I just wanted to go over basically what we learned in class a few days ago.
Okay, so we learned about the 1st few years of the reign of Chizkiyahu, with the religious revival and everything, and then we began to learn about the time around the 6th year of the reign of Chizkiyahu when Shomron is exiled and Yehuda stops being a vassal state to Assyria.
We recently learned about Ravshakeh being sent by the king of Assyria to Yerushalayim to engage in psychological warfare with the people of B'nai Yisrael there. He gathered three officers in the Jewish area and told them to tell his message to Chizkiyahu. His goal was to make the Jews doubt their political and religious security and to convince them to surrender to Assyria. He tries to make them doubt their political security when he says in Perek Lamed Vav, Pasuk Daled that the King of Assyria is the greatest king in the world- no other king is nearly as good. He also tries to make them believe that when he says that whoever trusts in Egypt will be let down, and hurt by the trust. The king of Egypt is like a broken reed that is falling apart. Ravshakeh also says that the B'nai Yisrael can't trust in Chizkiyahu because he will not be able to save them.
Ravshakeh wants to make the B'na Yisrael doubt their religious security, and he shows this by telling the messengers to say to Chizkiyahu and the people that a: if Chizkiyahu will tell the people that HaShem will save Yerushalayim, why did He not save Shomron? Also, no other gods were able to save their nations from the might of Assyria, including that of Shomron. He is saying that Chas V'Shlaom, Assyria is stronger and greater than HaShem. He also tells the messenger s to tell the B'nai Yisrael that if they expect HaShem to help them anyway, they are wrong to think that He will because He is angry at the B'nai Yisrael because Chizkiyahu took away the bamot that were being used to serve HaShem. It could be seen as a sort of betrayal. Ravshakeh also says that HaShem told him to destroy them. That would be something pretty scary for the B'nai Yisrael to hear.
Ravshakeh also tries to convince the Jews to surrender to Assyria. He said that if they surrendered, everything would be provided for them and everything would be good.
I added some of my own ideas and thoughts into here. If you disagree, I would love to hear what you have to say.
Before I comment: I was very sad to see you had posted as I was planning on doing the same! But I'm fine with commenting! But not to be one upped, I am giving my comment a title.
ReplyDeletePsychological Warfare
Ravshakeh: Talk about a man who knows how to psych people out! That is true talent, bad intentions or not. He said just the right things. I'll admit that when we read he told the Jews G-d told him to destroy them, I was thinking, "WHAT?" It's really possible though. I mean, after all, if you hear/read about Yeshayahu saying Hashem said repent or Assyria will destroy you, don't form an alliance or you will be destroyed, it's easy to think that the Assyrians were told the same thing. And Sometimes Hashem appears to those who aren't holy/Jewish.
He is great at psychological warfare. It's sad when such talent is put to bad use... but really he is quite clever. He had EVERYONE nervous. And it was really smart to bring up the fact that the very same G-d they believed would save them did not save Shomron.
Ravshakeh one, Jews zero.
I also want to add in something: How does he know to speak hebrew? From here we learn he may have been Jewish! Possibly from Shomron? I don't know about you people, but learning ancient history is really cool :)
I'm sorry to have made you feel sad! No one had posted it and it had been a few days since we learned it! I hope ur not sad/mad at me for posting first!
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking about that last point zahava brought up. what if ravshakeh was jewish? why would he be trying to get his people to side with Ashur?
ReplyDeleteI decided to just take some time to hypothesize about this. maybe he believed that this was the right choice to make, or maybe he was forced into it, ot maybe he turned his back on the jews and decided to join the enemy. or maybe im just going off on a long tangent for no reason because he could have just been some random gentile who for some reason knew hebrew. anyhow, food for thought.
i just thought of another thing. it says above that their goal was to make chizkiyahu convinced as well. looking back, i think that they just might have gotten through to him. we see that later on chizkiyahu becomes nervous and afraid and starts to doubt Hashem. this may be ravshake got to him, or he just got panicky in his old age.
ReplyDelete