Isaiah 36:4

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹In the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah. ²And the king of Assyria sent the Rab-shakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer's Field. ³Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, went out to him. ⁴The Rab-shakeh said to them, "Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: 'What is the basis of this confidence of yours?⁵You claim to have a strategy and strength for war, but these are empty words. On whom are you now relying, that you have rebelled against me? ⁶Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ⁷But if you say to me, "We trust in the LORD our God," is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, "You must worship before this altar"? ⁸Now therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses-if you can put riders on them! ⁹For how can you repel a single officer among the weakest of my master's servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ¹⁰So now, was it apart from the LORD that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The LORD Himself said to me, 'Go up against this land and destroy it.'"

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Thus saith: Isaiah 10:8-14, Isaiah 37:11-15, Proverbs 16:18, Ezekiel 31:3-18, Daniel 4:30, Acts 12:22, Acts 12:23, Jude 1:16

Assyria: Assyria proper, now Kourdistan, was bounded by Armenia on the north, Media and Persia on the east, Babylonia on the south, and the Tigris, which divides it from Mesopotamia, on the west, between 33 degrees and 38 degrees n lat. and 42 degrees and 46 degrees e long. But the Assyrian empire, the bounds of which were different at different times, in its most flourishing state, according to the descriptions of the Greek and Roman writers, comprehended all the countries and nations between the Mediterranean on the west, and the Indus on the east, and between the deserts of Scythia on the north, and the Indian ocean on the south.

What: 2 Kings 18:5, 2 Kings 18:19-37, 2 Kings 19:10, 2 Chronicles 32:7-10, 2 Chronicles 32:14-16, Psalms 42:3, Psalms 42:10, Psalms 71:10, Psalms 71:11

Reciprocal: 2 Chronicles 32:10 - Thus saith Isaiah 36:13 - Hear Isaiah 37:10 - Let not Isaiah 37:29 - rage Jeremiah 48:14 - How Ezekiel 29:16 - the confidence Ezekiel 31:5 - his height Ezekiel 31:8 - nor any 2 Corinthians 5:6 - we are always

Cross-References

Exodus 2:18
When the daughters returned to their father Reuel, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?"

Numbers 10:29
Then Moses said to Hobab, the son of Moses' father-in-law Reuel the Midianite, "We are setting out for the place of which the LORD said: 'I will give it to you.' Come with us, and we will treat you well, for the LORD has promised good things to Israel."

1 Chronicles 1:35
The sons of Esau: Eliphaz, Reuel, Jeush, Jalam, and Korah.

Job 2:11
Now when Job's three friends-Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite-heard about all this adversity that had come upon him, each of them came from his home and met together to go and sympathize with Job and comfort him.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And Rabshakeh said unto them,.... The three ministers above mentioned:

say ye now to Hezekiah; tell him what follows; he does not call him king, as he does his own master:

thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria; this he said boastingly of his master, and in order to terrify Hezekiah and his subjects; whom he would represent as little in comparison of him, who had subdued many kingdoms, and aimed at universal monarchy; so the eastern kings used to be called, as now the Grand Signior with the Turks, and the French call their king the great monarch; but the title of a great king suits best with God himself, Psalms 95:3:

what confidence is this wherein thou trustest? meaning, what was the ground and foundation of his confidence? what was it that kept him in high spirits, that he did not at once submit to the king of Assyria, and surrender the city of Jerusalem to him?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

What confidence - What is the ground of your confidence? on what do you trust? The appellation ‘great king’ was the customary title of the kings of the Persians and Assyrians.