2 Kings 18:27
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. 1 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.” 2
2 Kings 18:31
18:31 Don’t listen to Hezekiah!’ For this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. 3 Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,
1 tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.
2 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.
3 tn Heb “make with me a blessing and come out to me.”