Hezekiah and Sennacherib

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria captured the fortified cities of Judah. Hezekiah sent a message to the king of Assyria at Lachish, admitting offense and offering to pay whatever was demanded (2 Kings 18:13-14). Sennacherib appointed a tribute of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. To meet this demand, Hezekiah gave him all the silver in the temple and the palace, and stripped the gold from the doors and pillars of the temple (2 Kings 18:15-16).

Sennacherib later sent his supreme commander, chief officer, and the Rabshakeh with a large army to Jerusalem. The Rabshakeh stood by the conduit of the upper pool and addressed Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah, mocking Hezekiah’s reliance on Egypt and the Lord (2 Kings 18:17-21). He spoke in Hebrew to the people on the wall, claiming the Lord told Sennacherib to destroy the land and asserting that no gods of other nations had delivered them from Assyrian power (2 Kings 18:25-35). Eliakim and the others reported these words to Hezekiah with their clothes torn.

Hezekiah covered himself with sackcloth and sent Eliakim and the elders to the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah told them not to be afraid of the words of the Assyrian officials, for the Lord would cause Sennacherib to hear a rumor and return to his own land (2 Kings 19:5-7). After Sennacherib sent a letter further threatening Jerusalem, Hezekiah spread it before the Lord in the temple and prayed. Isaiah then sent word to Hezekiah, stating that Sennacherib would not enter the city nor shoot an arrow there (2 Kings 19:32-34).

That night, the angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp (2 Kings 19:35). The text does not say the specific method of death. Sennacherib withdrew and stayed in Nineveh. While he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword and escaped to Ararat (2 Kings 19:36-37).