Sennacherib's Invasion

Sennacherib, king of Assyria (704-681 BCE) sent an army into Judah in 701 BCE and laid siege to Jerusalem.

Overview

The invasion of Judah by the king of Assyria Sennacherib is recorded in several books contained in the Bible including Isaiah 36-37; 2 Kings 18:17; 2 Chronicles 32:9. The event is mentioned also in Assyrian sources and by Herodotus, who does not refer to Judea and says the invasion ended at Pelusium on the edge of the Nile Delta.

The Judean countryside and the nearby cities (such as Lachish) were devastated. The Assyrian army, however, withdrew before taking the capital. This was hold as a miracle and a sign of YHWH's protection by the nationalistic party who firmly opposed any compromise (see 2 Kings 18:13-19:37 - Isaiah 36:1-37:38; cf. Isaiah 14:24-27; 17:12-14; 31:4-9). The truth is that the Assyrians had already reached their goal. Hezekiah capitulated, paid the tribute and gave up his dreams of autonomy (see the Annals of Sannecherib and 2 Kings 18:14-16). The Jewish tradition turned a mere escape into a victory, by changing the order of the events (2 Kings 18:14-16, which is lacking from the parallel account in Isaiah 36, is to read as the end of the narrative).

Sennacherib's Annals

Sennacherib's Annals are the annals of the Assyrian king Sennacherib. They are found inscribed on a number of artifacts, and the final versions were found in three clay prisms inscribed with the same text: the Taylor Prism is in the British Museum, the Oriental Institute Prism in the Oriental Institute of Chicago, and the Jerusalem Prism is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

The text was written in cuneiform, the Mesopotamian form of writing of the day. It says this of Hezekiah: "As for the king of Judah, Hezekiah, who had not submitted to my authority, I besieged and captured forty-six of his fortified cities, along with many smaller towns, taken in battle with my battering rams. ... I took as plunder 200,150 people, both small and great, male and female, along with a great number of animals including horses, mules, donkeys, camels, oxen, and sheep. As for Hezekiah, I shut him up like a caged bird in his royal city of Jerusalem. I then constructed a series of fortresses around him, and I did not allow anyone to come out of the city gates. His towns which I captured I gave to the kings of Ashod, Ekron, and Gaza."