Evening from the flat top of Jerusalem’s wall, looking south-west over the hills of Judah: thin columns of smoke rise far off from burned towns above an empty road.

Hezekiah’s crisis

Isaiah 36

When someone mocks your trust in God, what do you say back?

22 verses≈ 5 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1–5Zion on trialJudah’s sin, the mountain raised, the vineyard’s song
6Holy, holy, holyIsaiah’s call, in the year King Uzziah died (about 740 BC)
7–12ImmanuelAhaz’s fear, the sign, the Child, the shoot of Jesse
13–23The nations judgedBabylon to Tyre: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
24–27The whole earthThe earth laid waste, and death swallowed up
28–35Woe and a KingEgypt’s help or the LORD’s, and the King in His beauty
36–39Hezekiah’s crisisSennacherib, 701 BC: the prayer, the sickness, the envoysChapter 36
40–48Comfort My peopleTo the exiles ahead: Cyrus, the idols, the Servant
49–55The Servant and ZionPierced for our transgressions; Zion restored
56–66New heavens and earthA house of prayer, the Anointed One, all things new

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.

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Noon outside Jerusalem: beside a plain stone water channel running to a small rock-cut pool, three Assyrian commanders stand at the head of a great army drawn up along the road; above on the ridge, Jerusalem's thick plain wall; a calm, hazy sky.

And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

0:11

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, went out to him.

Stylised map · locations approximate

On the map

Sennacherib’s campaign

Sennacherib took Judah’s fortified cities and made his camp at Lachish, about thirty miles southwest of Jerusalem. From there he sent his commanders with a great army up to Jerusalem. Later he was fighting at Libnah, a few miles away (its site is uncertain), as an army from Egypt and Cush came up the coast road past Gaza.

The Rabshakeh

The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is the basis of this confidence of yours? You claim to have a strategy and strength for war, but these are empty words. In whom are you now trusting, that you have rebelled against me?

The Rabshakeh

Close on the muddy bank of a reed bed by the Nile: a tall reed staff lies cracked and split lengthwise, its torn end in sharp splinters, living reeds bending behind it.

Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

The Rabshakeh

But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?

The Rabshakeh

The Rabshakeh

Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

The Rabshakeh

So now, was it apart from the LORD that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The LORD Himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

Question

Quick question

The Rabshakeh went through every support Judah might lean on, and started with Egypt.

What did the Rabshakeh call Egypt (36:6)?

Eliakim

Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

The Rabshakeh

But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

The Rabshakeh

Looking down from the top of Jerusalem's plain stone wall: men of the city sit in a long, silent row along it, cloaks drawn round them; far below by the stone water channel, the Rabshakeh stands out ahead of the Assyrian ranks with one arm raised, calling up, three officials of Judah apart near him.

Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out loudly in Hebrew: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot deliver you.

The Rabshakeh

Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

The Rabshakeh

The Rabshakeh

Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and drink water from his own cistern, until 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.

The Rabshakeh

Gray morning in the broken gateway of a burned Syrian town on its mound: carved stone and wooden god figures lie toppled face-down in dust and ash beneath charred gate timbers.

Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land 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 among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

But the people remained silent and did not answer a word, for Hezekiah had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

Isaiah 36:21

Then Hilkiah’s son Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they relayed to him the words of the Rabshakeh.

Pray

Lord, voices around me ask what my confidence is. Give me the wisdom to keep silent when silence is right, and to bring every taunt to You, as Hezekiah’s men did.

The Rabshakeh’s case

Whiteboard

Every argument was built to break trust in the LORD. The people’s answer was silence, and the king took it to God.

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Isaiah 36

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A verse to carry with you

But the people remained silent and did not answer a word, for Hezekiah had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

Isaiah 36:21

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