Sennacherib

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, enters the UPDV at the height of his power and exits it murdered in his own god's temple. Between those two points the narrative tracks one campaign: the invasion of Judah in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, the siege threats outside Jerusalem, Hezekiah's appeal in the house of Yahweh, and the night the angel of Yahweh struck 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. The episode is told three times in narrative (2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Isaiah) and remembered twice more in the praise of the fathers and in a Maccabean prayer.

Invasion of Judah

The dating is fixed and repeated. "Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them" (2Ki 18:13; Isa 36:1). The Chronicler frames the same march in moral terms: "After these things, and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, and entered into Judah, and encamped against the fortified cities, and thought to win them for himself" (2Ch 32:1).

Hezekiah responds with works inside the wall before any word goes outside it. He stops the springs and the brook so the Assyrians find no water (2Ch 32:3-4), rebuilds the broken wall and the towers, strengthens Millo, and stockpiles weapons (2Ch 32:5). To his captains he says, "Be strong and of good courage, don't be afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him; for there is a greater with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is Yahweh our God to help us, and to fight our battles" (2Ch 32:7-8).

The Embassy at the Conduit

From Lachish, Sennacherib sends an embassy of three to Jerusalem with a great army: Tartan, Rab-saris, and Rabshakeh in 2 Kings; Rabshakeh alone in Isaiah (2Ki 18:17; Isa 36:2). They take a deliberately public stand "by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller's field" (2Ki 18:17; Isa 36:2) and call out the king. Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph come out to them.

Rabshakeh's speech is a piece of psychological warfare. He frames every confidence Judah might claim and dismantles it. Egypt is "the staff of this bruised reed, even on Egypt; on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand, and pierce it" (2Ki 18:21; Isa 36:6). Yahweh, he says, has been offended by the very reform Hezekiah trusts in: "isn't that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, You⁺ will worship before this altar in Jerusalem?" (2Ki 18:22). And he claims a direct commission: "Have I now come up without [the Speech of] Yahweh against this place to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it" (2Ki 18:25).

When Eliakim asks him to switch to Aramaic so the watchmen on the wall will not understand, Rabshakeh refuses and addresses the wall itself, urging surrender on terms of food, wine, and exile to "a land like your⁺ own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and of honey" (2Ki 18:32; Isa 36:17). His culminating taunt is theological: "Have any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?... Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?" (2Ki 18:33-35; Isa 36:18-20).

The men on the wall obey Hezekiah's order and answer nothing (2Ki 18:36; Isa 36:21). Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah come back to Hezekiah with their clothes torn (2Ki 18:37; Isa 36:22).

Hezekiah Before Yahweh

Sennacherib then writes a letter (2Ki 19:14; Isa 37:14). Hezekiah carries it up to the house of Yahweh and spreads it open before him. His prayer is the central pivot of the whole episode: "O Yahweh, the God of Israel, who sits [above] the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Yahweh, and hear; open your eyes, O Yahweh, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, with which he has sent him to defy the living God" (2Ki 19:15-16; Isa 37:16-17). The petition does not appeal to Hezekiah's own faithfulness but to Yahweh's reputation: "save us, I urge you, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you Yahweh are God alone" (2Ki 19:19; Isa 37:20).

Isaiah sends Yahweh's reply. The poem inside it answers Sennacherib's pride word for word: "The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn... Whom have you defied and blasphemed? And against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? [Even] against the Holy One of Israel" (2Ki 19:21-22; Isa 37:22-23). Sennacherib's boast about felling the cedars of Lebanon and drying up the rivers of Egypt is read back to him as petty noise, and a sign is attached: "Because of your raging against me [my Speech], and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came" (2Ki 19:28; Isa 37:29). Yahweh's verdict on the city is plain: "He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he will return... For I will defend this city to save it, for [the sake of my Speech], and for my slave David's sake" (2Ki 19:32-34; Isa 37:33-35).

In the meantime Sennacherib has already moved on from Lachish. "So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish" (2Ki 19:8; Isa 37:8).

The Camp Struck in the Night

The deliverance is told in one sentence: "And it came to pass that night, that the angel of Yahweh went forth, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians: and when men arose early in the morning, look, these were all dead bodies" (2Ki 19:35; Isa 37:36). The Chronicler folds it into Hezekiah's prayer with Isaiah: "And Hezekiah the king, and Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz, prayed because of this, and cried to heaven. And Yahweh sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders and captains, in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land" (2Ch 32:20-21).

Sirach remembers the same sequence in compressed verse, naming Rabshakeh and Zion and tying the rescue back to Isaiah: "In his days Sennacherib came up, And sent Rabshakeh, Who stretched forth his hand against Zion, And blasphemed God in his pride. Then were they shaken in the pride of their heart... So they called to God Most High... And he heard the voice of their prayer, And saved them by the hand of Isaiah. And he smote the army of Assyria, And discomfited them by the plague" (Sir 48:18-21). 1 Maccabees recalls the count of the dead in a battlefield prayer: "O Lord, when those who were sent by King Sennacherib blasphemed you, an angel went out, and slew of them a hundred and eighty-five thousand" (1Ma 7:41).

Withdrawal and Death

The withdrawal and the assassination are reported flatly, as one piece. "So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead" (2Ki 19:36-37; Isa 37:37-38). The Chronicler adds the indignity of the setting: "when he came into the house of his god, those who came forth from inside him slew him there with the sword" (2Ch 32:21).

The campaign that began with fortified cities falling to Assyria ends with Sennacherib dead at the feet of his own god, Jerusalem still standing, and Hezekiah exalted: "Thus Yahweh saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all [others], and he gave them rest on every side. And many brought gifts to Yahweh to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah; so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from then on" (2Ch 32:22-23).