2 Kings 18:26-37

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ¹  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ²  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. ³  His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” ⁴ 

18:28 The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect, ⁵  “Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria. 18:29 This is what the king says: ‘Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you, for he is not able to rescue you from my hand! ⁶  18:30 Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the Lord when he says, “The Lord will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.” 18:31 Don’t listen to Hezekiah!’ For this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. ⁷  Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, 18:32 until I come and take you to a land just like your own – a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Then you will live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will rescue us.” 18:33 Have any of the gods of the nations actually rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria? ⁸  18:34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? ⁹  Indeed, did any gods rescue Samaria ¹⁰  from my power? ¹¹  18:35 Who among all the gods of the lands has rescued their lands from my power? So how can the Lord rescue Jerusalem from my power?’” ¹²  18:36 The people were silent and did not respond, for the king had ordered, “Don’t respond to him.”

18:37 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn ¹³  and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.

[18:26]  ¹ sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

[18:26]  ² tn Or “Hebrew.”

[18:27]  ³ tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[18:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”

[18:28]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text also has, “and he spoke and said.”

[18:29]  ⁶ tc The MT has “his hand,” but this is due to graphic confusion of vav (ו) and yod (י). The translation reads “my hand,” along with many medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, Targum, and Vulgate.

[18:31]  ⁷ tn Heb “make with me a blessing and come out to me.”

[18:33]  ⁸ tn Heb “Have the gods of the nations really rescued, each his land, from the hand of the king of Assyria?” The infinitive absolute lends emphasis to the main verb. The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course not!”

[18:34]  ⁹ tn The parallel passage in Isa 36:19 omits “Hena and Ivvah.” The rhetorical questions in v. 34a suggest the answer, “Nowhere, they seem to have disappeared in the face of Assyria’s might.”

[18:34]  ¹⁰ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[18:34]  ¹¹ tn Heb “that they rescued Samaria from my hand?” But this gives the impression that the gods of Sepharvaim were responsible for protecting Samaria, which is obviously not the case. The implied subject of the plural verb “rescued” must be the generic “gods of the nations/lands” (vv. 33, 35).

[18:35]  ¹² tn Heb “that the Lord might rescue Jerusalem from my hand?” The logic runs as follows: Since no god has ever been able to withstand the Assyrian onslaught, how can the people of Jerusalem possibly think the Lord will rescue them?

[18:37]  ¹³ sn As a sign of grief and mourning.