Isaiah 37: 8-13. “So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard he was departed from Lachish. And he heard say concerning Tirhakah, king or Ethiopia, He is come forth to make war with thee. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah saying, Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God, in Whom thou trustest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly: and shall thou be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Goran, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telasar? Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arphad,and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?”
Sennacherib, King of Assyria, was facing battle on more than one front. Libnah and Ethiopia were rising against him, and Rabshakeh was rattling his sabers against Judah and King Hezekiah.
Rabshakeh bragged about the success of the Assyrian kings, who had destroyed so many cities and grown the Assyrian empire. He pointed out that the gods of the defeated nations hadn’t done them any good, and neither would the God of Israel, for who could stand against the might of Assyria and her great king?
I am fairly certain that in spite of Isaiah’s promise that God was going to deliver Jerusalem, the leaders and the people inside the walls were feeling more than uneasy. The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and their barbarian treatment of those they defeated.
Tense times inside the city walls.
Linda's Bible Study 