World English Bible
- Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
- The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway.
- Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder came out to him.
- Rabshakeh said to them, “Now tell Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?
- I say that your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
- Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
- But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?”
- Now therefore, please make a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.
- How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
- Have I come up now without the LORD against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.”’”
- Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the Jews’ language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
- But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you, to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”
- Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!
- The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you.
- Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us. This city won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’
- Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink the waters of his own cistern;
- 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.
- Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?
- Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?
- Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
- But they remained silent, and said nothing in reply, for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”
- Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.
Isaiah has just sung of water breaking out in the wilderness. Then, in chapter 36, an Assyrian official stands beside Jerusalem’s aqueduct and speaks fear into the city. God’s promise has not changed. But it must now be trusted where the danger can be seen.
The location carries a memory. This is the road by the fuller’s field where Isaiah once met Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz (Isaiah 7:3). There, God called a frightened king to stand firm in faith. A generation later, an enemy’s messenger stands in the same place and asks the son to give up trusting God. Some tests return to a family by the same road.
The threat is real. The Assyrians had taken Judah’s fortified cities, including Lachish. Reliefs from Sennacherib’s palace depict the siege of Lachish in terrible detail. The official who comes from there—Rabshakeh is a court title, not necessarily his name—does not need to invent Assyria’s strength.
His speech is dangerous because it contains truths. Egypt is an unreliable ally; Isaiah has said as much. Hezekiah has removed local shrines, which the Assyrian mistakes for an insult to God, though the reform was an act of faithfulness (2 Kings 18:4). He even claims that the Lord sent Assyria. Isaiah has indeed called Assyria an instrument of judgment (Isaiah 10:5–15). But being used by God is not the same as speaking for God. True facts can be arranged to serve a lie.
Listen to the promise beneath the threats. The official offers every person food from his own vine and fig tree—an image of the peace God promises in Micah 4:4. Then comes the condition: they may enjoy this life until Assyria takes them away. The empire offers a picture of home while planning to uproot them. It wants the people to mistake a temporary reprieve for peace.
The Hebrew word for trust echoes through the speech. Whom will Jerusalem trust? The question reaches beyond military policy. We, too, can be persuaded by a voice that correctly names our weakness, then demands our surrender in exchange for safety.
Hezekiah’s people do not answer from the wall. Their silence is not a claim that the danger is small. The officials return with torn clothes. Faith sometimes begins there: neither arguing fear away nor accepting its account of God, but carrying the wound into God’s presence.
Jerusalem’s story continues in prayer. Ours leads also to Christ, who heard mockers question his trust in God and did not come down from the cross (Matthew 27:43). His resurrection teaches us not that the faithful always escape suffering, but that suffering and death do not have the last word.
For further reading: Isaiah 7:3–9; Isaiah 10:5–15; Micah 4:4; Isaiah 37:14–20.
Prayer: Lord, when fear speaks with the voice of reason, help us hear what is true without surrendering to what is false. Receive what we cannot mend, and teach us to trust you there. Amen.