Isaiah 36

In the fourteenth year that Hezekiah was king, Sennacherib the king of Assyria attacked all the walled cities of Judah and captured them.

1Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them.

NoteThe fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign was around 701 BC. Assyria, centered on the Tigris in what is now northern Iraq, was the dominant empire of the day, and Judah, the small southern kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital, had been a tribute-paying subject of it. "Defenced cities" in the King James simply means fortified ones, towns ringed with walls.

2The king of Assyria sent his chief officer, the Rabshakeh, from the city of Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah, and he came with a large army. The officer took his stand by the channel that carries water from the upper pool, on the road to the field where cloth is washed.

2And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field.

Note"Rabshakeh" is not a personal name but an Assyrian court title, roughly "chief cupbearer," borne by a very senior official; the King James treats it as a name. Lachish was the second city of Judah, about thirty miles south-west of Jerusalem, and Assyrian palace carvings still survive showing Sennacherib's siege of it. The upper pool and its channel were part of Jerusalem's water supply, and the fuller's field was where cloth-workers washed and bleached newly woven cloth, laying it out to dry, an open space just outside the wall, close enough for those on the wall to hear everything said.

3Then three men came out to him: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who managed the king's household; Shebna, the royal secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, who kept the official records.

3Then came forth unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah’s son, which was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, Asaph’s son, the recorder.

NoteThese are the three highest officials of the kingdom. The man "over the house" ran the palace and the royal estates and effectively acted as prime minister; the scribe was the royal secretary who handled correspondence and records; the recorder was a herald or chronicler who kept the state annals and announced royal decisions. Sending all three signals that this is a formal negotiation.

4The Rabshakeh said to them, "Tell Hezekiah this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What are you so sure of? What is your confidence based on?

4And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?

Note"The great king" was an official Assyrian royal title, not a boast invented for the occasion. It asserted that Sennacherib was overlord and every other ruler, Hezekiah included, was a subordinate king holding his throne at Assyria's pleasure.

5You say you have a battle plan and the strength to fight, but those are only empty words. So who are you counting on, that you would rebel against me?

5I say, sayest thou, (but they are but vain words) I have counsel and strength for war: now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me?

NoteTo "rebel" here has a precise legal sense. Judah was bound to Assyria by treaty and owed annual tribute; withholding that payment and making an alliance with Egypt instead was formal rebellion, and the standard penalty was invasion.

6Look, you are leaning on Egypt, and Egypt is a cracked walking stick. If a man leans on it, it runs into his hand and stabs it. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is to everyone who counts on him.

6Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.

NoteThe image is of a walking stick cut from a river reed, the tall reeds of the Nile marshes, an unmistakable pointer at Egypt. A cracked reed does not merely fail to hold weight; the split ends drive into the palm of the hand leaning on it. Egypt at this date was ruled by a Kushite (Nubian) dynasty and had been encouraging small states like Judah to break with Assyria, without ever delivering much military help.

7And if you tell me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' isn't he the one whose hilltop shrines and altars Hezekiah took away? Hezekiah told Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship in front of this one altar.'

7But if thou say to me, We trust in the LORD our God: is it not he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar?

Note"High places" were local open-air worship sites, usually on hilltops or raised platforms, with an altar and often a standing stone or sacred pole; ordinary people had used them for generations. Hezekiah had shut them down and required that all sacrifice be brought to the one altar at the temple in Jerusalem. The Rabshakeh is arguing that this reform must have offended the very God Judah is relying on. In the King James, LORD printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, written in Hebrew with four consonants and left unpronounced.

8So make a deal with my master the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses, if you can even find that many riders to put on them.

8Now therefore give pledges, I pray thee, to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.

Note"Give pledges" translates a Hebrew phrase for laying down a stake, the officer is proposing a wager. The taunt is that Judah could not field two thousand trained horsemen even if the horses were handed over free, cavalry and chariotry being the arm in which Assyria was overwhelmingly superior.

9How could you drive back even one officer, the lowest of my master's servants, when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

9How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

Note"Turn away the face of" means drive back or repel. "Captain" here is a provincial governor or district officer, well down the Assyrian chain of command, the point being that Judah could not stop even a minor Assyrian commander.

10And do you think I came up to destroy this land without the LORD? The LORD himself told me, 'Go up against that land and destroy it.'"

10And am I now come up without the LORD against this land to destroy it? the LORD said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.

NoteAssyrian commanders regularly claimed that the gods of a besieged city had themselves handed it over, and the Rabshakeh here uses the name of Judah's own God to say it. Whether he is reporting something he has heard from Judean sources or simply borrowing their language for effect, the wording is deliberately calculated to unsettle the people listening on the wall.

11Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, "Please speak to us, your servants, in Aramaic. We understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew while the people on the wall are listening."

11Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and speak not to us in the Jews’ language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.

NoteThe King James "Syrian language" means Aramaic, the international language of diplomacy and trade across the Near East, which senior officials learned but ordinary Judeans did not speak. The "Jews' language" is Hebrew, the everyday speech of the people on the wall. The officials are asking him to keep the negotiation private; his refusal is the whole point of the scene.

12But the Rabshakeh answered, "Did my master send me to say these words only to your master and to you? Didn't he send me to the men sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine, just as you will?"

12But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?

NoteThis is a description of siege starvation: a walled city cut off from food and water long enough that the defenders are reduced to consuming their own waste. Jewish scribal tradition found the two words so coarse that readers in synagogue were directed to substitute politer terms, though the blunt originals were kept in the written text, the King James renders the blunt ones.

13Then the Rabshakeh stood up and shouted in Hebrew, "Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

13Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

14This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah fool you. He cannot rescue you.

14Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you.

15And do not let Hezekiah talk you into trusting the LORD by saying, 'The LORD will certainly rescue us. This city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.'

15Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

16Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat from your own grapevine and your own fig tree, and drink water from your own well,

16Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me: and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern;

Note"Make an agreement with me by a present" translates a Hebrew phrase literally meaning "make a blessing with me": accept terms of surrender, come out of the gates, and pay. To sit under one's own vine and fig tree and drink from one's own cistern was a stock proverbial picture of peace and security, every household living undisturbed on its own land. A cistern was a plastered underground tank cut into rock to store rainwater.

17until I come and take you away to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

17Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

NoteThis is the standing Assyrian policy of mass deportation: conquered populations were uprooted and resettled hundreds of miles away, which broke local loyalties and made revolt far harder. The offer is exile presented as a favor. "Corn" in the English of 1611 meant grain of any kind, wheat or barley here, not maize.

18Be careful that Hezekiah does not mislead you by saying, 'The LORD will rescue us.' Has any god of any nation ever rescued his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

18Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The LORD will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did they rescue Samaria from my hand?

19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

NoteHamath and Arpad were major cities in Syria, both crushed by Assyria within living memory. Sepharvaim's location is uncertain, but it too had fallen. Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, Judah's sister state, captured by Assyria in 722 BC, barely twenty years earlier, with its population deported. The list runs from distant to painfully close.

20Which of all the gods of these lands ever rescued his land from me? So how could the LORD rescue Jerusalem from my hand?"

20Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

21But the people stayed quiet and did not answer him with a single word, because the king had ordered, "Do not answer him."

21But they held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king’s commandment was, saying, Answer him not.

Note"Held their peace" is King James English for kept silent. Refusing to answer a herald's challenge was itself a deliberate move in this kind of confrontation, denying him any exchange to work with.

22Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who managed the household, Shebna the royal secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, who kept the records, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they told him what the Rabshakeh had said.

22Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

NoteTearing one's clothing was a public, recognized gesture of grief, horror or dismay, done openly so that others could see it. Here it registers both the disaster the officials have heard described and the outrage of hearing their God spoken of as one more defeated local deity.