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concealing the virtual, if not the actual, defeat of Sennacherib. As we infer from a
comparison of the Assyrian account with the Biblical record, Sennacherib, who by that
time must have been aware of the advance of an Egyptian army, detached a large division
("a great host") against Jerusalem, which, however, held out alike against the power and
the threats of the Assyrian leaders (2 Kings 18:17-19:7).
Meantime the Egyptian host was approaching, and the Assyrian leaders returned, and
found Sennacherib in Libnah, somewhere east of Lachish and north of Eleutheropolis.
This probably before the battle which Sennacherib fought with the Egyptians at Altaku,
on a parallel line between Jerusalem and Ekron. This indicates a further retreat of
Sennacherib with his army. In much vainglorious language the Assyrian monarch claims
a victory; but from the wording of the account, it is evident that the victory, if such it
was, could only have been nominal, and was a real defeat. Instead, therefore, of turning
upon Jerusalem, the Assyrians advanced against Ekron and took it, having already
previously failed in their attempt to obtain the surrender of Jerusalem by a second
message full of boastful and blasphemous threats (comp. 2 Kings 19:9-34). Then
followed the destruction of the Assyrian host (ver. 35), and Sennacherib's return to
Nineveh (ver. 36). On the Assyrian monuments nothing is said of these disastrous events,
while Sennacherib boasts that he had shut up Hezekiah in his capital "as a bird in a cage,"
and the deputation and the tribute sent to Lachish are represented as if Hezekiah had
dispatched them to Nineveh, implying a triumph of Assyrian arms and the final
submission of Judah. The real course of events is, however, perfectly clear, and the
accuracy of the Biblical account of Sennacherib's ignominious failure before Jerusalem
and of his final retreat has been universally admitted.
With these facts before us, we turn to the "prophetic" narrative of them, in their spiritual
import on the theocracy. As regards the history which we have been hitherto reading
from the Assyrian monuments, the account in 2 Kings 18:13-19 keeps so parallel with
what is written in Isaiah 36, 37, as similarly that in 2 Kings 20, with Isaiah 38 and 39
(with the exception of Hezekiah's hymn of praise, Isaiah 38:9-20), that a connection
between the two is apparent. Whether either of them, and which, was derived from the
other, are questions which have been differently answered by critics. Probably - for we
are dealing in great measure with conjectures - both look back upon a common original,
which, in the Book of Kings and in the prophecies of Isaiah, is presented respectively in a
manner accordant with the spirit and object of each of those works.
- We again repeat that we are leaving aside the difficult question of the relation between
Biblical and Assyrian chronology, for which - at least, in the judgment of the present
writer - we have not yet sufficient data. According to the Assyrian monuments, this
expedition was the "third campaign" of Sennacherib.
(^)