CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
2 Kings 18:13. In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah did Sennacherib, &c.—Comp. Isaiah 36. This mighty Assyrian was with his vast army on his way to war with his hated and dreaded rival, Egypt. Judah lay in the line of his march, and its conquest was essential to his safe advance to Egypt. Hezekiah trembled as this terrible foe swept down upon the land; and being without support from Egypt, he purchased temporary respite by a heavy tribute valuing £351,000, to raise which he had to empty the palace, and even strip the gold from the temple (2 Kings 18:16).
2 Kings 18:14. The king of Assyria to Lachish—A strongly fortified town south-west of Jerusalem on the way to Egypt. One of the Assyrian bas-reliefs recently discovered represents the seige of a town; shows the figure of an Assyrian king conducting it, and a string of captives whose physiognomy is unmistakably Jewish. Over the head of the king runs this inscription: “Sennacherib, the mighty king, king of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throns of judgment before the city of Lachish: I give permission for its slaughter.”
2 Kings 18:17. Tartan and Rabsaris … against Jerusalem—Sennacherib himself marched forward against Egypt, where he found himself engaged in a three years’ campaign, ending in defeat. Tartan was general; Rabsaris, chief of the eunuchs; Rab-shakeh, chief cup-bearer. The general’s insolent message to Hezekiah was met with the silence (2 Kings 18:36) which the king had imposed on his delegates (2 Kings 18:18). and which the people also maintained. This avoided provocation to the Assyrian general. The am bassadors, grieved at the menacing and insulting language to their king, and the blasphemies against Jehovah to which they had listened, returned to Hezekiah covered with the signs of humiliation and mourning.—W. H. J.
HOMILETICS OF 2 Kings 18:13-37
A BOASTFUL AND ARROGANT SPIRIT
I. Is the offspring of military success (2 Kings 18:13-16). The Assyrian king invaded Judah, captured the fenced cities, compelled Hezekiah to pay a heavy tribute, and now his victorious legions surrounded Jerusalem and threatened it with immediate destruction. Flushed with success and with unlimited confidence in the power of their arms, the captains of the great king indulge in a spirit of proud vaunting. It is the tendency of all military success—especially as war was carried on in those days—to inspire an arrogant and self-confident spirit. Few men know how to behave themselves in the moment of victory. Some soldiers are so elated with triumph, that their bounce and vanity are intolerable. It is forgotten that, in the changing fortunes of warfare, the winners of the fight to-day may be the vanquished of to-morrow.
II. Is plausible in speech and lavish in promises (2 Kings 18:17-32). There is a sort of cleverness in this speech of Rabshakeh’s—the cleverness of craft and guile and flattery. He rallies Hezekiah on his trust in Egypt and in Jehovah, as though they were one and the same in the Assyrian estimation. He promises 2,000 horses if the Jews will come out and fight, though by their inability to find a sufficient number of horsemen he thus shows off the superiority of his attacking forces. He claims to have the authority of Jehovah for his enterprise, and, turning to the people who crowded the city walls, he entices them to submission by promises of peace and plenty. A boastful and arrogant spirit has endless inflexibility; it can adapt itself to anything to gain a purpose. It can hide the most sinister designs under a mask of bewitching plausibility, like certain birds which imitate in their attitudes the forms of the grasses and flowers where they watch for their prey.
III. Hesitates not to insult and defy the only true God (2 Kings 18:33-35). Rabshakeh boasts that none of the gods of the vanquished nations have been able to deliver their worshippers from the invincible power of the Assyrian arms; and in insulting and defiant terms he charges Jehovah with similar helplessness. But ah! Rabshakeh, thou dost not know the God of the Jews, or thou wouldst not so speak. Thou art carried away with the bombast of pride; and thy mind shaded with the dark screen of idolatrous ideas, thou canst not conceive the superlative greatness and grandeur of Jehovah. Ere long thou shalt be startled with His presence and awed with the ghastly evidences of His desolating power.
IV. Is best treated with dignified silence (2 Kings 18:36). Silence is what a proud man least can bear. It irritates and annoys him. He does not know whether you are laughing at him or are afraid of him. And yet what better answer than silence can we give to the threats and coaxings of the arrogant? Euripides was wont to say silence was an answer to a wise man; but we seem to have greater occasion for it in our dealing with fools and unreasonable persons; for men of breeding and sense will be satisfied with reason and fair words.
LESSONS:—
1. Few men can bear with becoming modesty and dignity the power which success brings.
2. The flatteries and promises of a boastful man are unworthy of credence.
3. Neither threats nor flatteries should seduce us from our trust in Jehovah.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2 Kings 18:13-16. Submission.
1. Distasteful to a liberty-loving king.
2. Inevitable in the face of superior force.
3. May prevent or postpone more serious consequences.
4. Often a heavy drain on national resources.
—The gold of faith can only be made to appear through the fires of adversity. If thy faith is not a mere notion, or opinion, or feeling, or sensation, then it will not diminish in time of trial, but grow and become stronger and purer. Whence should we have had David’s Psalms, if he had not been tried?
2 Kings 18:14-16. Hezekiah held it good policy to make his enemy a golden bridge to go over: so to be rid of him. If Ahaz, that church-robber, had done this, it would better have become him. Hezekiah, for doing it, lost his cost (2 Kings 18:17).—Trapp.
2 Kings 18:17-37. Diplomatic rhetoric.
1. Is a dangerous weapon in the hands of an unscrupulous orator.
2. Is often a specious mixture of truth and falsehood.
3. Seeks to weaken allegiance by flattering promises.
4. Awakens grave anxiety with its tone of confidence and power.
5. Sometimes best answered with dignified silence.
2 Kings 18:17-35. Rabshakeh, the wolf in sheep’s clothing.—I. He appears to warn against Egypt as a power which neither can nor will help, just as Isaiah himself does, while he himself comes to destroy and devour (Matthew 7:15; Matthew 1 John 4:1). II. He represents what had been ordained by Hezekiah, according to the law of the Lord and for His honour, as a sin and a breach of religion, while he himself cared nothing whatever for the law of the Lord or the true and right worship. Beware of those who represent as weakness and folly that which is Divine wisdom and strength. III. He claims that the Lord is with him, and has commanded to do what he is doing, whereas, in fact, he is only the rod of God’s wrath, the staff of His anger, a “hired razor”; and ambition, lust for gold and land, desire for glory and plunder, are his only motives (Matthew 7:22). Be not deceived by the prosperity and the victory of the godless. They are like chaff which the wind scatters, and their way disappears.—Lange.
2 Kings 18:17. O lamentable and in sight desperate condition of distressed Jerusalem! Wealth it had none; strength it had but a little; all the country around about was subdued to the Assyrian; that proud victor has begirt the walls of it with an innumerable army, scorning that such a shovelful of earth should stand out but one day. Poor Jerusalem stands alone, blocked up with a world of enemies, helpless, friendless, comfortless, looking for the worst of a hostile fury, when Tartan and Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh, the great captains of the Assyrians, call to a parley. Lord! what insolent blasphemies does that foul mouth of Rabshakeh belch out against the living God, against His anointed servant!—Bp. Hall.
—We can never rely upon the fidelity of a man who is simply bought with money. Want of courage in one’s self invites an enemy to arrogance. The more humbly one approaches an enemy, the more insolent he becomes. Peace and quiet which are bought with money have no duration.—Lange.
2 Kings 18:21. A false friend compared to the reed of an Egyptian bulrush.
1. Because though it appears outwardly strong, it is brittle and hollow.
2. Because it fails when we most depend upon it.
3. Because it injures us when we expected it would help us.
2 Kings 18:30. “The Lord will deliver us.” I. A noble saying in the mouth of a king speaking to his people. He thereby admits that his own power is insufficient and vain. He leads his people in that faith which is a confidence in what is hoped for, and which admits no doubt of what is not seen. How well it would be for all princes, and people if they had such faith. II. In this saying, all the hope of the Christian life is expressed. With God we overcome the world, for the Lord will at length deliver us from all evil, and bring us to His heavenly kingdom. The blasphemer and boaster wanted to remove these words of the king from the heart of the people, because he knew he should then have won. Now-a-days, also, these words are laughed at and scorned. Let them not be torn from your heart!—Lange.
2 Kings 18:36. Silence.
1. Is the wisest answer to provocation and threatening.
2. Increases the perplexity of a proud and cruel aggressor.
3. Implies confidence in the help which has been so grossly maligned.
—They punished him with silence, as Isaac did Ishmael. Silence is the best answer to words of scorn and petulency. It is best to stop an open mouth with saying nothing. Princes used to punish the indecencies of ambassadors by denying them audience. Rabshakeh could not be more spited than with no answer. This sulphurous flask therefore died in his own smoke, only leaving a hateful stench behind it.—Trapp.