The Book of Isaiah
Isaiah Chapter Thirty-Six

INTRODUCTION TO THIS STUDY

The purpose of this work is to guide you in Spirit Filled interpretation of this "Selected Study". As necessary we will provide outlines, historical backgrounds, note the purpose and focus of the text, and also provide the original hebrew language definitions for the key words in the highlighted text. The English translation used is the King James (Authorized) Version, not because it is the best translation available, but because I just plain prefer it for study!

All Scripture text will be presented in normal cased lettering, and all notes within the text will be in TRUE TYPE FONT, as shown. This (I hope) will allow you to avoid confusion between God's Word and my notes. As I update this website, I will continue to embellish the text so that anyone using NETSCAPE 3.0 or MICROSOFT 3.0 or higher will be able to read the document easier.
 

An excellent site to study Biblical Hebrew is by Lee R. Martin, Biblical Hebrew. The following are excerpts from his Hebrew Dictionary (if you want more, go to his site):

ABSOLUTE: In Hebrew Greek grammar, a word is absolute when it stands independently and has no grammatical relation to other elements in the sentence. The most common instance in Greek is the genitive absolute. ABSOLUTE STATE: The Hebrew absolute together with a word in the construct state expresses the genitive. Do not confuse with the infinitive absolute. Heb: king (absolute); horse of (construct) the king (absolute), i.e., the king's horse (genitive). ACCIDENCE: That part of grammar that treats inflection; a sub category of morphology. ACCUSATIVE CASE: A substantive used as the direct object of a transitive verb is said to be in the accusative case. In Greek, the accusative is the case of extension. Heb: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). Gk: "He gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12). ACCUSATIVE ENDING: In Hebrew see DIRECTIVE h. ACTIVE VOICE: In the active voice, the subject is the doer of the action that is expressed by the verb. AKTIONSART: German for "kind of action." ANARTHROUS: A word that appears without the article is anarthrous. ARAMAIC: A branch of the northwest Semitic languages that is closely related to Hebrew. In the OT Masoretic text, Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Dan. 2:4b-7:28; and Jer. 10:11 are in Aramaic rather than Hebrew. Aramaic had become the common language of the Jewish people by NT times. CASE: Case shows the grammatical relation of inflected forms such as nouns and pronouns to other words (nominative, possessive, objective cases). CAUSATIVE VERB: A transitive verb that can be said to cause the action depicted in a corresponding intransitive verb. Ex: lay ("cause to lie") is the causative of lie; raise, the causative of rise. DIRECT OBJECT: The word, phrase, or clause that is the primary goal or result of the action of the verb (cf. accusative case); the person or thing is directly affected by the action of the verb. Heb: "God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). Gr: "He grabbed him and began to choke him" (Matt. 18:28). GENITIVE: The case that expresses possession or specifies a relationship that can be expressed in English by "of." In Hebrew this is called a construct relationship. The Greek genitive is the specifying case answering the question "What kind?" Heb: "the expanse of the sky" (Gen. 1:21). Gk: "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4). GUTTURALS: The mute consonants whose sounds are produced when the front of the tongue approaches the palate of the mouth. Four letters in Hebrew, a h j and [ are the guttural letters (r has some guttural characteristics). Hebrew gutturals cannot be doubled, prefer a-class vowels, and composite shevas. In Greek, the guttural letters are g k and c also called velars, laryngeals, or palatals. HITHPAEL: A verbal form in Hebrew that expresses intensive or emphatic action (classified by some grammars as causative action) and reflexive voice. For this emphasis in Greek, middle voice. Heb: "A group of adventurers gathered around [lit., gathered themselves around] him" (Judg. 11:3). HOPHAL: A verbal form in Hebrew that expresses causative action and passive voice. Heb: "Let seven of his male descendants be given [hophal] to us" (2 Sam. 21:6). IMPERATIVE: A verb or verbal mood that expresses command or makes a request. IMPERFECT: In Hebrew, the form of the verb used to express action that is incomplete or unfinished. Heb: "What if they do not believe me" (Exod. 4:1). The Greek imperfect tense expresses incomplete, linear action in past time. Gk: "People were eating and drinking..." (Luke 17:28). Other regular uses of the tense include iterative, frequentative, inceptive, and conative. INFINITIVE: A verbal noun that has characteristics of both verbs and nouns. In English usually introduced by to. Hebrew has both infinitive absolute and infinitive construct forms. Heb: "I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land" (Gen. 15:7). The Greek infinitive is used as a substantive, in subordinate clauses, with prepositions, and in epexegesis. Gk: "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21). INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE: A form of the Hebrew infinitive that may function in a number of ways: to express certainty or intensification ("you will surely die," Gen. 2:17); to express repeated or continued action ("Be ever hearing," Isa. 6:9); as a finite verb ("They...broke the jars," Judg. 7:19); to express an emphatic imperative ("Remember the Sabbath day," Exod. 20:8). MASORETIC TEXT: The vocalized text of the Hebrew Bible, prepared by a group of Jewish scholars around A.D. 700 to preserve the oral pronunciation of the Hebrew words.

MOOD: Mood indicates the manner in which the action is conceived (or its relation to reality). Moods are indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and optative. Mood may be expressed by finite verbs in Greek and by various means (form, words, or context) in Hebrew. Mode. NIPHAL: A verbal form (stem) in Hebrew that expresses simple action and passive or reflexive voice. Heb: "She was given in marriage to Adriel of Meholah" (1 Sam. 18:19). OPTATIVE MOOD: The mood of possibility and more doubtful assertion that expresses wish or desire. See also jussive and cohortative. Heb: "If only we had died in Egypt!" (Num. 14:2). Gk: "May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance" (2 Thess. 3:5). PARTICIPLE: A verbal form that has characteristics of both noun and verb. In Hebrew it represents characteristic, continual, uninterrupted action. Heb: "The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters" (Gen. 1:2). The Greek participle is widely used as a substantive, adjective, and adverb in phrases and clauses. Gk:"...in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him" (1 Peter 1:21). PARTICLE: A unit of speech that is ranked as an uninflected word but expresses some kind of syntactical relationship or some general aspect of meaning. Some grammarians classify all conjunctions, prepositions, and negatives as particles. PASSIVE VOICE: A voice form of the verb that represents the subject as receiver of the action. Heb: "This land was given to us as our possession" (Ezek. 11:15). Gk: "You were marked in him with a seal" (Eph. 1:13). PERFECT/PERFECT TENSE: In Hebrew, this form of the verb is used to express completed action, whether in reality or in the thought of the speaker or writer. Heb: rm'v; is a perfect form of the verb and would be translated "he guarded." The Greek perfect tense, by contrast, represents a state of completion with abiding results and is often translated as a present perfect. Gk: The perfect leluke would be rendered "he has released." PIEL: A verbal form in Hebrew that expresses intensive or emphatic action and active voice. Heb: "They destroyed the high places and the altars" (2 Chron. 31:1). PREPOSITION: A word that shows relationships between its object and some other word in the sentence. Some common English prepositions are in, to, from, with, above, for, by. PRETERITE: A Latin name for the past tense; it is the equivalent of the perfect in Hebrew and the aorist indicative in Greek. PUAL: A verbal form in Hebrew that expresses intensive or emphatic action and passive voice. Heb: "There was Baal's altar, demolished" (Judg. 6:28). QAL: A verbal form in Hebrew that expresses simple action and active voice; it is sometimes spelled Kal. Ex:"Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew" (Gen.25:34). REFLEXIVE VOICE: Denotes an action that is directed back upon the agent or subject; expressed in Hebrew by the niphal and the hithpael, in Greek by the middle voice.Heb: "I have...kept myself from sin" (Ps. 18:23). Gk: "Then he went away and hanged himself" (Matt. 27:5). ROOT: That part of a word left when all affixes are removed; the morpheme that carries the minimal unit of meaning in a word and can be common to several different words. The three consonants in Hebrew that ordinarily compose the basic uninflected spelling of a word are called the root letters. Occasionally a Hebrew word may have two or four root letters. Gk: the root dik- is common to dikaio", "righteous," dikh, "justice," and dikaiow, "to acquit." Also called "Lexeme." STATIVE VERB, STATIC VERB: A stative verb is one that indicates a state of being or relationship rather than action. In Hebrew, its vowel pattern is different from that of verbs of action or motion. Greek statives include eijmi, ginomai, and uJparcw. Heb: "the hands...will be strengthened (2 Sam. 16:21). Gk: "Who, being in very nature God" (Phil. 2:6). STEM: The noun or verb base formed by the addition of derivational affixes to the root. Thus, in Greek, doro- is the stem of the noun doron, "gift"; do- is the root, ro is the affix (in this case, a suffix). Also called base in recent grammars. In Hebrew, the term is used to designate verb forms that express certain kinds of action and voice; the major Hebrew verbal stems are qal, niphal, piel, pual, hithpael, hiphil, and hophal. STRONG VERB: In Hebrew, the regular verb whose stem consonants do not change, i.e., remain unmodified in conjugation, in contrast to the weak verb. In Greek, a tense stem formed from the verb stem or root itself by vowel gradation. VOICE: Voice is a modification of a verb that tells whether the subject of the verb acts or is acted upon. There are three voices in English, Hebrew, and Greek: active, passive, and reflexive. WEAK VERB: In Hebrew, the verbs with gutturals or weak letters ( n in first root position, y and w in first or second root position, identical second and third root letters) as radicals, which produce modifications in the conjugation, in contrast to the strong verb. In Greek, a tense stem formed by adding a suffix to the verb stem or root.

If you discover obvious errors (as I am human, and do make mistakes), please let me know. Do not contact me to argue about the doctrinal differences that you may have with my teaching. I do not argue Theology with anyone, so all Legalists, cultists, and others with extremist views, please save your (and my) time. If you want to discuss your doctrinal differences, or share a viewpoint, please contact me at Didaskalos Ministries.

Isaiah 36:1

Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year (701 BC)

of king Hezekiah, (he was out of fellowship with God because he compromised with the world. He paid tribute to Sennacherib - 2 Kings 18.14-16 - He went to Egypt, rather than God, for help - Isaiah 30.1-6; 31.1-3; and he received Merodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon - Isaiah 39)

[that] Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities (there were 46 defenced cities in Judah at this time)

of Judah, and took them. (related: 2 Kings 18, 19; 2 Chronicles 32)

Isaiah 36:2

And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh (the chief officer of the Assyrian army)

from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool (this was a natural amphitheater. His placement allowed thousands to hear his message)

in the highway of the fuller's field. (a laundry row where clothes were washed. There were walls and ducts here that carried water for washing. Israel sat on the walls while Rabshakeh stood on the dry side of the conduit)

Isaiah 36:3

Then came forth unto him Eliakim, (he was the Secretary of State. He had been in a higher position, but he was demoted to this position - Isaiah 22.15-20)

Hilkiah's son, which was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, (this was the one who took over Eliakim's old job. He was personal secretary to the King)

and Joah, Asaph's son, the recorder. (as historian, he kept a written record of all that passed for the King's records)

Isaiah 36:4

And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, (this statement was made to insult Hezekiah. Sense = the King of Assyria is great, you are nothing)

the king of Assyria, What confidence [is] this wherein thou trustest?

Isaiah 36:5

I say, [sayest thou], (but [they are but] vain words) [I have] counsel and strength for war: now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? (sense = you have mere words to rely on, we have power)

Isaiah 36:6

Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, (sense = relying on Egypt is like relying on a broken reed as a walking stick. Assyria would destroy Egypt and its armies)

on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so [is] Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.

Isaiah 36:7

But if thou say to me, We trust in the LORD our God: (the people of Judah were making this statement. Traitors in the camp were divulging the words of the people to Assyria)

[is it] not he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, (the unbeliever twisted this truth, as unbelievers will do. Hezekiah took away the altars to false gods, not the place of worship of the True God Jehovah)

and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar? (implication - the pastor is responsible for your trouble, not yourselves)

Isaiah 36:8

Now therefore give pledges, (`arab, make a bet with me. He said, "I'll wager 2000 horses that you don't have 2000 warriors who can set on them)

I pray thee, to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.

Isaiah 36:9

How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain (pechah, calvary officer)

of the least of my master's servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

Isaiah 36:10

And am I now come up without the LORD against this land to destroy it? the LORD said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it. (He, an unbeliever, was using "the Lord sent me to do it" tactic to try and sway the people. How to counteract this? See what the Word says!)

Isaiah 36:11

Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants (notice that these leaders had already given up. Their mental attitude only allowed them to recognize themselves as the servants of Assyria. How many of us have given up, though Christ has won the victory for us at Calvary)

in the Syrian language; for we understand [it]: and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that [are] on the wall.

Isaiah 36:12

But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? [hath he] not [sent me] to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? (an idiom for total conquest. Captives were not given water for the first few days to break their spirit. When they begged for water, guards said "drink your own urine!")

Isaiah 36:13

Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

Isaiah 36:14

Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you. (Hezekiah had deceived the people, because he never told them he had made a treaty with Egypt. Rabshakeh brought this to light in order to discredit Hezekiah in the eyes of Israel. Leaders should remember to remain honest with their people, or it may come back and bite you)

Isaiah 36:15

Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Isaiah 36:16

Hearken not to Hezekiah: (Satan always prefers anarchy over God's authority. He is slowly demolishing the Church in our day by eroding pastoral authority for "Deacons rule" or "Apostolic Authority". Neither of these positions can be supported Scripturally - though they are pleasant to "majority rules, as long as God is not the majority" Churches)

for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make [an agreement] with me [by] a present, and come out to me: and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern; (sense = Assyria will provide all your needs - no need for God)

Isaiah 36:17

Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. (this was true - Assyria practiced a deportation policy to break the spirit of the people it conquered. To be rooted up from your home is a terrible thing, not a good thing, but Rabshakeh was trying to make out that this was a good thing. This is the problem with sin - it makes good look evil, and evil look good)

Isaiah 36:18

[Beware] lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The LORD will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

Isaiah 36:19

Where [are] the gods of Hamath (the capital of upper Syria)

and Arphad? (a city state destroyed by Assyria after a two year siege)

where [are] the gods of Sepharvaim? (a city state on the Euphrates river near Babylon)

and have they delivered Samaria (conquered in 721 BC) out of my hand?

Isaiah 36:20

Who [are they] among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? (sense = "Nothing succeeds like success". He was saying, "God never delivered these places - why should He deliver you?")

Isaiah 36:21

But they held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not.

Isaiah 36:22

Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that [was] over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, to Hezekiah with [their] clothes rent, (again, they had already given up, so they tore their clothes like they were mourning the fall of Jerusalem)

and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

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