Isaiah 36:13-17

The Rabshakeh next addressed the people of Jerusalem who could hear him. He appealed to them to listen to Sennacherib’s message to them. Hezekiah could not deliver them, he boasted, nor would trusting in Yahweh work. Evidently the Assyrians knew that Isaiah’s policy of trusting Yahweh was a popular one with many of the Jerusalemites. The Rabshakeh promised that if the city surrendered, the people would enjoy peace and prosperity rather than war and starvation. They would be deported, a well-known Assyrian policy toward conquered peoples, but he portrayed the land where they would go as similar to their own but even better.