Hezekiah of Judah and Sennacherib of Assyria (18:13–19:37)

Sennacherib … attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them (18:13). After Sargon II’s death in 705 B.C., the new Assyrian king Sennacherib (705–681 B.C.) was involved in a campaign in southern Mesopotamia (703–702 B.C.) against the erstwhile king of Babylon Marduk-apla-iddina II, who was leading a revolt there in renewed pursuit of his own royal claims. It was only after dealing with this closer threat that Sennacherib was able to turn his attention to Syria-Palestine (in 701 B.C.). The rebellion there quickly collapsed, according to Assyrian records, and Hezekiah found himself without effective allies and without fortresses.

King of Assyria at Lachish (18:14). Lachish was one of the most important cities in Judah, guarding a main route from the coastal plain to the Hebron hills (see comment on 14:19), and it received particular attention from Sennacherib during this campaign. Archaeological level III tells the story. The main Assyrian attack was carried out in the southwest corner of the city—the only part of the city not protected by a deep valley—where a siege ramp of boulders was erected to allow the approach of the Assyrian forces. The city was eventually captured and burned to the ground. The excavations uncovered large numbers of pottery vessels sealed beneath the destruction debris; the remains of weapons and ammunition, mostly at the foot of the city wall; and a mass burial, possibly associated with the conquest, in several of the caves on the western slope of the mound.

lmlk seal impression

Courtesy of the Redondo Beach collection

Of particular interest was the discovery of many royal seal impressions stamped on the handles of storage jars. Ten of these stamped royal jars have been restored. All were apparently produced in a center not far from Lachish during the reign of Hezekiah, in preparation for the Assyrian invasion.162

The king of Assyria sent his supreme commander, his chief officer and his field commander (18:17). While still besieging Lachish and having apparently decided after all not to accept Hezekiah’s attempt to persuade him to withdraw (18:14–15), Sennacherib sent an army to Jerusalem to pressure Hezekiah into a full surrender. This was no doubt because Hezekiah was one of the moving forces in the revolt. We have an analogy to the practice of besieging a major city while continuing operations elsewhere in the surrounding region in Tiglath-pileser III’s campaigns in Syria in 743–740 B.C.

Those in charge of the army sent to Jerusalem are described first as the turtanu (Heb. tartān, “supreme commander”)—one of two persons in the Assyrian army with this title who often led campaigns on behalf of the emperor (cf. Isa. 20:1, where a tartān is in charge of the conquest of Ashdod in 712 B.C.).163 With the turtanu were the rab-sarîs (“chief officer,” lit. “chief eunuch”)164 and the rab-šākēh (“field commander,” lit. “chief cupbearer”). The “chief eunuch” was himself often dispatched on campaigns at the head of Assyrian forces; the title does not necessarily indicate that he himself was physically a eunuch.

The “chief cupbearer” did not normally take part in military campaigns, but he would have accompanied the emperor as a personal attendant. His presence in this delegation is no doubt to be explained in terms of his linguistic abilities—he spoke the local language.165 He may well himself have been of Aramean or Israelite origin, for although his first speech in 18:19–35 reveals many parallels with the Neo-Assyrian annals, he clearly not only knew the local language but also displayed good knowledge of Judean customs.166

Aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field (18:17). These locations are not certain, but the Washerman’s Field may be associated with the spring En-Rogel, whose name most likely means “spring of the treader” (i.e., the person washing clothing by treading on it). En-Rogel is situated to the south of Jerusalem at the juncture of the Hinnom and the Kidron Valleys and provided the city with a source of water in addition to the important Gihon Spring about half a mile to the north. This would have been a natural place, from the point of view of water supply, for the Assyrian army to encamp.

Adad-nirari basalt inscription portraying the king and the turtanu Shamshi-ilu establishing a boundary line

Todd Bolen/www.BiblePlaces.com

The Assyrian emissaries then walked up the road from the spring and the field to the city in order to speak with the high officials of Jerusalem. The Upper Pool was a reservoir of water of uncertain identity—one of perhaps several that collected spring and run-off water for later use and to be distinguished the Lower (Old) Pool of Isaiah 22:9–11. It was by an aqueduct associated with this Upper Pool that the Assyrian officials stopped to deliver their message.167

Palace administrator … the secretary … the recorder (18:18). Three of the most important of the Judean officials went out to parley with the three Assyrian officials. On the palace administrator, see comment on 10:5. The secretary was in charge of royal correspondence and as such was a royal counselor. The recorder was also a royal counselor, somewhat akin to a modern secretary of state but absorbing also the role of the king’s official spokesman.

Egypt (18:21). The Assyrian push to the Mediterranean in pursuit of sea trade, begun with the camapaigns of Tiglath-pileser III, inevitably brought Assyria into conflict with Egypt. Throughout the later eighth and early seventh centuries B.C., the kingdoms of Syria-Palestine often looked to Egypt for help in resisting the Assyrians. Hoshea of northern Israel had sought military support against the Assyrians from “So King of Egypt” just prior to the fall of Samaria (17:4), and in 712 B.C. it was to Egypt that the rebel ruler of the city of Ashdod fled when all was lost: “When Yamani heard about the advance of my (Sargon II’s) expedition … he fled into the territory of Egypt … and his hiding-place could not be detected.”168 Now in 701 B.C. Hezekiah also looks to Egypt for help.169

Please speak to your servants in Aramaic (18:26). Aramaic was the language of the Assyrian Empire west of the Euphrates and would have been understood by the educated royal officials but not by the ordinary people on the city wall. The Assyrians are trying to appeal to the people over the heads of their rulers, however, and so their choice of Hebrew is understandable. They want the people to be fully aware of the hopelessness of their situation and consequences of a long siege (they will “eat their own filth and drink their own urine,” v. 27).

Hamath and Arpad … Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah (18:34). On Hamath, Sepharvaim, and Ivvah/Avva, see comments on 14:25 and 17:24. Arpad was another city of northern Syria, identified with modern Tell Rifaat. In the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. it served as capital of the land of Bit-Agusi. A revolt led to the city’s conquest and absorption as an Assyrian province by Tiglath-pileser III in 740 B.C. Hena is unknown but presumably also in Syria. These well-known Assyrian victories are brought to mind at this point as a strategy designed to convince the Judeans that resistance is futile.

Libnah (19:8). Libnah was a Judean city to the southwest of Jerusalem (Josh. 15:42), near the Philistine border, although its identification is disputed (see comment on 8:22).

Tirhakah, the Cushite king of Egypt (19:9). At some point during Sennacherib’s 701 B.C. campaign, as the biblical and Assyrian records agree, an Egyptian army marched into Palestine to aid the rebels. The Egyptian forces were led by Taharqa (Heb. “Tirhakah”), who would not become pharaoh for another eleven years (690–664 B.C.) but is referred to here under his later title. He was in fact the third king of the twenty-fifth dynasty in Egypt, founded by Shabako (716–702 B.C.), who was then followed by Shebitku (702–690 B.C.).170

Closeup from the shrine of Taharqa

Peter Repetti

These kings were descendants of the Nubian/Cushite rulers who had pushed north toward Egypt (and had eventually annexed Egypt to Cush) in the same period as the Assyrians were pushing south toward the same destination.171 Taharqa’s entire life was marked by conflict with the Assyrians, from his leadership as a young man of the Egyptian forces helping Hezekiah through the period of his own rule, which ended in defeat at the hands of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. The battle in 701 B.C. took place at Eltekeh, probably Khirbet el-Mukennah, about twelve miles east of the Mediterranean on the eastern border of the coastal plain.

Sennacherib claims to have defeated the Egyptian force at Eltekeh, and we have no reason to disbelieve him. It may be that it was after this Assyrian victory that Hezekiah, in an attempt to buy more time, released Padi of Ekron, whom Sennacherib claims to have “made” come from Jerusalem and to have reestablished on his throne (see comment on 18:8; also the sidebar “Hezekiah of Judah and Sennacherib” at 18:13).

Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar (19:12). Various famous Assyrian conquests are now added to the list previously given in 18:34. On Gozan (Tell Halaf on the modern Turkish-Syrian border), see comment on 17:6. Haran was a city situated about fifty miles east of the city of Carchemish on the upper Euphrates River; it was destroyed by Asshur-Dan III in 763 B.C. as the result of a rebellion. Rezeph (Rasappa) was in upper Mesopotamia on the road from Haran to Palmyra, and in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. was the provincial capital of one of the largest Assyrian provinces. Tel Assar was a city in “Eden”—the kingdom of Bît Adini in Akkadian inscriptions, which lay between Assyria and Syria-Palestine. Tel Assar is possibly to be identified with Til Barsip (modern Tell Aḥmar) on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

Enthroned between the cherubim (19:15). The Old Testament envisions the God of Israel as dwelling in a special way (though not an exclusive way, cf. 1 Kings 8:27–30) in the Jerusalem temple and as being invisibly enthroned in the Most Holy Place on two enormous cherubim, overlaid with gold, that functioned as a covering for the ark of the covenant (8:6–7). The ark is sometimes referred to or alluded to as Yahweh’s “footstool” (1 Chron. 28:2; Ps. 99:5; 132:7), though it was itself only a picture of the greater reality articulated in Isaiah 66:1: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.”

Cherub-flanked throne on Ahiram sarcophagus

Werner Forman Archive/The National Museum, Beirut

The cherubim represented in the Bible are strange, winged creatures that can take various specific forms, combining features of different known earth creatures—somewhat akin to the multifaceted beasts of Assyrian art. Cherubim thrones are well attested in Syria-Palestine. An ivory plaque from Late Bronze Age Megiddo shows a king on a throne seat supported by winged sphinxes, and a relief from the sarcophagus of Ahiram, a tenth-century B.C. king of Byblos,172 likewise depicts a human or divine king sitting on a cherubim throne.173 Both also display boxlike footstools at the base of their thrones.

They were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men’s hands (19:18). Cult images were an integral part of worship in the ancient Near East. They were typically made of wood and overlaid with metal and precious stones, and great care was taken in their manufacture and preservation. They could represent the deity in either human or animal form—the former being the preference in Mesopotamia, but both being employed in Egypt. We possess only a limited number of representations of deities from Syria-Palestine, and no cult statues are extant—only smaller figurines and artistic representations of gods such as Baal, El, and Asherah.

To their worshipers these images contained the very life of the deity they represented, and their presence in a particular territory promised divine blessing on and help for that territory. This is why conquering armies often carried off the gods of the conquered, depriving them of further blessing and help, and deposited them in the temple of their own victorious deity. Since the cult images were thus “alive,” they required the care and attention that any living person requires, including food and water. One task of the priests of each temple was to provide for these needs.

The biblical response to this vast religious culture was to affirm that these “gods” were no gods at all but merely the work of human hands. The only “image” of God that the Bible allows as truly representing the living God is in fact the living image of the human being (Gen. 1:26–27).174

I have ascended the heights of the mountains … I have dried up all the streams of Egypt (19:23–24). Sennacherib never literally conquered Egypt, nor did he ever literally ascend the heights of the mountains with his chariots and cut down Lebanon’s tallest trees, although he may have taken some cedar back to Assyria with him as his predecessor, Ashurnasirpal II, claims to have done.175 The point of the text is that Sennacherib thinks of himself as a god, claiming to have brought judgment—as only Yahweh can do—on the cedars of Lebanon (cf. Ps. 29:5; Isa. 2:12–13; Amos 2:9; Zech. 11:1–3) and on Egypt (Isa. 19:1–15). He ascends the heights so that he can look God straight in the face (cf. Ps. 73:8; 75:4–5; Isa. 14:13–15), and he claims that it is he, not Yahweh, who brings or withholds fertility, creating springs (not NIV’s “digging wells”) and drying up rivers (Ps. 36:8–9; Jer. 2:13; 17:13; 51:36; Ezek. 31; Hos. 13:15).

These words reflect the exaggerated view that Sennacherib and other Assyrian kings often had of their own persons and their accomplishments, as is exemplified by the following brief excerpt from the Sabaʾa Inscription of Adad-Nirari III (see the sidebar “The Sabaʾa Stela of Adad-Nirari III” at 10:32):

Adad-nirari, great king, mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, unrivalled king, wonderful shepherd, exalted vice-regent, who likes to pray (and) to offer sacrifices, whose shepherdship the great gods have made pleasing to the people of Assyria like a healing drug, and whose land (the gods) have widened.176

I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came (19:28). This metaphor may reflect actual Assyrian practice. After his second campaign against Egypt in 671 B.C., King Esarhaddon erected several victory stelae, the most famous of which was found at Samʾal (modern Zinçirli) in the foothills of the Anti-Taurus mountains in south-central Turkey. This Zinçirli Stela (for the text, see comment on 19:37) depicts Esarhaddon as leading two prisoners, apparently Baal I of Tyre and Taharqa of Egypt, by ropes tied to a ring that pierces their lips. Ashurbanipal, his successor, further records an act of humiliation against Uateʾ king of Arabia, in which he “pierced his cheeks with the sharp-edged spear … put the ring to his jaw, placed a dog collar around his neck and made him guard the bar of the east gate of Niniveh.”177

Stele of Esarhaddon

Francesco Dazzi, courtesy of the Pergamon Museum

What grows by itself … what springs from that (19:29). The sign that Judah will recover from the Assyrian assault is to be found in the way that the survivors will be provided for in the short term. Initially the people will only be able to survive because of the crops that spring up from what is already in the ground; but in the third year it will be possible to resume normal agricultural practice. The initial fragility of both human and economic conditions should not be a reason for despair.

He will not … build a siege ramp against it (19:32). According to Isaiah’s message here to Hezekiah, Sennacherib will return home before the army encamped outside the city of Jerusalem can take military action against it—before an arrow is fired, a shield raised, or a siege ramp is built against its walls. See the sidebar “Siege Warfare in the Ancient Near East” at 6:28.

Sennacherib king of Assyria … returned to Nineveh and stayed there (19:36). Nowhere in his own account of his campaign does Sennacherib claim to have taken Jerusalem, nor even to have received tribute from Hezekiah in the immediate aftermath of the siege. He tells us only that after his return to Nineveh (whose occasion he does not describe), Hezekiah sent tribute. His silence on the way in which the siege ended when compared to what he says in this same account about other kings in the region requires some explanation, and our biblical sources give us some hints in the direction of this when they tell of a mysterious reversal suffered by the Assyrians while Jerusalem lay at their mercy (v. 35).

A considerable time after these events, in the middle of the fifth century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus heard an Egyptian story about Sennacherib’s campaign that also ascribed the Assyrian withdrawal from Palestine to a miracle. The presence of mice in his story has suggested to some the possibility of plague afflicting the Assyrian army.178

Nisroch (19:37). This name is not attested in Assyrian sources, and we are left to guess as to which deity is meant (perhaps Ashur, the chief god of Assyria, or Ninurta, the Assyrian god of war).

Land of Ararat (19:37). Ararat, known to the Assyrians as Urartu, was a kingdom of eastern Asia Minor that flourished from the ninth to the sixth centuries B.C. It was able to extend its influence in northern Syria during periods of Assyrian passivity to its west, and it was the object of Assyrian aggression in periods of their resurgence under kings like Tiglath-pileser III, who besieged the capital of Urartu in 735 B.C., and Sargon II. During the reigns of Sargon and his successors, Urartu made alliances with nomadic tribes of the north, such as the Cimmerians and the Scythians, making their people less vulnerable to pressure from the Assyrians, who tended to leave them alone. The Urartians were ultimately swept away in the aftermath of the fall of the Assyrian empire in 612 B.C.; in 585 B.C. they were defeated by the Medes, assisted by Scythians, and the area was shortly thereafter incorporated into the Persian Empire.179

Sennacherib had destroyed Babylon. This small stone monument records the restoration of the walls and the temples of the city of Babylon by King Esarhaddon.

Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY, courtesy of the British Museum

Urartu

Esarhaddon (19:37). Esarhaddon ruled Assyria from 681–669 B.C. Unlike his father Sennacherib, who took a harsh stance in relation to Babylonian unrest led by Merodach-Baladan and others (see comments on 17:24 and 20:12) and ultimately destroyed Babylon itself in 689 B.C., Esarhaddon pursued a conciliatory policy that gave him peace in the south and enabled him to give his full attention to the west. As far as we can tell, Judah was in tributary relationship with him throughout his reign and was even compelled at some point to receive deportees from other parts of the Assyrian Empire (Ezra 4:2).

Hezekiah’s son Manasseh appears in Esarhaddon’s records as one of the vassal Syro-Palestinian kings required at an uncertain date to provide forced labor for transporting building materials to Nineveh to construct Esarhaddon’s palace there.180 Esarhaddon not only dominated Syria-Palestine, but in 671 B.C. took Memphis in Egypt and gained a measure of control over Lower Egypt. The Zinçirli Stela (see comment on 19:28) commemorates this campaign:

From the town of Ishhupri as far as Memphis, his royal residence, a distance of fifteen days march, I fought daily, without interruption, very bloody battles against Tirhakah, king of Egypt and Ethiopia, the one accursed by all the great gods…. I laid siege to Memphis, his royal residence, and conquered it in half a day by means of mines, breaches and assault ladders; I destroyed it, tore down its walls and burnt it down.181