The Book of Isaiah

Word Study

Explanation

The date is fixed: "the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah," when "Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them." Only Jerusalem is left, and the Rabshakeh, Assyria's field commander, is sent to demand its surrender. Notice who comes out to meet him: "Eliakim, Hilkiah's son, which was over the house," the very man of Isaiah 22:20-21, now serving as Hezekiah's steward, along with Shebna. The Rabshakeh's speech is a calculated assault on faith. First he mocks their confidence: "What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?" Then he attacks their alliance with Egypt, and here he speaks the truth Isaiah himself had preached: Egypt is "the staff of this broken reed" that pierces the hand that leans on it. Then, cleverly, he turns on their trust in God, twisting Hezekiah's godly reforms into an insult, as if removing the high places had offended the LORD. And most audaciously of all, he claims divine authority: "the LORD said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it." He wraps his threats in a counterfeit of God's own word.

Gospel Focus

The Rabshakeh is a vivid picture of how the enemy of our souls attacks faith, and his tactics have not changed. First, he questions our confidence: "What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?", the same voice that hissed in Eden, "Yea, hath God said?" (Genesis 3:1). Second, he mixes in just enough truth to be believed; Egypt really was a broken reed, and half-truths are the accuser's favorite weapon. Third, he twists what is good into something bad, turning Hezekiah's faithful reforms into supposed offenses against God, "the accuser of our brethren" (Revelation 12:10) is a master of the false accusation. And most dangerous of all, he claims God's own authority for his lies: "the LORD said unto me." The devil still quotes Scripture, as he did to Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:6), bending God's word to his purpose. We must learn to recognize this voice. Not every appeal to God is from God; not every accusation against us is true; and the fact that trouble is real does not mean the LORD has abandoned us. When the accuser stands at the wall of your heart questioning your confidence, remember that your trust is not in Egypt or in yourself, but in the living God, and His word, rightly heard, never tells you to despair.

Word Study

Explanation

Hezekiah's officials beg the Rabshakeh to speak in Aramaic so the watching crowd will not understand and lose heart. He refuses with contempt, and coarsely insists his message is precisely for "the men that sit upon the wall," those who will suffer the horrors of a siege. So he "cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language," aiming straight at the people's courage. His speech is pure propaganda: "Let not Hezekiah deceive you... Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD." He tries to drive a wedge between the people and their king and their God. He dangles a false promise of comfort, surrender now and enjoy your vines and figs, until deportation to "a land like your own." Then he crosses the last line into open blasphemy: "Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?" He lists conquered cities and their useless idols, and asks, "Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem?" He has ranked the living God among lifeless idols, a blasphemy that will bring Assyria down.

Gospel Focus

The Rabshakeh's whole strategy aims to separate God's people from their trust: "Let not Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD." That is always the enemy's goal, to cut the cord of faith. He offers a counterfeit peace, come out to me, eat your vine and fig tree, a comfortable surrender that ends in exile, exactly as sin always promises ease and delivers bondage. But his deepest error is the one that seals his doom: he cannot tell the difference between the living God and a man-made idol. He reasons that because the gods of Hamath and Sepharvaim could not save, neither can the LORD. He does not know that "all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens" (Psalm 96:5). This is the fatal miscalculation of every proud power that mocks God, from Pharaoh to Babylon to the last empire of Revelation. To measure the Almighty by the impotence of idols is to invite the very deliverance you said could not come. When the enemy tells you God cannot save you, that He is no different from every other hope that failed, remember whom you serve. He is not one of the gods; He is the LORD who made the heavens, and no wall of blasphemy will stand when He rises to answer it.

Word Study

Explanation

After all the Rabshakeh's noise, the response of the people is a single, striking sentence: "But they held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not." Hezekiah had wisely ordered silence. There was no point arguing with a man whose goal was to provoke panic; to answer would only feed the spectacle. So the people stood quiet on the wall. And the officials, "with their clothes rent" in grief at the blasphemy they had heard, went straight back "to Hezekiah... and told him the words of Rabshakeh." They did not try to solve the crisis themselves or answer the taunts with their own arguments. They carried the whole matter, every blasphemous word, to the king, who, as the next chapter shows, would carry it to God. The chapter ends in tense silence, the threat spoken, the challenge unanswered, and everything now depending on what God will do.

Gospel Focus

"They held their peace, and answered him not a word." There is deep wisdom here. Some voices are not to be debated but simply refused. When the accuser floods you with taunts and blasphemies, the answer is often not a clever comeback but a holy silence that will not be baited, "answer not a fool according to his folly" (Proverbs 26:4). Jesus Himself modeled this: before His accusers "he answered him to never a word" (Matthew 27:14), and "as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth" (Isaiah 53:7). Silence before men can be strength, not weakness, when the matter is being carried higher. For that is the second lesson: the officials took "the words of Rabshakeh" straight to the king, and Hezekiah will take them straight to God, spreading the very letter of blasphemy before the LORD (Isaiah 37:14). That is exactly what we are to do with every threat and accusation too big for us, "casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you" (1 Peter 5:7). Do not try to out-argue the enemy at the wall of your heart. Hold your peace, and take his words to your King. The God who hears will answer what you were never meant to answer yourself.