Isaiah 36
36
The Assyrians Surround Jerusalem
(2 Kings 18.13-27; 2 Chronicles 32.1-19)
1Hezekiah had been king of Judah for 14 years when King Sennacherib of Assyria invaded the country and captured every walled city 2except Jerusalem. The Assyrian king ordered his army commander to leave the city of Lachish and to take a large army to Jerusalem.
The commander went there and stood on the road near the cloth makers' shops along the canal from the upper pool. 3Three of the king's highest officials came out of Jerusalem to meet him. One of them was Hilkiah's son Eliakim, who was the prime minister. The other two were Shebna, assistant to the prime minister, and Joah son of Asaph, keeper of the government records.
4The Assyrian commander told them:
I have a message for Hezekiah from the great king of Assyria. Ask Hezekiah why he feels so sure of himself. 5Does he think he can plan and win a war with nothing but words? Who is going to help him, now that he has turned against the king of Assyria? 6#Ez 29.6,7. Is he depending on Egypt and its king? That's the same as leaning on a broken stick, and it will go right through his hand.
7Is Hezekiah now depending on the Lord, your God? Didn't Hezekiah tear down all except one of the Lord's altars and places of worship?#36.7 worship: Hezekiah actually had torn down the places where idols were worshiped, and he had told the people to worship the Lord at the one place of worship in Jerusalem. But the Assyrian leader was confused and thought these were also places where the Lord was supposed to be worshiped. Didn't he tell the people of Jerusalem and Judah to worship at that one place?
8The king of Assyria wants to make a bet with you people! He will give you 2,000 horses, if you have enough troops to ride them. 9How could you even defeat our lowest ranking officer, when you have to depend on Egypt for chariots and cavalry? 10Don't forget that it was the Lord who sent me here with orders to destroy your nation!
11Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said, “Sir, we don't want the people listening from the city wall to understand what you are saying. So please speak to us in Aramaic instead of Hebrew.”
12The Assyrian army commander answered, “My king sent me to speak to everyone, not just to you leaders. These people will soon have to eat their own body waste and drink their own urine! And so will the three of you!”
13Then, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, he shouted out in Hebrew:
Listen to what the great king of Assyria says! 14Don't be fooled by Hezekiah. He can't save you. 15Don't trust him when he tells you that the Lord will protect you from the king of Assyria. 16Stop listening to Hezekiah. Pay attention to my king. Surrender to him. He will let you keep your own vineyards, fig trees, and cisterns 17for a while. Then he will come and take you away to a country just like yours, where you can plant vineyards and raise your own grain.
18Hezekiah claims the Lord will save you. But don't be fooled by him. Were any other gods able to defend their land against the king of Assyria? 19What happened to the gods of Hamath, Arpad, and Sepharvaim? Were the gods of Samaria able to protect their land against the Assyrian forces? 20None of those gods kept their people safe from the king of Assyria. Do you think the Lord, your God, can do any better?
21-22Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah had been warned by King Hezekiah not to answer the Assyrian commander. So they tore their clothes in sorrow and reported to Hezekiah everything the commander had said.
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Isaiah 36: CEV
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Contemporary English Version, Second Edition (CEV®)
© 2006 American Bible Society. All rights reserved.
Isaiah 36
36
Sennacherib Invades Judah
1Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and conquered them. 2And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh [his military commander] from Lachish [the Judean fortress commanding the road from Egypt] to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a large army. And he stood by the canal of the Upper Pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. 3Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the [royal] household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recording historian, came out to [meet] him.
4Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria says, “What is [the reason for] this confidence that you have? 5I say, ‘Your plan and strength for the war are only #Lit a word of lips.empty words.’ Now in whom do you trust and on whom do you rely, that you have rebelled against me? 6Listen carefully, you rely on the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. 7But if you say to me, ‘We trust in and rely on the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’? 8So now, exchange pledges with my master the king of Assyria and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to put riders on them. 9How then can you repulse [the attack of] a single #Lit governor.commander of the least of my master’s servants, and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 10Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have now come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’ ” ’ ”
11Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please, speak to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand it; and do not speak to us in Judean (Hebrew) in the hearing of the people who are [stationed] on the wall.” 12But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”
13Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Judean (Hebrew): “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14This is what the king says, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to rescue you; 15nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will most certainly rescue us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 16Do not listen to Hezekiah,’ for this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Make peace with me and come out to me, and each one of you will eat from his own vine and each from his own fig tree and each [one of you] drink from the water of his own cistern, 17until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you by saying, “The Lord will rescue us.” Has any one of the gods of the nations [ever] rescued his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad [in Aram]? Where are the gods of #An area from which the Assyrians brought colonists to inhabit Samaria, the capital city of the ten northern tribes of Israel, after it was evacuated.Sepharvaim? And when have they rescued Samaria from my hand? 20Who among all the gods of these lands have rescued their land from my hand, that [you should think that] the Lord would rescue Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”
21But they kept silent and did not say a word to him in reply, for King Hezekiah’s command was, “Do not answer him.” 22Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recording historian, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn [in grief], and told him the words of the Rabshakeh [the Assyrian commander].
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