Isaiah 36

Wesley: he sends Rabshakeh, who by his blasphemous persuasions tempts Hezekiah to despair, and the people to revolt.

The officials ask Rabshakeh to speak Aramaic, the diplomatic language, so the people on the wall won’t understand. They fear the effect of his words on morale.

Calvin: this circumstance again shews how deeply Hezekiah was depressed, when by his ambassador he entreats so humbly the servant of his enemy. They request that he will not speak in this manner in the presence of the people; because it is difficult to restrain a people naturally giddy and fickle. These ambassadors therefore gain nothing from Rabshakeh; when he is entreated, he grows worse.

Wesley: to the men—to tell them to what extremities and miseries he will force them.

The crude threat is aimed at the soldiers on the wall: the siege will reduce them to eating their own waste. Rabshakeh wants the people to feel hopeless before a battle is fought.

Calvin: hence we see the fierceness and insolence of the enemy. Rabshakeh was not sent for the purpose of offering any conditions of peace, but rather to obtain an unconditional surrender, and to strike the people with alarm; that they will perish through hunger, and will be compelled to eat and drink what is revolting.

Wesley: Jews language—the tradition of the Jews is, that Rabshaketh was an apostate Jew. If so, his ignorance of the God of Israel was the less excusable, and his enmity the less strange: for apostates are usually the most bitter and spiteful enemies.

Rabshakeh shifts to Hebrew so the people on the wall will hear. Wesley mentions the tradition that he was an apostate Jew, which would make his blasphemy all the less excusable.

Calvin: it was, indeed, exceedingly shocking that the holy language, which had been consecrated to the mysteries of heavenly wisdom, was profaned and prostituted to wicked blasphemies. No enemies are more destructive than those who speak the same language as ourselves. When the Prophet says that he stood, he expresses the fierceness and insolence of the wicked man.

The appeal goes over the king’s head to the people: don’t let Hezekiah deceive you. It is an attempt to divide the city from its king before a single arrow is shot.

Calvin: while he claims for his master the name of king, he speaks of Hezekiah as a private individual, without adding any title. He goes on to utter impudent calumnies against him, and at the same time vomits out his venom against God himself; for he calls it imposture and deception for Hezekiah to rely on his favor. Rabshakeh’s assertion, that they cannot be delivered by the hand of Hezekiah, is indeed true, unless God assist.

Wesley: he sends Rabshakeh, who by his blasphemous persuasions tempts Hezekiah to despair, and the people to revolt.

The enemy’s target is trust in the LORD. Rabshakeh cannot breach the wall, so he aims at the confidence behind it.

Calvin: he quotes the exhortation by which Hezekiah encouraged the people, and speaks lightly of it as an idle and unfounded speech. Wicked men, though they assert the power of God, treat it with contempt. We must adhere firmly to the promises, that, hoping against hope, we may trust in God, and not suffer ourselves to be drawn away from him by any allurements.

Wesley: a present—upon which terms, I will give you no disturbance; but quietly suffer each of you to enjoy his own possession.

The offer sounds generous—vine, fig tree, and cistern—but it is terms of surrender. Wesley reads it as a promise of quiet on condition that they abandon their king.

Calvin: while he labors to turn away the hearts of the people from Hezekiah, he at the same time invites them to pleasures, that they may forget God. To make a blessing is to conduct themselves in a friendly manner. He makes use of the word blessing as a cloak to that bondage which was in itself hateful. To revolt from a pious king, whom God had appointed, and who was a type of Christ, was more wretched and miserable than anything else that could befall them.

Calvin will not let the “blessing” pass as peace.

Wesley (on v. 16): upon which terms, I will give you no disturbance; but quietly suffer each of you to enjoy his own possession.

The fine print follows: deportation to “a land like your own.” Assyria’s peace means exile.

Calvin: he now adds another condition far harder than the former; for he declares that peace cannot be made with Sennacherib in any other way than by the people going into banishment. This was nothing else than to abandon the worship of God and degenerate into superstition, and voluntarily to quit the inheritance which God had given them. He says that the country is equally fertile and productive; yet he cunningly passes by what ought above all other things to be valued by them, the worship of God, the temple, the kingdom.

Wesley: is not—thus boldly he speaks of the things which he understood not, judging of the great God, by their petty gods.

The argument from history—no other god saved its land—assumes the LORD is one god among many. Wesley calls it boldness about things Rabshakeh did not understand.

Calvin: formerly he boasted that he was God’s servant, and that God had sent him to destroy Judea; but now he openly insults God himself. The wicked Rabshakeh bursts forth with greater violence, and boasts that he will gain the victory over God himself. Have any of the gods of the nations rescued their land? He does not hesitate to compare himself to the living God.

Calvin will not let “the LORD will deliver us” be weighed with idols.

Hamath, Arpad, and Sepharvaim had all fallen, and so had Samaria. The list is meant to frighten, but it ranks the living God with idols.

Calvin: he mentions chiefly the neighboring cities, the destruction of which might affect them more deeply on account of their being better known to the Jews. I have no doubt that these places belonged to Syria and Israel; as if he had said, Look at these two kingdoms subdued, which were presided over by their gods as their guardians. Will your God resist me?

Wesley (on v. 18): thus boldly he speaks of the things which he understood not, judging of the great God, by their petty gods.

Rabshakeh’s final question sets the LORD among the gods of conquered nations. That comparison is exactly what God will answer in chapter 37.

Calvin: this insolence of ungodly men arises from their not understanding that God punishes the sins of men when they suffer any adversity. They venture to make a comparison between them and God himself. It is our duty to acknowledge that God inflicts punishment by the hand of wicked men, who may be regarded as the instruments of God’s anger. If wicked men are more powerful, let us not think that the arm of God is broken.

Calvin refuses to let “the LORD should deliver Jerusalem” pass as one more idol.

Wesley: he sends Rabshakeh, who by his blasphemous persuasions tempts Hezekiah to despair, and the people to revolt.

The people obey Hezekiah’s order and say nothing. Silence refuses to argue with blasphemy on its own terms.

Calvin: ambassadors were sent to soothe the enemy; when they are unsuccessful they are enjoined to be silent, that they might not provoke that savage beast. It rather refers to those who guarded the walls, who, though they were sharply piqued by the taunts of the enemy, yet were not provoked to quarrels, because they obeyed the king’s command. It is no despicable courage, even when we have it not in our power to utter a syllable, still not to shrink or flinch, but to remain quietly in our place.

The officials follow Hezekiah’s order not to answer (v. 21) and bring the report home with torn clothes. Grief, not argument, is the fitting response to blasphemy.

Calvin: we now see that Eliakim and the other ambassadors were not silent as if they either approved of the impiety of Rabshakeh, or through dread of danger connived at such blasphemies; for they tear their garments. I except Shebna, who was destitute of piety, and was only driven by shame to assume the dress of mourning along with others as a matter of form.

Calvin does not let the three look like one piety.