Sennacherib’s Blasphemous Letter

After the Rabshakeh finds Sennacherib at Libnah and the king hears of Tirhakah's movement, messengers are sent again to Hezekiah with a letter. Its message is blunt and blasphemous: Judah must not imagine that the God in whom Hezekiah trusts will prove different from the defeated gods of other lands, because Assyria's track record of destruction is offered as proof that Jerusalem too will fall.

W⁸hen the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah. ⁹Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “He has set out to fight against you.” ¹⁰On hearing this, Sennacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, “Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ¹¹‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared? ¹²Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations— the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar? ¹³Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”