2 Kings 18:26-28
New Catholic Bible
26 Then Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Please do not speak to us in Hebrew when the people who are upon the wall can hear it.”[a]
27 But the commander said to them, “My master has not sent me just to you and your master to say these things, but to the men sitting on the wall who may have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine like you.”
28 The commander then stood and cried out in a loud voice in Hebrew, “Hear the word of the great king of Assyria!
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 2 Kings 18:26 Aramaic was beginning to be the language of international relations in the Middle East. The people understood only the Jewish language, that is, the Hebrew spoken in Jerusalem.
2 Kings 18:26-28
New International Version
26 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, and Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic,(A) since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”
27 But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the people sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”
28 Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria!
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