Bible Strands
Isaiah 36:12
But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Rabshakeh addresses Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah immediately after they request he switch to Aramaic to protect the people on the wall. He deliberately ignores their plea and escalates his taunt to include the besieged citizens.
The words — The text highlights רַב־שָׁקֵה (rav-shaqeh), meaning chief commander, and the paired terms אֲדֹנֶי/ךָ (adonekha) and אֲדֹנִי (adoni), both rendered as master, which the Rabshakeh repeats to mock the officials' authority and their master's command.
The thread — The verse's imagery of starvation during siege directly parallels the covenant curses in Leviticus 26:29 and Deuteronomy 28:53, and the identical dialogue is preserved in 2 Kings 18:27.
Why it lands — The verse forces a reader to recognize the Rabshakeh's calculated psychological warfare, which bypasses diplomatic protocol to terrorize the population and dismantle Judah's leadership resolve.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
Cross-references
- Leviticus 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.
- 2 Kings 18:27 But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”
- Deuteronomy 28:53 Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.
- 2 Kings 6:25 So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.
- Isaiah 9:20 They carve out what is on the right, but they are still hungry; they eat what is on the left, but they are still not satisfied. Each one devours the flesh of his own offspring.
- Jeremiah 19:9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’
- Lamentations 4:9 Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.
- Ezekiel 4:16 Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure.