Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying
This was the direction, and these the instructions he gave to his messengers, in which he gives Hezekiah the title of king, and owns him to be king of Judah; which was more than Rabshakeh his servant would do: let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee;
than which, nothing could be more devilish and satanical, to represent the God of truth, that cannot lie, as a liar and deceiver: in this the king of Assyria outdid Rabshakeh himself; he had represented Hezekiah as an impostor and a deceiver of the people, and warns them against him as such; and here Sennacherib represents God himself as a deceiver, and cautions Hezekiah against trusting in him: nothing is more opposite to Satan and his instruments, than faith in God, and therefore they labour with all their might and main to weaken it; however, this testimony Hezekiah had from his enemy, that he was one that trusted in the Lord; and a greater character a man cannot well have: saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of
Assyria;
and so the Lord had said it; see ( Isaiah 38:6 ) and by some means or another Sennacherib had heard of it; and there was nothing he dreaded more than that Hezekiah should believe it, which would encourage him, he feared, to hold out the siege.