2 Kings 18:29

THE BALANCE OF RABSHAKEH'S INSULTING DEMANDS

"Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you out of his hand: neither let Hezekiah make you trust in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern; 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 of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, Jehovah will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?"

What an egotistical braggart this bully was! Nevertheless, one is compelled to admire the powerful seduction such a speech doubtless was in the ears of the men who heard it. There was enough truth in it to commend it to the thoughtless, but it was skillfully interlaced with the most vicious and unprincipled falsehoods.

There are six arguments in this unspeakably brutal and threatening tirade of bragging insults. Arguments one, three, and five are mundane, practical everyday arguments; arguments two, four and six are based upon religious and theological considerations. No one could deny the effective character of this devastating one-two punch, repeated three times, in this diplomatic masterpiece of Rabshakeh.

We shall summarize these arguments.

(1) It is foolish to rely on Egypt for help. The prophets of God had frequently warned God's people of such a foolish course, and so this must be understood simply as a fact.

(2) This argument was a theological one. Hezekiah had indeed taken away the high places and the altars mentioned; and Rabshakeh's false argument was that such must have displeased Jehovah. This, of course, was an outright lie. God was pleased with Hezekiah's actions.

(3) The third argument (2 Kings 18:23-24) called attention to the overwhelmingly large army of the Assyrians. This was true; but the joker in that argument was that it would take an army of a million just as long to besiege a city as it would take an army of one tenth that size; and the last thing on earth that Sennacherib wanted at that stage of his operations was a long siege.

(4) The most astounding argument of all is the fourth. Rabshakeh claimed that Jehovah had ordered him to come up and destroy Judah and Jerusalem. This was exactly the maneuver of Adolph Hitler who employed the Big Lie as one of his weapons.

(5) The fifth argument was such a monumental falsehood that one may well wonder at the stupidity of the man who told it. "If you will just surrender, we will provide you free transportation to a beautiful land far away - just like the Garden of Eden!"[15] How stupid was Rabshakeh that he supposed the Jews could have forgotten "that free transportation" provided the Northern tribes, who were driven on foot, linked together with long cables fastened in the lips, ears, cheeks or noses of their victims into northern Mesopotamia, or how all of them were put to work in fields, factories, or brick yards, where they were only slaves, starved, worked, or beaten to death. Those gracious, kind and gentle Assyrians, which Rabshakeh pretended they were, had earned the title of "The Breakers" all over the world of that era, and their cruelties and brutalities were the worst mankind ever saw. They flayed their victims alive. They impaled them. They starved and beat them unmercifully.

(6) Number six was another religious argument. None of the gods of all the cities and countries that had fallen into the hand of Sennacherib had ever been able to deliver them. Therefore, Jehovah the God of Judah would not be able to deliver them. Rabshakeh himself was due to learn something with regard to this argument, as shall be dramatically revealed in 2 Kings 19.