Invasion of Judah

¹³ In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah [except Jerusalem] and captured them.

¹⁷ Then the king of Assyria sent ^[a]the Tartan and the Rab-saris and the Rabshakeh [his highest officials] with a large army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They went up and came to Jerusalem, and when they went up and arrived, they stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool, which is on the road of the Fuller’s Field.^{(A) 18} When they called for the king, Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the [king’s] household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the secretary went out to [meet] them.

¹⁹ Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is [the reason for] 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, that you have rebelled against me? ²¹ Now pay attention: you are relying on Egypt, on that staff of crushed reed; if a man leans on it, it will only go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust and rely on him. ²² But if you tell me, ‘We trust in and rely on the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship [only] before this altar in Jerusalem’? ²³ Now then, make a bargain with my lord the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if on your part you can put riders on them. ²⁴ How then can you drive back even one official of the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ²⁵ Now have I come up against this place to destroy it without the Lord’s approval? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”’”

²⁶ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in the Aramaic (Syrian) language, because we understand it; and do not speak with us in the Judean (Hebrew) language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” ²⁷ But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to say these things? Has he not sent me to the men who sit on the wall, [who are doomed by the siege] to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you?”

²⁸ Then the Rabshakeh stood and shouted out with a loud voice in Judean (Hebrew), “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. ²⁹ Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to rescue you from my hand; ³⁰ nor let Hezekiah make you trust in and rely on the Lord, saying, “The Lord will certainly rescue us, and this city [of Jerusalem] will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ³¹ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: “Surrender to me and come out to [meet] me, and every man may eat from his own vine and fig tree, and every man may drink the waters of his own well, ³² until 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, a land of olive trees and honey, so that you may live and not die.” Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads and incites you, saying, “The Lord will rescue us!” ³³ Has any one of the gods of the nations ever rescued his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ³⁴ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad [in Aram]? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah [in the valley of the Euphrates]? Have they rescued Samaria (Israel’s capital) from my hand? ³⁵ Who among all the gods of the lands have rescued their lands from my hand, that the Lord would rescue Jerusalem from my hand?’”

³⁶ But the people kept silent and did not answer him, for the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.” ³⁷ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the [royal] household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph the secretary, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn [in grief and despair] and told him what the Rabshakeh had said.

Sennacherib Undermines Hezekiah

⁹ After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria, while he was at Lachish [besieging it] with all his forces, sent his servants to Jerusalem, to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were at Jerusalem, saying, ¹⁰ “Thus says Sennacherib king of Assyria, ‘In what do you trust that you are remaining in Jerusalem under siege? ¹¹ Is not Hezekiah misleading you in order to let you die by famine and thirst, while saying, “The Lord our God will rescue us from the hand of the king of Assyria?” ¹² Has the same Hezekiah not taken away ^[a]his [Baal’s] high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, “You shall worship before [only] one altar and burn incense on it”? ¹³ Do you not know what I and my fathers (ancestors) have done to all the peoples of the [other] lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands able to rescue their lands from my hand at all? ¹⁴ Who [was there] among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed who was able to rescue his people from my hand, that your God should be able to rescue you from my hand? ¹⁵ So now, do not let Hezekiah deceive or mislead you like this, and do not believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to rescue his people from my hand or the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God rescue you from my hand!’”

¹⁶ And his servants said even more against the Lord God and against His servant Hezekiah. ¹⁷ The Assyrian king also wrote letters insulting and taunting the Lord God of Israel, and speaking against Him, saying, “As the gods of the nations of other lands have not rescued their people from my hand, so the God of Hezekiah will not rescue His people from my hand.” ¹⁸ They shouted it loudly in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, so that they might take the city [without a long siege]. ¹⁹ They spoke of the God of Jerusalem as [they spoke of] the gods of the peoples of the earth, [which are only] the work of the hands of men.