Sennacherib

Sennacherib's name means "may (the god) Sin increase my brothers." An Assyrian king who succeeded his father Sargon II in 705 b.c. and ruled for 25 years (705—681 b.c.). He is best remembered in secular history for his senseless destruction of Babylon in 689 b.c. and in the Bible for the catastrophe that overtook his army at Jerusalem shortly afterward.

On Sennacherib's accession Merodach—Baladan, former king of Babylon, attempted to throw off the Assyrian yoke, but he and his Elamite ally were defeated. Sennacherib's next major campaign was carried out in the west in 701 b.c., where a revolt in Syria and Palestine demanded his attention. First he captured a number of Phoenician cities, and then marched against the center of rebellion in Palestine, the Philistine cities and the kingdom of Judah.

Sennacherib claims to have taken 46 fortified cities from Hezekiah of Judah, besides many villages, and to have carried off 200,150 captives (the Assyriologist A. Ungnad believes that the number should be read 2,150), besides tremendous amounts of spoil. His siege of Lachish, probably the strongest fortress city of Judah with the exception of Jerusalem, is mentioned in the Bible (2 Ki 18:14, 17 19:8) and also depicted by Sennacherib on long stone reliefs. Jerusalem was besieged for a time by an Assyrian army, but was not taken (ch 18:17). So Sennacherib could claim only that he had made Hezekiah "a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage.

I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were leaving the city's gate". Since his attention was urgently needed in the east, Sennacherib had to be satisfied with receiving a heavy tribute from Hezekiah, which is mentioned in the Bible and in the Assyrian king's records (2 Ki 18:14—16). The detailed Assyrian version of this campaign, inscribed on well—preserved clay prisms , agrees in all major points with the Biblical records, although it shows differences in details.

During the next 10 years Sennacherib was kept busy mainly with affairs in Babylonia and Elam. Finally he became so weary of the frequent rebellions of Babylon that he destroyed the city ruthlessly and thoroughly, and even flooded the whole area by diverting the Euphrates, in order to transform the surrounding land into a marsh and thus prevent the city's resurrection. Shortly afterward he must have carried out another military campaign against Hezekiah, because 2 Ki 19:9 mentions an attempt of Tirhakah, the Nubian king of Egypt, to aid Hezekiah during a campaign of Sennacherib. Since Tirhakah did not leave Nubia, his homeland, until about 689 b.c., when he became coregent with his brother at the age of 20, this campaign cannot be dated earlier.

Therefore it must be concluded that the Biblical records of chs 18—20 and parallel passages deal with 2 distinct campaigns and not with one, as a cursory reading of the narrative seems to indicate. It must have been during this later campaign that Sennacherib's army suffered the disastrous loss recorded in ch 19:35, when it was smitten by an angel during the siege of Jerusalem. Although the Assyrian records naturally are silent about this disaster, it was not forgotten among the ancient nations, as is proved by a story of the Greek historian Herodotus.

While visiting Egypt more than 200 years after Sennacherib's death Herodotus was told that when the Assyrian king advanced against Egypt, immense numbers of mice ate the bowstrings of his army so that the soldiers fled in panic. Since the mice were considered the bearers of bubonic plague, it is generally believed that the story implies an outbreak of this disease in the army of the Assyrians. There is little reason to doubt that this was the Egyptian version of the catastrophe recorded in v. 35.

In his homeland Sennacherib was known as the great rebuilder of Nineveh, which in his time became the most beautiful and glorious city of antiquity. He also built an aqueduct that brought water to Nineveh and its surrounding area from the eastern mountains some 30 mi. (c. 48 km.) away. The Gomer River was spanned by an arched causeway 1,000 ft. (c. 300 m.) long, possibly the first permanent stone bridge of history.

In 681 b.c. Sennacherib was murdered by his 2 sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, who were perhaps jealous of their brother Esarhaddon, the crown prince. Although this murder is referred to in several contemporary texts, all references to it are so vague and ambiguous that a detailed historical reconstruction of the event is still impossible. The murderers did not succeed in usurping the throne, but were driven out by Esarhaddon, who succeeded his father.