{"id":66830,"date":"2019-12-11T18:59:54","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T16:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=66830"},"modified":"2023-07-04T08:27:07","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T05:27:07","slug":"rabshakeh-who-was-this-hebrew-speaking-assyrian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/rabshakeh-who-was-this-hebrew-speaking-assyrian\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabshakeh: Who Was This Hebrew-Speaking Assyrian?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[953,361,598],"acf":{"old_id":"66830","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36147,"related_cahpter":"370","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Could he have been an exiled Israelite, serving his Assyrian captors?","content":"

The story that starts in today\u2019s chapter should sound familiar: it is also found in 2 Kings 18-20. One character in this story stands out: Rabshakeh. He is the star of Isaiah 36, delivering two long, chilling speeches at the wall of Jerusalem, designed to intimidate the residents into submitting to the Assyrians.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although in the Bible this seems to be a name, we now know it was a title of an Assyrian official: <\/span>rab shaqeh<\/span><\/em> is similar to the Hebrew <\/span>sar ha-mashqim<\/span><\/em>, \u201cchief cupbearer.\u201d That doesn\u2019t mean he was primarily a butler, but the great historian Hayim Tadmor showed that the rab shaqeh<\/em> was primarily a domestic official, not usually involved in diplomatic or military missions. Why, then, is this rab shaqeh<\/em> at Jerusalem?<\/span><\/p>\n

The language is the key. After his first speech, the Judean officials at the way say to the rab shaqeh<\/em>: \u201cPlease, speak to your servants in Aramaic, as we understand it! Don\u2019t speak to us in Judean, in the hearing of the people on the wall!\u201d Now, the speech had been in Hebrew, but that did not seem surprising, since the Bible is basically always in Hebrew. Joseph and Pharaoh speak in Hebrew, as do Moses and the later Pharaoh; Ahashverosh and Haman speak in Hebrew, as does Nebuchadnezzar. Of course, this doesn\u2019t mean that these characters are meant to be understood as actually speaking Hebrew, only that the narrative is in Hebrew and so everyone is quoted in that language. But here, we are told, the rab shaqeh<\/em> was actually speaking Hebrew!<\/span><\/p>\n

Why was he speaking Hebrew? The Judeans already gave the answer, and the rab shaqeh<\/em> gives it back to them: \u201cWas it to your master and to you that my master sent me to speak those words? It was precisely to the men who are sitting on the wall\u2014who will have to eat their dung and drink their urine with you.\u201d He is trying to reach the common folk, and while in the late eighth century, Judean officials also spoke Aramaic, regular people only spoke Hebrew.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did he know Hebrew? Tadmor had quite a brilliant suggestion for this. Recall that twenty years earlier, the Assyrians had conquered and exiled the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the \u201cTen Tribes.\u201d Some of those Israelites were brought to Assyria, and conceivably had integrated into the bureaucracy there. If this rab shaqeh<\/em> was an exiled Israelite, he would of course be a native speaker of Hebrew \u2013 and this would explain why a normally domestic official was brought out for this mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

This would also make the rab shaqeh\u2019s<\/em> last line all the more chilling. When he asked, \u201cWhere were the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where were the gods of Sepharvaim? And did they save Samaria from me?,\u201d the people would know that the people of Samaria and the people of Jerusalem shared not only a language, but a religion. And if Samaria fell, didn\u2019t that mean that Jerusalem was next?<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":66845,"id":66845,"title":"is36-rabshakeh2","filename":"is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/rabshakeh-who-was-this-hebrew-speaking-assyrian\/is36-rabshakeh2\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is36-rabshakeh2","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":66830,"date":"2019-12-11 18:40:27","modified":"2019-12-11 18:40:50","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":600,"height":704,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2-256x300.jpg","medium-width":256,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","medium_large-width":600,"medium_large-height":704,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","large-width":600,"large-height":704,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","1536x1536-width":600,"1536x1536-height":704,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","2048x2048-width":600,"2048x2048-height":704,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","post_full_size-width":600,"post_full_size-height":704,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2-358x420.jpg","home_baner-width":358,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Rabshakeh: Who Was This Hebrew-Speaking Assyrian?","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Could he have been an exiled Israelite, serving his Assyrian captors?","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":66845,"id":66845,"title":"is36-rabshakeh2","filename":"is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/rabshakeh-who-was-this-hebrew-speaking-assyrian\/is36-rabshakeh2\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"is36-rabshakeh2","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":66830,"date":"2019-12-11 18:40:27","modified":"2019-12-11 18:40:50","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":600,"height":704,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2-256x300.jpg","medium-width":256,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","medium_large-width":600,"medium_large-height":704,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","large-width":600,"large-height":704,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","1536x1536-width":600,"1536x1536-height":704,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","2048x2048-width":600,"2048x2048-height":704,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2.jpg","post_full_size-width":600,"post_full_size-height":704,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/is36-rabshakeh2-358x420.jpg","home_baner-width":358,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66830"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116541,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66830\/revisions\/116541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}