Meaning and Lessons of the Account of the Assyrian Invasion. (2 KINGS 18:17-19)

RARELY, perhaps, was there an occasion on which faith in the unseen was put to severer test than

in the conference between the leaders of the Assyrian army and the representatives of King

Hezekiah. What gave special point to the message which the Rabh-Shakeh addressed to the king

of Judah was the deep sense of past inconsistency: that, as regarded the matter in hand, it had not

always been with Judah as at present, and that in measure their present evil was the outcome of

their wrong-doing. But there comes to us also for all time this precious lesson: t hat even where we

have been utterly mistaken, if only we turn in repentance to our God, we may look for His help

and deliverance in the new and better course on which we are entering, however we may have to

suffer for past sin. For God remaineth faithful, however we may have erred and strayed from His

It was only too true, as the Rabh-Shakeh said,* that in rebelling against Assyria Hezekiah's

confidence had been in Egypt; (compare chapters 9 and 11). Too true also, as even the experience

of the past might have taught him, (compare chapters 9 and 11) that this was to trust in "the staff

of a bruised reed"** (comp. Isaiah 30:1 -7).

* The opening words of the Rabh-Shakeh's speech, "The great king, the king of Assyria," give one

of the very titles by which the Assyrian monarchs designate themselves on the monuments.

** I prefer this to the rendering "cracked," by Professor Cheyne. It certainly does not mean

"broken," the distinction between the two words being clearly marked in Isaiah 42:3. The figure of

"a reed" as applied to Egypt is peculiarly happy, from its reference to the Nile banks (comp. Isaiah

19:6, and generally Ezekiel 29:6, which evidently refers to 2 Kings 18:21, or else to Isaiah 36:6).

"A reed" is itself an insufficient support; but this reed is besides "bruised." When leaning on it, it

will break, and the hand that rests all its weight thereon will fall upon it and be pierced.

Thus, assuredly, whether as regarded his plans or their proposed execution, it was "only word of

the lips: counsel and strength for the war!" But in the second point which the Rabh-Shakeh urged

lay the weakness of his cause and the strength of Hezekiah's position. Addressing himself to

Hezekiah's adherents,* he argued from the heathen point of view that since Hezekiah had

abolished all the altars on the heights, and confined public religious worship to that in the Temple,

he had not only forfeited any claim upon Jehovah, Whom he regarded as the Jewish national deity,

but provoked Him to judgment. Accordingly, as on the one hand he had taunted Hezekiah with

want of all means for resisting the power of his master,** so on the other hand he now boldly

claimed for the inroad of Assyria and its success, not only the approbation of, but even a mandate

from Jehovah.

* In Isaiah 36:7 it is put in the singular, "if thou sayest," probably addressed to the chief Jewish

** The expression 2 Kings 18:23, rendered in the A.V. "give pledges," in the margin of the R.V.

"make a wager," neither of which gives a good sense - we would translate "And now enter into

competition with my master." In ver. 24 the word (...) which is true Semitic (comp. Schrader, u.s.

pp. 186, 187), signifies a satrap, or governor,.but at the same time also a military chief. "The least

of the servants," i.e., both numerically and as regards valor and discipline.

Alike politically and in its religious misrepresentations, the

speech was well calculated to appeal to such a populace as that of Jerusalem. Hence also the

representatives of Hezekiah requested the Rabh-Shakeh to communicate with them not in

"Jewish"* (that is, in Hebrew), as he had done, but in "Aramean," which, although the commercial

language of Syria and Palestine, would not be understood by the common people.