Rabshakeh uses questions to shift from diplomatic protocol to psychological warfare, asserting that his message targets not just the royal court but the common soldiers who will suffer the horrors of siege. By framing this as a rhetorical question, he forces Jerusalem’s officials to acknowledge that their silence condemns their own people to starvation.

Hezekiah’s officials made no verbal reply to Rabshakeh’s rhetorical questions. Instead, they tore their clothes and reported his words to King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:37), obeying the king’s earlier command not to answer (2 Kings 18:36).

Rabshakeh’s double question exposes his propaganda technique. He asks whether Sennacherib sent him to negotiate privately with Judah’s leaders or publicly to demoralize Jerusalem’s defenders. The Hebrew structure emphasizes the rhetorical contrast through the particle hălô’, which expects agreement. The Assyrian commander deliberately violates diplomatic convention by using questions to force his audience into complicity with his message. Rather than stating his intention to terrorize the city, he frames it as a question that makes silence itself an admission. This rhetorical strategy carries theological weight: it reveals how tyranny works by making victims feel responsible for their own oppression, as if resistance itself causes the suffering that surrender would prevent.