by
Damien F. Mackey
Sennacherib took 46 fortified cities, notably Lachish, laid siege to the capital City, had the Temple stripped of its gold and silver, and took tens of thousands of Jews into captivity. His 3rd Campaign was virtually a total success.
Let the Great King of Assyria tell it to us personally:
As for Hezekiah, the Judaean, who had not submitted to my yoke, I besieged forty-six of his fortified walled cities and surrounding small towns, which were without number. Using packed-down ramps and by applying battering rams, infantry attacks by mines, breeches and siege machines, I conquered (them). I took out 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, cattle and sheep, without number, and counted them as spoil. Himself [Hezekiah], I locked him up within Jerusalem, his royal city, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthworks, and made it unthinkable for him to exit by the city gate. His cities which I had despoiled, I cut off from his land and gave them to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron and Silli-bel, king of Gaza, and thus diminished his land. I imposed upon him in addition to the former tribute, yearly payment of dues and gifts for my lordship.
He, Hezekiah, was overwhelmed by the awesome splendor of my lordship, and he sent me after my departure to Nineveh, my royal city, his elite troops and his best soldiers, which he had brought into Jerusalem as reinforcements, with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, choice antimony … countless trappings and implements of war, together with his daughters, his palace women, his male and female singers. He (also) dispatched his personal messenger to deliver the tribute and to do obeisance.
—From the annals of Sennacherib, king of Assyria (705–681 B.C.E.), translated from the Rassam Prism, in Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible Series (New York: Doubleday, 1988), pp. 337–339.
That doesn’t read like any sort of miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from its enemy – nor was it.
Today I received, and answered, this Message in relation to my latest article:
Ignis de Caelo, Velikovsky, and Sennacherib's 185,000
(5) Ignis de Caelo, Velikovsky, and Sennacherib's 185,000
in which Message a U.S. reader argues for “… Jerusalem being [Assyria’s] only demonstrative failure …”.
….
If you read Scripture thoroughly, you will find that in addition to Hezekiah's tunnel, he also ordered all of the wells around Judea stopped up, or diverted by another spring channel under Jerusalem. It is not improbable then, that the troops, searching for water, fell victim to typhoid, or a similar dysentary which epidemic kills quickly.
There were great preparations before the siege. A scorched earth type preparation.
Also, as some have postulated, … the word "thousands" was mistranslated by original scribes, originally meaning "captains" or "chiefs". So 185 captains of 50s would make it 9,000 or so died. This is more likely, if true, since hundreds of thousands of army are really overkill for any battle of the time— near impossible for logistics to handle.
Also, since the Assyrians, using what is called hoplite tradition, used mercenaries from their conquered nations as fodder for their forces ("meat assaults"), of which they had an endless supply; 40-something nations, we read, were overcome, with Jerusalem being their only demonstrative failure, according to the Bible and other sources. ….
Damien Mackey’s response:
But the Assyrians did not fail at Jerusalem.
This is a mistake that many make.
Sennacherib took 46 fortified cities, notably Lachish, laid siege to the capital City, had the Temple stripped of its gold and silver, and took tens of thousands of Jews into captivity. His 3rd Campaign was virtually a total success.
The Rabshakeh had sarcastically offered to give the beleaguered Jews horses to ride, knowing that they could not even man them (2 Kings 18:23).
Then the Assyrian betrayed the agreement and came back to take the City entirely.
But he heard that Tirhakah was on his way and lifted the siege, just as Nebuchednezzar would do in the face of Necho's advance, only to return later and finish the job.
About a decade later, Sennacherib sent his eldest son with the biggest army of all time, to conquer Jerusalem on the way to Egypt, the main prize. The all-conquering army devastated the north, but did not get any further south than Shechem (“Bethulia” in the Book of Judith). Judith killed the Commander-in-Chief, and the army fled with terrible losses and captives taken. Jerusalem was not affected. ….
Barry Setterfield (2024) will make the same mistake about Jerusalem, adding his idiosyncratic ‘scientific’ reason for the presumed annihilation of the Assyrian army. Barry is a Creationist, though a most original one.
Creationists do tend to impose modern scientific views on these ancient Semitic texts:
Barry’s Beacon - Shining Biblical Light on Current Events Part 2
Written By Barry Setterfield
Hezekiah, Assyria, Archaeology and Science
Brief Overview: Archaeological research this month supports the Biblical narrative historically from the time of Hezekiah, king of Judah. The accounts of the Assyrian invasion and siege of Jerusalem and associated events in 2 Kings 18:13 to 2 Kings 19:37 are proving accurate. Additional detail can be found in 2 Chronicles 32:1-22 and Isaiah 36 and 37.
Background: In June, 2024, the Journal of Near Eastern Archaeology, Volume 87 (2), pages 110-120, published a research article by an independent archaeologist, Stephen Compton, whose expertise included the Neo-Assyrian Empire. That empire was a major civilization whose dominion included the lands that today are in Iran, Turkey, Syria and Kuwait. The Neo-Assyrian Empire existed from 911 BC to 609 BC and had perfected iron technology. This contrasted with many surrounding states which made their weapons and implements of the softer metal, bronze. This gave Assyria an advantage in many military campaigns. Their strategy was to dominate the trade routes across the Syrian Desert to the Mediterranean Sea, and control politically and economically the countries these routes passed through. These countries included the kingdom of Judah with its capital, Jerusalem.
Hezekiah, was the king of Judah at the time of this Assyrian campaign.
Outline of Assyria’s Campaign: In 705 BC, the Assyrian king, Sargon II, was killed in battle, and his son, Sennacherib, ascended the throne, making Nineveh his capital.
My comment: This, I believe, is quite incorrect and will only serve to throw right out of kilter neo-Assyrian and biblical history. Sargon II was Sennacherib. Sargon’s attack on “Ashdod” (Lachish) (Isaiah 20:1) was the beginning of what will become Sennacherib’s devastating 3rd Campaign, greatly affecting Judah and Jerusalem (as we have read above).
Barry Setterfield continues:
Sennacherib first overcame rebellions in Asia Minor, then, in 701 BC, he turned his attention to the Levant where Hezekiah of Judah, Lule king of Sidon, Sidka, king of Ascalon and the king of Ekron had formed an alliance with Egypt against Assyria. Sennacherib attacked the rebels, conquering Ascalon, Sidon and Ekron. After going down to Egypt [My comment: He didn’t], he came back and destroyed Libna and Lachish. Records in the Assyrian palace at Nineveh state that 46 cities were destroyed in this military campaign. That included the well-fortified frontier city of Lachish, one of the best equipped cities in Judah, which was some 40 miles south-west of Jerusalem.
Finally, the Assyrian expedition ended with the siege of Jerusalem itself. This feat of overcoming so much resistance was considered to be Sennacherib’s greatest victory.
This particular campaign was of interest to Compton because of the detailed records available. These records are in the form of carvings in Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh (present day Mosul) in northern Iraq. In addition, a six-sided prism was found associated with the remains of the palace that turned out to be Sennacherib’s annals or dairy of the events (see images below). Finally, there are extensive details from Hezekiah’s point of view in the Bible in 2 Kings 18:13 to 2 Kings 19:37; and then 2 Chronicles 32:1-22 coupled with the prophet Isaiah, chapters 36 and 37, as Isaiah the prophet also had a hand in the outcome.
The Clue From Military Camps:
Because these accounts are in the Bible, many skeptical archaeologists insist on historical material entirely separate from any Biblical source before they will even begin to consider its validity.
The question was whether or not Sennacherib even came down as far as Judah, let alone destroying Lachish and placing Jerusalem under siege. One scientist commented: “There has not been any archaeological evidence that the battle actually happened.” It was at this point that Stephen Compton’s research became important. He examined the details in the palace carvings. From those records, it became apparent that the Assyrian armies had an unusual style of structure for their military encampments (something that had first been queried only in January 2004, and studies are still continuing). These Assyrian camps were all of an oval shape. The Romans also had military camps throughout the Levant, but these Roman camps were always of a square or rectangular design. This contrasted with the Assyrian oval pattern recorded on the palace walls.
The Clues From Old Aerial Photos: For many archaeologists, the most important discovery of them all would be to find an oval structure at Lachish and/or Jerusalem.
Compton was aided in this by a 19th century archaeologist, Sir Henry Lanyard. In 1849, Sir Henry sketched the massive reliefs detailing the battle of Lachish from the palace walls in Nineveh, and placed the sketches in the British Museum. The palace record also detailed the landforms the Assyrian army was operating on, as well as the placement of the oval campsite. Compton then searched for early aerial images taken before the end of World War 2, and thus before subsequent alteration of the land. He found an aerial image taken in 1945 of the entire region around Lachish as shown on the palace record in the British Museum. He was able to match the landforms and determine the location of the oval military camp of the Assyrians. When checking on the ground in that location, he found the feature was already known as ‘Khirbet al Mudawwara,’ meaning “Ruins of the Camp of the Invading King.” Archaeological investigation at the site confirmed its identity.
In a similar way, aided by the earliest aerial photograph of Jerusalem, taken in the 1930’s (held in the Library of Congress), the oval military camp of the Assyrians was located just north of Jerusalem at a place called “Ammunition Hill.” Initially it had been thought to be a Roman camp. However, examination then revealed it to be consistent with the Assyrians as, among other things, its form was oval, not rectangular. Because of its good location, the British also used it and gave it the name Ammunition Hill.
Compton’s continued his research and, “In some cases, it has also been possible to use the newly discovered camps to locate the sites of ancient cities that were known to have been besieged by the Assyrians but whose locations were unknown or uncertain,” Compton wrote.
Archaeological Proof – But was there a Miracle?
The initial conclusion from Compton’s research is that the evidence is certainly strong that Sennacherib did invade the land of Judah, with a special emphasis on Lachish and Jerusalem. One assessment expressed it this way: “While the archaeological evidence discovered by Compton does not confirm the supernatural aspects of the Biblical narrative, it does provide compelling support for the historical presence of Assyrian military forces near Jerusalem during Sennacherib’s reign.”
My comment: Yes, this is evidence for the well-chronicled – and highly successful, for Assyria – 3rd campaign.
The extraordinary deliverance of Israel would not occur in the environs of Jerusalem, but well north, at Shechem.
Barry Setterfield continues:
Additional evidence is available from the palace walls in Nineveh. The record from those walls includes a complex scene of the Assyrians storming Lachish. There is a vivid written description of what was being depicted by German archaeologist Werner Keller. After this description, Professor Keller continues: “Amid the confusion of the battle and the din around this frontier fortress of Judah, an order went out from Sennacherib: ‘And the king of Assyria sent Tartan, and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah, along with a great host against Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:17).’
That meant an attack on Jerusalem. The historians of the Assyrian king have preserved a record of what happened next. The hexagonal prism that was Sennacherib’s diary says: “And Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke … him I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city like a caged bird. Earthworks I threw up against him, and anyone coming out of his city gate I made to pay for his crime. His cities which I had plundered I cut off from his hand…’. ”
Professor Keller then writes: “Surely now must come the announcement of the fall of Jerusalem and the seizing of the capital. But the [palace] text continues: ‘As for Hezekiah, the splendor of my majesty overwhelmed him .. 30 gold talents … valuable treasures …. He caused to be brought after me to Nineveh. To pay his tribute and to do me homage he sent his envoys.’
Keller then comments: “This is simply a bragging account of the payment of tribute – nothing more. – just as in 2 Kings 18:14. The Assyrian texts pass on immediately from the description of the battle of Jerusalem to the payment of Hezekiah’s tribute. Just at the moment when the whole country had been subjugated and the siege of Jerusalem, the last point of resistance, was in full swing, the unexpected happened: Sennacherib broke off the attack at the very last minute. Only something quite extraordinary could have induced him to stop the fighting. What might it have been? While the Assyrian records are enveloped in a veil of silence the Bible says: “And it came to pass that night, that the Angel of the LORD went out and smote the camp of the Assyrians, one hundred and eighty-five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.” (2 Kings 19:35, 36).
My comment: Werner Keller wrote a disastrous book, The Bible as History (1955), tethering the Bible to an uneven conventional historical yoke.
Here, he has merged into one two separate Assyrian campaigns, Sennacherib’s successful 3rd campaign, and a later disastrous one, led by his eldest son.
Barry Setterfield continues:
So What Actually Happened?
My comment: One now suspects that Barry will not be able satisfactorily to answer his question. He turns for assistance to that most unreliable of ancient historians, Herodotus, who has Sennacherib’s army falling at, not Jerusalem, but at the near rhyming Pelusium, in northern Egypt.
A combination of Herodotus and Werner Keller, as given next, is not to be desired.
We learn a little more from another historical link to these events which Professor Keller brought to light. He points out that the famous traveler, historian and author of the ancient world, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, has given us some interesting clues not found in other records. In Egypt, Herodotus held conversations with the temple priests. They mentioned that Sennacherib marched against Egypt with a large armed force. They told Herodotus that “at the narrow entrances to the country, an army of field-mice swarmed over their opponents in the night … gnawed through their quivers and their bows, and the handles of their shields, so that on the following day they fled minus their arms and a great number of them fell [by the resulting plague].” For peoples of the ancient world, the mouse was the equivalent of the rat in the Middle Ages and was a symbol of plague.
Archaeological Conclusion: Werner Keller concludes his assessment with the following information; “On the edge of the city of Lachish, the British archaeologist, James Lesley Starkey found shocking proof of this story in 1938: A mass grave in the rock with 2000 human skeletons, unmistakably thrown in with the utmost haste. The epidemic must have raged with frightful destruction among the Assyrian warriors. The drama of the campaign had been unfolded, and once more, Jerusalem had escaped…”
My comment: But surely these were casualties of the mass devastations caused by the invading Assyrian army!
But Behind the Scenes…..
Our conclusion here is that, as far as it is possible for modern science to do so, it supports the Scriptural account of the Assyrian invasion of the land of Judah. Yet even this is not the end of the story scripturally. There is another whole dimension to the drama of the situation that the Bible leaves until the very end. In 2 Kings 19 we have the record of the wipe-out of the Assyrian host. However, as we go on to read 2 Kings 20:1-11 we are amazed to find that just in the middle of this crucial time, the king of Judah, Hezekiah himself, was on his bed in the palace in Jerusalem, very sick and near death.
My comment: King Hezekiah was ill at some point in time near to Sennacherib’s successful campaign, as the following makes clear.
Barry Setterfield continues:
Indeed, we are told in 2 Kings 20:1 that the prophet Isaiah went to Hezekiah and told him to put his house in order because he was not going to live. This, just at the time when the Assyrians had Jerusalem under siege and the people needed to be encouraged by their king to stand steadfast in the face of this opposition.
At that point, Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, wept, and prayed fervently.
Before Isaiah had even gone as far as the middle court in the palace, God gave him a message: “Return and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely, I will heal you. On the third day you will go up to the house of the Lord. And I will add to your days fifteen years. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the King of Assyria, and I will defend this city for My own sake and the sake of my servant David”.
When the prophet had delivered this message, king Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?” Then Isaiah said “This is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing which He has spoken: “Shall the shadow [on the sundial] go forward ten degrees, or go backwards ten degrees?” And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow come back ten degrees.” So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow backwards ten degrees by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.” The incident is told in detail again in Isaiah 38.
My comment: Get ready for some Creationist ‘science’.
Are there Scriptural songs from these events?
This miracle in itself needs an explanation, but we put that aside for the moment to concentrate on something else that is Biblically relevant. Several words in the above account give us the context with certainty; they are the word “degrees,” “sun,” “sundial” and “shadow.” Plainly what is being referred to here is the shadow cast by the sun on the sundial of Ahaz. This shadow from the sun is usually marked off in “degrees” around a circle or half-circle. There are thus 15 degrees per hour which means that 24 hours would make up a full circle of 360 degrees. In this case, 10 degrees would correspond to 40 minutes of actual time. The word translated as “degrees” is the same as the word “dial” used in the biblical accounts as “sun-dial”. It can be translated as “steps” or “stairs,” but astronomically the word “degrees” is better.
Interestingly, this same word “degrees” is found as the heading for 15 Psalms.
There has been a wide discussion as to what was meant in the case of these Psalms. Some have suggested they were part of a pilgrimage going up to Jerusalem for one of the three annual Feasts.
However, there is nothing in any of these Psalms to indicate either a pilgrimage or a feast. Despite this, many Bible versions label these Psalms as “Songs of Ascents” on the basis of the pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. A number of other popular explanations also fall short.
However, the headings for each of those Psalms give their own clue. In each case there is the definite article before the word “degrees” (or ascents or steps). So literally each heading reads “A Song of THE Degrees.” There is only one incident in the whole Bible where the attention is specifically drawn to “the degrees” and that is on the sundial of Ahaz at the healing of Hezekiah, where the shadow went backwards 10 degrees and Hezekiah’s life was extended by 15 years. The fact is that there are precisely 15 Songs of the Degrees, and 10 of them have no named author. The other five are by David or Solomon. We also know that Hezekiah was a Psalm-writer as one of his Psalms appears in Isaiah 38 starting at verse 9 which specifically mentions his recovery from this sickness. It is thus possible that Hezekiah wrote those other 10 Psalms himself and left them unattributed. Bible scholars also suggest that he had a large part in shaping the book of Psalms into its present form just as he did for the book of Proverbs (see Proverbs 25:1).
A new appreciation for some songs?
If this background for the ‘Songs of the Degrees’ is accepted, some of those 10 unattributed Psalms open up in a new way. For example, imagine how the people of Jerusalem felt that early morning when they looked out over the walls of Jerusalem and saw that, incredibly, the siege was over and their enemy destroyed. I believe we may have a record of just this moment. Psalm 126, which is one that Hezekiah may have written, we read, in the literal Hebrew, verses 1 to 3, as follows: “When the Lord restored Zion (the city of Jerusalem) from being a prisoner, we were like those who dream, and our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with singing. They said among the nations, The Lord has done great things for them…whereof we are glad.”
Connecting the dots…
The final aspect of this amazing series of events is the cause of the shadow going back 10 degrees on the sundial of Ahaz.
Many view this as an isolated event and so miss something important. If we connect the dots by looking at the unusual behavior of the sun in the Bible, something important emerges. There is the time when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still along with the moon, with the whole story in Joshua 10:6-15. Then there was Hezekiah as we have seen above. If we move forward to the time of the Crucifixion, we read that the world turned dark around noon. However, the prophet Amos had already told us what was going to happen in Amos 8:9-10. It reads: “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth on a clear day: And I will turn your feast (Passover) into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.” So we have three occasions in the Bible when this occurs.
If we look at the times when these events occurred, something becomes apparent. Using the dating from the most ancient text of the Bible available, the Alexandrian Septuagint (LXX), which is backed up by the chronologies of the Apostolic fathers, the approximate dates for these events are as follows: Joshua – 1450 BC +/- 100 years. Hezekiah -710 BC +/- 50 years. The Crucifixion 33 AD +/- 3 years. There seems to be a systematic progression in these dates with about 745 years between each event. If we come closer to the present by 745 years from the time of the Crucifixion, we come to about 778 AD. In August 15th that year, Emperor Charlemagne was poised to attack the forces that treacherously destroyed his closest associate, Roland, and his forces in Spain. Charlemagne asked the Lord for a sign of assurance before the battle that he had Divine approval. He recorded in his diary and in his “Song of Roland” that the Sun stood still in the heavens that day.
Have you ever played with a gyroscope?
If the gyroscope is mounted so it can move freely in any direction, and it is then given a push, it will swing back and forth systematically for a time - then, suddenly, it will do a figure 8 roll and then go back to its swinging back and forth. After this the process repeats with the figure of 8 roll. We know the earth behaves like a gyroscope, so that figure of 8 movement every 745 years may be explained. It would cause a ‘long day’ on one side of the earth and a ‘long night’ on the other.
This is exactly what is recorded in various ancient cultures at different places around the world. One other important point is that, if the earth’s movement changed like that, there should be relevant records in the magnetic fields of the earth associated with those times.
If we come another 745 years closer to the present after Charlemagne, we arrive at about 1520 AD.
My comment: For my entirely different view of Charlemagne, see e.g. my article:
Solomon and Charlemagne
(5) Solomon and Charlemagne
About that time, Thai pottery shows that there were some unusual, but temporary, changes in the earth’s magnetic field. This was reported in the University of Sydney News, vol. 16. no.4, for 6th March, 1984. The team was headed by Dr. Mike Barbetti, whose speciality was paleo-magnetism. He found that there was a change in the strength and direction of the earth’s magnetic field around that time. This implicates the earth’s core as being involved in what was going on. This was also true for the Hezekiah incident as there was a dramatic change in the earth’s magnetic field intensity recorded in Judean pottery with Hezekiah’s seal on them on that occasion. That leads to another data point. In 1972 an article in the journal Nature entitled “Archaeomagnetism in Iran” pointed out that there was a major change in the direction of movement of the geomagnetic pole. Again, this implies that the earth’s core was involved. The date of that change was about 2200 to 2300 BC and corresponds with the wipe-out of civilizations around the world as a result of meteorite impact. Such impacts definitely affect the earth’s core.
Our analysis and the astronomical data supporting the impact in 2300 BC with an error of about 150 years is here:
https://www.barrysetterfield.org/Worldwide_Event.html
Further discoveries about the earth’s core in 2013 and 2015 have confirmed the period of 720 to 750 years and indicates that the asteroid impact about 2300 to 2200 BC may indeed be the basic cause of the effect seen by Hezekiah that has been a puzzle for so many.
My comment: Not entirely sure how c. 2000 BC vitally affects what was going on in King Hezekiah’s kingdom of the late C8th BC.
