hebrew measurements, Assyria’s king asked for 300 talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. If a wagon could haul as much as an average pickup truck, about a ton, the king would have needed a dozen wagons to haul the precious metal home.
1018:17“Tartan” shows up in an Assyrian epic written in the 800s BC (Adad-nirari II). He’s a military commander in chief who reported directly to the king. “Rabsaris” means “chief eunuch,” but can also mean “head of state” or “chief officer.” Eunuchs who took care of the king’s ladies sometimes became royal advisors because of the close contact they had with the royal family. “Rabshakeh” meant “leading cupbearer,” the person trusted with making sure no one poisoned the king’s drink. They sometimes rose to power, to become vizier or governors like Nehemiah did (Nehemiah 2:1; 5:14).
1118:17More literally “Fuller’s Field.” This was apparently a place by the water where people came to wash their clothes.
1218:18These men also appear together in Isaiah 36:3. Scholars debate what the three titles meant. They’re often translated: “palace administrator,” “secretary,” and “recorder.” Some associate “secretary” with a scribe in charge of recording official documents. “Recorder” might refer to a legal official, such as a minister of justice. Some scholars, however, say they see a connection to a similar Egyptian title that refers to an official in charge of communicating and reporting to the king and then to the people on behalf of the king, a bit like a press secretary today.
1318:21Yes, Hezekiah apparently thought Egypt would come. And they did, during the following siege of Jerusalem. But Assyrians drove them off. Isaiah had argued against making an alliance with Egypt, saying God opposed it (Isaiah 30:2). Hezekiah did it anyhow.
1418:21Well, impaled in the hand at least. Pierced. Assyrians were famous for impaling captives. Impaling was especially popular and showed up in battlefield pictures displayed on Assyrian palace walls. Executioners sometimes impaled people through the bottom of the torso and sometimes through the stomach or the chest. Death usually followed quickly. A skilled executioner could sometimes impale a person in ways that produced a lingering death.
1518:22The Assyrian king was mistaken. Hezekiah tore down hilltop shrines and other worship centers forbidden by Israelite law. Moses had told the people during the exodus out of Egypt that once they settled in their new homeland, they should worship at only “one worship center for the entire nation of Israel” (Deuteronomy 12:5) That place became the Jerusalem Temple that King Solomon built.
1618:27More literally, as in Isaiah 36:12, they’ll eat their own “filth” and drink the “water for their feet.” The question is how best to express those words today. Would the officer have spoken politely, using the more delicate words? Or would he have matched his words to the energy and the spirit he expresses earlier. If so, he may have used words that would get us in even more trouble than the common slang words used here. “Excrement,” often used, seems a little on the light side of “filth.” And what are you gonna do with “water for their feet”? “Urine?” That word doesn’t feel wet enough.
1718:31A cistern was a storage pit to collect rainwater or water hauled from a spring or a stream. It was often chiseled out of stone and lined with waterproof plaster.
1818:32Assyrians planned to dismantle the nation of Judah and deport the people, to make sure the nation didn’t reconstitute itself and live to rebel another day. Assyrians did that earlier to the northern Jewish nation of Israel, in 721 BC. Babylonians also deported people. Assyrians and Babylonians both took the captives to their own part of the world so they could keep an eye on them.
1918:34Samaria, capital of the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel, fell to Assyria two decades earlier, in about 722 BC.
Discussion Questions
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Maps/Guides
Assyria erases Israel from mapAssyrian Empire at its strongest
Assyrians attack JerusalemHezekiah's walled city of JerusalemVideos
3King Hezekiah was one of the great ones. He lived his life delighting the LORD, just as his ancestor David had done. 4He destroyed the hilltop shrines, busted the pagan pillars, and chopped down the sacred poles honoring the goddess Asherah. [1] He even broke into pieces the ancient image of a bronze snake [2] that Moses made because people seemed to worship it like an idol. They even brought it offerings. 5Hezekiah was devoted to God. As kings go, Hezekiah was one of a kind. In a good way. 6He stayed true to God. He obeyed the laws God gave Moses to pass along to Israel.
7The LORD helped him find his way through life, and Hezekiah benefited from that and prospered. Hezekiah rebelled against his overlord, the king of Assyria, by declaring his independence. Hezekiah said he would no longer take orders from him. 8Then Hezekiah went on the offensive, to expand Judah’s borders west. He pushed into Philistine territory, as far as the city of Gaza along the seacoast. He captured all of their outlying guard towers and outposts, and all the land up to the city walls.
Assyrians deport citizens of Samaria
9Assyrian King Shalmaneser [3] began a three-year siege of Samaria when the king up there in Israel, Hoshea, was in his seventh year of ruling Israel. Hezekiah, down south in Judah, was in his fourth year as king. 10Samaria fell in the third year of the siege. That put Hezekiah in his sixth year as king, and Hoshea in his ninth. 11Assyria’s king deported Samaria’s captives. He sent them into the towns of Halah, Habor, and Gozan [4] by the river. They sent some to the distant Mede [5] frontier.12All of this was on Israel—they brought it on themselves by turning their backs on God. They broke the contract they made with him, ignoring the covenant promise to serve him. They ignored him.
Assyria invades Judah
2 Chronicles 32:1-19; Isaiah 36:1-22 13Hezekiah was almost 40 years old and into his 14th year as king of Judah when Assyrians invaded. [6] Their king, Sennacherib, [7] led his soldiers on a campaign to capture every walled city in Judah. 14Hezekiah sent a message of apology to Sennacherib, who was attacking one of Jerusalem’s outlying cities, Lachish. [8] Hezekiah said, “I’m so sorry. I was wrong. Please stop the attacks. I’ll give you whatever it takes to end this.” Sennacherib demanded 11 tons of silver and a ton of gold. [9]
15Hezekiah emptied the Temple and palace treasuries of all their silver and sent it to the Assyrian king. 16For the gold, he had to strip the gold panels off the Temple doors and doorway. He sent that to the Assyrian king, too.
17The Assyrian king sent a message in return, delivered by three top military officials: the Tartan, the army’s top commander; the Rabsaris, palace chief of staff; and the Rabshakeh, prime minister. [10] They came with an escort: a massive Assyrian army, marching up from Lachish. The officials walked to the upper pool’s aqueduct, on the road to the Laundry. [11] 18They called out for the king. Instead, they got three of Judah’s highest officials: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, palace chief of staff; Shebna, palace secretary and scribe; and Joah son of Asaph, palace director of communications. [12 “Hezekiah, who’s going to help you now?”
19Assyrian Prime Minister Rabshakeh said, “Deliver this message to Hezekiah: The Great King —the king of Assyria—has a question for you. Who’s your daddy? Who’s going to save you now? 20Do you think mere words can stop a powerful army with a solid war strategy? You’ve rebelled against me. Who’s left to protect you now? 21You think your neighbor down south will save you? [13] Don’t lean on Pharoah’s Egypt. Egypt is a cracked cane. If you lean on it, you’re going to get impaled. [14]
22If your answer is that you rely on the LORD your God, I have to wonder about that. Didn’t you destroy all the hilltop shrines where people worshiped him, leaving only Jerusalem’s Temple as the sole surviving sacred space? [15] 23Let’s make a bet. I’ll bet 2,000 horses that you don’t have 2,000 men to ride them. 24If you’re relying on Egypt’s horses and chariots, which aren’t coming, how could you stop even one of my captains and his men?
25Here’s the clincher. I’m not fighting against your LORD. He’s the one who sent me here. He said, “Go, attack this nation, and destroy the towns.” So, here I am. Judah: Not so loud. They’ll hear you.
26Judah’s representatives, Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah told Rabshakeh, “Please, lower your voice and speak in your Aramaic language. We understand it. Please don’t speak in our language. The people standing on the wall might overhear you.”
27Rabshakeh said “Well, is that so? Do you think my king wants me to deliver this message privately, to just you and your king? You don’t think he wants your defenders on the wall to know that before this siege is over, they’ll be so hungry and thirsty that they’ll be eating their own crap and drinking their piss?” [16]
28Rabshakeh shouted in the Hebrew language of Judah, “Listen to this message from the Great King—the king of Assyria: 29Don’t let Hezekiah convince you that you’re going to be okay, and that he’ll keep you safe. 30And don’t believe him when he says, ‘The LORD will certainly protect us. He won’t let this city of his fall into the hands of the Assyrian king.’
“Ignore Hezekiah”
31Ignore Hezekiah. Make your own decisions. Come on out here peacefully. Then you can go back to eating the grapes and figs you grow and drinking water from your own springs and cisterns. [17] 32Later, I’ll come and peacefully lead you to a different land, [18] but one very much like your own. It’s a land of grain fields and vineyards for your bread and wine. Don’t fall for Hezekiah’s promise about the LORD saving you.
33Think about this: Has any god in any country or kingdom been able to stop the king of Assyria? 34We never got to meet the gods of Hamath or Arpad. Where did the gods of Sepharvaim go when we showed up? Did Samaria’s gods save them? [19] 35Think about it, people. What god in any of these kingdoms saved them? So why do you think you’ll be the exception? Why would the LORD save Jerusalem when no god has saved anyone from the king of Assyria?” Judah’s reps say nothing
36Hezekiah’s men said nothing. Hezekiah had ordered it. 37The three men returned to Jerusalem, ripped their clothes in dismay and grief, and then reported back to King Hezekiah. They were Eliakim son of Hilkiah, palace chief of staff; Shebna, palace secretary and scribe; and Joah son of Asaph, palace director of communications. Footnotes
118:4Canaanite religion, featuring Baal the chief god, included ritual poles. These may have been trees or poles meant to represent trees, as symbols of the Canaanite fertility goddess Asherah, goddess of motherhood. She was the love interest of Baal. Canaan is now known as Israel and Palestinian Territories.
218:4Numbers 21:9.
318:9Shalmaneser, ruled from 727-722 BC.
418:11See note for 2 Kings 17:6.
518:11Medes were a people living in what is now northern and western Iran. They took their orders from the Assyrian king, as much of the ancient Middle East did in the 700s BC.
618:13The content of Isaiah 36 and 37 is pulled from sections of 2 Kings, according to some scholars. Compare Isaiah 36:1 to 2 Kings 18:13. And compare verses 36:2-22 to 2 Kings 18:17-37. Hezekiah’s story in Isaiah 37-38 seems to come from 2 Kings 19-20. Some scholars say it’s the other way around: Isaiah wrote it, and the writer or editors of 2 Kings copied it and added it to the historical record. Some who said Isaiah borrowed it explain that he probably did it with the idea that the Jews would listen to this retold story sometime after their exile abroad—perhaps in Babylon or maybe back in their homeland. There, they would listen to a tale about how great things used to be when King Hezekiah started disobeying God before the hammer came down in the form of an Assyrian invasion force.
718:13Sennacherib ruled the Assyrian Empire from the time his father, King Sargon II, died in 705 BC until two of his sons murdered him in 681 BC. He kept records of his campaigns against Judah and Israel, and some of them survive, confirming key elements of history in the Old Testament report. He confirms, for example, that he didn’t manage to get inside Jerusalem this time. He reports, instead, that he trapped King Hezekiah behind Jerusalem’s walls “like a bird in a cage.”
818:14Lachish was about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Jerusalem, a walk of about a day and a half. Assyrian chiseled pictures of their attack on Lachish and their impaling of the people there. It has been on display in the British Museum.
918:14In ancient Hebrew measurements, Assyria’s king asked for 300 talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. If a wagon could haul as much as an average pickup truck, about a ton, the king would have needed a dozen wagons to haul the precious metal home.
1018:17“Tartan” shows up in an Assyrian epic written in the 800s BC (Adad-nirari II). He’s a military commander in chief who reported directly to the king. “Rabsaris” means “chief eunuch,” but can also mean “head of state” or “chief officer.” Eunuchs who took care of the king’s ladies sometimes became royal advisors because of the close contact they had with the royal family. “Rabshakeh” meant “leading cupbearer,” the person trusted with making sure no one poisoned the king’s drink. They sometimes rose to power, to become vizier or governors like Nehemiah did (Nehemiah 2:1; 5:14).
1118:17More literally “Fuller’s Field.” This was apparently a place by the water where people came to wash their clothes.
1218:18These men also appear together in Isaiah 36:3. Scholars debate what the three titles meant. They’re often translated: “palace administrator,” “secretary,” and “recorder.” Some associate “secretary” with a scribe in charge of recording official documents. “Recorder” might refer to a legal official, such as a minister of justice. Some scholars, however, say they see a connection to a similar Egyptian title that refers to an official in charge of communicating and reporting to the king and then to the people on behalf of the king, a bit like a press secretary today.
1318:21Yes, Hezekiah apparently thought Egypt would come. And they did, during the following siege of Jerusalem. But Assyrians drove them off. Isaiah had argued against making an alliance with Egypt, saying God opposed it (Isaiah 30:2). Hezekiah did it anyhow.
1418:21Well, impaled in the hand at least. Pierced. Assyrians were famous for impaling captives. Impaling was especially popular and showed up in battlefield pictures displayed on Assyrian palace walls. Executioners sometimes impaled people through the bottom of the torso and sometimes through the stomach or the chest. Death usually followed quickly. A skilled executioner could sometimes impale a person in ways that produced a lingering death.
1518:22The Assyrian king was mistaken. Hezekiah tore down hilltop shrines and other worship centers forbidden by Israelite law. Moses had told the people during the exodus out of Egypt that once they settled in their new homeland, they should worship at only “one worship center for the entire nation of Israel” (Deuteronomy 12:5) That place became the Jerusalem Temple that King Solomon built.
1618:27More literally, as in Isaiah 36:12, they’ll eat their own “filth” and drink the “water for their feet.” The question is how best to express those words today. Would the officer have spoken politely, using the more delicate words? Or would he have matched his words to the energy and the spirit he expresses earlier. If so, he may have used words that would get us in even more trouble than the common slang words used here. “Excrement,” often used, seems a little on the light side of “filth.” And what are you gonna do with “water for their feet”? “Urine?” That word doesn’t feel wet enough.
1718:31A cistern was a storage pit to collect rainwater or water hauled from a spring or a stream. It was often chiseled out of stone and lined with waterproof plaster.
1818:32Assyrians planned to dismantle the nation of Judah and deport the people, to make sure the nation didn’t reconstitute itself and live to rebel another day. Assyrians did that earlier to the northern Jewish nation of Israel, in 721 BC. Babylonians also deported people. Assyrians and Babylonians both took the captives to their own part of the world so they could keep an eye on them.
1918:34Samaria, capital of the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel, fell to Assyria two decades earlier, in about 722 BC.
Discussion Questions
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Maps/Guides
Assyria erases Israel from mapAssyrian Empire at its strongestAssyrians attack JerusalemHezekiah's walled city of JerusalemVideos
15Hezekiah emptied the Temple and palace treasuries of all their silver and sent it to the Assyrian king. 16For the gold, he had to strip the gold panels off the Temple doors and doorway. He sent that to the Assyrian king, too.
17The Assyrian king sent a message in return, delivered by three top military officials: the Tartan, the army’s top commander; the Rabsaris, palace chief of staff; and the Rabshakeh, prime minister. [10] They came with an escort: a massive Assyrian army, marching up from Lachish. The officials walked to the upper pool’s aqueduct, on the road to the Laundry. [11] 18They called out for the king. Instead, they got three of Judah’s highest officials: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, palace chief of staff; Shebna, palace secretary and scribe; and Joah son of Asaph, palace director of communications. [12
“Hezekiah, who’s going to help you now?”
19Assyrian Prime Minister Rabshakeh said, “Deliver this message to Hezekiah: The Great King —the king of Assyria—has a question for you. Who’s your daddy? Who’s going to save you now? 20Do you think mere words can stop a powerful army with a solid war strategy? You’ve rebelled against me. Who’s left to protect you now? 21You think your neighbor down south will save you? [13] Don’t lean on Pharoah’s Egypt. Egypt is a cracked cane. If you lean on it, you’re going to get impaled. [14]22If your answer is that you rely on the LORD your God, I have to wonder about that. Didn’t you destroy all the hilltop shrines where people worshiped him, leaving only Jerusalem’s Temple as the sole surviving sacred space? [15] 23Let’s make a bet. I’ll bet 2,000 horses that you don’t have 2,000 men to ride them. 24If you’re relying on Egypt’s horses and chariots, which aren’t coming, how could you stop even one of my captains and his men?
25Here’s the clincher. I’m not fighting against your LORD. He’s the one who sent me here. He said, “Go, attack this nation, and destroy the towns.” So, here I am.
Judah: Not so loud. They’ll hear you.
26Judah’s representatives, Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah told Rabshakeh, “Please, lower your voice and speak in your Aramaic language. We understand it. Please don’t speak in our language. The people standing on the wall might overhear you.”27Rabshakeh said “Well, is that so? Do you think my king wants me to deliver this message privately, to just you and your king? You don’t think he wants your defenders on the wall to know that before this siege is over, they’ll be so hungry and thirsty that they’ll be eating their own crap and drinking their piss?” [16]
28Rabshakeh shouted in the Hebrew language of Judah, “Listen to this message from the Great King—the king of Assyria: 29Don’t let Hezekiah convince you that you’re going to be okay, and that he’ll keep you safe. 30And don’t believe him when he says, ‘The LORD will certainly protect us. He won’t let this city of his fall into the hands of the Assyrian king.’
“Ignore Hezekiah”
31Ignore Hezekiah. Make your own decisions. Come on out here peacefully. Then you can go back to eating the grapes and figs you grow and drinking water from your own springs and cisterns. [17] 32Later, I’ll come and peacefully lead you to a different land, [18] but one very much like your own. It’s a land of grain fields and vineyards for your bread and wine. Don’t fall for Hezekiah’s promise about the LORD saving you.33Think about this: Has any god in any country or kingdom been able to stop the king of Assyria? 34We never got to meet the gods of Hamath or Arpad. Where did the gods of Sepharvaim go when we showed up? Did Samaria’s gods save them? [19] 35Think about it, people. What god in any of these kingdoms saved them? So why do you think you’ll be the exception? Why would the LORD save Jerusalem when no god has saved anyone from the king of Assyria?”
Judah’s reps say nothing
36Hezekiah’s men said nothing. Hezekiah had ordered it. 37The three men returned to Jerusalem, ripped their clothes in dismay and grief, and then reported back to King Hezekiah. They were Eliakim son of Hilkiah, palace chief of staff; Shebna, palace secretary and scribe; and Joah son of Asaph, palace director of communications.Footnotes
Canaanite religion, featuring Baal the chief god, included ritual poles. These may have been trees or poles meant to represent trees, as symbols of the Canaanite fertility goddess Asherah, goddess of motherhood. She was the love interest of Baal. Canaan is now known as Israel and Palestinian Territories.
Numbers 21:9.
Shalmaneser, ruled from 727-722 BC.
See note for 2 Kings 17:6.
Medes were a people living in what is now northern and western Iran. They took their orders from the Assyrian king, as much of the ancient Middle East did in the 700s BC.
The content of Isaiah 36 and 37 is pulled from sections of 2 Kings, according to some scholars. Compare Isaiah 36:1 to 2 Kings 18:13. And compare verses 36:2-22 to 2 Kings 18:17-37. Hezekiah’s story in Isaiah 37-38 seems to come from 2 Kings 19-20. Some scholars say it’s the other way around: Isaiah wrote it, and the writer or editors of 2 Kings copied it and added it to the historical record. Some who said Isaiah borrowed it explain that he probably did it with the idea that the Jews would listen to this retold story sometime after their exile abroad—perhaps in Babylon or maybe back in their homeland. There, they would listen to a tale about how great things used to be when King Hezekiah started disobeying God before the hammer came down in the form of an Assyrian invasion force.
Sennacherib ruled the Assyrian Empire from the time his father, King Sargon II, died in 705 BC until two of his sons murdered him in 681 BC. He kept records of his campaigns against Judah and Israel, and some of them survive, confirming key elements of history in the Old Testament report. He confirms, for example, that he didn’t manage to get inside Jerusalem this time. He reports, instead, that he trapped King Hezekiah behind Jerusalem’s walls “like a bird in a cage.”
Lachish was about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Jerusalem, a walk of about a day and a half. Assyrian chiseled pictures of their attack on Lachish and their impaling of the people there. It has been on display in the British Museum.
In ancient Hebrew measurements, Assyria’s king asked for 300 talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. If a wagon could haul as much as an average pickup truck, about a ton, the king would have needed a dozen wagons to haul the precious metal home.
“Tartan” shows up in an Assyrian epic written in the 800s BC (Adad-nirari II). He’s a military commander in chief who reported directly to the king. “Rabsaris” means “chief eunuch,” but can also mean “head of state” or “chief officer.” Eunuchs who took care of the king’s ladies sometimes became royal advisors because of the close contact they had with the royal family. “Rabshakeh” meant “leading cupbearer,” the person trusted with making sure no one poisoned the king’s drink. They sometimes rose to power, to become vizier or governors like Nehemiah did (Nehemiah 2:1; 5:14).
More literally “Fuller’s Field.” This was apparently a place by the water where people came to wash their clothes.
These men also appear together in Isaiah 36:3. Scholars debate what the three titles meant. They’re often translated: “palace administrator,” “secretary,” and “recorder.” Some associate “secretary” with a scribe in charge of recording official documents. “Recorder” might refer to a legal official, such as a minister of justice. Some scholars, however, say they see a connection to a similar Egyptian title that refers to an official in charge of communicating and reporting to the king and then to the people on behalf of the king, a bit like a press secretary today.
Yes, Hezekiah apparently thought Egypt would come. And they did, during the following siege of Jerusalem. But Assyrians drove them off. Isaiah had argued against making an alliance with Egypt, saying God opposed it (Isaiah 30:2). Hezekiah did it anyhow.
Well, impaled in the hand at least. Pierced. Assyrians were famous for impaling captives. Impaling was especially popular and showed up in battlefield pictures displayed on Assyrian palace walls. Executioners sometimes impaled people through the bottom of the torso and sometimes through the stomach or the chest. Death usually followed quickly. A skilled executioner could sometimes impale a person in ways that produced a lingering death.
The Assyrian king was mistaken. Hezekiah tore down hilltop shrines and other worship centers forbidden by Israelite law. Moses had told the people during the exodus out of Egypt that once they settled in their new homeland, they should worship at only “one worship center for the entire nation of Israel” (Deuteronomy 12:5) That place became the Jerusalem Temple that King Solomon built.
More literally, as in Isaiah 36:12, they’ll eat their own “filth” and drink the “water for their feet.” The question is how best to express those words today. Would the officer have spoken politely, using the more delicate words? Or would he have matched his words to the energy and the spirit he expresses earlier. If so, he may have used words that would get us in even more trouble than the common slang words used here. “Excrement,” often used, seems a little on the light side of “filth.” And what are you gonna do with “water for their feet”? “Urine?” That word doesn’t feel wet enough.
A cistern was a storage pit to collect rainwater or water hauled from a spring or a stream. It was often chiseled out of stone and lined with waterproof plaster.
Assyrians planned to dismantle the nation of Judah and deport the people, to make sure the nation didn’t reconstitute itself and live to rebel another day. Assyrians did that earlier to the northern Jewish nation of Israel, in 721 BC. Babylonians also deported people. Assyrians and Babylonians both took the captives to their own part of the world so they could keep an eye on them.
Samaria, capital of the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel, fell to Assyria two decades earlier, in about 722 BC.
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