But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
But Rab-shakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master? ... His object was to stir and terrify the populace into immediate submission, and with that view, turning to the crowd which was congregated on the walls, he represented to them, by coarse, but graphic terms, in their own Hebrew tongue, the extreme privations to which, in spite of the delusive assurances of Hezekiah, they would inevitably be reduced by Sennacherib during a protracted siege (2 Chronicles 32:11). The result is mentioned as if it had been the purpose and design of the siege.