“But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God: is it not he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar?”
The Rabshakeh offers a wager demonstrating Assyrian military superiority: he will provide two thousand horses if Judah can provide riders for them. The offer is designed to emphasize the absurdity of resistance; Judah lacks the military capacity to mount such forces. The wager format transforms military strategy into a contest of capabilities, designed to persuade surrender through the demonstration of overwhelming disparity. The oracle shows the Rabshakeh's rhetorical skill in presenting military facts in a format that maximizes their psychological impact. The offer suggests that even if Judah had horses, it would lack the personnel and training to use them effectively against Assyrian forces.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
Publish a note on this verse
0/2000
No notes on this verse yet. Be the first to write one!