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.
1 sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.
2 tn Or “Hebrew.”
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.
4 tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”
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.
5 tn The Hebrew text also has, “and he spoke and said.”