Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Kings 18:24

How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

24. How then wilt thou, &c. ] Rab-shakeh impudently takes for granted that Hezekiah’s only answer would be ‘I have not the men’. So he proceeds with his insults, and points out what he deems the folly of resistance. ‘We, three of the principal officers of our master, are come to treat with you. As your power is so feeble, you ought not to think of opposition, but to listen to the Assyrian proposals if they were brought even by some inferior person.’ The word which in this verse is rendered ‘captains’ is that which is constantly used in Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther of the ‘governors’ of provinces belonging to the great king. Any one of these, Rab-shakeh intimates, would be a power by himself which Hezekiah ought not to despise, as he possesses no men, even if the horses were made a present to him, out of which to form a body of cavalry. When Assyria can be so liberal in offers of horses, and when even her smallest governors are so well equipped with troops, is it not folly to go to Egypt for chariots and horses? He knows, and intimates that the same kind of vassalage would be required by the king of Egypt, as the king of Assyria demands.

Some have taken the verb ‘wilt thou turn away’ as equivalent to ‘wilt thou defeat and put to flight’. But this seems to suit very badly with the concluding clause of the sentence. ‘To put trust in Egypt’ is a good antithesis to the rejection of a proposal from the side of Assyria, but not to the defeat of the Assyrian troops.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

How wilt thou force him to turn his back to thee, and flee away from thee?

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

[See comments on 2Ki 18:17]

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(24) How then.Literally, And how. The connection of thought is: (But thou canst not); and how . . .

Turn away the face of . . .i.e., repulse, reject the demand of . . . (1Ki. 2:16.)

One captain of the least of my masters servants.Rather, a pasha who is one of the smallest of my lords servants. He means himself. The word we render pasha is, in the Hebrew, pahath, a word which used to be derived from the Persian, but which is now known to be Semitic, from the corresponding Assyrian words pahat, prefect, provincial governor, and pihat, prefecture.

And put thy trust.Rather, but thou hast put thy trust; assigning a ground for Hezekiahs folly. There should be a stop at servants. (Comp. Isa. 31:1 : Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

24. Turn away the face Or, cause to face about, that is, put to flight.

One captain of the least That is, how canst thou repulse even one of the less valiant officers who commands one of the smallest divisions of the army? The word , here rendered captain, means properly a governor or satrap. It is “first used of Assyrian subordinate stadtholders and generals; (Isa 36:9😉 afterwards transferred to the governors and prefects of the Babylonian, (Jer 51:57; Eze 23:6; Eze 23:23,) Median, (Jer 51:28,) and Persian empires, (Est 8:9; Est 9:3😉 applied especially to the Persian governors on this side of the Euphrates and in Judea, (Neh 2:7; Neh 2:9; Neh 3:7; Ezr 8:36; Hag 1:1; Hag 1:14,) Nehemiah and Zerubbabel being such. The word was transplanted into Hebrew by early Assyrian influence.” Furst.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments