The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 333

should be consulted with. The envoy, howeTer, insoJ04tJy broke through all customary bounds, and declared that i~ :was the common people he wished .ro address, 'l'aking up, therefore, a yet ~tte~ pos1hon, he now spoke directly, and m louder tones, to the peopl~, who by this time may be eupptlSed to have crowded the battlements. Again declanng that he hears a m~ssage from "the great king, the King of Assyria," he bid11 ~hem not let Hezeki~h de~eive them, and urges: 1. The advantages ef submission. .A1 1t was, they were in evil case. But if they surrendered to Sennacherib, they had nothin~ to fear. _He:e Rabshakeh touches on delicate ground. He cannot deny that !hey will lose the!r hbertY:, and be transported as captives to Assyria. All he can do 1s to attempt to gild the pill. He tells them, first, that in the mean time they will be allowed t~e utmost freedom-to eat every man of his own vino and of his own fig tree, an<l. to dnnk every man the waters of his own cistern. When the time docs come that they must be removed-and he tries to represent this as a privilege-it will be to a land like their own, a land of corn and wine, of bread and vineyards, of oil and olives and honey; a land where they shall live, and not die. 'l'he promises were alluring only by contrast with the worse fate that awaited them if they did not submit to the Assyrian; but more than this, they were deceitful. They were promises which, if the people had trustrd to them, would never have been fulfilled. Sennacherib was not in the habit of treating his captives tenderly. His good faith had just been tested by his perfidy towards Hezekiah. Is it not always so with the promises of the tempter? When a soul capitulates, and yields to sin, what becomes of the bright prospects that Rre opened up beforehand? Are they ever realized? There is a brief period of excitement, of giddy delight, then satiety, loathing, the sense of degradation, the dying out of all real joy. ,vhat, if by yielding to sin, some present evil be avoided, some immediate good gainetl? Is the good ever what was anticipated? or can it compensate for the exile from God and holiness which is its price? At all hazards the wise course is to adhere to God and duty. The visions of corn and wine, of bread and vineyards, of oil and olives, by which the soul is tempted from its allegiance, a.re illusions-as unsubstantial as the desert mirage. 2. The futility of resistance. To enforce his argument for submission, Rabshakeh returns to what is undeniably his strongest point, viz. the futility of rti:istance. Can they hope to be delivered? He had argued this before from the side of Hezekia.h's weakness, showing the baselessness of his grounds of confidence; be now argues it from the side of Sennacherib's strength. Here undoubtedly he has a. plausible case. (1) From the military point of view. "Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand." Since the days of Tiglath-pileser the Assyrian arms bad swept on in a tide of almost uninterrupted conquest. Not only Hamath and Arpad and Sepharva.im, but Ba.byli;>n, Damascus, Israel, Philistia, and Egypt, had felt the force of their resistless might. Judah had alr~ady severely suffered. What hope had Hellekiah, with his little handful of men, caged like a bird in Jerusalem, of rolling back this tide of conquest I The thing, on natural grounds, seemed a.n impossibility. (2) From a religious point of view. ".:\'either let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, 'l'he Lord will surely deliver llli." Here the position of the Assyrian conqueror seemed-from the heathen ~tandpoint, but of course only from tha.t--eqlll\lly strong. In heathen view, the contest was not only a. contest of man with man, but of Asshur and the other Assyrian gods, with the gods of other nations. And how had that contest gone? The gods of Assyria had in every case proved the stronger in the battle. Wher~ were t_he gods of the conquered nations? What had they been able to do for theu worshippers? What had even Jehovah been able to do for Samaria? Who among them all had delivered their country out of the hand of Sennacherib? What hope was there that Jerusalem would fare any better than Samaria had done? The validity of this conclusion depends entirely upon the S'1undness of the premises. If the gods of these nations had a real ex.isteDce, and Jehovah was but one more local deity among the rest, it would be difficult to resist the inference that the chances were strongly in favuur of Asshur. But the case was altered if these idol-gods were nullities, anJ Jehovah was the ono Ruler of heaven and earth, in whose providence the movements even of Sennacherib and his all-conquering armies were embraced. And this, of course, was the faith of ha.iah and Hezekiah and the godly pa.rt of Judah. 'fhat it was the right one was lhown by the result. We see from tl.ii.e examIJle how a false view-point compels a false OH, XIX. 1-37,] THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. 381