aThis passage occurs also as 2 Kings 18.13–20.19, with a number of variants, some of which will be cited here in the footnotes. In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria marched against all the fortified towns of Judah and seized them.
From Lachish, the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh,bRabshakeh An Assyrian title; cf. “Tartan,” 20.1. with a large force, to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. [The Rabshakeh] took up a position near the conduit of the Upper Pool, by the road of the Fuller’s Field;
The Rabshakeh said to them, “You tell Hezekiah: Thus said the Great King, the king of Assyria: What makes you so confident?
Word-by-Word Analysis
ויאמר
257
אליהם
86
רבשקה
607
אמרונא
298
אלחזקיהו
167
כהאמר
266
המלך
95
הגדול
48
מלך
90
אשור
507
מה
45
הבטחון
80
הזה
17
אשר
501
בטחת
419
Isaiah 36:5
Gematria: 3978
אמרתיאךדברשפתיםעצהוגבורהלמלחמהעתהעלמיבטחתכימרדתבי
I supposecI suppose Cf. 2 Kings 18.20 “You must think.” mere talk makes counsel and valor for war! Look, on whom are you relying, that you have rebelled against me?
You are relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which enters and punctures the palm of anyone who leans on it. That’s what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to all who rely on him.
And if you tell me that you are relying on the ETERNAL your God, this is the very one whose shrines and altars Hezekiah did away with, telling Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship only at this altar!’
Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah replied to the Rabshakeh, “Please, speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it; do not speak to us in Judean in the hearing of the people on the wall.”
But the Rabshakeh replied, “Was it to your master and to you that my master sent me to speak those words? It was precisely to the men who are sitting on the wall—who will have to eat their dung and drink their urine with you.”
Don’t listen to Hezekiah. For thus said the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me,dto me I.e., to my representative the Rabshakeh. so that you may all eat from your vines and your fig trees and drink water from your cisterns,
Beware of letting Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘GOD will save us.’ Did any of the gods of the other nations save their land from the king of Assyria?
Word-by-Word Analysis
פןיסית
610
אתכם
461
חזקיהו
136
לאמר
271
יהוה
26
יצילנו
196
ההצילו
146
אלהי
46
הגוים
64
איש
311
אתארצו
698
מיד
54
מלך
90
אשור
507
Isaiah 36:19
Gematria: 2497
איהאלהיחמתוארפדאיהאלהיספרויםוכיהצילואתשמרוןמידי
Where were the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where were the gods of Sepharvaim? And did theyethey I.e., the gods of Samaria. save Samaria from me?
And so Eliakim son of Hilkiah who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and they reported to him what the Rabshakeh had said.