802 BATTLES OF THE BIBLE.

enemy, they stopped up the fountains all round. The
three Assyrian generals advanced to Jerusalem, and
called for Hezekiah to speak with them. He sent three
of the chief men of the city to hear what they had to
say, but charged them not to say anything in reply.
Rabshakeh, Tartan, and Rabsaris were the names of the
Assyrian officers. Rabshakeh was spokesman. He
commanded them to surrender; he mocked at their
weakness ; said they had no soldiers among them, and
need not trust for assistance from any other nation, for
the great king of Assyria had conquered them all. He
said, too, that he had a commission from God to destroy
Jerusalem: “ Am I now come up without the Lord
against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me,
Go up against this land, and destroy it.” When the
three rulers of Judah heard this, they feared lest it should
make the people unwilling to resist the Assyrians. So
they ventured mildly to remonstrate with Rabshakeh:
“ Speak, I pray thee,” they said, “ to thy servants in
the Syrian language, for we understand it, and talk not
with us in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people
that are on the wall.” Rabshakeh saw at once of what
they were afraid, but it only made him bolder and more
insolent. He continued to speak in the Hebrew tongue,
and raised his voice, telling the people not to trust in
their king, for he could not deliver them; neither to
trust in their God, for he was as unable to deliver them
from the power of the king of Assyria. The only way,
he said, in which they could avoid death by starvation