2 Kings 18:30 - Exposition

Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord. Rabshakeh seems to be aware that this is the argument which Hezekiah is, in point of fact, mainly urging. If at one time he had trusted in Egypt, that trust was now quite or well-nigh gone. The tone of his exhortations was that recorded in Chronicles ( 2 Chronicles 32:6-8 ), "He set captains of war over the people, and gathered them together to him in the street of the gate of the city, and spake comfortably to them, saying, Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the King of Assyria, nor for all the multi-rude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him [see 2 Kings 6:16 ]; with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah King of Judah." Saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the King of Assyria . Hezekiah's was, in part, a general conviction that God would not forsake his people, who had recently turned to him, if not with absolute sincerity, yet at any rate with public confession of sin, and public acknowledgment of his mercies, and public profession of an intention to serve him; in part, probably, a special reliance on some definite prophecies of Isaiah, that the city should not be taken (see Isaiah 31:4-6 ; Isaiah 34:1-17 :20-22).