ישעיהו, פרק ל״ו, פסוק י״ט

In a calculated display of psychological warfare, the Assyrian speaker delivers a series of rhetorical questions designed to shatter the confidence of Jerusalem's residents. His primary goal is to plant doubt regarding God's ability to protect them. To build his case, he lists several regions that have already fallen to Assyrian conquest. He mentions Hamath and Arpad, cities located in northern Syria, as well as Sepharvaim, a city situated near the Euphrates River [שד״ל, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Interestingly, some of the surviving residents of Sepharvaim were subsequently exiled into the land of Israel itself [ביאור שטיינזלץ]. By pointing to these defeated territories, the speaker challenges the listeners to consider whether the local deities possessed any real power to save their worshippers [מצודת דוד].

The argument then shifts to the fall of Samaria, linking its destruction with the gods of these foreign cities. Commentators offer two ways to understand this connection. One perspective explains that the residents of Samaria actually worshipped the gods of their Aramean neighbors, which included the region of Hamath. The Assyrian king argues that if these idols possessed any true strength, they surely would have protected the very people in Samaria who worshipped them [רש״י, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Another approach suggests a dual meaning embedded in a condensed statement. In this view, the speaker is asking two distinct questions: Did the gods of Hamath and Sepharvaim save their own lands, and did the gods of Samaria manage to save Samaria? [שד״ל].

Beyond merely reciting historical victories, this propaganda is carefully crafted to preemptively dismantle two specific counterarguments the Judean audience might raise [מלבי״ם]. First, if the people of Judah believe that God is inherently stronger than the gods of other nations, the Assyrian speaker reminds them that Samaria was also part of Israel, yet it still collapsed. Second, the Judeans might try to rationalize the failure of the foreign gods by claiming those deities simply chose not to save their nations, rather than lacking the power to do so. The speaker's aggressive questioning is meant to prove that the failure of these forces was not due to a lack of desire, but rather an absolute lack of ability.