Isaiah 22:15

(15) Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto Shebna.—The section that follows opens a chapter in the internal politics of the reign of Hezekiah. The word for “treasurer” (literally, companion) implies a position like that of a vizier, identical, probably, with that of the “king’s friend” of Genesis 26:26; 2 Samuel 15:37; 1 Kings 4:5. In addition to this office Shebna had the position of being “over the house,” an office, like that of a Lord Chamberlain, of such importance that it was sometimes held by a king’s son (2 Chronicles 26:21). It gave him supreme control over the treasury of the king and the internal affairs of his kingdom, and made him almost like a maire du palais under the Merovingian kings. It is obvious that his influence was exercised to thwart the prophet’s counsels; and the probable sequence of thought connecting the two sections is that he was prominent as the representative of the false security and luxury which the prophet had condemned; probably also of the party which rested their hope on an alliance with Egypt. What follows seems to show that he was a novus homo, with no ancestral dignities in his house, possibly even a foreigner (the name is Aramaean in form), pushing himself forward with an obtrusive ambition. We note the touch of scorn in “this Shebna.”