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Isaiah 36

An Assyrian envoy uses military success, threats, and promises of plenty to challenge Jerusalem’s trust in YHWH.

Assyria has captured Judah’s fortified cities, and Sennacherib sends Rabshakeh with a large army to confront Jerusalem. Hezekiah’s officials meet him near the upper pool’s aqueduct. Rabshakeh mocks Judah’s military weakness, attacks its trust in Egypt, and challenges its confidence in YHWH. When the officials ask him to speak Aramaic, he instead addresses the people on the wall in their own language. They remain silent under Hezekiah’s orders, and the officials return with torn clothes.

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1Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
2The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway.
3Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder came out to him.
4Rabshakeh said to them, “Now tell Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?
5I say that your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
6Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
7But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?”
8Now therefore, please make a pledge to 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.
9How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
10Have I come up now without the LORD against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.”’”
11Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the Jews’ language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
12But Rabshakeh said, “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, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”
13Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!
14The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you.
15Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us. This city won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’
16Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink the waters 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 lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?
19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?
20Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
21But they remained silent, and said nothing in reply, for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”
22Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Isaiah 36:6The image of Egypt as a reed that wounds its user sharpens Rabshakeh’s attack on Judah’s sources of security.
Isaiah 36:18Rabshakeh treats YHWH like the defeated nations’ gods, turning his demand for surrender into a challenge to God’s power.
Isaiah 36:9Rabshakeh contrasts Assyria’s strength with Judah’s weakness to make resistance and reliance on Egyptian forces seem futile.
Where this chapter reaches

2 Kings records the same confrontation at Jerusalem, while 2 Chronicles recounts Sennacherib’s threats against Hezekiah and his challenge to YHWH’s power to save. Ezekiel shares the image of Egypt as a reed support that breaks and injures those who depend on it.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

Which part of Rabshakeh’s speech would have been hardest to hear from Jerusalem’s wall, and why?

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How does Rabshakeh mix threats with promises, and what does that reveal about his demand for trust?

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Questions people ask about Isaiah 36

Who is Rabshakeh in Isaiah 36?

Rabshakeh is the Assyrian king’s representative, sent from Lachish to Jerusalem with a large army. The term is understood as an official title rather than a personal name. He speaks for Sennacherib, seeking Jerusalem’s surrender by undermining confidence in Hezekiah, Egypt, and YHWH.

Did God tell Assyria to attack Judah in Isaiah 36?

Rabshakeh claims in verse 10 that YHWH commanded him to destroy the land. The chapter reports his claim without confirming it as a message from God. It forms part of a speech that also mocks trust in YHWH and compares him with the gods of conquered nations.

Why did the people stay silent in Isaiah 36?

Verse 21 states that Hezekiah had commanded them to give no answer. Their silence follows that order; the text does not explain what each listener thought or felt. The chapter ends with Hezekiah’s officials reporting Rabshakeh’s words with their clothes torn, a sign of distress.

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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).