Do Not Answer

King Hezekiah had made up his mind to be a godly king and to follow the LORD, but he was living in perilous times. Sennacherib had come and plundered the land as the Assyrian Empire grew larger. He slaughtered Lachish and sat on his throne there. And his next move was to take Jerusalem. Judah was a small kingdom compared to the many other nations already subdued by Assyria. Aram, Hamath, the Philistines, even Israel were all larger, more powerful, and had far more people to gather an army from before they fell. And they all did fall one by one as the meat grinder of the Assyrian Empire rolled over them.

Sennacherib had his eyes on a greater prize - Egypt - so he sent a few of his officers and a large army to Jerusalem with a message. Tartan, Rab-Saris, and Rabshakeh came up to Jerusalem and stood by the upper pool on the highway to the fuller’s field. They called out to the king of Judah, who sent out his own emissaries, Eliakim, Shebnah, and Joah. Hezekiah’s chief of staff, scribe, and recorder came out to meet with Sennacherib’s chief officers.  Rabshekah began to speak loud enough for all in Jerusalem to hear, and he spoke in Judean. 

‘What is this confidence you have? You say you have counsel and strength for war, but these are empty words. On whom do you rely, that you have rebelled against me? Do you rely on Egypt? Pharoah king of Egypt cannot help you. If you say, ‘We trust in the LORD our God’, is it not His altars which Hezekiah has removed and declared all must worship Him in Jerusalem only?  Come, align with my master and I will give you 2000 horses, if you are able to set riders on them. How then can you repulse one official of the least of my master’s servants, and rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? Have I now come up without the LORD’s approval against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’’

Eliakim requested that the conversation continue in Aramaic, not Judean, so that the people hanging out on the wall of Jerusalem overseeing this meeting could not hear what was being said. But the words of Rabshekah were not meant for Hezekiah’s officials alone, he wanted everyone to listen to what he said at the behest of the king of Assyria. He continued, but this time even louder, ‘Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who are doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?’ This was a preview of what was to come if Jerusalem did not surrender - an all out siege against that city until it fell and everyone in it died.

 ’Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from my hand; nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria, ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his vine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the waters of his own cistern, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live and not die.’ Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath, Arpad, Shepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’

The message was heard loud and clear, but no one answered him a word, for King Hezekiah had commanded that no one say anything. As Rabshekah stood there gloating and inviting a response, all he heard was silence. Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah turned around and returned to King Hezekiah with their clothes torn in grief. They shared with him the message of Sennacherib. And King Hezekiah knew that this testing of his faith in the LORD was not an idle threat. In response, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and entered the Temple of the LORD to seek the God who hears and answers prayer. For his part, Hezekiah would seek the LORD for mercy and help.

It is easy to say that we will trust the LORD when things are going great, but it is what we do when things are not going so well that matters most. Will we actually seek the LORD and wait before Him for wisdom and direction? Or will we attempt to take matters into our own hands and trust in our own strength? Hezekiah had no strength and had a small army. It would not take much to make Jerusalem fall, and the words of Rabshekah struck into the hearts of his men. Mankind is fickle, seeking the easy way out at all times, especially when certain death is on the line. He knew he could not trust them to deliver him. There was only One who can deliver and to Him Hezekiah turned.