2 Kings 18:26 - Exposition

Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language ; literally, in the Aramaic language . Hebrew, Aramaic, and Assyrian were three cognate languages, closely allied, and very similar both in their grammatical forms and in their vocabularies, but still sufficiently different to be distinct languages, which were only intelligible to those who had learnt them. Rabshakeh had addressed the Jewish officials in Hebrew, probably as the language which they would best understand, if it were not even the only one that they would understand; not with the express "object of influencing the common people," as Bahr supposes. But the Jewish officials feared that the words uttered were influencing them. They proposed, therefore, that the further negotiations should be conducted in Aramaic, a tongue which they understood, and one which they supposed that Rabshakeh, as he knew Hebrew, would also know. Aramaic was spoken in most of the tract that lay between Assyria and Palestine, in Syria and Damascus certainly, in Upper Mesopotamia, along the line of the Euphrates, and perhaps as far as the Khabour river. For we understand it. It is not likely that the Jews of this time generally understood Aramaic; but high officials of the court, who might have to deal with embassies and negotiate treaties, found it necessary to understand it, just as such persons in our own country have to know French. And talk not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall. Besides the sentinels and other soldiers, there would probably be many idlers upon the wall, attracted by the unwonted spectacle of an ambassadorial cortege , and anxious to pick up intelligence. The loud voices of Orientals would be heard to a considerable distance.