Isaiah 36

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¹Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria marched against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. ✦ ²And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the road to the fuller’s field. ✦ ³Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the secretary, went out to him. ✦ ⁴And Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria says: “What is this confidence that you have? ✦ ⁵I say, ‘Your plan and strength for the war are only empty words.’ Now on whom have you relied, that you have revolted against me? ✦ ⁶Behold, you have relied on the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. ✦ ⁷But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’? ✦ ⁸Now then, come make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to put riders on them! ✦ ⁹How then can you drive back even one official of the least of my master’s servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ✦ ¹⁰And have I now come up without the Lord’s approval against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’ ” ’ ” ✦ ¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in Judean so that the people who are on the wall hear you.” ✦ ¹²But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?” ✦ ¹³Then Rabshakeh stood and called out with a loud voice in Judean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ✦ ¹⁴This is what the king says: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to save you; ✦ ¹⁵and do not let Hezekiah lead you to rely on the Lord, saying, “The Lord will certainly save us. This city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria!” ✦ ¹⁶Do not listen to Hezekiah,’ for this is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Surrender to me and come out to me, and eat, each one, of his vine and each of his fig tree, and each drink of the waters of his own cistern, ✦ ¹⁷until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ✦ ¹⁸Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you, saying, “The Lord will save us.” Has any one of the gods of the nations saved his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ✦ ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And when have they saved Samaria from my hand? ✦ ²⁰Who among all the gods of these lands have saved their land from my hand, that the Lord would save Jerusalem from my hand?’ ” ✦ ²¹But they were silent and did not answer him so much as a word; for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” ✦ ²²Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the secretary, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and reported to him the words of Rabshakeh. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

2 Kgs 18 ·22 Isa 37 ·12 2 Chr 32 ·12 Isa 36 ·8 Isa 10 ·7 2 Kgs 19 ·6 Isa 30 ·4 2 Kgs 17 ·4

Christ at the center

Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).

How Isaiah 36 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 36YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 36David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 36Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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