1. And it happened in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. The prose narrative that begins here and runs to the end of chapter 39 replicates 2 Kings 18:13 through 2 Kings 20:19 with, for the most part, only minor textual differences and one added unit, 38:9–20. Although some scholars have argued that the Book of Isaiah is the primary source, copied by the editors of Kings, the reverse seems more likely. One indication that the Isaiah text is secondary is that at quite a few points it slightly abbreviates the text in Kings, dropping out a word, phrase, or even a clause that was not deemed strictly necessary. The editorial decision to insert this narrative segment here at the end of the prophecies of Isaiah son of Amoz (however much these include later writings) was evidently motivated by a desire to round out the prophecies with some detailed historical context. The fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign is 701 B.C.E. Sennacharib’s campaign in Phoenicia, Philistia, and Judah in that year is elaborately documented in Assyrian annals and bas-reliefs.

all the fortified towns of Judah. According to the Assyrian annals, the imperial forces captured forty-six Judean towns—which may be an imperial exaggeration. The principal one was Lachish, where Sennacharib is headquartered in the next verse. The Assyrians left a vivid bas-relief of their archers, in characteristic high-pointed caps, assaulting this town.

2. Rabshakeh. Although this word is presented in the Hebrew text without a definite article, as though it were a proper name, it is actually a title, “head steward.” In Kings, this figure is accompanied by two other Assyrian court officials who also have titles as names.

3. who was appointed over the house. That is, the palace.

6. this shattered reed. Reeds, of course, grow in abundance along the Nile.

which when a man leans on it, enters his palm and pierces it. The metaphor is quite realistic. The reed looks as if it could provide support, but it easily breaks when you lean on it, and the jagged ends of the beak can pierce the skin. Rabshakeh’s words neatly jibe with Isaiah’s political opposition to an alliance with Egypt.

8. I shall give you two thousand horses if you can give yourself riders for them. Hezekiah’s attempted rebellion is so hopelessly pathetic, Rabshakeh says, that he could not even muster sufficient cavalrymen were he given the horses.

9. agent. The Hebrew aptly uses an Assyrian imperial administrative title, paḥat (compare the English “pasha,” which has a shared linguistic background).

11. Speak, pray, to your servants Aramaic. Aramaic was the most widely shared language in the lands of the Assyrian empire east of the Jordan, and so by the late eighth century B.C.E. it had been adopted as the lingua franca. Thus, an educated Judahite court official would have been fluent in Aramaic.

do not speak Judahite. “Judahite,” of course, is Hebrew. It is not explained how an Assyrian court official had a command of Hebrew.

12. Did he not send me to these men sitting on the wall. The verb “send” is merely implied in the Hebrew. Rabshakeh makes clear that his entire speech—itself a brilliant deployment of political rhetoric—is precisely intended for the ears of the people. His purpose is to drive a wedge between the rebellious Hezekiah and the people, convincing them that the uprising is hopeless, and that, in fact, the fate of deportation to Assyria will be a happy one.

15. let not Hezekiah have you trust in the LORD. Rabshakeh appears to be shifting grounds. First he claimed that it was YHWH Who sent the Assyrians against Judah (verse 10), which was a way of conveying to the people the idea that their destruction was divinely ordained and irreversible. Now he takes a different tack: no national god has ever prevailed against the great king of Assyria.

16. Make terms with me. The literal sense is “make a gift [or blessing] with me,” but in context, as Rashi and the King James Version after him understood, the expression means to offer terms of surrender.

each man eat of his vine and each man of his fig tree. The vine and the fig tree appear in a repeated proverbial expression about peaceful and prosperous life. Eating from the vine and the fig tree and drinking well-water are a vivid antithesis to the representation of the starving besieged population eating its own excrement and drinking its own urine.

17. a land like your land. The catalogue of agricultural beauty that follows resembles the recurrent list of all the good things of the Land of Israel. Rabshakeh in this fashion depicts life in exile in Assyria as a new promised land.