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Assyrian Siege of Jerusalem
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In 721 BCE, the Assyrian army captured the Israelite capital at Samaria and carried away the citizens of the northern kingdom into captivity. The virtual destruction of Israel left the southern kingdom, Judah, to fend for itself in the whirlwind of warring Near Eastern kingdoms. At the time of Samaria's fall, there existed two kings in Judah — Ahaz and his son Hezekiah — who ruled as co-regents. Judah existed as a vassal to Assyria during this time and was forced to pay an annual tribute to the powerful empire.
Hezekiah's reforms
In 715 BCE, following the death of Ahaz, Hezekiah became the sole regent of Judah and initiated widespread religious reforms — smashing the idols the people had worshiped during the reign of his father and leading the Jews toward a renewed relationship with God.
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In 721 BCE, the Assyrian army captured the Israelite capital at Samaria and carried away the citizens of the northern kingdom into captivity. The virtual destruction of Israel left the southern kingdom, Judah, to fend for itself in the whirlwind of warring Near Eastern kingdoms. At the time of Samaria's fall, there existed two kings in Judah — Ahaz and his son Hezekiah — who ruled as co-regents. Judah existed as a vassal to Assyria during this time and was forced to pay an annual tribute to the powerful empire.
Hezekiah's reforms
In 715 BCE, following the death of Ahaz, Hezekiah became the sole regent of Judah and initiated widespread religious reforms — smashing the idols the people had worshiped during the reign of his father and leading the Jews toward a renewed relationship with God. He re-captured Philistine-occupied lands in the Negev desert, formed alliances with Ashkelon and Egypt, and made a stand against Assyria by refusing to pay tribute.
In response, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, attacked the fortified cities of Judah. While Sennacherib was besieging Lachish, he received a message from Hezekiah offering to pay tribute in exchange for Assyrian withdrawal. According to the Old Testament, Hezekiah paid three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold to Assyria — a price so heavy that he was forced to empty the temple and royal treasury of silver and strip the gold from the doorposts of Solomon's temple.
Jerusalem besieged
Sometime during the early part of the Assyrian invasion, Hezekiah met with his military staff concerning the possibility that Jerusalem may fall under siege. The staff immediately oversaw preparations for the Assyrian onslaught. In an effort to deprive the enemy of water, the Jews blocked the springs outside the city. Workers then dug a 533-meter tunnel to the Spring of Gihon, providing the city with fresh water. Additional siege preparations included fortification of the existing walls, construction of towers, and the erection of a new, reinforcing wall. Hezekiah gathered the citizens in the square and encouraged them by reminding them that the Assyrians possessed only "an arm of flesh", but the Jews had the protection of Yahweh.
Sennacherib marched on Jerusalem with a large army. When the Assyrian force arrived, its field commander brought a message from Sennacherib himself. In an attempt to demoralize the Jews, the field commander announced to the people on the city walls that Hezekiah was deceiving them, and Yahweh could not deliver Jerusalem from the king of Assyria. He listed the gods of the people thus far swept away by Sennacherib then asked, "Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me?"
The Old Testament relates how Hezekiah clad himself in sackcloth out of anguish from the psychological warfare that the Assyrians were waging. However, the prophet Isaiah assured Hezekiah that the city would be delivered and Sennacherib would be cut down with the sword. The Old Testament states that during the night, an angel of Yahweh brought death to 185,000 Assyrians troops. When Sennacherib saw the destruction wreaked on his army, he withdrew to Nineveh. Jerusalem was spared destruction.
The hexagonal prism
Sennacherib's Prism, which details the events of Sennacherib's campaign against Judah, was discovered in the ruins of Nineveh in 1830, and is now stored at the Oriental Institute in Chicago, Illinois. The account dates from about 690 BCE and is as self-serving to the Assyrian king as the Biblical account is to Judah. The text of the prism boasts how Sennacherib destroyed forty-six of Judah's cities, trapped Hezekiah in Jerusalem "like a caged bird." The text goes on to describe how the "terrifying splendor" of the Assyrian army caused the Arabs and mercenaries reinforcing the city to desert. The prism goes on to state that Jerusalem surrendered and Hezekiah gave the Assyrian king large quantities of money as tribute, resulting in the Assyrians victoriously returning home. This explanation contradicts that in the Tanakh. The mass death mentioned in the Tanakh has never been substantiated by any archaeological find.
However, the Old Testament's suggestion that Jerusalem was victorious rather than defeated, is corroborated by the Greek historian Herodotus, Chaldean historian Berosus, and Jewish historian Josephus. Nevertheless, as all of these are expansions on the Old Testament account, adding Midrash, none are independent witnesses.
Other theories
In What If?, a collection of essays on counterfactual history, historian William H. McNeill speculates that the accounts of mass death among the Assyrian army in the Tanakh might be explained by an outbreak of cholera (or other water-borne diseases) due to the springs beyond the city walls having been blocked, thus depriving the besieging force of a safe water supply. In McNeill's speculative essay, the Assyrians were forced to withdraw by disease, an event which in McNeill's opinion served to support Judaism's then-new monotheistic tradition.
In addition, McNeill reasons that the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem holds special historical significance due to the newness (at the time) of the monotheistic tradition in Judaism. McNeill argues that the apparent defeat of Sennacherib by Yahweh supported the idea of monotheism in an age when a conquered people typically adopted the god or gods of their conquerors, as their own had failed to protect them. The extraordinary defeat of Sennacherib which McNeill suggests, by disease which was as yet not understood, would have proven Yahweh superior to the gods of the most powerful nation then known to the Jews, Assyria. Therefore, McNeill concludes that if Sennacherib had taken the city, the culture of monotheism may have failed to achieve the widespread popularity it enjoys today through the various Abrahamic faiths.
Henry T. Aubin writes in that the Assyrian army was routed by an Egyptian army under Kushite (Nubian) command.
Sennacherib's end
The prophecy of Isaiah did not come to pass immediately, but did eventually intersect with Sennacherib. In 681 BCE, while worshiping in the temple of Nisroch, the king of Assyria was killed by his own son. He had ruled Assyria for twenty-four years.
See also
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