After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem (but he himself was before Lachish, and all his power with him), unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying,
Hezekiah had just finished restoring the worship of the true God throughout Judah. Then Assyria camped against the fortified cities and turned toward Jerusalem. The king did not come himself. He sent his servants, and the attack came as words, not weapons.
The verse opens by looking back — "after this" — to everything Hezekiah had done right. So why did the Assyrian army come at all?
Assyria had already conquered the ten tribes. Their king, Sennacherib, was confident of taking Judah too, so he came and camped against the fortified cities. The Lord did not send him because of any guilt on Judah's part, as was the case with Israel. It was to be a test of the faith of the godly king Hezekiah.
Judged by circumstances alone, the timing pointed the other way:
Great work had gone into restoring the ruined features of the worship of the true God throughout Judah. Yet no sooner was it finished than the enemy came to swallow them up! Anyone who judged by circumstances instead of Scripture would stumble at once. Was it not plain that Hezekiah had done wrong in rejecting the traditions of his fathers? Was God not now punishing him and them for his rash reformation?
Sennacherib stayed at Lachish with his whole army. Three books of the Bible record what he did next, and they agree.
The three scriptural accounts make it clear as daylight that the great king never besieged Jerusalem. Each account is true to the divine design of the book it occurs in. He was content to send his servants and a large part of his force from Lachish. That was where Hezekiah had sent his confession, and the heavy fine imposed on him.
The "servants" were no ordinary couriers. Sennacherib sent the top ranks of his court.
The king of Assyria had besieged and conquered Lachish. Now he sends his servants. The Tartan is the general at the head of his armies. The Rabsaris is the chief chamberlain, whose duties are not well known. The Rabshakeh is the political head of the king's household and his spokesman on important occasions.
The message went to the king and to all the people in Jerusalem alike. Hezekiah's officials asked the spokesman to switch to another language, so that the crowd on the wall would not understand him.
They should have realised it was useless to ask. In fact it only encouraged the Rabshakeh. He spoke louder still to all the people on the wall, urging them to hear the words of the great king of Assyria. If he could not persuade the leaders of the people, he would do his utmost to weaken the people themselves.
The Rabshakeh's aim was not a siege at all. He wanted the city to fall from inside.
"Rabshakeh" was a title, not a name, and he was the speaker. He does his best to frighten the people, "shut up like a bird in a cage," as Sennacherib's own inscription puts it. He hoped to stir up rebellion in the city, so as to take it without laying siege to it. But he laboured in vain. "The people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, 'Do not answer him.'"
Writers also read the scene as a picture for believers today. A small group can look surrounded and outnumbered.
See there the hosts of the enemy camped all around. Now, if we look inside the enclosed walls of separation to the Lord, what a feeble few! But is the Lord there — is the Holy Spirit there? Yes, He who has conquered the adversary is there. All is well; more are with us than against us.
Sennacherib's messengers said plainly that God could not save Jerusalem. What followed answered them.
They had apparently never been in greater danger, and never had God appeared for them more visibly. What a magnificent display of God's power on their behalf! It was the power of grace for them, and of judgment on the man who said God could not deliver Jerusalem out of his hand. He said the God of Israel was no more than the gods of the nations he had already destroyed. God acted in vindication of His own name.
- Timing. "After this" — the attack came right after the reformation. Commentators read it as a test of faith, not a punishment for guilt.
- Distance. The great king never besieged Jerusalem. He stayed at Lachish with his forces and sent words instead of an attack.
- Messengers. His highest officers carried the words: commander, chamberlain and royal spokesman. These are titles of office, not names.
- Target. The message went to the people as well as the king. The aim was to break the city from within when its leaders would not bend.
- Answer. The people kept silent, as the king commanded. The boast against God became God's own occasion to vindicate His name.
Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria On what do ye rely that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem?
Sennacherib's army has already taken the fortified towns of Judah, and his message now reaches the people shut up in Jerusalem. The taunt ignores Judah's walls and weapons and goes after its confidence: is trust in God real help, or an illusion?
This speech appears three times in Scripture, and the version here is the shortest. One commentator points out what Chronicles leaves out and what it adds:
The account of the defiance of Sennacherib's servants is also very much condensed in Chronicles. Both 2 Kings 19-20 and 2 Chronicles 32 must be read together. But we find also additions here.
The question assumes Judah must be leaning on something it can see. One commentator writes on the fuller account in Kings. He shows what the enemy's pride cannot imagine:
The first part of Rabshakeh's speech deals with Hezekiah's trust in the Lord, the trust we have seen marking his piety. "On what do you rest this trust of yours? … In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me?" Here the formidable pride of the Assyrian is laid bare. Could Hezekiah, stripped of his territory, shut up in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage, resist the Assyrian army? One thought never occurs to the enemy: a man may trust an invisible God. Hezekiah might have other governing principles, other help than the world's.
The taunt still lands on anyone who claims to be trusting God. The same commentator turns it on us:
The world can never understand that Christians are not seeking to be allied with the world. … The unbeliever is justified when he says to us, "You say, 'We trust in the LORD our God' — but in fact you are not trusting Him any more than we are!" It was not so with Hezekiah. He could let the Assyrian speak, because he knew what gods he had cleansed his people from. He knew which God he could count on.
The message also mocks Egypt as a useless reed. On that point it is right. The failure comes at the next step:
There is a great deal of truth in the world's talk. So far Rabshakeh was quite right. The king of Egypt was only a reed, and the Assyrian could see very well how empty it was to trust Egypt. But the Assyrian could not see the wisdom of trusting in the Lord… Now you see how the world's wisdom becomes folly the moment it comes near God. Wise enough about Egypt: that was plain. But the moment he thinks of God — foolishness.
Measured by what the eye could see, the answer to the taunt was "nothing." Faith gave another answer:
All Judah was sacked. The Assyrian army besieged the only city still standing. The nations despised the Lord's servant and treated him as a criminal. They trampled the name of the Lord underfoot. … Did they have any resource, this weak "remnant that is left"? Yes, indeed! They still had the Lord's temple, His beloved city, Mount Zion, the son of David and his throne, the prophet who carried the word of God. They still had far more than David himself had in the cave of Adullam! The flesh might grow discouraged; faith could not.
Hezekiah's order was to give the taunt no reply. One commentator draws that into the believer's own experience of pressure and taunting:
"Do not answer him," and "spread it before the Lord." Silence and prayer. When Satan throws out a flood of unbelieving questions, do not answer him, but spread it all out before the Lord. Nothing can sustain the soul at such a time but complete dependence on God. … As Rabshakeh spoke of the surrounding nations, so Satan points to this one and that. They once claimed to be servants of God, and where are they now? And you are no better, he says.
Hezekiah's reign fills a large part of the record. One commentator sees a reason beyond the history itself:
Scripture records Hezekiah's life at length. In his reign the attack of Sennacherib on Jerusalem foreshadowed a still greater deliverance from a future king of Assyria. God so controls the evil and the passions of men that He makes them serve His purpose. They give a hint of what He will yet do for His own glory.
- Question — The taunt targets confidence itself. Pride can picture a king caged in his city, but it never imagines that trust in an unseen God is real help.
- Blindness — The voice that judges Egypt rightly turns foolish the moment it speaks of God. Worldly wisdom stops at the edge of faith.
- Resource — Nothing was left to see. Yet the city still had the temple, David's throne and the prophet's word — more than David had in his cave.
- Response — Two instincts answered the taunt: give it no reply, and spread it before the Lord. Silence and prayer, not argument.
- Horizon — Scripture tells the siege at length because it sketches a larger rescue to come. God bends the rage of men to His own glory.
Does not Hezekiah persuade you, to give yourselves over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, Jehovah our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has his army in the land. Before storming Jerusalem he sends words. His spokesmen argue that trusting the Lord is not faith at all, but a slow way of dying.
The Assyrian does not deny that Hezekiah promised deliverance. He calls that promise a death sentence. He then adds what he thinks he knows about Hezekiah's religion.
Sennacherib then tried the force of human argument against Judah. But Judah would see at once how ignorant his arguments were. Hezekiah had assured Judah that the Lord God would deliver them from the power of the king of Assyria. Sennacherib said that by this Hezekiah was trying to persuade them to give themselves over to die of famine and thirst. He knew that Hezekiah had abolished the high places of worship. He thought these were God's high places. So he considered that Hezekiah had insulted God! What total ignorance! Hezekiah had honoured God by destroying this idolatrous worship and returning to the true worship of having one altar, which pictured Christ.
The acts that proved Hezekiah's loyalty to God now serve as proof of disloyalty. Kelly notes how easily the enemy borrows religious language.
Along with insolent, deceitful, and profane reproach of all kinds like this, truth is mixed in. Some people (not Hezekiah) did look to Egypt for help… So the Assyrian twists the king's own piety against him. Hezekiah's zeal for Jehovah in throwing down the altars of false gods becomes a charge of robbing Jehovah of His honour. He pretended that Jehovah Himself had ordered his master to come up against Hezekiah. The enemy can make his own wicked schemes look religious just as easily as he can blacken the most faithful of God's servants. What a mercy to have the unerring standard of His word to test and be tested by!
The Assyrian aimed his words past the king at the people. The fears of Hezekiah's own officials gave him the idea.
His object was to stir up rebellion among the people of Jerusalem and Judah… The request suggested an idea. It gave him a new weapon, a new argument, a new ground for appealing to the people. He might never have thought of it if the fears of Hezekiah's servants had not put it into his head. The very thing they feared, and asked him not to do, gave him the idea of doing it.
Attack the promise and you attack the One who made it. Rossier follows the same words as they travel from the people to the king himself.
He had previously sent his spokesmen with this message to the people: "Do not let Hezekiah deceive you… do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD." Now he says to Hezekiah, "Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you," likening Him to the false gods that he, the Assyrian, had destroyed. It was a direct "reproach" against the "living God." The Assyrian king was blocked in his plan and wounded in his pride. His rage now shows itself in its true character. It is the God of Israel whom he opposes.
Rabshakeh is the Assyrian's spokesman, and here his charge turns personal. Judah answered nothing, by Hezekiah's own order.
And now Rabshakeh attacks the person of the king. Hezekiah is a deceiver, a seducer. He is lying to you when he persuades you to trust in the Lord. Do not listen to Hezekiah… Is there any need to reason with him, to argue with him, to talk with him, or even to answer him?… the man of faith is not tempted to answer him. "But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, 'Do not answer him.'" It is only a matter of keeping silent. Leave the enemy to his threats or his sweet words. The people trust the words of the king, their leader, and imitate his faith. The Assyrian openly attacks God and His anointed king. God uses that very attack to strengthen and revive the people.
Assyria aimed the taunt at one city, but the same arguments still come. Grant puts the question that lies under them all.
Can we depend on the Lord or not? The Rabshakeh urged them not to listen to Hezekiah's word that the Lord would deliver them. How many arguments there are to undermine faith!
- Trust attacked — The taunt never says God is weak. It says trusting Him will kill you by famine and thirst.
- Trust slandered — The enemy calls Hezekiah's clearing away of idol worship an insult to God. A wicked plan can easily wear religious language.
- Trust targeted — The Assyrian shouts past the king to the people, to stir up rebellion. The fears of Hezekiah's own officials gave him the idea.
- Trust's true opponent — Behind the abuse of Hezekiah lies a reproach against the living God. Assyria ranks Him with the idols it has already smashed.
- Trust answered — The people said nothing and imitated their king's faith. God used the attack meant to break them to revive them.
Has not the same Hezekiah removed his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem saying, Ye shall worship before *one* altar, and burn incense upon it?
Outside Jerusalem, Sennacherib's messengers point to the act they think settles the argument: Hezekiah tore down the local shrines and gathered all sacrifice to one altar. Their case is that a king who dismantles his God's worship cannot expect that God to rescue him.
Rabshakeh, the Assyrian spokesman, read the reform as an insult to God. One writer points out that the law itself commanded the act he condemned.
Rabshakeh's words were plausible on the surface. He knew how weak Egypt was. The Jews were inclined to trust Egypt, and Isaiah had already warned the people about it. But he completely misread Hezekiah's action in destroying the high places. Far from being an offence against the Lord, it was full obedience to His word in Deuteronomy 12:1-6. So many earlier kings, even the good ones, had overlooked this commandment of the Lord. Hezekiah obeyed it and was faithful.
Another writer measures Sennacherib's taunt against what the reform actually did.
He knew that Hezekiah had abolished the high places of worship, and thought that these were God's high places, so he considered that Hezekiah had insulted God! What total ignorance! Hezekiah had honoured God by destroying this idolatrous worship and returning to the true worship of having one altar, a symbol of Christ.
The mistake had a source. It came from a view of God in which every shrine was another face of the same god.
Rabshakeh could not tell the difference between the idols and Jehovah. To him Jehovah was only an idol, one out of many. Since Hezekiah had broken down all the idols, he imagined that they were different forms of Jehovah's worship. That was the pagan idea of God, the philosopher's idea, the idea of the higher classes.
Sennacherib used the demolished shrines as evidence against Hezekiah's confidence in God. Read correctly, they proved the opposite.
But he says that Hezekiah had acted in opposition to the Lord, for he had taken away the high places which the king of Assyria considered necessary in the worship of the God of Israel. He did not realise that the very fact of Hezekiah's removal of the high places was evidence of his trust in the living God.
The taunt was not just a mistake. It was deliberate. Notice how the enemy borrows God's name to smear a faithful king and to excuse his own campaign.
Along with insolent, deceitful, and profane reproach of every kind, truth is mixed in, for there were those (not Hezekiah) who did look to Egypt for help. But the aim of it all was to reduce the Jews to despair and to carry out the designs of Assyria. So he twists the king's very piety, his zeal for Jehovah in throwing down the altars of false gods, into a charge of robbing Jehovah of His honour. He pretended that Jehovah Himself had given his master orders to come up against Hezekiah. In this way the enemy knows how to give a religious gloss to his own wicked schemes as easily as he can blacken the most faithful of God's servants. What a mercy to have the unerring standard of His word to test and be tested by!
The timing made the taunt look strong: the invasion came right after the reform. Anyone who measures God's approval by events would reach the Assyrian's conclusion.
A great work had restored the defaced features of the worship of the true God throughout Judah. Yet no sooner was it finished than the enemy came to swallow them up! Those who judged not by Scripture but by circumstances would stumble at once: was it not plain that Hezekiah had done wrong in rejecting the traditions of his fathers? Was not God now chastening him and them for his rash reformation? Had he not lifted up his sacrilegious hand to destroy the bronze serpent that Moses made? He treated it with contempt, as a piece of brass. Yet it was the honoured sign of God's grace to their perishing fathers in the desert, and the children of Israel had burned incense to it until his days.
- The charge. Sennacherib turns Hezekiah's obedience into the case against him. The king who pulled down the shrines has offended the God he now trusts.
- The ground. Hezekiah was obeying God's own word. He gathered the nation to one altar, a picture of Christ, which earlier kings, even good ones, had neglected.
- The blindness. The taunt came from a mind that could not tell Jehovah from an idol. Many shrines looked to him like many faces of one god.
- The proof. What the Assyrian called proof of unbelief was in fact the clearest proof of Hezekiah's trust in the living God.
- The test. The enemy can dress his own schemes in God's name and blacken the most faithful servant. Our safeguard is not reading events, but the unerring standard of God's word.
Do ye not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the countries? Were the gods of the nations of the countries in any wise able to deliver their country out of my hand?
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has come against Judah, and here he argues from his own record: no nation's god has ever stopped him. So does the God of Judah belong on that list of failed gods?
Every land he has taken had its own god, and none of those gods saved it. So Judah's trust looks to him like a bad bet.
Sennacherib went on to declare that the gods of many nations had not delivered those nations from destruction by Assyria. Therefore, he said, Judah could not depend on their God to deliver them. How little he realized what those gods really were! The gods of the nations — including his own — were helpless idols compared with the God of Israel, who created all things.
This was not a stray insult but a deliberate campaign. Judah was meant to hear the numbers and give up.
Sennacherib then tried the force of human argument against Judah. But Judah would immediately discern the ignorance of his arguments.
The list of fallen nations was accurate. But Sennacherib never asked what those nations had been leaning on. Ask that, and his comparison collapses.
The answer is simple. None of those nations was depending on the only true God. But Hezekiah honestly sought the grace and guidance of the God of all the earth.
He says I and my fathers have done this. But his victories had a source he never admitted. And his run of success was the very thing that puffed him up.
Sennacherib is notorious for the insulting letter he sent to Hezekiah to reproach the living God. He had been successful against the cities of Judah. But God did not allow him to enter Jerusalem. He had succeeded against many lands whose gods were made by human hands. That success filled him with pride and arrogance, and he went as far as blaspheming the God of Israel. He had little idea that he was only God's instrument for punishing the nations. He thought all his victories came from his own strength and skill. So he foolishly raged against the living God.
The one he was taunting had his whole record on file.
The great king of Assyria could insult all he liked, himself or through his servants. He still had to learn that God knew all about him. God was making him only the instrument of His own dealing with the nations. Once that work was done, he had to go back humbled and struck down, because he had gone beyond his commission. And would God approve his rage against Himself?
Hezekiah does not dispute the history. He accepts every conquest on the list. Then he names the one difference Sennacherib had missed.
Hezekiah puts the matter entirely into the Lord's hands, and steps out of it himself. He does not try to make little of the difficulty. He admits that the kings of Assyria have devastated all the nations and their lands. But why? Because their gods were not like the Lord. Those nations never knew what it was to put their case into the hands of the living God who made heaven and earth. This was the secret of their overthrow. What triumphant faith! What bold, confident pleading!
Sennacherib's mistake began with a low view of God. That principle reaches far beyond Assyria.
In the experience and actions of Christians, everything depends on the place God holds in the heart. In other words, there is a strong moral link between our view of God and our conduct. If our thoughts of God are low, low will be our standard of Christian walk; if high, the result will match.
Sennacherib's boast ends with the words out of my hand. God's reply was not just a rescue. It answered that exact claim.
They seemed never to have been in greater danger, and never did God appear for them more clearly. What a magnificent display of God's power on their behalf! It was the power of grace for them, and of judgment on the man who said God could not deliver Jerusalem out of his hand. That man said the God of Israel was no more than the gods of the nations he had already destroyed. It was in vindication of His own name that God acted.
- Argument — Sennacherib reasons from his own record: no god has stopped me yet, so yours will not either.
- Ignorance — His argument only works if you miss one thing. Idols are made by human hands; the God of Israel made all things.
- Instrument — God gave him his victories. He was only God's instrument for punishing nations, but he took the credit himself.
- Faith — Hezekiah admits every fact on the list and still stands. He puts the case into the hands of the living God and steps out of it himself.
- Vindication — God acted to clear His own name, not just to save a city. Sennacherib had ranked Him with the gods he had already destroyed.
Who is there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers have utterly destroyed, that was able to deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand?
Sennacherib's messengers stand outside Jerusalem with one argument: their king has destroyed nation after nation, and not one of their gods saved them. Now they ask whether Judah's God is any different.
His reasoning is simple. He moves from a list of victories to a verdict on God. The flaw is that he treats every god as the same.
Sennacherib went on to say that the gods of many nations had not delivered those nations from destruction by Assyria. So, he argued, Judah could not depend on their God to deliver them (vv. 13-14). How little he realized that the gods of the nations, including his own, were helpless idols. Israel's God, by contrast, created all things.
Sennacherib did not invent the comparison. Judah's own altars on the hills had taught him what to think of Judah's God.
But here is a very serious thing to consider. Judah's unfaithfulness had given the enemy an occasion to blaspheme the true God and to deny His existence. Since you had high places and altars, these were the Lord for you, he says. He knows the Lord only through the idols Judah had made into its gods. He had the right to say to them, You have the same kinds of gods I do, and you serve them in the same way. And now you are saying: As for us, we trust in the Lord! What Lord, tell me? The Lord of the high places, or the Lord of the altar you have just set up?
Another writer sees calculation in the taunt. Rabshakeh, the officer Sennacherib sent to make the speech, aimed it at people whose hearts were already divided:
Rabshakeh also falsely claimed that the Lord had told the Assyrian king to destroy Jerusalem. Then he appealed to the citizens within hearing, against Hezekiah. He clearly had a shrewd knowledge of their leaning toward idols, so different from their King. Many of them were secretly trusting in false gods and not in the Lord. So the reminder that the gods of many other cities had failed to deliver was likely to carry weight in their minds.
Naming the nations that fell unsettles anyone who trusts God. One writer sees the same method turned on believers, and points to the two things Hezekiah did.
"Answer him not," was Hezekiah's command… When they read the wicked, godless letter to the king, he "went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord." Two points of immense value to the tested soul appear in Hezekiah's conduct during this fierce trial: "Answer him not," and "spread it before the Lord." Silence and prayer… As Rabshakeh spoke of the nations around, so Satan points to this one and that. They once professed to be the servants of God, and where are they? And you are no better, he says.
The taunt dares Hezekiah to hold out. He answers by admitting he has no strength, and by changing who the opponent is.
What gave Hezekiah such uncommon power in this contest was the sense that he himself was nothing. "An arm of flesh" was of no use; in a word, it was Jehovah or nothing. You see this above all in the act of spreading the letter before the Lord. Faith enabled Hezekiah to step out of the scene and make it entirely a question between Jehovah and the king of Assyria. It was not Sennacherib and Hezekiah, but Sennacherib and Jehovah… he tells the Lord that the king of Assyria had reproached Him, and calls on Him to vindicate His own glorious name, sure that in doing so He would deliver His people.
Sennacherib treats his victories as proof of his own strength. God's reply gives the credit elsewhere, and warns that Assyria will go the same way.
Had he not heard long ago that God had made the forests of Lebanon, and the waters the king boasted of drying up? The God who made these things was the One who gave Sennacherib power to crush fortified cities into heaps of ruins… They were as the grass of the field, green for a time, then withering. But this is true of all mankind by nature. Though these nations gave way to Assyria, Assyria would yet give way and perish as the grass. How empty her boasting was!
- Boast. Sennacherib argued that the other gods had failed, so Judah's God would fail too. He never saw that those gods were helpless idols, while Israel's God made all things.
- Foothold. Judah's own high places let the enemy speak of the Lord as one more local god. The taunt landed on people already half-trusting idols.
- Reproach. Hezekiah heard the words as an insult against God Himself, and asked Him to defend His own name.
- Silence. Answer the accuser nothing. Spread the whole threat before the Lord.
- Withering. God had given the conqueror his power. Assyria would wither like the grass it had trampled.
And now, let not Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you in this manner, neither yet believe him; for no +god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, nor out of the hand of my fathers how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand?
Sennacherib's officers stand outside Jerusalem's wall and shout one last appeal to the crowd. Ignore your king, they say. And do not imagine your God is any different from the gods of the nations Assyria has already crushed. Two questions here outlive the siege. What is the enemy trying to make people believe? And what does God do when someone treats Him as just another idol?
Sennacherib accuses Hezekiah of misleading the people. One commentator notes the irony of who is actually doing the deceiving here.
This proud enemy of God appealed to the people of Judah not to let Hezekiah deceive them, and to refuse to believe him. Yet Sennacherib wanted Judah to let him deceive them into thinking that God was no better than the idols of the nations (v. 15). So his servants spoke both against the Lord and against Hezekiah (v. 16).
The argument only works if Judah's God belongs on the same shelf as the gods of the other nations. Rabshakeh, the Assyrian officer making the speech, held that view. It even let him treat Hezekiah's demolition of idols as the destruction of Jehovah's own worship.
Rabshakeh could not distinguish between the idols and Jehovah. To him Jehovah was only an idol — one among many. Hezekiah had broken down all the idols, so he imagined they were different forms of Jehovah's worship. That was the pagan idea of God.
The speech was not pure invention. Some of it was true.
Alongside insults, deceit and profane abuse of every kind like this, there is also some truth. Some people (not Hezekiah) really did look to Egypt for help. But the aim of it all was to drive the Jews to despair... So the enemy knows how to give a religious coating to his own wicked schemes as easily as he can smear the most faithful of God's servants. What a mercy to have the unerring standard of His word to test everything by, and to be tested by!
The taunt "How much less will your God deliver you" went out to a crowd, and Hezekiah's officials heard it. It reached further than the speaker knew.
But it was not only Eliakim and Shebna and Joah who heard; it was Jehovah. Rabshakeh never imagined that the Lord God was listening. He never imagined that the Lord God would answer quickly. For he had now dared to use that name for deliberate blasphemy. He had dared the authority of Jehovah in the very place where people knew it. He had dared God!
Hezekiah gave the taunts no reply of his own. One writer sets out what he did instead, and puts the same pressure in front of a believer today.
"Answer him not," "and spread it before the Lord." Silence and Prayer. When Satan throws out a flood of unbelieving questions, answer him not, but spread it all out before the Lord. Nothing can sustain the soul at such a time except complete dependence on God. Satan points to this one and that one, just as Rabshakeh spoke of the surrounding nations. They once claimed to be servants of God — and where are they now? And you are no better, he says... And the Lord did hear, and did save, and did deliver. The angel of the Lord struck the camp of the Assyrian army.
Hezekiah did not answer the boast. He took it to God, and that changed who the two sides in the contest were.
What gave Hezekiah such uncommon power in this contest was the sense that he was nothing. Human strength — "an arm of flesh" — was useless. In a word, it was Jehovah or nothing. This shows most clearly in the act of spreading the letter before the Lord. Faith enabled Hezekiah to step out of the scene and make it wholly a question between Jehovah and the king of Assyria. It was not Sennacherib and Hezekiah, but Sennacherib and Jehovah.
- Deceive — Sennacherib charges Hezekiah with deception. But the deceiver is the one speaking: he wants Judah to believe their God is no better than an idol.
- Downgrade — The whole argument rests on one mistake. The speaker could not tell the Lord apart from an idol. So he argued from the collapse of other nations to Judah's.
- Disguise — The enemy mixes true details into his lies and gives his scheme a religious coating. God's word is the standard for testing such talk.
- Dare — The boast targeted a crowd, but God was listening. To use His name in deliberate blasphemy is to dare God, and He answers quickly.
- Deliver — Faith answers with silence toward the enemy and prayer toward God. Step out of the scene and leave the quarrel between God and the one who defied Him. The Lord did hear, and save, and deliver.
And his servants spoke yet more against Jehovah, the [true] God, and against his servant Hezekiah.
Sennacherib's officers had already tried to talk Jerusalem out of trusting its king. Now their words climb higher. This time the target is the God of Israel Himself. So what happens when an enemy insults God and His servant in one breath? And what should God's servant do?
The words are not random abuse. They finish an argument the Assyrians had already put to the people.
This proud enemy of God urged the people of Judah not to let Hezekiah deceive them, but to refuse to believe him. Sennacherib wanted Judah to let him deceive them instead, into thinking that God was no better than the idols of the nations (v. 15). So his servants spoke both against the Lord and against Hezekiah (v. 16).
The insult rests on a mistake about who God is. The Assyrian had destroyed the gods of other nations. He put the God of Jerusalem in the same class.
Now he says to Hezekiah, "Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you" (v. 10). He is likening Him to the false gods that he, the Assyrian, had destroyed. It was a direct "reproach" against the "living God." The Assyrian king was blocked in his plan and wounded in his pride. The rage that filled him now shows itself in its true character. It is the God of Israel whom he opposes.
The verse ties the two together. One writer sets this beside another time when God's servant was accused and God stepped in.
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, accused Hezekiah of "deceiving" and "seducing" the people. "Even more," his servants spoke against him. Hezekiah and Isaiah did not answer. They prayed and cried out to God, and He intervened (2 Chr. 32:11-22). In the time of Zechariah, the high priest Joshua stood there in dirty clothes. The clothes stood for the condition of the people. Satan was there at once to accuse him. But God did not allow him to do so (Zech. 3:1-5).
The speeches had a plan behind them. They aimed to turn the people against their own king.
So Sennacherib sends his servants with a most insulting message, and these letters and spoken insults were meant to alarm the people and stir them up even against the king.
The Assyrian spokesman was called the Rabshakeh. Hezekiah's answer to him was not argument.
The Rabshakeh speaks in Hebrew to the people on the wall. Hezekiah's servants beg him to speak in the Syrian language. This he refuses, with words of defiance and scorn. The danger that the people would lose heart may have filled Hezekiah with anguish. But the same danger leaves the believer's soul calm and at peace. He has only to keep silence. His trust in God answers everything.
Silence leaves room for prayer. Hezekiah's prayer faced the facts about Assyria's record.
Hezekiah puts the matter entirely into the Lord's hands, and steps out of it himself. He does not try to make the difficulty look small. He admits that "the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries." But why did those nations fall? Because their gods were not like the Lord. They did not know what it was to put their case into the hands of the living God who made heaven and earth. This was the secret of their overthrow. What triumphant faith!
The deliverance that follows is not only rescue for a city. It answers the exact words spoken here.
What a magnificent display of God's power on their behalf! It was the power of grace for them. It was the power of judgment on the man who said God could not deliver Jerusalem out of his hand. This was the man who said that the God of Israel was no more than the gods of the nations he had already destroyed. It was in vindication of His own name that God acted.
The same writer sees more here than one rescue.
Hezekiah's life is told at length. In his reign, Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem pointed forward to a still greater deliverance from a future king of Assyria.
- Reproach. The attack starts as talk against the king. It ends as reproach against the living God, whom the Assyrian rated no higher than the idols he had already destroyed.
- Pairing. The enemy attacks God's name and His servant's name together. Satan used the same pattern against the high priest Joshua, and God did not allow it.
- Silence. The believer who hears such words does not have to answer. Trust in God answers everything.
- Transfer. Hezekiah does not make the danger look smaller. He hands the whole case to God and steps out of it himself, with Isaiah praying beside him.
- Vindication. God answers the exact boast that He could not save Jerusalem. He shows grace to His people and judgment on the boaster, and He clears His own name.
And he wrote a letter to rail at Jehovah the God of Israel, and to speak against him saying, As the gods of the nations of the countries have not delivered their people out of my hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of my hand.
Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem moved from shouted threats to written ones. He sent letters to insult the God of Israel. They ranked Him with the carved gods of nations Assyria had already crushed. So the verse raises two questions. Is the God of Judah just one more local god? And who else was reading the letter?
The written attack was not a new argument but the same one put in permanent form. It came after a public appeal to the people to distrust their own king.
This proud enemy of God appealed to the people of Judah not to let Hezekiah deceive them, but to refuse to believe him. Yet Sennacherib himself wanted Judah to let him deceive them into thinking that God was no better than the idols of the nations (v. 15). So his servants spoke both against the Lord and against Hezekiah (v. 16). Added to this determined campaign were letters written by Sennacherib. They used the same insulting language against God, declaring Him to be as helpless as the idols of other nations (v. 17).
Sennacherib addressed the letter to a king, but the contempt struck past him. He compared the living God to gods he had already destroyed.
Now he says to Hezekiah, "Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you" (2 Kings 19:10), likening Him to the false gods that he, the Assyrian, had destroyed. It was a direct "reproach" against the "living God." The Assyrian king was blocked in his plan and wounded in his pride. The rage that filled him now shows itself in its true character. It is the God of Israel whom he opposes.
The whole taunt rests on one mistake. Rabshakeh, the Assyrian officer, could only think of God as one item in a collection. He even turned Hezekiah's clearing out of the idols into a charge against him.
Rabshakeh could not distinguish between the idols and Jehovah. To him Jehovah was only an idol — one out of many idols. Hezekiah had broken down all the idols, so he imagined they were different forms of Jehovah's worship. He thought this because that was the heathen idea of God — the idea of the higher classes. Rabshakeh seems to have been something of a philosopher, and so he taunts king Hezekiah's officials with having destroyed the worship of Jehovah.
Rabshakeh aimed his words at three of Hezekiah's officials. He never asked who else might be listening.
But it was not merely Eliakim and Shebna and Joah who heard; it was Jehovah. Little did Rabshakeh believe that the Lord God was listening. He did not think the Lord God would answer quickly. Yet now he had dared to use that name for deliberate blasphemy. He had dared the authority of Jehovah where it was known. He had dared God!
Hezekiah took the letter straight to the One it insulted.
Another message in the form of a letter is sent by Sennacherib to the king. Again Hezekiah goes with it straight to the LORD. He read it and went up into the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD. Imagine taking everything that happens to us at once into the presence of God and spreading it before Him! What blessing there would be in the lives of all God's people. What wonderful evidence of His power and His love we might have!
Judah had never been in worse danger. And God had His own name to clear.
They were apparently never in greater danger, and never more visibly did God appear for them. What a magnificent display of God's power on their behalf! It was the power of grace for them. It was the power of judgment on the man who said God could not deliver Jerusalem out of his hand. This was the man who said that the God of Israel was no more than the gods of the nations he had already destroyed. It was in vindication of His own name that God acted.
- Words written. Sennacherib put the same taunt in writing. He claimed Judah's God was as helpless as the idols he had already destroyed.
- Words aimed. The letter named Hezekiah, but the contempt struck past him. The Assyrian was opposing the living God.
- Words blind. Rabshakeh could not tell the difference between an idol and the Lord. He counted Him as one god among many.
- Words heard. Hezekiah's officials were not the only ones who heard. God was listening, and Sennacherib boasted straight to His face.
- Words answered. Hezekiah carried the letter into the temple and spread it open before God. God acted to clear His own name.
And they cried with a loud voice in the Jewish [language] to the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to frighten them and to trouble them; that they might take the city.
The Assyrian army had surrounded Jerusalem, and its commander opened with words instead of weapons. He shouted up at the defenders in their own language, because panic would hand him the city.
The shout was part of a wider campaign of words, aimed at God Himself.
This determined campaign also included letters. Sennacherib wrote them in the same insulting language against God, declaring Him to be as helpless as the idols of other nations. And the servants of Sennacherib, who were besieging the city, shouted in the Hebrew language to the people of Jerusalem. They wanted to frighten them into submission.
The closing words of the verse give the motive: he wanted the city, and hoped fear would open it to him.
"Rabshakeh" (a title, not a name), Sennacherib's commander-in-chief, was the speaker. He was clearly a skilled diplomat, and he gave his cunning speech in the language of the Jews… He does his best to frighten the ordinary people. They were "shut up like a bird in a cage," as Sennacherib's own inscription states. He hoped to stir up rebellion inside the city, so as to take possession of it without laying siege to it. But he laboured in vain.
Three of Hezekiah's officials had asked him to speak in another language, out of the people's hearing. The request backfired.
These three men were alarmed. They feared the effect on the Jewish people, so they begged him not to talk in the Jews' language where the people could hear… It suggested an idea. That is exactly what it gave him: a new weapon, a new argument, a new way of appealing to the people. He might never have thought of it if the fears of Hezekiah's servants had not put it into his head. The very thing they feared, and asked him not to do, gave him the idea of doing it.
Terror was only half the method. The speech also made an offer.
And now the Rabshakeh attacks the person of the king. Hezekiah is a deceiver, a seducer. He is lying to you in persuading you to trust in the Lord. Do not listen to Hezekiah. Listen to the king of Assyria. He will let you live quietly. Then he will carry you away to "a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey" — a land just as full of good things as the land of Canaan… No doubt you will be in slavery too. But the Assyrian will see to it that you are happy! Satan has always spoken like this to the hearts of men. Woe to anyone who listens to him, for the prince of this world never makes a man happy.
He aimed the shout at the men on the wall. It carried further than that.
The blasphemer taunted them, asking whether the Lord would deliver Jerusalem. He never thought who was listening. Not only Eliakim, Shebna and Joah heard him, and not only the men on the wall, but the Lord Himself. It was now His affair. And then at last the faith of Hezekiah begins to shine again, for it was his command to give no answer.
The people sent no reply back over the wall. That silence was the answer of faith.
The danger of seeing the people lose heart may have filled Hezekiah with anguish. But the same danger leaves the believer's soul calm and at peace. He has only to keep silent. His trust in God answers everything.
Hezekiah had already lost silver and gold to Assyria without tearing his clothes. This was different.
He heard it, and he tore his clothes. It was not for the loss of the three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. It was not even for the stripping of the house of the Lord. But now the Lord had been insulted. Now there were appeals to the people in the Jews' tongue, to weaken their confidence in the Lord. This touched his heart.
- Voice. The weapon here is speech, not steel. He shouted in the people's own language, so every man on the wall would understand and be shaken.
- Target. The attack aimed at trust. It called the king a deceiver. It ranked God with idols that had failed.
- Bait. Behind the threat came an offer of a comfortable land. It was slavery dressed up as plenty. Satan still talks this way, and he never makes a man happy.
- Silence. The people gave no reply, by the king's command. Faith does not argue with the shouting. Its trust in God answers everything.
- Listener. One who was not standing on the wall heard the insult. Once the Lord Himself was reproached, the matter became His affair. That, not the shouting, decided the outcome.
And they spoke of the God of Jerusalem as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of man's hand.
Sennacherib's officers shouted their sums from outside Jerusalem's wall. Assyria had beaten many nations. Each nation had its god, and no god had saved them. So Jerusalem's God went on the same list. This verse records that insult, and it raises one question: does the God of Israel belong on that list?
The taunt was a campaign to break Judah's trust in God. One commentator traces how it grew — speech, then letters, then shouting:
This proud enemy of God urged the people of Judah not to let Hezekiah deceive them, but to refuse to believe him. Sennacherib wanted Judah to let him deceive them instead, into thinking that God was no better than the idols of the nations (v. 15). So his servants spoke both against the Lord and against Hezekiah (v. 16). Sennacherib added letters to this determined campaign. They used the same insulting language against God, declaring Him to be as helpless as the idols of other nations (v. 17). His servants were besieging the city, and they also shouted in the Hebrew language to the people of Jerusalem. They wanted to frighten them into submission (vv. 18-19).
Judah's own history handed the Assyrian his argument. They had kept altars and high places of their own making, so the enemy saw no difference between their God and his:
But here is a very serious thing to consider. Judah's unfaithfulness had given the enemy an occasion to blaspheme the true God and to deny His existence. Since you had high places and altars, these were the Lord for you, he says. He does not know the Lord except by the idols which Judah had made its gods. He had the right to say to them, You have the same kinds of gods I do, and you serve them in the same way. And now you are saying: As for us, we trust in the Lord! What Lord, pray tell me?
The phrase at the end of the verse is the whole answer to the comparison. A god you manufacture cannot save you:
These gods could be seen, but could not see. God was the living God, who dwelt in heaven. These had the form of living creatures, but no life, and they were on earth. He acted as He pleased. These could not at all. They had their origin in the craftsman's imagination, and owed their form to the worker's skill. "Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands" — worthless objects, except for the value of the metal in them. The work of men's hands, what could they do for man? How could a dying creature make a living God to save him?
The shouting was aimed at the men on the wall. It reached further than that:
The blasphemer never thought about who was listening to his taunting question, whether the Lord would deliver Jerusalem. Not only Eliakim, Shebna and Joah heard it, and not only the men on the wall, but the Lord Himself. It was now His affair. And then at last the faith of Hezekiah begins to shine again, for his own command was to give him no answer.
The command to stay silent was not weakness. It sent the case somewhere else:
Hezekiah and Isaiah did not answer. They prayed and cried out to God, and He intervened (2 Chr. 32:11-22).
Rossier draws out what silence gives the believer:
The danger of seeing the people become discouraged may have filled Hezekiah with anguish. But the same danger leaves the believer's soul calm and peaceful. He has only to keep silence. His trust in God answers to everything.
God answered the boast Himself, and not only by rescuing a city:
What a magnificent display of God's power on their behalf! It was the power of grace for them, and of judgment on the man who said God could not deliver Jerusalem out of his hand. He had said that the God of Israel was no more than the gods of the nations he had already destroyed. God acted to vindicate His own name.
Kelly points to the reversal this brought about:
The Assyrian came full of his proud confidence. That very fact drew out the arm of the Lord in defence of His despised city. And when He speaks through the prophet, because the Assyrian despised Zion, it is Zion that despises the Assyrian.
- Category. The insult puts the God of Jerusalem in the wrong group, next to gods that men carved. But a god a dying man can make cannot save that man.
- Occasion. Judah's own altars and high places gave the Assyrian his argument. He knew the Lord only through the idols Judah had made its gods.
- Audience. The shouting was aimed at the men on the wall. But the God they insulted was listening, and from that moment it was His affair.
- Answer. Hezekiah and Isaiah gave the blasphemer no reply. They took it to God. Trust in God answers everything the enemy can say.
- Vindication. God acted to clear His own name. The boast that He could not deliver Jerusalem became the very thing He overturned.