Isaiah 36:1

(Chapter 36—Verse 1 and following) And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the washer's field. And Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him. And Rabshakeh said to them, "Say to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours?' By what plan and courage do you prepare to rebel? On whom do you have confidence, because you have turned away from me? Look, you trust in this broken reed staff, in Egypt: if a man leans on it, it will enter into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to all who trust in him. But if you say to me, 'We trust in the LORD our God,' is it not he whose heights and altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, 'You shall worship before this altar'? And now make a deal with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, and you will not be able to provide riders for them. And how will you withstand the face of one judge from my lord's servants? And if you rely on Egypt: and on chariots, and on horsemen: and now, did I ascend to this land without the Lord, to destroy it? The Lord said to me: Go up on this land and destroy it. The history is clear and does not require interpretation: and this same thing is reported more fully in the volumes of Kings and Chronicles. In the third year of Hosea the son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. […]

The book of 2 Kings also speaks of this event. Isaiah has included it to his prophecy in order to show that his prophecy is true. Previously the prophet has made announcements concerning Babylon, Tyre, Egypt and other nations, but he is mostly concerned with …

Rabshakeh, on the other hand, is believed to be the son of Isaiah the Jewish prophet, who also was a traitor; and the other son of Isaiah, who is called Jasub, is said to be left behind, which means "left" in our language. Others, on the other hand, think that he was a Samaritan, and therefore knew the Hebrew language, and boldly and impiously blasphemed the Lord. Let us consider the words of Rabshakeh; and first what he says: "You trust in this broken reed, in Egypt," is false: for no history tells that Hezekiah sent to the Egyptians and asked for the help of Pharaoh. And what he infers: "If you answer me, we trust in the Lord our God," is true. But again, he joins a lie to the truth, that Hezekiah took away its high places and altars. For he did this not against God, but for God, so that idolatry and ancient error being destroyed, he commanded God to be worshipped in Jerusalem, where his Temple was: although we read that by a very bad custom, the people offered sacrifices to God on altars already built on mountains and hills. And he, wanting to show the scarcity of the besieged, promises two thousand horses, of which Hezekiah cannot provide the riders, not because of the weakness of the people of Judah, who lacked knowledge of riding: but by observing the commandments of God, who had commanded Israel through Moses concerning the king: "He shall not multiply horses for himself, nor have many wives." And he said to me, "By yourself, you cannot withstand the servant of Sennacherib, who am the least of his servants, how then will you withstand the great power of the king?" And to what he had said, "If you answer me, we trust in the Lord our God," he cunningly and wisely responded that he had come not by his own will, but by the command of the Lord. […]

And it came to pass in the fourteenth year. Here he recounts, in the manner of a history, the destruction of the Assyrians. And first, he sets out the deeds of the history; second, certain things occasioned by the history: in those days Ezechias was …

Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah,....