Isaiah 36

Isaiah 36 turns from prophecy to history. We have Rabshakeh, the spokesman for the king of Assyria (Sennacherib), coming up to the walls of Jerusalem. Assyria have just conquered all the other fortified cities in Jerusalem, so you can imagine the guard of Jerusalem being pretty much on their toes, a bit fearful. Anyway, up comes Rabshakeh to talk to the top three Israelites under the king (Hezekiah). So here we have a meeting just outside the walls of Jerusalem between a scribe, recorder, and the one ‘over the household’, and the second in command of the largest army in history up to that point.

Rabshakeh opens up the dialogue: ‘What confidence is this in which you trust? I say you speak of having plans and power for war; but they are mere words.’ (Isaiah 36:4b,5a) And from here, the three Jewish men get about as dominated as you can get in a conversation. First he tells them that their reliance on Egypt was completely stupid. ‘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.’ (Isaiah 36:6). Later on he says that if instead they trust in the LORD, then they are also doomed, for the LORD has given Jerusalem into Assyria’s hand: ‘The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.”’ (Isaiah 36:10b).

I wonder what the three Jews were thinking! Not too long before in Isaiah, it had been prophesied that Assyria would cause Jerusalem great harm, and that they would be God’s instruments in doing so. The three obviously knew this and were afraid, because they asked Rabshakeh to speak in a different language so that they could understand but no-one on the wall could!

So what does Rabshakeh do? ‘Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Hebrew, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!”’(Isaiah 36:13) Rabshakeh lets everyone who is around know what he wants them to hear. This is all a part of his plan you see…to strike fear into their hearts. He may or may not have known the ‘truth’ of his words concerning God calling him against Jerusalem, but in any case, he wasn’t doing it for any right reason.

And so, after striking fear into as many hearts as possible, his ‘deal’ comes out. ‘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;’ (Isaiah 36:16) He wants them to make peace with Assyria. Become Assyria’s servants. He entices them with the prospect of ‘freedom’, but this is a false freedom, as the next verse shows:

‘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.’ (Isaiah 36:17) So really, they were only ‘free’ for a while, until they would be taken captive to Assyria. By now, he is sure that the people will be ‘dying’ to agree with him, so he tries some more outright ‘persuasion’.

‘Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us.”’ (Isaiah 36:18) So now it is Hezekiah who is really the deceiving king, keeping them in danger when they could have peace!
You see how the manipulation was put forward? Fear, then a ‘better deal’, then turning the tide around from being the deceiver to being the one who points out ‘truth’.

Do we not face much the same in our own lives? The world tells us that maybe we’re not really right with God, so we’re a bit silly to try any more, so why not give it up and just have fun, and really then, isn’t it God who is telling us lies, keeping us from having fun? The world entices us all the time, trying to make us less effective. Dulling our keenness for God. Making it all seem too hard.

Let us heed Hezekiah’s instruction: ‘the King’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.” (Isaiah 36:21b) Keep away from the world. Whatever it says to us is lies. Whatever it entices us with is false. It really only has slavery. It may have a form of ‘freedom’ but in the end it is more slavery than our own choice of bondservant for Jesus.