his high places] compare 2 Kings xviii. 4. The “high places” (bāmōth) were properly sanctuaries of Jehovah, and not necessarily idolatrous in themselves. But since originally all, or almost all, of these bāmōth had been sacred places of the Canaanite gods, old idolatrous symbols (e.g. the ashērah) and old idolatrous ideas and rites persisted in the worship there offered. When finally the Jews restricted sacrificial worship to Jerusalem, the odium attaching to these “high places” became greater than ever, and hostility towards them came to be regarded as the mark of any pious monarch. Hezekiah removed the bāmōth throughout the country.
¹³Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of the lands any ways able to deliver their land out of mine hand? ¹⁴Who was there among all the gods of those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed[¹], that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand? ¹⁵Now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you on this manner, neither believe ye him: for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God[²] deliver you out of mine hand? ¹⁶And his servants spake yet more against the Lord God, and against his servant Hezekiah.
[¹] Hebrew devoted.
[²] Or, gods.
13. the peoples of the lands] In 2 Kings xviii. 34 the lands are specified and include Samaria.
¹⁷He wrote also letters[¹], to rail on the Lord, the God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of the lands, which have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand.
[¹] Or, a letter.
17. to rail on] Or, to defy (the same Hebrew word as in 2 Kings xix. 4, 16, 22, 33, and there rendered “reproach”).
¹⁸And they cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them, and to trouble them; that they might take the city.
18. in the Jews’ language] i.e. in Hebrew. From the parallel passage, 2 Kings xviii. 26 ff., it is evident that the language of diplomacy at this time in Western Asia was Aramaic (“Syrian,” 2 Kings); and that, whilst understood by the Jewish leaders and officials, it was not yet intelligible to the common people. In the negotiations the Rabshakeh showed clearly that his object was not to treat with Hezekiah, but to excite a revolt among the Jews against Hezekiah and so gain possession of the city.