2 Kings 18:17-27

17 Then the king of Assyria sent ¹Tartan and Rab-saris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a large army to Jerusalem. So they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they went up, they came and stood by the ²conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway of the fuller's field.

18 When they called to the king, ³Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and ⁴Shebnah the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, came out to them.

19 Then Rabshakeh said to them, "Say now to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, "⁵What is this confidence that you have?

20 "You say (but they are only empty words ), 'I have counsel and strength for the war.' Now on whom do you rely, ⁶that you have rebelled against me?

21 "Now behold, you ⁷rely on the staff of this crushed reed, even on Egypt; on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.

22 "But if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' is it not He whose high places and ⁸whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem '?

23 "Now therefore, come, make a bargain with 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.

24 "How then can you repulse * one official of the least of my master's servants, and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

25 "Have I now come up without the LORD'S approval against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, 'Go up against this land and destroy it.' ""'

26 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah and Joah, said to Rabshakeh, "Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak with us in ⁹Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall."

27 But Rabshakeh said to them, "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, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?"

2 Kings 18:17-27 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 18

This chapter begins with the good reign of Hezekiah king of Judah, the reformation he made in the kingdom, and the prosperity that attended him when Israel was carried captive, 2Ki 18:1-12 and gives an account of the siege of Jerusalem by the king of Assyria, and of the distress Hezekiah was in, and the hard measures he was obliged to submit unto, 2Ki 18:13-18 and of the reviling and blasphemous speech of Rabshakeh, one of the generals of the king of Assyria, urging the Jews to a revolt from their king, 2Ki 18:19-37.

Cross References

• 1. Isaiah 20:1
• 2. 2 Kings 20:20; Isaiah 7:3
• 3. 2 Kings 19:2; Isaiah 22:20
• 4. Isaiah 22:15
• 5. 2 Chronicles 32:10
• 6. 2 Kings 18:7
• 7. Is 30:2, 3, 7; Ezekiel 29:6, 7
• 8. 2 Kings 18:4; 2 Chronicles 31:1
• 9. Ezra 4:7; Daniel 2:4

Footnotes

• [a] I.e. launderer's
• [b] Lit "trust"
• [c] Lit "a word of the lips"
• [d] Lit "rely for yourself"
• [e] Lit "palm"
• [f] Lit "please exchange pledges"
• [g] Lit "turn away the face of"
• [h] Or "governor"
• [i] Lit "rely for yourself"
• [j] Lit "without the LORD
• [k] Lit "hear"
• [l] I.e. Hebrew