Then said Eliakim and Shebah and Joah unto
Rabshakeh
That is, one of them addressed him in the name of the rest; for
the verb is singular; and what follows confirms it; perhaps
Eliakim was the speaker: speak, I pray thee, unto thy
servants in the Syriac language;
which was somewhat different from the Hebrew, in which he spoke,
and which was not understood by the common people, and for that
reason desired: for we understand it;
or hear it; could hear it, so as to understand it; it being
common in all courts, as the French tongue now; the Assyrian
empire being very large, and so had been learned by these
courtiers, for the sake of negotiation or commerce, when the
common people had no concern with it: and speak not to us
in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people
that are on the wall;
the wall of the city, where the commissioners were, who would not
venture themselves out of the city, in the hands of so perfidious
an enemy: and the men on the wall were such, who either were
placed there to defend the city, and so were soldiers, or people
that were gathered together to see the ambassadors of the king of
Assyria, and to hear, as much as they could, what passed between
them and the ministers of Hezekiah; and as this speech of
Eliakim's showed great submissiveness in praying and entreating
Rabshakeh to speak to them in another language, and a mean abject
spirit, in saying they were his servants, so a great degree of
timorousness in them, and diffidence of the people, lest they
should be terrified, and be for giving up the city at once into
the hands of the enemy; this looks like a piece of bad policy,
and some think that Shebna was the contriver of it, and the
adviser to it, in order to give Rabshakeh a hint of their fears,
and of the disposition of the people, and put him in higher
spirits, and on railing the more, and thereby still work the more
on the people's fears; however, it had this effect on him, as
follows.