For Sennacherib’s campaign against Judah in 701 BC we are fortunate enough to have several separate sources. The first is Sennacherib’s Prism (or the Taylor Prism), a cuneiform document that contains the annals of Sennacherib, and the second is the Bible, which records King Hezekiah’s war against Sennacherib in the Second Book of Kings (18: 7–36 and 19: 1–37), the Prophet Isaiah (36: 1–22 and 37: 1–38) and the Second Book of Chronicles (32: 1–23). The archaeological discoveries at Jerusalem and Lachish help to complete the picture.
In 715 BC, after the death of Ahaz, Hezekiah succeeded to the throne of Judah. He began a series of religious reforms, as well as an aggressive foreign policy. At the beginning his main successes were against the Philistines in the south-eastern Shephelah and on the coast. He annexed to his kingdom the area surrounding Gerar, once part of the Judahite kingdom, forced Gaza to submit, and conquered the area around Joppa. This last step gave Judah a foothold on the Mediterranean coast. However, Hezekiah scored notable diplomatic successes as a consequence of his successful campaigns. Padi, king of Ekron, abdicated; a ruler more acceptable to Hezekiah was chosen in his place. The Philistine city of Ashkelon entered into a defensive alliance with the Judahite ruler. Soon after, Luli, king of the Phoenician city of Tyre, followed suit. Moreover, it seems that Hezekiah found another ally in Tirhakah, the Kushite leader of Egypt, and in Marduk-apla-iddina II, who had seized the throne of Babylon. Thus in a short time, the Judahite king, through successful military campaigns and diplomacy, succeeded in creating a series of buffer states around Judah. Hezekiah well knew that his small army could not face the Assyrian army in the open field, and so he reinforced the defences of his kingdom, notably the cities of Jerusalem and Lachish, as well as various small forts. Judah was now ready to face Assyria. The casus belli came when Hezekiah refused to pay to Sennacherib annual tribute. Thus in 701 BC the Assyrian army moved against Judah and its allies.
Sennacherib’s hexagonal clay prism was discovered among the ruins of Nineveh. The prism, created around 689 BC, is in the Akkadian language. After a short introduction, exalting his qualities, Sennacherib describes the various campaigns waged by the Assyrian army under his command. His main account is the campaign against Hezekiah in 701 BC, which was waged first against Hezekiah’s allies, who submitted one after the other, and then against Judah, now alone in facing the Assyrian king’s wrath.
Sennacherib first targeted the Phoenicians, submitting the Kingdom of Lule, ruler of Sidon, who drowned at sea whilst trying to escape from the Assyrian army. Next, the Assyrian army besieged the other Phoenician cities, who readily submitted and paid tribute: Great Sidon, Little Sidon, Bit-Zitti, Zaribtu, Mahalliba, Ushu, Akzib and Akko. Sennacherib appointed a certain Tuba’lu as the king of all the Phoenician cities. As a consequence of his campaign against the Phoenician cities, various other rulers, including those of Moab, Ammon, and Edom, submitted and paid tribute to Sennacherib. The Assyrian army then moved against the Philistine cities. The first one to be besieged was Ashkelon. Its king, Sidka, was deported to Assyria together with his family. In his place, Sennacherib appointed a certain Sharru-lu-dari, son of Rukibti, the former king of Ashkelon, as the new pro-Assyrian ruler, who was quick to pay tribute to the Assyrian king. Next the cities of Beth-Dagon, Joppa, Banaibarka, and Asuru, ‘who had not speedily bowed in submission at my feet’, in Sennacherib’s words, were besieged and conquered. Sennacherib had now acquired control of the coastal stripe. The last Philistine city to resist was Ekron, whose king, Padi, was a prisoner of Hezekiah. The Philistine city called upon the Egyptians for help, and the Assyrian army was forced to fight an Egyptian–Kushite army; after a fierce battle, the Assyrians won. The now isolated Ekron was captured; Sennacherib ‘slew the governors and nobles who had rebelled, and hung their bodies on stakes around the city’ as a lesson to the others. Padi was later reinstated on the throne, and paid tribute to the Assyrians. Judah was now alone, and Sennacherib’s prism describes his next moves:
As for Hezekiah the Judahite, who did not submit to my yoke: I besieged and took 46 of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small towns in their area, which were without number, by levelling with battering-rams and by bringing up siege engines, and by attacking and storming on foot, by mines, tunnels, and breeches. 200,150 people, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, cattle and sheep without number, I brought away from them and counted as spoil. [Hezekiah] himself, like a caged bird I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city. I threw up earthworks against him – the one coming out of the city-gate, I turned back to his misery.
It appears that the two main cities confronted by the Assyrian army in Judah were Lachish and Jerusalem. It is possible to reconstruct the siege and conquest of Lachish through a series of three huge orthostate slabs found in Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh. The slabs depict the king’s military campaigns, including the siege and conquest of Lachish. The palace was excavated by Botta, Place, and Layard in 1847, who recovered the precious depictions. It seems that attention was lavished on the conquest of Lachish because the Assyrian king was unable to conquer Jerusalem. It is important to stress that these reliefs are the only material representations we have of the defences of a Judahite city.
The outer exit of the Megiddo water system. (Author’s photograph, courtesy of Israel Nature and Parks Authority)
The first slab depicts various units of the Assyrian army in three registers. The upper register depicts various soldiers, sling men, auxiliary archers, heavy archers and shield bearers. The middle register depicts auxiliary archers, heavy archers and storming troops with spears. The bottom register depicts sling men, heavy archers, auxiliary archers and storming troops with spears. Around the soldiers are various grape vines, which frame the scene, symbolizing the countryside of Judah. The second slab, the most important one, depicts the storming of the city. The whole relief is dominated by the battle around the city gate, defended by soldiers, depicted in the centre. The upper register depicts the double city wall, with towers topped by battlements and shields. From the top of the wall, various defenders throw down huge boulders onto the Assyrian army and flaming torches to set fire to the siege machines. Beneath the gate is depicted the huge ramp erected by the Assyrians. The Assyrian army is storming the gate with the help of two battering rams on the ramp. The battering rams are followed by scaling parties, archers, sling men, spearmen and shield bearers. This same scene is repeated twice from left to right and from right to left. We do not know if there were indeed four battering rams, or whether the scene was repeated to emphasize its importance. From the gate a group of captives, comprising elders, men and women, is depicted leaving the city. Clearly this would have happened only after the city’s conquest, but the artist obviously decided to show the storming and the population leaving the city both together to make clear that the attack was successful and that the city was conquered. The execution of prisoners is depicted near to where the gate is being stormed. The third slab depicts the deportation of the captive population as well as the presentation of the spoils to Sennacherib. Various palm trees, vines, and fig trees, which frame the scene, show that the artist was familiar with the Judahite countryside. On the left part of the slab two registers are depicted. The lower register, from left to right, depicts a group of Judahite prisoners with a camel, and a Judahite family with a chariot preceded by the children. In the middle, some Assyrian soldiers are flaying two naked prisoners. On the right, Assyrian archers are pushing two elders, distinguished by their beards and long gowns. The upper register depicts, from left to right, Assyrian soldiers with chariot and braziers, spoils of war, and a group of Judahite prisoners with chariots, probably a family, who are preceded by two bulls. On the right part of the panel, the centre is dominated by the enthroned figure of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, with various officials, soldiers, and a servant with ostrich fan around him. Some Judahite elders in front of him are begging for mercy. To stress his military success, the royal tent as well as the royal chariot is depicted. It seems that the artist who made the slabs in Nineveh did indeed follow the military expedition, and drafted the basic details on the spot.
The excavations of Lachish (Lachish III) substantiate the veracity of the scenes depicted on the slabs. Archaeologists have discovered various mementoes of the Assyrian siege, incuding the Assyrian earthen ramp, which is still visible today. The latter lies at the south-western corner of the city; it was connected by a shallow saddle to a hill on which the Assyrian camp was located. The ramp was erected using large quantities of stones piled perpendicular to the city walls, until these reached the bottom of the city wall. Near to the gate hundreds of iron arrowheads, sling stones, heavy stones and pieces of charred wood were found, mute witnesses to the battle that raged in this area. Inside the city archaeologists discovered a massive counter-ramp, built by the defenders opposite the Assyrian ramp. The purpose of this ramp was to protect the wall from battering rams. In addition, a mass burial site containing the bodies of thousands of massacred people was discovered in a cave outside the city.
The shaft of the water system at Hazor. (Author’s photograph, courtesy of Israel Nature and Parks Authority)
After Lachish, Sennacherib marched on Jerusalem and began the siege of the city. The Bible is our main source for what happened in Jerusalem, in the Second Book of Kings (18: 7–36 and 19: 1–37), in the Prophet Isaiah (36: 1–22 and 37: 1–38), and in the Second Book of Chronicles (32: 1–23). The accounts state that after Sennacherib’s conquest of Lachish, Hezekiah sent messengers to Sennacherib, offering tribute. Sennacherib had Hezekiah pay ‘300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold’, which were taken from the Temple’s treasure. Even the Temple doors had their gold stripped off to pay this tribute. However, Sennacherib decided to march on Jerusalem. It seems that at this stage the Assyrian army was under the command of the Turtannu (commander-in-chief of the army), the Rab-Saris (chief of the eunuchs, or king’s servants) and the Rab-Shakeh (the name given to the chief cup-bearer or the vizier of the Assyrian royal court). Sennacherib probably stayed at Lachish.
A plan of Hurvath Rahba, one of the fortified enclosures in the Central Negev Highlands, dated to the United Monarchy period. This enclosure presents a common plan, comprising a row of casemate walls with rooms, and a large central courtyard. (Dalit Weinblatt–Krausz)
The Assyrian army encamped somewhere in the north-west of the city. In an attempt to avoid a further siege, which would sap the strength of his army, Sennacherib sent the Rab-Shakeh to discuss a possible surrender. King Hezekiah sent as his representatives ‘Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who ruled the household, Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder’. The Assyrian Rab-Shakeh met the Judahite envoys under the eyes of the population of Jerusalem, probably watching from the city walls. The Rab-Shakeh spoke in Hebrew, so that the population could follow the discussions. He stressed that Egypt, on which Judah was relying for military support, had been defeated and could not rescue the besieged city. The Judahite envoys answered in Aramaic, stating that the population could clearly understand that he was boasting. This remark angered the Assyrian high official, who answered that Hezekiah would not be able to deliver the population from Assyria’s wrath. He then invited the population to surrender peacefully. He explained that their destiny would be deportation to a land similar to theirs, and that no other nation had successfully withstood the Assyrian army. The people, following King Hezekiah’s orders, remained silent. The meeting ended at this point, and the Judahite envoys returned to King Hezekiah. The Assyrians had failed to persuade King Hezekiah to surrender and in their attempts to put psychological pressure on the population, and the Judahite envoys were unsuccessful in getting favourable terms. The Assyrian envoy returned back to Sennacherib at Lachish. Sennacherib sent further messengers to Hezekiah to persuade him to surrender, and once more the Assyrian proposals were rebuffed. According to the Bible, as the Assyrian army began their siege of Jerusalem, a deadly disease struck the Assyrian army, forcing King Sennacherib to abandon the siege. The Biblical account concludes with the assassination of Sennacherib, which took place some years later, in 681 BC. We must remember that the Bible has a certain vested interest in showing that the righteous King Hezekiah, who put his faith in the Lord, was saved from the Assyrians, and that the blasphemous Assyrians were punished.
A plan of the Israelite fort at Arad, Strata X–VI. The fortress was surrounded by a wall comprising inset and offset sections. Its entrance gate is flanked by two towers, and the site features a central courtyard surrounded by storage rooms, dwelling rooms and a temple. (Dalit Weinblatt–Krausz)
However, the Biblical account is contradicted by Sennacherib’s prism. According to the latter, Hezekiah was forced to surrender. The peace conditions were harsh. Various territories were given to ‘Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and Silli-bel, king of Gaza’. Hezekiah himself had to pay a huge tribute, which was taken to Nineveh; this included ‘30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, gems, antimony, jewels, large carnelians, ivory-inlaid couches, ivory-inlaid chairs, elephant hides, elephant tusks, ebony, boxwood, all kinds of valuable treasures, the Judahite king’s daughters, his harem, his male and female musicians’.
Although it is indeed possible that plague halted the siege plans of the Assyrian army at Jerusalem, there is another possible reason why Sennacherib was forced to abandoned the siege. The Babylonians had begun an open rebellion against Sennacherib in 703 BC, which was soon put down. Their leader, Marduk-apla-iddina II, had fled into the marshes around Babylonia. However, revolt broke out once again, and in 700 BC the Assyrian army had to return to fight the rebels in the marshes, causing Marduk-apla-iddina II to flee to Elam. The Babylonian rebellion was serious enough for Sennacherib to abandon the siege of Jerusalem. It is interesting to note that the episode of the plague, which ravaged the Assyrian army under the walls of Jerusalem, has an equivalent in a similar episode related by the Greek historian Herodotus (Histories II, 141). In this account, before a battle with the Egyptians the Assyrian army of Sennacherib was overrun by a plague of mice, which ate their way throught all the quivers and bowstrings, as well as the handgrips of the shields. As result, the following day the Assyrian army could not use their weapons and were defeated.
The Israelite fort at Arad. (Author’s photograph, courtesy of Israel Nature and Parks Authority)
The gate of the Israelite fort at Arad. (Author’s photograph, courtesy of Israel Nature and Parks Authority)
Another view of the gate of the Israelite fort at Arad. (Author’s photograph, courtesy of Israel Nature and Parks Authority)
No matter which account is correct, it appears clear that Hezekiah saved Jerusalem and his throne from the Assyrians, and reasserted the independence of the Israelites. However, the price paid was a terrible one. All of Judah had been ravaged by the war. Lachish, as well as other cities and forts, had been razed to the ground by the Assyrian army. More or less in the same period, the Edomites, now allied to the Assyrians, destroyed Beer-sheba. The country was economically ruined by the war and by the huge tribute imposed by the Assyrians.
A reproduction of Ostracon 1 from Arad. It reads: ‘To Elyashib: and now, give to the Kittim three baths of wine, and write the name of the day. And from the remainder of the first flour, load one omer of flour to make bread from them. Give them the wine from the aganoth jars.’ (Author’s collection)