The Attack of Assyria

Hezekiah was in a no-win situation. The Assyrians were absolutely dominant militarily and were known to be particularly brutal to any who opposed them. I read that their soldiers would skin people alive and nail those skins onto the city walls, lest others believe they could stand against them. So Hezekiah, in the face of almost certain defeat, had two choices. he could surrender, which would mean deportation and slavery for his people, or try to defend his kingdom, risking the torture of his people. When Sennacherib sent him the taunting message announcing his intention to invade, Hezekiah immediately went to the Temple and spread the letter out before the Lord as he prayed. Hezekiah was the first king reported to have prayed in the temple in over 250 years, since the time of Solomon. Hezekiah was told, through the prophet Isaiah, that "his (Sennacherib's) armies will not enter Jerusalem. They will not even shoot an arrow at it."

So Hezekiah prepared to stand against Sennacherib and made at least two major preparations to resist conquest. He built a tunnel, known as either Hezekiah's tunnel or the Siloam tunnel and a wall surrounding the city called the Broad Wall. Both are still partially intact today. Before the Assyrians could advance into the city, the Bible says that the Lord went into their camp and killed 185,000 of their soldiers. This caused Sennacherib to flee. Three extra-biblical sources confirm that Jerusalem was victorious rather than defeated... Jewish historian Josephus, Greek historian Herodotus, and Chaldean historian Berosus. Specifically, Herodotus notes that large numbers of Assyrian soldiers were killed due to a plague of mice while Berosus notes that the Lord sent a plague of "pestilential distemper" that killed "one hundred fourscore and five thousand" (which I believe equals 185,000 as stated in the Bible). Both of these accounts, as detailed in Josephus' historical record, add that the Assyrian armies were divided between a campaign in Egypt and one in Jerusalem. Sennacherib was with the army in Egypt and had left two ofhis generals behind in jerusalem to secure the city. These were the generals who delivered the taunting message to Hezekaih's officials just before he went to the Temple to pray.

The historicity of this confrontation is substantiated by Sennacherib himself in an artifact discovered in 830 called Sennacherib's Prism. It's accuracy is called into question by the fact that it states that Assyria was never defeated in battle. Kings of that time were not known to record their defeats. Note that Sennacherib confirms Hezekiah's refusal to pay tribute, the siege of the outlying territories of Judah (probably Lachich and Libnah), and the amount of what Hezekiah eventually paid in tribute.

From The Sennacherib Prism:

In my third campaign I marched against Hatti. Luli, king of Sidon, whom the terror-inspiring glamor of my lordship had overwhelmed, fled far overseas and perished.... As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to his strong cities, walled forts, and countless small villages, and conquered them by means of well-stamped earth-ramps and battering-rams brought near the walls with an attack by foot soldiers, using mines, breeches as well as trenches. I drove out 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered them slaves. Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were his city's gate. Thus I reduced his country, but I still increased the tribute and the presents to me as overlord which I imposed upon him beyond the former tribute, to be delivered annually. Hezekiah himself, did send me, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, precious stones, antimony, large cuts of red stone, couches inlaid with ivory, nimedu-chairs inlaid with ivory, elephant-hides, ebony-wood, boxwood and all kinds of valuable treasures, his own daughters and concubines. . .

Tomorrow's reading:2 Kings 20:1-19, 2 Chron. 32:24-31, Isaiah 38:1-22, 39:1-8