Isaiah 36:12
But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
Isaiah 36:12 belongs to the threatening campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib against Jerusalem and Judah during the reign of Hezekiah. Rabshakeh's words are a deliberately degrading threat that siege will reduce Jerusalem's defenders and people to extreme famine and thirst, forced to consume their own waste. He directs that threat not only to the king and his officers but to the men sitting upon the city wall, appealing directly to the people in order to frighten and discourage them into surrender.
His speech attempts to terrorize Jerusalem's defenders and to undermine their trust in God by treating the God of Jerusalem as powerless, like the handmade gods of the nations. The crisis was followed by Hezekiah's humility, God's message through the prophet, and the Lord's deliverance of Jerusalem when the Assyrian army was struck down and Sennacherib returned to his own land in shame. The history to which the verse belongs, including the siege of Lachish and Sennacherib's demand for tribute, is confirmed by records excavated at Nineveh, which give no further explanation of the verse's specific words.