Isaiah 36:18

Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The LORD will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) Hath any of the gods of the nations . . .—The Rabshakeh speaks in the natural language of polytheism. The Jehovah of Israel was one of gods many and lords many, a simple national deity; but Asshur and Ishtar, the gods of Assyria, were supreme above them all (Records of the Past, i. 25, 33).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Hath any of the gods of the nations ... - This is said to show them the impossibility, as he supposed, of being delivered from the arm of the king of Assyria. He had conquered all before him, and not even the gods of the nations had been able to rescue the lands where they were worshipped from the hands of the victorious invader. He inferred, therefore, that Yahweh, the God of Palestine, could not save their land.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. agreement … by … present—rather, "make peace with me"; literally, "blessing" so called from the mutual congratulations attending the ratification of peace. So Chaldee. Or else, "Do homage to me" [Horsley].

come out—surrender to me; then you may remain in quiet possession of your lands till my return from Egypt, when I will lead you away to a land fruitful as your own. Rab-shakeh tries to soften, in the eyes of the Jews, the well-known Assyrian policy of weakening the vanquished by deporting them to other lands (Ge 47:21; 2Ki 17:6).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you,.... To trust in the Lord, stand up in your own defence and not listen to these proposals; or, lest he "deceive you" (m); with vain words; whom he would represent not only as not being their lawful king, and therefore never gives him that title, but also as a deceiver and impostor, of whom they should be cautious, and guard against:

saying, the Lord will deliver us; and therefore need not fear the boasts and threats, the force and fury, of the enemy:

hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land; over whom he presided, and to whom the people of it were devotees:

out of the hand of the king of Assyria? this reasoning would have had some weight in it had the Lord God of Israel been like the gods of the nations, but he is not; he is the Former and Maker of all things, and sits in the heavens, and does whatsoever he pleases in heaven and in earth; and therefore, though they could not deliver their nations that worshipped them, it did not follow that the God of Israel could not deliver Hezekiah and his people.

(m) "ne forte decipiat vos", Calvin, Vatablus; "ne seducat vos", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Geneva Study Bible

Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, the LORD will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18–20. The long record of Assyrian conquest shews the folly of Hezekiah’s trust in Divine power. Cf. ch. Isaiah 10:9-11.

persuade] Rather, beguile.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you; rather, seduce you (comp. Deuteronomy 13:6; 1 Kings 21:25). Sennacherib claims to be entitled to the people's allegiance, and represents Hezekiah as a rebel, who seeks to draw them away from their duty. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land? The successes of the Assyrians, and the religious character of their wars, justified this boast. The pervading idea of the inscriptions is that wars arc undertaken for the glory of the Assyrian deities, particularly of Asshur, for the chastisement of his enemies, and with the object of establishing in each country, as it is brought under subjection, the laws and worship of Asshur (see 'Ancient Monarchies,' vol. 2. pp. 322-324 and 531). The nations fight under the protection of their own gods, and thus each war is a struggle between the Assyrian deities and those of the nation with which they arc contending. Hitherto, undoubtedly, Assyria had met with almost uniform success (see Isaiah 10:5-14). Isaiah 36:18

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.