2 Raja-raja 18:26-28

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ¹  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ²  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. ³  His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” ⁴ 

18:28 The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect, ⁵  “Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria.

[18:26]  ¹ sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

[18:26]  ² tn Or “Hebrew.”

[18:27]  ³ tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[18:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”

[18:27]  sn The chief adviser alludes to the horrible reality of siege warfare, when the starving people in the besieged city would resort to eating and drinking anything to stay alive.

[18:28]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text also has, “and he spoke and said.”