A Tale of Two Covenants, a devotional thought

In 2 Kings 18:31-37, the city of Jerusalem is under siege by the Assyrians, and the people come out to parlay with the Assyrian general. He says some utterly shocking and blasphemous things about what they intend to do to the inhabitants of the city once they've conquered it (it really is R-rated), and how YHWH can't stop them, any more than any of the other gods of the other nations could. And then in 2 Kings 18:31, he says, "So this is what the king of Assyria says: make a covenant with me, and every man can 'eat from his own vine and drink from his own cistern.'"

Considering what they'll be eating and drinking if they don't (see v.27), this seems like a fair deal.

Only: the word he uses there, "covenant," is a really loaded one. Because the people, right from the beginning of the story, have been in covenant with YHWH. That is the story: God covenants with his people, promises to guard them and guide them, and invites them to love him and serve him. So, in suggesting that the Jerusalemites make a covenant with him, the king of Assyria is also telling them to abandon their covenant with YHWH.

Of course, I'm not standing on a city wall listening to a horde of ruthless barbarians threaten to slaughter me and mine if I don't surrender, so I can't imagine the very real terror that must have swept the city that day, and how tempting it would have been for Hezekiah to cut covenant with Assyria and be done with it. But at the same time, this passage leaves me wondering: where, and how, and when have I made a covenant with the systems of this world, because they promised to bring me peace or spare me difficulty, even though in cozying up like that, it meant abandoning, or at the very least neglecting the covenant God's made with me?

May God help us all see the "worldly covenants" in our lives for what they are; may he keep us faithful in covenant with him, even as he himself is faithful.