2 Kings chapter 18, you can turn
in your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 18. The last two weeks we considered
the fall of the northern kingdom that transpired in 722 BC under
the Assyrians. We saw in the first half of the
chapter the actual fall of the Northern Kingdom and the latter
half of the chapter when Assyria resettled Samaria and how the
peoples there developed a form of religion that was what's called
syncretistic, where they tried to marry the worship of the true
and living God with the worship of their false gods. We saw that
that, of course, or obviously, is displeasing to the Lord. As
we come now to 2 Kings chapter 18, we've come to the last major
section in 2 Kings, which is the disintegration of Judah.
So 2 Kings 18.1 to 25.30 takes up basically the fall of the
southern kingdom. Now, specifically, that will
come later. Hezekiah is the king we're considering
tonight, and Hezekiah was, in fact, a most excellent king. And this records his dealings
with Assyria. So I'll begin reading in 2 Kings
chapter 18 at verse 1. Now it came to pass in the third
year of Hosea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah
the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was 25 years
old when he became king, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi, the
daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in
the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David
had done. He removed the high places and
broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broken
pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those
days, the children of Israel burned incense to it and called
it Nahushtin. He trusted in the Lord God of
Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings
of Judah, nor who were before him. For he held fast to the
Lord. He did not depart from following
him, but kept his commandments which the Lord had commanded
Moses. The Lord was with him, he prospered wherever he went,
and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve
him. He subdued the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory
from watchtower to fortified city. Now it came to pass in
the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of
Hosea, the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser,
king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it. And
at the end of three years, they took it. In the sixth year of
Hosea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. Then the king of Assyria
carried Israel away captive to Assyria, and put them in Hela,
and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the
Medes, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord their God,
but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant
of the Lord had commanded. And they would neither hear nor
do them. And in the fourteenth year of
King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all
the fortified cities of Judah and took them. Then Hezekiah
king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish saying,
I have done wrong. Turn away from me. Whatever you
impose on me, I will pay. And the king of Assyria assessed
Hezekiah king of Judah 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold.
So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the
house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's house.
At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the
temple of the Lord and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of
Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. Then
the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsarus, and the
Rabshaka from Lachish with a great army against Jerusalem to King
Hezekiah. And they went up and came to
Jerusalem. When they had come up, they went
and stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool, which was on
the highway to the fuller's field. And when they had called to the
king, Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, Shebna
the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came
out to them. Then the rabbi Shaka said to
them, Say now to Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the king
of Assyria, what confidence is this in which you trust? You
speak of having plans and power for war, but they are mere words.
And in whom do you trust that you rebel against me? Now look,
you are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on
which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it.
So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. But if
you say to me, We trust in the Lord our God, is it not He whose
high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and
said to Judah and Jerusalem, You shall worship before this
altar in Jerusalem? Now therefore I urge you, give
a pledge to my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you
two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to put riders
on them. How then will you repel one captain
of the least of my master's servants and put your trust in Egypt for
chariots and horsemen? Have I now come up without the
Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, go up
against this land and destroy it. Then Eliakim, the son of
Hilkiah, Shabnah, and Joah said to Rabshakeh, please speak to
your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. And do not
speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people who are
on the wall. The Rabshakeh said to them, has
my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words,
and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat and drink
their own waste with you? Then the Rabshakeh stood and
called out with a loud voice in Hebrew and spoke, saying,
Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. Thus says
the king, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he shall not
be able to deliver you from his hand. Nor let Hezekiah make you
trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us.
This city shall not be given into the hand of the king of
Assyria. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for
thus says the king of Assyria, make peace with me by a present
and come out to me, and every one of you eat from his own vine,
and every one from his own fig tree, and every one of you drink
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 groves and honey,
that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah,
lest he persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Has
any of the gods of the nations at all delivered its land from
the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath
and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim
and Hanna and Eva? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria
from my hand? "'Who among all the gods of the
lands "'have delivered their countries from my hand, "'that
the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?' "'The people held
their peace and answered him not a word, "'for the king's
commandment was, "'Do not answer him.' "'Then Eliakim, the son
of Hilkiah, "'who was over the household, Shebna the scribe,
"'and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, "'came to Hezekiah
with their clothes torn "'and told him the words of the Rabshakeh. Amen. Well, very tense scene. And chapter 18 goes along with
chapter 19. 19 is obviously the resolution
of the particular problem that Judah is facing at this time.
As well, you compare this with Isaiah 36 to 39, and you will
see that it is almost parallel. Everything there is here, everything
here is there, which shows the author here most likely dependent
upon the prophet Isaiah. So as I said, we've entered into
the last section, the disintegration of Judah. The parallel is in
2 Chronicles 29-32, specifically with reference to Hezekiah. There's
a lot of material that I simply did not have time to look at
today in terms of the Chronicles passage. So if you want to do
more background study, the Chronicler develops in more detail some
of the reforms under Hezekiah and some of the things that he
was able to accomplish during his kingship. But I want to look
at three things tonight. First, the summary of Hezekiah's
reign in verses 1 to 8. Secondly, the attempt to pacify
Assyria in verses 9 to 16. And then thirdly, the demand
for surrender by Assyria in verses 17 to 37. But note in the first
place the summary of Hezekiah's reign. We're given the time,
the details of his reign, specifically in verses 1 to 2. Most likely
he also had engaged in a co-regency. He became a co-regent. That means
a king alongside of his father in 729, he becomes the sole ruler
in 715, and he reigns until 686 BC. We do know for certain that
Hezekiah's 14th year, verse 13, when Sennacherib invaded was
701 BC. So the situation here when Sennacherib
is trying to invade, Judah is in 701 BC, Hezekiah is the king. Now notice the religious commitment
of Hezekiah. Verse 3 is intriguing because
we have read that certain kings of Judah did what was right in
the sight of the Lord. Now, none of them were able to
eradicate the high places, which Hezekiah does in verse 4, but
Hezekiah is unique in this. Notice in verse 3, he did what
was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his
father David had done. Remember that David is the standard
for kingship in Judah. David is the gold standard, as
it were. And so Hezekiah not only did
what was right in the sight of the Lord, but he did so according
to all that his father David had done. So on the precipice
of the fall of the Southern Kingdom, in many respects, we're given
a new David. I mean, what the author says
here concerning Hezekiah is absolutely stellar. It's glowing. It's fantastic. It's phenomenal. So no doubt,
after the fall of the Northern Kingdom, at this particular time,
the people of Judah are probably quite encouraged that they have
such a good and godly king on the throne. As we move through
this passage, even good and godly kings suffer trials and hardships
and difficulties. And I think that's something
that we ought to appreciate in terms of a practical lesson that
we'll draw out in more detail as we move through the narrative.
Just because you fear God, just because you obey God and just
because you have your house in order does not protect you from
all calamities. It does not protect you from
the invading Assyrians. It does not protect you from
the sorrows and the hardships and the woes that so often afflict
the people of God. So Hezekiah here is, in many
respects, a model citizen, a model king, and nevertheless he has
to contend with this Assyrian invasion upon the cities of Judah. Remember, the northern kingdom
is gone, the southern kingdom is remaining. So when Sennacherib
comes against all the fortified cities of Judah and takes them,
the author's not telling us about something that's happened in
the past. He does review the past in verses 9 to 12 with reference
to the fall of the north. But he's highlighting what is
the current situation facing Hezekiah and Judah. So a good
and godly person can nevertheless suffer. A good and godly person
can nevertheless be tried. Good and godly people go through
sorrows. Jesus was a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. The Apostle Paul was a godly
man. Read about his life in 2 Corinthians
11 and ask yourself, is this the sort of thing that the health,
wealth, and prosperity preachers preach? Absolutely not. They
teach that if you have faith and if you're godly, then all
you're going to get is blessings from on high. That is simply
not true. That is simply not the case.
We meet Job in Job 1. He's described in stellar terms. He's an upright man. He's a godly
man. He's an intercessor man for his
children. Everything about Job is just
bang on, and yet no one in the history of man, there's a few
probably, has suffered quite like that particular man. And
so we learn from this passage that there are those trials and
sorrows and difficulties that come even to people who are godly. So, don't ever get the idea that,
well, you know, I'm obeying God and yet He's not blessing me.
It sort of betrays that you're only obeying God in order to
get blessing. We obey God because the Spirit's
at work in us, both the will and to do according to His good
pleasure. We obey God because He saved us by His grace through
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We obey God because it's right,
not because we get stuff. That's mercenary. That's being
in it like Benny Hinn's in it. That's being in it like the health,
wealth, and prosperity people are in it. They're in it for
a buck. They're in it for a blessing.
They're in it for their benefit. Well, we learn that godly men
don't always prosper. Godly men don't always, you know,
avert the raid of Assyrian hordes. Now notice, with reference to
his eradication of idolatry, it is sweeping. It is total.
The other kings of Judah, even when they did right, left the
high places intact. You see that with Asa, you see
that with Jehoshaphat, you see that with the godly kings in
Judah. They nevertheless left the high places intact. Hezekiah. He removed the high places and
broke the sacred pillars. Most likely the sacred pillars
are those put in place for male deities and then cut down the
wooden image or the Asherah. Those are the female deities.
His purge of idolatry was complete. He got rid of high places. He
got rid of idols. He even got rid of the bronze
serpent that Moses had made. Verse 4 says, for until those
days the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Naushten.
So we see that that means by which God brought healing to
the nation. I don't think the text is to
be interpreted as that was always the way it was. Most likely it
was a pretty recent innovation. or contribution with reference
to the worship of Israel by some of the more recent kings in Israel. But they were nevertheless worshiping
this bronze serpent. And then verses 5 and 6 just
tell us he's got a robust, whole soul commitment to Yahweh. I
mean, look at what it says in verses 5 and 6. Praise God if
it could ever be, you know, somewhat near this written on our tombstone. He trusted in the Lord God of
Israel so that after him was none like him among all the kings
of Judah. Now, Josiah is going to be stellar
and Josiah is going to be wonderful, but they're each equally great
in their particular spheres. We ought not to say, well, what
about Josiah? The text is telling us just Read
it for what it's worth. He trusted in the Lord God of
Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings
of Judah, nor who were before him. For he held fast to the
Lord, he did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments
which the Lord had commanded Moses. Beautiful description
of a wholesale commitment and fidelity to the living and true
God. That's the kind of obedience that ought to be pursued by the
people of God. It ought to be whole soul commitment.
This is Paul's point, 1 Corinthians chapter 6, when he's urging the
church, the church, to flee sexual immorality. What's Paul's argument? You've been bought with a price,
therefore glorify God in your body and soul. Paul, in Romans
12, says that we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. He says this is your reasonable,
or your rational, or your spiritual service. In other words, if Romans
1-11 is true, when we get to Romans 12, the therefore necessarily
follows. based on this reality, based
on the fact that Christ has saved you, based on the fact that you're
justified freely by His grace, therefore, present your bodies
as a living sacrifice. I mean, it's a no-brainer. That's
what the people of God should be pursuing. Now, notice his
political policy. Verses 7 and 8. Tells us the
Lord was with him. He prospered wherever he went. Proven says the consequence of
his religious faithfulness was that Hezekiah's military exploits
paralleled David's in a way that was not true of any of the rest
of his descendants. Only of David and Hezekiah among
the Davidic kings is it said that the Lord was with him and
that the king was successful in war. Only David and Hezekiah
furthermore are said to have defeated the Philistines, which
it tells us there in verse 8. He subdued the Philistines as
far as Gaza and its territory from watchtower to fortified
city. But another important aspect
that sets the stage for the rest of chapters 18 and 19 is his
rebellion against Assyria. Remember that his father Ahaz
paid tribute to Assyria. Now this payment of tribute was
basically tax. The big bully on the block would
come and show up at your gate, and you would say, we'll happily
pay you money, taxes, tribute, on a yearly basis so that you
won't clobber us, so that you won't annex us, so that you won't
deport us, so that you won't take away all of our stuff and
kill us. We want to make this or broker
this deal so that you'll leave us alone. It was a payment of
a price, ultimately, for protection from the one you're paying the
price to. just typical of the ancient Near Eastern world. I'm
sure it's pretty typical of the modern world as well. You pay
us or you're going to be in big trouble. So that's what Ahaz
had established with Assyria, but Hezekiah is not going to
do that. Notice in verse 7b, and he rebelled
against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. Again, the
rebellion there ought not to be that he stood outside of,
you know, the cities of Assyria and he painted on their fences.
He didn't pay them tribute. He didn't serve them. He wasn't
a vassal. He didn't bow down before them.
So that's a summary of Hezekiah's reign. Now notice this attempt
to pacify Assyria in verses 9 to 16. Now the author rehearses
chapter 17 for us in verses 9 to 12. And I think the reason that he
does that is to show us the implications of verse 7b. In other words,
if Hezekiah has chose to rebel against Assyria and is not going
to serve him, the author, as it were, says, let me just remind
you how Assyria operates. And that's how verses 9 to 12
function. Verses 9 to 12 happened already. Those are past tense. This is
what we read of in 2 Kings 17. Notice in verse 9, now it came
to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, this is going
back, which was the seventh year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king
of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against
Samaria and besieged it. And at the end of the three years,
they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth
year of Hosea, king of Israel, Samaria was taken. Then the king
of Assyria carried Israel away, captive to Assyria, and put them
in Hala, and by the Habor, the river of Gozin, and in the cities
of the Medes." You see? We already studied that. We already
went through that. That's the fall of the Northern
Kingdom. So you see, the author is reminding
us The author is showing us that 7b carries with it a great deal
of implication. Everybody with me? You've got
to appreciate this. Because when we square off with
the Rabshakeh, you've got to know what's happening here. and
what the Rabshakeh is doing on behalf of the great king of Assyria. This is a showdown at the O.K.
Corral. This is a big deal. And of course,
God will intervene in a most powerful and glorious way to
the tune of 185,000 Assyrian casualties and ultimately the
death of Sennacherib. But that waits us in chapter
19. Chapter 18 builds the tension. Never let anybody tell you the
Bible's a boring book. I mean, this is masterful. This
is masterful literature. The way it's written, the way
the tension is created, the way it's got us poised for a resolution,
and the way that chapter 18 gives us no resolution. It's very bleak. It's very dark. And of course,
if we had never read chapter 19, we might be very depressed. But I think even in that, the
author has lessons for us. So he rehearses what? Assyria
did to the northern kingdom. He reminds us that this was not
because of the superiority of the Assyrians. Notice in verse
12, why did this happen to the north? Because they did not obey
the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant
and all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded. And
they would neither hear nor do them. It's almost like the author
is reminding us here, when you hear the Rabshakeh blathering
on about the great king of Assyria and how wonderful they are and
how victorious they are and how Yahweh himself wouldn't be able
to deliver, the author wants us to remember The Northern Kingdom
didn't fall because of the superiority of Assyria. The Northern Kingdom
fell because they broke covenant with Yahweh. The Northern Kingdom
collapsed because they rejected the living and the true God. Now, again, when we think about
what we've read in verses 1 to 8, Hezekiah obeyed God. If the Northern Kingdom disobeyed
God and they fell or they collapsed, we might be inclined to think,
well, Hezekiah obeyed God, so he's going to reign supreme.
Again, he's going to in chapter 19, but dealing with chapter
18, everything looks bleak and it looks rough and it looks most
difficult. This is not the case. Verses
13 to 16 tells us a different story. But before we proceed,
listen to Davis. I think he makes a good comment
here. He says, you can cling to the
Lord and the Assyrians will come. This does not overthrow the overall
promise of blessing and help given to faith and obedience,
but recognizes that such blessing often can be diluted with trouble
and grief. If it were not so, our faith
would likely become magic. He gives several examples of
the kinds of things that you hear in the church. You know,
somebody tried to pray and it didn't work, so they stopped.
Somebody read their Bible, but they didn't get, you know, automatically
holy like Paul, so they stopped. It's all formulaic. It's all
rote. It's all routine. It's all designed to produce
results. That's the thing that we're about.
We want results. That's how come so many churches
are so big because they figured out the way to produce results.
You put in the proper sort of formula or the algorithm and
it yields the proper sort of results. Well, God never tells
us to look at the results. God tells us to be faithful and
to do what's right in terms of preaching the truth, right? Is
everybody with me? I hope so. You know, Paul says
in 1 Corinthians 4, moreover, it is required of stewards that
they be found faithful. Not that they be found successful,
not that they be found, you know, resourceful, but that they be
found faithful. So Davis gives us He gives in
his commentary several examples of this mindset. I tried this.
It didn't work, so I don't do it anymore. I went to church,
but I wasn't thrilled, so I don't go anymore. I went to church.
I wasn't fulfilled, so I don't go anymore. I tried to pray with
my wife, but she's still an old wretch, so I don't want to do
that anymore. I tried to pray with my husband,
but he fell asleep. We're not going to do it. You
know, it's all results-oriented. So David says many folks who
get disappointed with God have walked by this kind of faith. He says, so 2 Kings 18 can prove
to be a helpful corrective. It tells you that you can be
a king who trusts and obeys Yahweh and reforms the nation's worship,
and yet your enemy may come and crush your land, deport its population,
and await the moment when he can impale the king's carcass
on a stake outside the city wall. It's helpful to faith to know
that. I mean, that's precisely the
point we ought to get from 2 Kings chapter 18. You can obey, you
can do all the things that God calls you to do, but you can't
then stick out your hand and just wait for the blessings to
flow. I really suspect, everybody's looking at me puzzled. None of
you struggle with that? Nobody ever thinks, well, I read
my Bible four times this week, Lord, so? I mean, we never verbalize
it quite like that, but we sort of live by it. church three times
on Sunday, Lord, so, you know, we're always with our hand out
looking for the next biggest thrill. We never consider the
fact that faithfulness and obedience are blessings in and of themselves. Praise God, I'm doing what he
says to do. You know what you do when you're
in church three times on Sunday? Guess what you're not doing?
You're not, you know, playing poker, You're not chasing prostitutes. You know, when you're here on
a Wednesday night, you're not fighting with your spouse. I
mean, there's a blessed corrective in just doing what you're supposed
to be doing for that sake. Isn't that Paul's emphasis in
Ephesians 6? Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this
is right. Why do I need to obey you? Because
it's right? Well, what's in it for me? I'll
tell you what's in it for you if you don't. Brethren, we can
be like that, our hands held out, asking God to pour out blessings
when we're doing what we're supposed to do anyway. Isn't this Jesus'
statement in the Gospel of Luke? When you've done, you're just
unprofitable servants doing what you're supposed to do. So, this
is the mindset that we need to sort of crush with passages like
these. Now note, verses 13 to 16, still
concerning the attempt to pacify Assyria. There is this siege
in verse 13. Now, notice what Hezekiah does. King of Judah sent to the king
of Assyria at Lachish saying, I have done wrong. Turn away
from me. Whatever you impose on me, I
will pay. And the king of Assyria assessed
Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents
of gold. That's a lot of dough. That's
a massive amount of tribute. That's a big payday. Why did
Hezekiah do this, especially in light of verses 1 to 8? We
need to appreciate that verses 1 to 8 are a summary of his entire
reign. He wasn't perfect. None of the
kings that we met with, even those who were spoken of favorably,
were perfect. There's only one perfect person
in the entirety of Scripture. There's only one hero, there's
only one champion, there's only one who is the one who fulfills
all that the Father gives him every step of the way. And it
is intriguing that even in light of what Hezekiah does, verses
1 to 8 still stand. Now, I'm not saying go out and
sin and broker a deal with the Assyrians in your life, because
God's still going to describe you as a faithful human. But
it is interesting to see that God's assessment over the all
in terms of Hezekiah's life is positive, even when he did this
kind of a thing. I mean, again, don't use this,
so I can go out and be a wretch now and clean it up in the last
few years and then my tombstone can rightly reflect that I served
God all my day. I'm not suggesting that, but
I am suggesting that at times God is a lot more gracious to
his people than his people are to his people. God is a lot more
kind to his people than his people are to his people. That Hezekiah,
how dare him? Well, verses 1 to 8 tell us he
did some incredibly wonderful things. Yeah, he did an incredibly
boneheaded thing here, but I'm not Hezekiah. I don't know what
it's like to be facing down, you know, the king of Assyria
in this particular setting. Remember that Assyria is on the
rise. It's probably 701 because Assyria is off fighting Babylon.
There's a period of years where basically Judah has been unaffected. Now, all these nations try to
have alliances. They try to form together to
fight the big bully. Well, now it's just Assyria and
Judah, and he is facing down King Hezekiah, and Hezekiah brokers
this deal. He says, I have done wrong. Turn
away from me. Whatever you impose on me, I
will pay. The king of Assyria assessed Hezekiah, king of Judah,
300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. Now, where do
kings typically go when they need some resources? They go
plunder the house of the Lord. We see this in 1 and 2 Kings.
The author never treats this favorably. When the house of
the Lord serves as the treasury to pay off foreign oppressors. That's just not a good thing.
That Hezekiah does this is just not a good thing. He found in
the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king's
house At that time, Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors
of the temple of the Lord and from the pillars which Hezekiah,
king of Judah, had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. So you see this summary of 1
to 8, and then we see this particular infraction here in 9 to 16. Now that brings us thirdly and
finally to consider the demand for surrender by Assyria. Never
trust an Assyrian. I'm just kidding, if you happen
to meet one. They were paid off, weren't they?
I mean, he plundered the temple to pay off Sennacherib. Whence
verse 17? You mean this, you know, ghoulish
monster of an empire leader wasn't faithful to his word? No, he
wasn't. He sends his troops to demand
immediate surrender by Hezekiah and Judah, specifically the city
of Jerusalem. Now notice, the king of Assyria,
verse 17, sent the Tartan, the Rabseres, and the Rabshakeh. Your margin probably gives as
good a translation of these as could be. Commander-in-chief,
a chief officer, and then the Rabshakeh who will deal with
is the chief of staff or the governor. And obviously he is
fluent in Hebrew, and obviously he is somewhat savvy of what's
going on within the nation of Judah, what's going on in the
southern kingdom. So what we find here are these
sort of ambassadors or delegates or representatives of Assyria. Rabshakeh is going to be the
one that actually speaks. These aren't proper names, these
are titles. but because it doesn't say Rabshakeh
Billy, we're just going to say Rabshakeh. We're going to refer
to him by that as his name. And so then the king of Judah
sends out his troops, his representatives, in verse 18. And it was Eliakim,
the son of Elkiah, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe,
and Joab, the son of Asaph, the recorder. They came out to them.
So you see the showdown. Assyria is there, they want Jerusalem
to surrender. The Rabshakeh and these other
two go out there and they meet these three delegates or representatives
from the King of Judah. Just a couple of observations
before we dive into what the Rabshakeh does here. This is
psychological warfare. What the Rabshakeh does here
is he seeks to taunt, he seeks to divide, and he seeks to get
there to be a division among the kingdom within, so that it
will make it easier for the Assyrians to take over. What else he does
is he never refers to King Hezekiah as King Hezekiah. He only ever
calls him Hezekiah, and yet he serves the great king of Assyria.
Don't miss that. He's really trying to goad the
king. In fact, King Hezekiah probably
sends these three representatives out as a sort of an equal show. The king of Assyria sends three
representatives, so does the king of Hezekiah. Many of you
know that at one time or a few years ago before Moonbeam got
back into office in Southern California, Schwarzenegger was
the governor in California. Most of you probably know as
well that he used to be into bodybuilding and he was quite
the competitor. Well, it was said, and you can
see clips of this, when they would be on the stage waiting
for the verdict, he would whisper into his opponent's ears, your
mom called and congratulated me on my victory. And he would
do that to psychologically mess with these competitors. You see
this in combat or missions today. You try to mess psychologically
with those persons that you're going to come against. That's
what Rabshakeh is doing here and he's doing it in spades.
You need to see this because when we get to verse 37 and all
of the three representatives, and then in the next chapter,
Hezekiah, they're all tearing their clothes. Chapter 18 is
a bleak chapter. They've stared down the face
of the great king of Assyria, and it hasn't gone well for them
at all. So that's what's happening. The
two parties have gathered. Now, the Rabshakeh makes two
speeches. The first is 19 to 25, and the
second is 25 to 37. Now notice the first. He says,
first of all, that trust in their ability is futile. That word trust comes up out
of the mouth of the Rabshakeh several times in the space of
a few verses. Because it's ultimately a matter
of trust. Who has a trust in order to have victory over the
Assyrians? And it's as if the Rabshakeh
is pointing this out and showing him that his trust is misplaced. But note, verses 19 to 20, he's
essentially saying, trust in your own ability is futile. Verse 19, the Rabshakeh said
to them, say now to Hezekiah, thus says the great king, the
king of Assyria, what confidence is this in which you trust? You
speak of having plans and power for war, but they are mere words. And in whom do you trust that
you rebel against me? See, it's an attack upon their
ability in and of themselves. He now ups the ante and he says,
your trust in Egypt is bad. Now there's no evidence that
Hezekiah specifically brokered a deal with Egypt. His father
Ahaz had, and it wouldn't be unheard of if he had, to try
to oppose this Assyrian threat. Or it could be that the Rabshakeh
is just covering his bases, supposing that this little nation-state
of Judah would try to broker a deal with Egypt. But notice,
he says this very specifically in verses 21 and 24. Now look,
you're trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on
which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it.
So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. And then
again in verse 24, how then will you repel one captive of the
least of my master's servants and put your trust in Egypt for
chariots and horsemen? Now, if Hezekiah really is using
Egypt, it's a sad and pathetic thing that his enemy points that
out. It's a sad and pathetic thing that he's able to say,
you're not trusting in Yahweh, you're trusting in Egypt. Isaiah
and Ezekiel excoriate the kings for this very thing. Isaiah 31
and 32, and then Ezekiel chapter 29. They cannot fathom that a
king of Judah would actually put their trust in Egypt. You
know, the Lord doesn't need horses. He doesn't need chariots. He
doesn't need Egyptians. He is perfectly able to win the
battles for Judah. So, if this is the case, that
he's trusting in Egypt, this is quite the sort of indictment
on the part of King Sennacherib. And then notice, he ups it even
more so in verses 22 to 25. Trust in Yahweh is futile. Trust in Yahweh is futile. Notice in verse 22. But if you
say to me, we trust in the Lord our God, is it not he whose high
places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and said to Judah
in Jerusalem, you shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?
You see, the king of Assyria has some intel on Judah. He knows
what's happening under Hezekiah's reign. Now, it's a good thing
for us to see that Hezekiah made this sweeping removal of all
idolatry from Judah, but it probably wasn't received as favorably
by all the people in Judah. If you had become accustomed
to going to the high place, then it would be a disappointment
if the high place was no longer there. This is calculated to
sow discord among the people in Judah. Hezekiah is the big
meanie that came and took away your high places. He doesn't
want you to serve Yahweh. He doesn't want you to glorify
God. He doesn't want you to honor the Lord. So he is showing them
or trying to show them that trust in Yahweh is futile. Paul House
says, this sort of propaganda about other countries' deities
abandoning their adherents was a standard Assyrian ploy when
they invaded and conquered another nation. Kogan notes that the
Assyrians routinely told their enemies that their gods were
angry with them, that the gods had abandoned them, and that
these gods counseled them to surrender to the Assyrians. It
is not unusual, then, for the spokesmen to try such tactics
on Judahites. He's trying to get under their
skin. He wants to shake them. He wants to get them off balance. This was, you know, sort of the
masterful policy of Assyria to attack in this manner. And then
when they resettle, they take mountainous people and put them
on the coast. They take coastal peoples and
put them in the mountains. They want to destabilize the
enemies so that they can keep control over that. That was Assyrian
policy. Notice it's a flat-out taunt
concerning Hezekiah's decimated forces in 23 and 24. He says,
I will give you 2,000 horses if you are able on your part
to put riders on them. In other words, you don't even
have that. dare I say it, to pony up. You can't produce the
sorts of men necessary, even if I were to hand you horses
for this particular task. And then notice in verse 25,
he appeals to Yahweh's will as the decisive factor in the siege. This is really going a step above
and beyond. He's a Calvinist. No, he's not. Notice in verse 25, have I now
come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The
Lord said to me, go up against this land and destroy it. I'm an agent of your God. I'm
an agent of Yahweh. Open the gates, let us in, we'll
do our business and it will all be done. You see, this is psychological
warfare. Now note the second speech. I
said 25. It's 26 to 37. At this point, the three representatives
of Judah say, we'd rather you speak to us in Aramaic. than
in Hebrew. Aramaic was sort of the official
language of the time. That was the language that you
did these sorts of meetings in. And so the three representatives
of Judah don't want the guys sitting on the wall to hear what
they're talking about. Again, not that I think they
want to keep things from them, but they don't want them privy
to the sorts of dialogue that is going on. So you get this,
the men of Judah say, speak to us in Aramaic, don't speak to
us in Hebrew, because we don't want these guys to hear. And
now he steps it up, verse 27. The Rabshakeh said to them, has
my master sent me to your master and to you to speak these words
and not to the men who sit on the wall who will eat and drink
their own waste with you? Then the Rabshakeh stood and
called out with a loud voice in Hebrew. You see what he says? My master wants everybody in
Judah that is ultimately going to be eating their own excrement
and drinking their own urine to hear what is happening. He wants them to hear what's
at stake. So he raises his voice. He does
so in Hebrew so that the men on the wall who are going to
be eating their own excrement and drinking their own urine,
that refers to the siege. That refers to the time when
there's no more food in the city. That refers to the time, like
we saw in 2 Kings 6, when a donkey's head was selling for top dollar. when dove droppings were selling
for top dollar. He's like, that's icky. Brethren,
we've never been in a siege. We've never had it in this case
where there was no food in our town. We've always had Walmart
and Superstore. You don't know what it would
be like if they sealed the city and then basically starved us
out. It's interesting, too, because
in the Chronicles passage, doesn't he order that the water be stopped
and secured within the city? I think they meet at the aqueduct
specifically there in verse 17. Probably the Assyrians were going
to try and stop the water supply, because that's a surefire way
to smoke a people out. You don't give them water, they're
ultimately going to die. But you see what the Rabshakeh
is doing here. He raises his voice. Now he wants
all of the men of Judah to hear. He speaks in such a way to drive
a wedge between rebellious Hezekiah and the people. This is, again,
masterful. It's, you know, diabolical, but
it is masterful. What he does in the second speech
is try to get the men of Judah against Hezekiah the king. You see how effective that would
be? You get your own countrymen saying, you know, we don't want
you, Hezekiah. We want the great king of Assyria. Robert Alter
says, his purpose is to drive a wedge between the rebellious
Hezekiah and the people, convincing them that the uprising is hopeless
and that, in fact, the fate of deportation to Assyria will be
a happy one. In other words, don't listen
to Hezekiah. He repeats that four times. Notice in verses 29, 30, 31,
and 32. He is speaking in Hebrew to the
men of Judah, telling them, don't listen to your king. He's lying
to you. He's deceiving you. He doesn't
want what's best for you. He sounds like the serpent in
the Garden of Eden telling Eve, Well, God doesn't want you to
be happy. He doesn't want what's good for you. You go ahead and
eat. You do what I say. It's almost
like that sort of a thing here. He then demands tribute in verse
31a, when it says, do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the
king of Assyria, make peace with me by a present. That doesn't
mean, you know, with a big bow on it. It means do re mi. cough
up money and we won't seize your city, or we won't utterly destroy
you. Make peace with me by a present,
and then notice, and come out to me, and every one of you eat
from his own vine, and every one from his own fig tree, and
every one of you drink 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
groves and honey, that you may live and not die. You see what
he says here? You men on the wall are going
to be eating your own excrement and your own urine in a matter
of days. Come with me. Come to Assyria. Come and enjoy the good things.
You know, this is an idiom that's used often in the Old Testament. Under his own vine, everyone
from his own fig tree, every one of you drink the waters of
his own cistern. That would sound a whole lot
better than your own excrement and urine, wouldn't it? I mean,
does mean you gotta leave your family, you gotta leave your
land, you gotta leave your language, and you gotta go to Assyria.
But hey, we got food, we got water, we got all those niceties. In fact, he's making a promised
land sort of promise. Notice in verse 32, it's a land
of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land
of olive groves and honey, that you may live and not die, but
do not listen to Hezekiah, lest he persuade you, saying, the
Lord will deliver us. It's masterful, psychologically. Get the people to turn against
Hezekiah. They'll throw Hezekiah right
over the wall, and Sennacherib and his buddies march right in,
take them away, deport them back to Assyria. And then the final
thing he does is he appeals to history. And herein he makes
his most significant blunder. He says in verse 33, has any
of the gods of the nations at all delivered its land from the
hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Sepharvim
and Hena and Eva? Indeed, have they delivered Samaria
from my hand? I mean, in many respects, this
historical argument has a degree of logical accuracy. Assyria
is the big kid on the block. These other nations haven't been
able to stop them. They have gobbled up territory,
they have gobbled up provinces, they have not been stopped by
these provincial gods. Herein lies his mistake, or his
error. Verse 35. Who among all the gods
of the lands have delivered their countries from my hand? that
the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand. His theology has
shifted to being an instrument in the hand of God, verse 25,
to there's no way Yahweh will ever be able to stop the king
of Assyria. Now, when Isaiah prophesies,
notice in 1922, whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised
your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy
One of Israel. It ought not to surprise us that
the section ends with 185,000 dead Assyrians and Sennacherib
assassinated in his own home city. He blasphemed, he taunted
the living and true God. But at this point, again, we
know what happens in chapter 19. These three representatives
of Judah don't know. They just tear their clothes
and they walk with head hung low back to Hezekiah. Notice, verse 36, Hezekiah had
already told them, don't answer him. Don't give him an answer.
Verse 37, Eliakim, the son of Hezekiah, who was over the household,
Shebna the scribe, and Joab the son of Asaph, the recorder, came
to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of
the Rabshakeh. So it's a bleak situation. It's a very disheartening situation. If there was no chapter 19, man,
what a terrible situation they're certainly going to lose. It will,
in fact, require divine intervention, and God does so through the prophet
Isaiah and ultimately through the killing angel of the Lord
to bring destruction upon Assyria and to stop this threat upon
Judah. Well, in conclusion, real quick,
I don't want to go past 9. First, the presence of trial
in the midst of blessing. We've already pressed that particular
lesson. This, or the good in this life,
will usually be counterbalanced by the Assyrians. It's just the
way God's designed it. If everything always went peachy
king, we'd never think about heaven. You know what makes me
think about heaven? Teeth problems. There's no dentists
in heaven. There's no, you know, need for
such thing. I'm being cheeky. Lots of things
make me long for heaven. you know, this world, the wickedness
of it, the wretchedness, the absolute depravity that we see
all around us. I mean, you know, there's a story
that I saw in Fresno the other day. I don't even want to repeat
it. It's just that bad. It's so terrible that you wouldn't
even want to mention such a thing in, you know, this kind of a
context. And these kinds of things are happening all over the world. And I think that if it were the
case that we had no Assyrians, We'd never long for heaven. We'd
never look forward to the New Jerusalem. Brethren, that's our
hope. That's our blessed hope. That's
what we got to look forward to. We're going to have, you know,
Sennacheribs breathing down our noses seeking to seize our kingdom. But in the New Jerusalem, the
King in all his glory is there, and we're going to be in the
presence of the Lamb. Secondly, we ought to appreciate, and I
touched on this briefly, the presence of wavering in the midst
of faithfulness. Hezekiah was a faithful man who
wavered. Peter was a faithful man who
denied his master. David was a faithful man who
committed adultery and murder. Nevertheless, God speaks favorably
of these persons. Davis says, we must recognize
that 18.1-8 is a summary of Hezekiah's whole reign, just as 16.1-4 is
a summary of Ahaz's entire reign. So the trust and obedience verses
1-8 speak of are what Hezekiah came to have as a result of the
whole Assyrian threat. True verses 1 to 8 specify some
of Hezekiah's initial reforms, but primarily they're giving
an evaluation of Hezekiah's total reign, not of a particular failure. There is no conflict between
an overall trend of faith that nevertheless experiences lapses
of faith. Sometimes faith has its wobblies,
and they can be severe. It is true that people of great
courage and strong faith can crumble, and the best antidote
any believer has is realizing that faith eclipse can happen
to him or her and praying that it won't. You know, we say, how
could that ever happen? It could happen, so you ought
to pray that it doesn't happen. That's the lesson that we ought
to take from Hezekiah, from King David, and from the Apostle Peter. As well, the presence of despair
in the midst of hope. I mean, verses 36 and 37 are
terrible. But they didn't have chapter
19, but they still had Yahweh. They still had the living and
true God. Nevertheless, there is this despair. And then, of course, chapter
19 will enforce this lesson even more so. But the presence of
God in the midst of His enemies. He is going to deal with Assyria
for His people, Judah. And this demonstrates His kindness,
His mercy, His love, but His justice, His wrath, and His vengeance
against the blaspheming so-called Great King of Assyria. Well,
let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for
Your Word, and we thank You for the very relevant lessons that
we find in these Old Testament And God, I pray that you'd help
us to learn these things, help us to live by these things, help
us to understand that at times the Christian life, many, most
of the time, is a difficulty and a trial and hardship, and
there are Assyrians to contend with. Give us grace, give us
help, give us strength, give us perseverance and consistency
and faithfulness before our God. Go with us now, we pray, through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
