Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary
Isaiah 36 · World English Bible
1Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
2The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway.
3Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder came out to him.
4Rabshakeh said to them, “Now tell Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust?
5I say that your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me?
6Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.
7But if you tell me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ isn’t that 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 therefore, please make a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.
9How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?
10Have I come up now without the LORD 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. Don’t speak to us in the Jews’ language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
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, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”
13Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!
14The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you.
15Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us. This city won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’
16Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink 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 lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?
19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?
20Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”
21But they remained silent, and said nothing in reply, for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”
22Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.
World English Bible · World English Bible; source eBible.org.
Notes on Isaiah 36
1869 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xxxvi. 7, 8, 10.
Editorial footnote · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK V. / CHAPTER XIV. GREEK PLAGIARISMS FROM THE HEBREWS., editorial note Footnote_900 · Original source
1888 (historical English edition; physical printing year uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xxxvi. 12.
Editorial footnote · Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 37, editorial note cite_note-41 · Original source
Date uncertain | Clement of Alexandria
The Father, then, and Maker of all things is apprehended by all things, agreeably to all, by innate power and without teaching,—things inanimate, sympathizing with the animate creation; and of living beings some are already immortal, working in the light of day. But of those that are still mortal, some are in fear, and carried still in their mother’s womb; and others regulate themselves by their own independent reason. And of men all are Greeks and Barbarians. But no race anywhere of tillers of the soil, or nomads, and not even of dwellers in cities, can live, without being imbued with the faith of a superior being. Wherefore every eastern nation, and every nation touching the western shores; or the north, and each one towards the south,—all have one and the same preconception respecting Him who hath appointed government; since the most universal of His operations equally pervade all. Much more did the philosophers among the Greeks, devoted to investigation, starting from the Barbarian philosophy, attribute providence to the “Invisible, and sole, and most powerful, and most skilful and supreme cause of all things most beautiful;”—not knowing the inferences from these truths, unless instructed by us, and not even how God is to be known naturally; but only, as we have already often said, by a true periphrasis. Rightly therefore the apostle says, “Is He the God of the Jews only, and not also of the Greeks?”—not only saying prophetically that of the Greeks believing Greeks would know God; but also intimating that in power the Lord is the God of all, and truly Universal King. For they know neither what He is, nor how He is Lord, and Father, and Maker, nor the rest of the system of the truth, without being taught by it. Thus also the prophetic utterances have the same force as the apostolic word. For Isaiah says: “If ye say, We trust in the Lord our God: now make an alliance with my lord the king of the Assyrians.” And he adds: “And now, was it without the Lord that we came up to this land to make war against it?” And Jonah, himself a prophet, intimates the same thing in what he says: “And the shipmaster came to him, and said to him, Why dost thou snore? Rise, call on thy God, that He may save us, and that we may not perish.” For the expression “thy God” he makes as if to one who knew Him by way of knowledge; and the expression, “that God may save us,” revealed the consciousness in the minds of heathens who had applied their mind to the Ruler of all, but had not yet believed. And again the same: “And he said to them, I am the servant of the Lord; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven.” And again the same: “And he said, Let us by no means perish for the life of this man.” And Malachi the prophet plainly exhibits God saying, “I will not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its going down, my name is glorified among the Gentiles; and in every place sacrifice is offered to me.” And again: “Because I am a great King, saith the Lord omnipotent; and my name is manifest among the nations.” What name? The Son declaring the Father among the Greeks who have believed.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The Stromata (Miscellanies), THE WRITINGS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. / BOOK V. / CHAPTER XIV. GREEK PLAGIARISMS FROM THE HEBREWS., source paragraph 543 · Original source
Date uncertain | John Chrysostom
In order then that both our houses may be continually open to the one, and our ears to the others, let us purge away the filth from the ears of our soul. For as filth and mud close up the ears of our flesh, so do the harlot’s songs, and worldly news, and debts, and the business of usury and loans, close up the ear of the mind, worse than any filth; nay rather, they do not close it up only, but also make it unclean. And they are putting dung in your ears, who tell you of these things. And that which the barbarian threatened, saying, “Ye shall eat your own dung,” and what follows;this do these men also make you undergo, not in word, but in deeds; or rather, somewhat even much worse. For truly those songs are more loathsome even than all this; and what is yet worse, so far from feeling annoyance when ye hear them, ye rather laugh, when ye ought to abominate them and fly.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 37, source paragraph 50 · Original source