Words have the power to demoralize people. "The tongue has the power of life and death," as King Solomon said in Proverbs 18:21. Hezekiah's officials realize the power of the tongue and ask the field commander not to speak to them in a language that everyone in Jerusalem understands. "Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, 'Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don't speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.'" (2 Kings 18:26)
Aramaic was widely used by diplomats during the era we are studying but the average citizen did not speak or write in Aramaic. Well-educated individuals of the Near East, such as kings and their top officials, would have been able to converse in Aramaic. The field commander came to Jerusalem speaking Hebrew to Hezekiah's officials. Hezekiah's officials perhaps think the man assumed they did not speak Aramaic. They beg him to switch to Aramaic so everyone within earshot cannot understand the disheartening words he is speaking.
He refuses. "But the commander replied, 'Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the people sitting on the wall---who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?'" (2 Kings 18:27) He says something like, "Why should these people not be able to hear my words and understand what they are facing if the Assyrian army lays siege to Jerusalem? It's not just you three men and King Hezekiah who will suffer if that happens---everyone inside these walls will suffer! A long siege will deprive everyone in Jerusalem of the basic necessities. We can stop up the streams. We can prevent goods from being brought in, so that when the food inside the city runs out there will be no more coming. The people will become so thirsty and so hungry that they will begin consuming their own waste." This is a graphic, though not unlikely, scenario. We've already learned in our study of the Old Testament that people often ate their dead family members during long sieges. If a person is so hungry that they will eat their deceased loved one, it's no stretch of the imagination to think they would have already turned to eating and drinking human waste before they finally gave in and ate human flesh.
So far Hezekiah has resisted surrendering. The Assyrian field commander hopes he can instill so much fear in the people of Jerusalem that he can incite them to storm the palace, seize the king, throw him outside the city gates, and surrender the city to the Assyrian army. He shouts loudly in Hebrew toward all the people sitting on top of the city walls. "Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, 'Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when He says, 'The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.' Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your own---a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death!" (2 Kings 18:28-32a)
When Assyria first came on the scene in the pages of the Bible, we talked about how it was an Assyrian practice to forcefully remove people from conquered lands and to resettle them somewhere else. We saw the Assyrians removing all but the poorest and least educated peasants from the northern kingdom of Israel and resettling Israel with conquered people from various other nations. This was done to break people's spirits and to keep them from becoming a cohesive group powerful enough to mount a rebellion. But here the field commander tries to make forced resettlement sound like an attractive prospect. It is only an attractive prospect when his proposed alternative is considered: the deprivations of a long siege.
The man wraps up his speech by ridiculing their hope in the Lord. He compares the Lord to the gods of the nations Assyria has already conquered. To him there is no difference because he has never dealt with the living God before. "Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, 'The Lord will deliver us.' Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?" (2 Kings 18:32b-35)
"But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, 'Do not answer him.'" (2 Kings 18:36) It's no use getting into an argument with the man. For one thing: the Lord can defend Himself against these blasphemous words. For another thing: there's never a good reason to get into a dispute with the devil. The field commander is not Satan himself, of course, but Satan is behind every word of blasphemy against the Lord. Satan is behind Assyria's attempts to destroy the nation of Judah. The devil knows the Lord promised that the Messiah would come from the royal line of Judah and Satan would do anything he could to cut that line off. Hezekiah wisely cautioned everyone not to get into a dispute with the Assyrian field commander. There is nothing to be gained from arguing with him. Rather, there is much to lose, because it's true that Assyria has subdued all the cities named in the man's speech. Continuing to talk with him will only lead to him naming more cities that fell to the Assyrian army. That would serve only to weaken the people's faith.
Remember how Eve got into a discussion with Satan in the Garden of Eden? That conversation ended with her sinning against the Lord by eating the fruit she was forbidden to eat. In our own human strength we cannot hope to win a debate with a supernatural entity. It's best to stop listening and stop talking when we are faced with any sort of argument that's intended to get us to waver in our faith. We've all had people try to entice us into things we know are wrong. We've all had someone speak words to us that sound exactly like the words the devil himself would speak. The best thing to do is turn and walk away from a conversation like that. There's nothing to be gained by continuing to listen to persuasive words or by arguing the opposite viewpoint when someone is trying to entice us into sin. It's unlikely we will change their mindset, at least not in that heated moment, but there's a danger that the longer we listen to them the more their words will worm their way into our minds. Hezekiah knew what he was doing when he commanded the people not to say anything in response. Their only response should be to commit the situation to the Lord, which is also what he intends to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment