Isaiah

HISTORICAL SECTION

Sennacherib’s Invasion

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

From Lachish, the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. They stopped at the channel of the Upper Pool on the highway of the fuller’s field.

So Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, went out to him with Shebna, the secretary, and Joah, son of Asaph, the recorder.

The field commander told them: Give Hezekiah this message from the great king of Assyria: How can you be so confident?

Do you think words can replace strategy and military power? Whom are you counting on to rebel against me?

You rely on Egypt, a broken staff that pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it. That’s Pharaoh, king of Egypt, for all who depend on him.

Yes, you might say to me: ‘We trust in the Lord our God.’ But isn’t he the one whose altars and high places Hezekiah removed when he commanded Judah and Jerusalem: ‘You shall worship before this altar’?

Now, make a deal with my master, the king. I will give you two thousand horses if you can provide riders.

How could you possibly stand against even one of my master’s least generals? And you rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen!

Do you think I have come here to attack and destroy this land without consulting the Lord? He himself told me: ‘Go up to this land and conquer it!”

Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the field commander: “Speak to your servants in Aramaic; we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew within hearing of these people on the walls.”

But the field commander said: “Do you think my master sent me to speak these words only to your master and you? Isn’t it also to the men on the walls who, with you, will have to eat their own dung and drink their urine?”

Then the field commander stood and cried out with a loud voice in Hebrew: “Hear the words of the great king of Assyria:

Don’t let Hezekiah fool you! No, he won’t be able to help you!

Do not listen to him when he tells you to trust in the Lord, saying, ‘the Lord will save us; this city will not be given over to the king of Assyria.’

Don’t listen to Hezekiah but to what the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me

and surrender. So I will let each of you eat from your vine and your fig tree and drink from the water of your cistern until I come again. Then I will take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, bread and vineyards.’

Hezekiah misled you when he said that the Lord would save you. Have the gods of the nations rescued their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Shepharvaim? And have the gods delivered Samaria from my hand?

Which of these nations’ gods has been able to save his country from me? Do you think the Lord could deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’”

The people remained silent and did not respond because the king had commanded them not to answer.

Then Eliakim, along with Shebna and Joah, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him what the field commander had said.