The Arrogance of Unbelief Text: 2 Kings 19:8-13
Introduction: The World's Recurring Taunt
We come now to the second round of Sennacherib's psychological warfare against Judah. The first volley was delivered by his mouthpiece, the Rabshakeh, and it was a masterpiece of intimidation, blasphemy, and half-truths. Hezekiah met that assault with torn clothes, a contrite heart, and a desperate appeal to the prophet Isaiah. God answered with a promise of deliverance. But the devil, as is his custom, does not give up so easily. When the first assault fails, he regroups, reloads, and comes at you again with the same essential lie, just packaged a little differently.
The world's argument against the people of God has not changed in its essentials since the beginning. It is an argument from brute force, an argument from empirical observation, and an argument from arrogant unbelief. It is the argument that says, "Look around. We are winning. Our gods, our armies, our philosophies, our economies are triumphant. Your God is a quaint local deity, a tribal superstition. Where is He? Has He delivered anyone else from us? Be reasonable. Surrender." This is the constant, droning taunt from the Assyrians of every generation, whether they are wearing Mesopotamian armor, a Roman toga, a lab coat, or a business suit.
Sennacherib's second message to Hezekiah is not just a historical curiosity. It is a perfect distillation of the unbelieving mind's case against the living God. It is a worldview clash in its rawest form. And how Hezekiah responds, and more importantly, how God responds, sets the pattern for how the church must face the insolent pride of every earthly empire that sets itself up against the Lord and against His Anointed.
The Text
Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had set out from Lachish.
Then he heard them say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Behold, he has come out to fight against you.” So he sent messengers again to Hezekiah saying,
“Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah, ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, devoting them to destruction. So will you be delivered?
Did the gods of those nations which my fathers brought to ruin deliver them, even Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?
Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?’ ”
(2 Kings 19:8-13 LSB)
A Pressured King and a Renewed Assault (v. 8-9)
We begin with the historical setting, which shows us the earthly pressures that are squeezing Sennacherib.
"Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had set out from Lachish. Then he heard them say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, 'Behold, he has come out to fight against you.' So he sent messengers again to Hezekiah saying," (2 Kings 19:8-9 LSB)
Sennacherib is a busy man. He is not sitting idly before Jerusalem. He has already taken Lachish, a key fortified city, and is now mopping up at Libnah. But he has a problem. He hears a rumor that Tirhakah, the king of Ethiopia (and future Pharaoh of Egypt), is marching up to challenge him. This puts Sennacherib on a timetable. He cannot afford a long, drawn-out siege of Jerusalem. He needs Hezekiah to fold, and he needs it to happen now.
This is an important lesson for us. The enemies of God, for all their bluster and apparent power, are always operating under constraints. They have their own pressures, their own fears, their own rival empires to worry about. They are not sovereign. They are pieces on God's chessboard, and He is moving them according to His plan. Sennacherib thinks he is the master of his fate, but the rumor of Tirhakah's advance is the providential hand of God tightening the screws, forcing the Assyrian's hand and setting the stage for his ultimate humiliation.
Notice Sennacherib's response to this pressure. He doesn't pack up and leave. He doubles down on his psychological warfare. He cannot afford to take Jerusalem by force right now, so he will try one more time to take it with words. This is what tyrants do. When they feel their power is threatened, their rhetoric becomes more shrill, their threats more grandiose. He sends another letter, a second dose of the same poison.
The Blasphemous Premise (v. 10)
Sennacherib's central argument is a direct assault on the character of God. He accuses God of being a liar.
"‘Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of Judah, ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’" (2 Kings 19:10 LSB)
This is the serpent's hiss from the Garden, updated for geopolitical conflict. "Has God really said?" Satan's first tactic is always to cast doubt on the clarity and truthfulness of God's Word. Sennacherib's message is brutally direct: "Your God is deceiving you. He is making promises He cannot keep. He is lying to you."
This is the fundamental accusation of unbelief. The unbeliever looks at the promises of God, the promise of salvation, of resurrection, of a new heavens and a new earth, and compares it to the "facts on the ground," the overwhelming power of sin, death, and the empires of this world. And he concludes that God must be a deceiver. To trust in God, in this view, is to be a gullible fool, taken in by a cosmic con man.
Sennacherib frames this as a benevolent warning. "Don't let your God fool you." The world always presents its temptations as an act of liberation from the oppressive lies of religion. "We are the realists," they say. "We are the ones who will tell you the hard truths. Your faith is a crutch, a fantasy, a deception." But what they call realism is just a truncated reality, a reality that refuses to look up and acknowledge the Creator of all the facts they are so proud of observing.
The Argument from Empirical Evidence (v. 11-13)
Having stated his premise, Sennacherib now presents his evidence. It is a roll call of defeated nations and their impotent gods.
"Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, devoting them to destruction. So will you be delivered? Did the gods of those nations which my fathers brought to ruin deliver them, even Gozan and Haran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?’" (2 Kings 19:11-13 LSB)
This is the argument from the graveyard of history. Sennacherib is saying, "Look at our track record. We are undefeated. We have steamrolled every nation, every city, every king that has stood in our way. We have a consistent policy: total destruction. What makes you think you will be any different?"
And then he gets to the theological heart of the matter. "Did the gods of those nations... deliver them?" He lists a string of vanquished peoples. Gozan, Haran, Rezeph. These were Aramean city-states in Mesopotamia. Hamath and Arpad were in Syria. Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah were likely cities in Babylonia or Syria. To the people of Jerusalem, this was a terrifying list. It was a litany of fallen dominoes, a recitation of Assyria's brutal, unstoppable advance. Sennacherib's logic is simple, pagan, and, from a purely human standpoint, compelling.
His reasoning goes like this:
1. The world is a contest of gods.
2. The strength of a god is demonstrated by the military success of his people.
3. We, the Assyrians, have defeated everyone.
4. Therefore, our gods are stronger than all other gods.
5. Your god, Yahweh, is just one more god on that list of losers.
6. Therefore, to resist us is to resist the strongest gods. It is theological suicide.
This is the great category error of all paganism and all modern secularism. It assumes that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is on the same level as the gods of the nations. It assumes He is one deity among many, competing in the same weight class. But this is a fatal mistake. The gods of Gozan and Haran were idols, things of wood and stone, demons at best, nothing at worst. As the Psalmist says, "For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens" (Psalm 96:5). Sennacherib is comparing the Creator of the universe to the carved toys of the peoples He created. He is comparing the author of the story to a few of the minor characters in chapter three.
The question "Where is the king of Hamath?" is meant to be a rhetorical knockout blow. The implied answer is: "He is dead. He is a pile of bones. His city is a heap of rubble. And that is where you, Hezekiah, are headed." This is the logic of the bully, the logic of the pragmatist, the logic of the materialist. It is a logic that can only see what is visible, what can be measured in skulls and burned cities. It has no category for the transcendent, sovereign God who holds the king of Assyria on a leash.
The Unspoken Premise of God
Sennacherib's argument is powerful, but it rests on a foundation of sand. Hezekiah, and all true believers, operate from a completely different set of axioms. The clash is not between Assyria and Judah; it is between Sennacherib's worldview and God's worldview.
Sennacherib's worldview says that history is the story of the strong devouring the weak. God's worldview says history is the story of God's sovereign purposes being worked out, often through the weak and foolish things of the world confounding the wise (1 Cor. 1:27).
Sennacherib's worldview says that gods are tribal deities whose power is limited to their geographical and ethnic boundaries. God's worldview says that "the earth is the LORD's, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein" (Psalm 24:1). Yahweh is not the God of Judah; He is the God who happens to have chosen Judah for His own purposes. He is the God of Assyria too, and He is using Assyria as His rod of anger to punish the nations, including unfaithful Israel (Isaiah 10:5). Sennacherib thinks the axe is boasting against the one who wields it.
Sennacherib's worldview says that truth is determined by a tally of military victories. God's worldview says that truth is what He declares it to be, regardless of appearances. The world constantly screams at the church, "Look at the evidence! Science has disproven you! History has left you behind! All the smart and powerful people are on our side!" And it points to its long list of conquered gods: the god of superstition, the god of ignorance, the god of Christendom's political power. And it says to us, "Will you be delivered?"
And our answer must be the same as Hezekiah's. Our answer is not to debate Sennacherib on his own terms. It is not to muster our own evidence of Christian success, though we could. It is to take his blasphemous letter, walk into the temple of God, spread it out before the Lord, and say, "You see this? This is what they are saying about You. This is not primarily an attack on us, but on Your name, Your honor, Your reality. Now, O LORD our God, save us... that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God" (2 Kings 19:19).
The world's taunt is always the same: "Your God will deceive you." And God's answer throughout history is always the same. He answers with deliverance. He answers with an empty tomb. He answers with a dead army of 185,000 Assyrians. He answers with the blood of His Son, which purchases a people that no empire can conquer. And He will answer, finally, with fire from heaven that will consume all His enemies, and all their taunts will be silenced forever.