Contemptuousness.
An air of intolerable arrogance breathes in almost every sentence of this "railing Rabshakeh." It comes out in insolent characterization (Isaiah 36:5, Isaiah 36:6), in disdainful challenge (Isaiah 36:8), in haughty self-confidence (Isaiah 36:9), in contemptuous disregard of the conventionalities of war (Isaiah 36:12), in a reprehensible vulgarity (Isaiah 36:12), etc. From this incident, or from other parts of Scripture, we conclude respecting it—
1. THAT IT IS APT TO DE VERY IGNORANT. Rabshakeh made a large and even ludicrous mistake respecting the action of Hezekiah in his iconoclastic policy. He thought the Jewish king was doing that which would excite the anger of Jehovah, when he was really securing his Divine favour (Isaiah 36:7). Contemptuous men are often found to be ignorant: and, naturally, if not necessarily, so; for they imagine themselves to be above the necessity to inquire and ascertain, and their assumptions are soon discovered to be false. Those who are too proud to learn must be content to be numbered with the foolish.
II. THAT IT SINKS INTO IMPIETY. Rabshakeh held up to derision the idea that Jehovah could preserve Jerusalem (Isaiah 36:15), and classed the Lord of heaven with the helpless deities of Syria (Isaiah 36:18-20). The arrogant spirit is essentially an irreverent one. Men that look with scorn upon the human soon come to regard themselves as independent of the Divine. They are not deified in the daring and presumptuous form which was once known; but they assume to themselves a power, a control, a providence, which belongs only to the Lord of our hearts and lives. Hence we find—
III. THAT IT MAKES FATAL BLUNDERS. The king for whom Rabshakeh was speaking and whose haughty determination he was announcing never did "come and take away" to his own land these despised Jews who were on the walls of Jerusalem. He returned with haste and humiliation into his own land. The scornful will find that events do not fill up their bold outlines; on the contrary, they will entirely traverse them: their pretensions will be overthrown, and their promises and their threats left unfulfilled.
Expel the contemptuous spirit from the heart: it is an evil thing in itself, and it works evil to him that cherishes it.
1. It is exceedingly unlovely; it is utterly unbecoming in any child of man who, be he what he may, stands on the same level of fallibility on which his fellows stand.
2. It meets with the deep displeasure, and will bring down the strong rebuke, of God. He resists the proud and humiliates them.
3. It is only worthy of the disregard of man; all wise people, when they are treated with arrogance, return a rebuking silence, like these sensible sons of Jerusalem (Isaiah 36:21).—C.