jan 1, 732 BC - Sennacherib Invades Judah

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Picture: Prism containing Sennacherib's boast about his invasion of Judah.

At Nineveh archaeologists have found an account of the same events in the annals of Sennacherib. In the text, which is inscribed on a hexagonal clay prism, the Assyrian king boasted: “As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered (them) . . . Himself [Hezekiah] I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage.” Sennacherib then claims that Hezekiah sent him “30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, precious stones, . . . (and) all kinds of valuable treasures,” inflating the number of silver talents that he actually received.

Note, though, that Sennacherib does not claim to have conquered Jerusalem. In fact, he says nothing about the crushing defeat his army suffered through divine intervention. According to the Bible, God’s angel took the lives of 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night. (2 Kings 19:35, 36) Says scholar Jack Finegan: “In view of the general note of boasting which pervades the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings, however, it is hardly to be expected that Sennacherib would record such a defeat.”

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