The Siege of Jerusalem: The Biblical Accounts
King Hezekiah of Judah paid tribute to the king of Assyria so that he would end his siege of Jerusalem, as related in 2 Kings 18:15. So why did Sennacherib then send a great army to Jerusalem? Could there have been a second siege, as some scholars believe? The paragraphs below show where this theory was born.
The First Siege
2 Kings 18:13–16: In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. King Hezekiah of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear.” The king of Assyria demanded of King Hezekiah of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the doorposts that King Hezekiah of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.
The Second Siege
2 Kings 18:17, 19–21, 25: The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem … The Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you base this confidence of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me? See, you are relying now on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him … Is it without the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.”
2 Kings 19:1, 5–10: When King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord … When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. I myself will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’” The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah [near Lachish]; for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. When the king heard concerning King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, “See, he has set out to fight against you,” he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus shall you speak to King Hezekiah of Judah: Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”
2 Kings 19:15, 19–20, 32: And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said: “ … O Lord our God, save us, I pray you, from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.” Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel … concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, shoot an arrow there, come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege ramp against it.”
2 Kings 19:35–37: That very night the angel of the Lord set out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; when morning dawned, they were all dead bodies. Then King Sennacherib of Assyria left, went home, and lived at Nineveh. As he was worshipping in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat. His son Esar-haddon succeeded him.