Isaiah 36:15

Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15, 16) Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord . . .—Rabshakeh had apparently heard from spies or deserters of Hezekiah’s speech to his people (2Chronicles 32:7-8). In contrast with what he derides as trust in a God who was against those who trusted Him, he offers tangible material advantages They have only to leave the besieged city, and to go to the Assyrian camp, and they will be allowed provisionally to occupy their own houses and till their own fields, and, instead of dying of thirst, shall have each man the waters of his own cistern; and then, not without a latent sarcasm, worse than the vœ victis which is the normal utterance of conquerors, he offers the doom of exile as if it were a change for the better, and not the worse, as though the conquered had no love of country as such, no reverence for the sepulchres of their fathers, no yearning for the Temple of their God. The taunt and the promise may, perhaps, be connected with Sennacherib’s boast that he had improved the water-supply of the cities of his empire (Records of the Past, i. 32, 9:23, 26, 28).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

36:1-22:See 2Ki 18:17-37, and the commentary thereon.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Make you trust in the Lord - Rabshakeh knew that Hezekiah was professedly devoted to Yahweh, and that he would endeavor to induce the people to trust in him. The Jews had now no other refuge but God, and as long as they put their confidence there, even Rabshakeh knew that it was hazardous to attempt to take and destroy their city. It was his policy, therefore, first to endeavor to undermine their reliance on God, before he could have any hope of success. The enemies of God's people cannot succeed in their designs against them until they can unsettle their confidence in Him.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. The foes of God's people cannot succeed against them, unless they can shake their trust in Him (compare Isa 36:10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord,.... Hezekiah trusted in the Lord himself, and he endeavoured, both by his own example, and by arguments, to persuade his people to do so likewise; of this Rabshakeh was sensible, and was more afraid of this than of any thing else, and, therefore laboured this point more than any other; see 2 Chronicles 32:6;

saying, the Lord will surely deliver us, this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria: which he might say with the greatest confidence, since the Lord had promised to defend it, Isaiah 31:5 and especially if his sickness, and recovery out of it, and promises then made to him, were before this, as some think; since it is expressly promised by the Lord, that he would deliver him and the city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, Isaiah 38:6.

Geneva Study Bible

Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. The Lord will surely deliver us] Cf. ch. Isaiah 37:35.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in Jehovah. There is nothing improbable in Rabshakeh's having thus spoken. Isaiah had long been encouraging Hezekiah to resist Sennacherib by promises of Divine aid (Isaiah 30:31; Isaiah 31:4-9). Hezekiah would naturally repeat these premises to the people, and could not give their effect in simpler words than by saying, "Jehovah will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the King of Assyria." Spies and deserters would naturally tell the Assyrian envoys what he had said. Isaiah 36:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

After Rabshakeh had refused the request of Hezekiah's representatives in this contemptuous manner, he turned in defiance of them to the people themselves. "Then Rabshakeh went near, and cried with a loud voice in the Jewish language (K. and spake), and said, Hear the words (K. the word) of the great king, the king of Asshur. Thus saith the king, Let not Hizkiyahu practise deception upon you (יסה, K. יסהיא)); for he cannot deliver you (K. out of his hand). And let not Hizkiyahu feed you with hope in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will deliver, yea, deliver us: (K. and) this city will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Asshur. Hearken not to Hizkiyahu: for thus saith the king (hammelekh, K. melekh) of Asshur, Enter into a connection of mutual good wishes with me, and come out to me: and enjoy every one his vine, and every one his fig-tree, and drink every one the water of his cistern; till I come and take you away into a land like your land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread-corn and vineyards (K. a land full of fine olive-trees and honey, and live and do not die, and hearken not to Hizkiyahu); that Hizkiyahu to not befool you (K. for he befools you), saying, Jehovah will deliver us! Have the gods of the nations delivered (K. really delivered) every one his land out of the hand of the king of Asshur? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? where the gods of Sepharvayim (K. adds, Hena‛ and ‛Ivah)? and how much less (וכי, K. כּי) have they delivered that Samaria out of my hand? Who were they among all the gods of these (K. of the) lands, who delivered their land out of my hand? how much less will Jehovah deliver Jerusalem out of my hand!? The chronicler also has this continuation of Rabshakeh's address in part (2 Chronicles 32:13-15), but he has fused into one the Assyrian self-praise uttered by Rabshakeh on his first and second mission. The encouragement of the people, by referring to the help of Jehovah (2 Chronicles 32:6-8), is placed by him before this first account is given by Isaiah, and forms a conclusion to the preparations for the contest with Asshur as there described. Rabshakeh now draws nearer to the wall, and harangues the people. השּׁיא is construed here with a dative (to excite treacherous hopes); whereas in 2 Chronicles 32:15 it is written with an accusative. The reading מיּדו is altered from מיּדי in Isaiah 36:20, which is inserted still more frequently by the chronicler. The reading את־העיר with תנּתן is incorrect; it would require ינּתן (Ges. 143, 1a). To make a berâkhâh with a person was equivalent to entering into a relation of blessing, i.e., into a state of mind in which each wished all prosperity to the other. This was probably a common phrase, though we only meet with it here. יצא, when applied to the besieged, is equivalent to surrendering (e.g., 1 Samuel 11:3). If they did that, they should remain in quiet possession and enjoyment, until the Assyrian fetched them away (after the Egyptian campaign was over), and transported them to a land which he describes to them in the most enticing terms, in order to soften down the inevitable transportation. It is a question whether the expansion of this picture in the book of Kings is original or not; since ועוּה הנע in Isaiah 36:19 appears to be also tacked on here from Isaiah 37:13 (see at this passage). On Hamath and Arpad (to the north of Haleb in northern Syria, and a different place from Arvad equals Arad), see Isaiah 10:9. Sepharvayim (a dual form, the house of the Sepharvı̄m, 2 Kings 17:31) is the Sipphara of Ptol. v. 18, 7, the southernmost city of Mesopotamia, on the left bank of the Euphrates; Pliny's Hipparenum on the Narraga, i.e., the canal, nehar malkâ, the key to the irrigating or inundating works of Babylon, which were completed afterwards by Nebuchadnezzar (Plin. h. n. vi. 30); probably the same place as the sun-city, Sippara, in which Xisuthros concealed the sacred books before the great flood (see K. Mller's Fragmenta Historicorum Gr. ii.-501-2). פּן in Isaiah 36:18 has a warning meaning (as if it followed לכם השּׁמרו ); and both וכי and כּי in Isaiah 36:19, Isaiah 36:20, introduce an exclamatory clause when following a negative interrogatory sentence: and that they should have saved," or "that Jehovah should save," equivalent to "how much less have they saved, or will He save" (Ewald, 354, c; comp. אף־כּי, 2 Chronicles 32:15). Rabshakeh's words in Isaiah 36:18-20 are the same as those in Isaiah 10:8-11. The manner in which he defies the gods of the heathen, of Samaria, and last of all of Jerusalem, corresponds to the prophecy there. It is the prophet himself who acts as historian here, and describes the fulfilment of the prophecy, though without therefore doing violence to his character as a prophet.