Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine olive oil—his entire armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them. – Isaiah 39:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 5, 2020): Isaiah 38 & 39

Diplomacy has often contained an element of the magician’s sleight of hand or a poker player’s bluff. The question a good diplomat strives to get to the bottom of is this; What are you hiding from me? It is often a weaker power that reveals everything that they have to a foreign diplomat. The bluster of that “new missile” or the “state of the art submarine” is an attempt to get others to believe that you have more than you really possess. It is often not the leader who proudly parades his military in front of the world that should worry us. If they were playing poker, these leaders are usually trying to bluff you nothing more than “Jack High” in their hand. They can have state of the art computer graphics about the dangers of their new weapon, but often the only thing state of the art about the actual weapon is the graphics used to advertise it.

No, the powers who need to be feared are the quiet ones who reveal nothing. No one has any idea what kind of a hand that they are really holding. And therein lies the problem. Because no one is sure about the hand that they are holding, there is always the possibility that it might be stronger than anyone believes that it is.

On the World stage, an example of this kind of diplomacy reigns in Israel. It has been long believed that Israel has nuclear weapons and a rudimentary but accurate delivery system. But even though most experts believe that Israel is a nuclear power and has been since around 1966, Israel has never shown anyone their arsenal. They also have never attempted a nuclear test. We don’t know what they possess or how sophisticated their weapons might be. In the world of diplomacy, this kind of tactic is known as “strategic ambiguity,” a practice where a country is purposely ambiguous about certain parts of its foreign policy. Poke the bear if you must, but you don’t know who strong they might be, or how deadly their response.

Israel’s current diplomatic strategy is the total reverse to what it was under Hezekiah. While contemporary Israel understands that its fate might be dependent on keeping its neighbors guessing as to its real military strength, pride made Hezekiah throw open the doors on every part of the kingdom. No room remained off-limits to the envoys from Babylon. The Babylonians now knew the wealth and the relative strength of Judah. And that was knowledge that would come in handy a little more than a century later.

Hezekiah allowed for no mystery and no ambiguity. He was proud off all that he possessed and probably believed that revealing what he had might make him a more prominent player in the politics of his world. But instead, it made him look weak, a king that was holding “Jack high,” but trying to pretend that it was something stronger. And while Hezekiah would not pay the price for his doomed diplomatic strategy, his nation would.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 17