Isaiah 36:7-10 (ESV)
But if you say to me, “We trust in the LORD our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”? Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”
The King of Assyria sent his envoy to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The envoy’s title was Rabshakeh. The Rabshakeh had full authority from the King of Assyria. He came to warn Hezekiah, and the rest of those living in Jerusalem, to surrender to Assyria. If they did, the Rabshakeh promised them a great life back in Assyria. That was not true, but such was his verbal ploy to get them to surrender. To make his point of how powerful Assyria was, as compared to Hezekiah’s army, he makes the above claim and wager. This is where we see a great lesson from our text. The non-believing world has no concept of who and what God is about. They sound foolish when they talk about it as if they do. The world compares Yahweh and His Son, Jesus Christ, to every other god that man has manufactured in their minds. They have no sense of the power of God or His sovereign will over mankind. The Pharaoh of Egypt did this same thing when Moses showed up to deliver the people from Egypt’s slavery.
Notice what does happen to this Rabshakeh after his foolish talk:
Isaiah 37:5-7 (ESV)
When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”
God doesn’t even use a fact based argument to drive him back home. God uses a rumor. Notice what happens to the King of Assyria as a result of all this foolish pride:
Isaiah 37:36-38 (ESV)
And the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
The world can doubt our God’s power, promises and plans. But He is the God of the universe and will not be mocked by any form of a Rabshakeh. Don’t doubt His power!!
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