2 Kings 18:35-37
“Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?” But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, “Do not answer him.” Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.
2 Corinthians 11:12-15
The Apostle Paul wrote, “What I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So, it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
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In the days of King Ahaz, at the crucial moment in his reign, when the enemies were pressing in, and the survival of the nation seemed the bleakest, the prophet Isaiah came to the king “at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field” (Isa. 7:3) and said, to effect, “In whom do you trust?” Ahaz failed the test.
Fast forward to the reign of the son of Ahaz, King Hezekiah. Once again, another tense, pivotal moment in the life of Judah, where we are once again “by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer's Field” (2 Kings 18:17). This time, the moment is overshadowed by an imminent invasion from the mighty Assyrian army of Sennacherib. (Just as tense as before, but this time, Hezekiah would pass the test!)
A delegation of three court officials arrive— Tartan, the military commander, the Rab-saris, one of the chief officials, and a man known as the Rabshakeh, who serves as the royal spokesman. 2 Kings 18:18 says, “they called for the king, and there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.” And there by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field, the Rabshakeh began to preach.
I must say, this Rabshakeh reminds me of a character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” That would be Grima Wormtongue, the toxic advisor to King Théoden of Rohan. Wormtongue was a master manipulator who possessed a sharp intellect and a silver tongue— and he used his cunning to deceive and gain power. This character personified one of Rudyard Kipling’s most famous quotes: “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind… Not only do words infect, egotize, narcotize, and paralyze, but they enter into and color the minutest cells of the brain.”
In two masterful speeches— among the longest in the Old Testament— in 18:19-27 and 18:28-36, the Wormtongue Rabshakeh poses the BIG question: “Who do you trust?” He denigrates the potential “saviors”: Egypt has never been trustworthy, your own military might is weak, and your God is no match for the Emperor. And he adds with relish, Hezekiah, by destroying the local worship high places throughout Israel has even “harmed your God in order to serve his own political or egotistical aspirations.” “Moreover,” and this is the most amazing claim from the Rabshakeh, “is it without the LORD that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.” (2 Ki. 18:25). Astounding! God, says he, is sending Assyria to punish Judah.
As a closing argument, he hijacks familiar language from the original entry into the Promised Land under Joshua. Like the serpent in the Garden, he sings, “Each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’”
True words topsy-turvy. Isaiah’s words diagnose here: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5:20).
I had never given this Assyrian “Grima Wormtongue” much thought before this week, but in my prep reading, I came across an insight into the significance of this notorious Bible villain. After the Rabshakeh’s two “sermons,” 2 Kings 18:37 observes that Hezekiah’s three men came to the king “with their clothes torn.” This seems a mere descriptive detail, but it’s revelatory. In a section of the Babylonian Talmud dealing with Jewish law (Sanhedrin 60a), it references this episode. It reads, “Hezekiah’s men tear their clothes in response to Rabshakeh’s flagrant blasphemy [because the] Rabshakeh is a Jewish apostate[!]” And then this: “He who hears the divine name blasphemed by a gentile need not rend his clothes.” If the Rabshakeh was just an average Assyrian gentile, there would have been no need of the heart and fabric rending. So as the three men rend, as the king too ends up rending, the conclusion is inescapable: the Rabshakeh was a Jewish Benedict Arnold. Imagine it put this way: A Jew threatening a Jew with bad theology!
It makes sense, the Rabshakeh’s fluency in Hebrew is seemingly flawless, and he displays an intimate knowledge of Hezekiah’s abolition of the high places (local worship sites), and the sense conveyed is that “his vicious vilification of king and God indicate a person alienated from, and filled with antipathy for, his origins.” (Quotes and insight from Alex Israel, II Kings: In a Whirlwind, Maggid, 2019, pp.294-95).
Reading his polished and religiously informed but toxic words, it is quite a testimony that Hezekiah’s men, and the king himself, kept their trust in the One, true God. Even as the Rabshakeh spoke with theological familiarity, the godly Hezekiah discerned a counterfeit. Therefore, the prophet Isaiah declared God was still God, and the king got down on his knees to pray. That’s what Judahite kings, as stewards of all things God, are supposed to do.
I am mindful of the Rabshakeh charade that plays out, even in our own day in the Church. The Bible is the most abused and mis-applied book in the history of book-dom. The apostle Paul warned of such mis-direction in his letter to the Church in Corinth when he called out the Rabshakehs of his day. Of the false prophets in Corinth, he wrote, “such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So, it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.”
I’m convinced Hezekiah was able to remain faithful under very great duress due to his heart-depth knowledge and devotion to God’s Law and Word. Forgive my banality here, but he knew what he believed, and why he believed it. Subsequently, God validated Hezekiah’s faith: fearsome Assyria scattered, and Jerusalem remained secure.
I do not want to overstate or oversimplify here, but I will cautiously (but joyously) venture this concluding thought: The fruit of your study of, and meditation on God’s Word, will anchor your soul when the winds of the Rabshakeh blow. Because blow they will.
Inset Picture: “When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer's Field. And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder. And the Rabshakeh said to them, say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours?’” (2 Kings 18:17-19)
