Words are free, but how you arrange them and then use them can prove to be very expensive.
The Assyrians were not just ensconced along Judah’s northern border; they also held the fortified stronghold of Lachish, 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem. “Then the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh from Lachish, with a great army against Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah. And they went up and came to Jerusalem” (2 Ki 18:17). Here the Tartan has nothing to do with Scottish kilts! These were the Assyrian titles of important officials. The Tartan was a field commander or general; the Rabsaris was the chief chamberlain, responsible for all the palace servants; and the Rabshakeh was euphemistically called the cup-bearer, actually the chief of security. This was clearly a show of strength. In response, out came Hezekiah’s household steward, scribe, and recorder. They already seem to be outranked, don’t they! Then the Rabshakeh unloaded a verbal broadside. Your “plans and power for war…are mere words” (v 20), he smirked. Alliances with your neighboring states would be like “trusting in the staff of this broken reed…on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it” (v 21). That’s a great line, I might add. But then he lifts up his voice to the men standing on the ramparts, and throws down the gauntlet at the feet of Jehovah. “Do not listen to Hezekiah, lest he persuade you, saying, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has any of the gods of the nations at all delivered its land from the hand of the king of Assyria?” (vv 32-33). But this was comparing apples to hand grenades! Hezekiah felt this was obviously a case for the proverb, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly” (Prov 26:4). “The people…answered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, ‘Do not answer him’” (2 Ki 18:36). So what’s next?