- 122-
In these circumstances it is a question of historical interest, rather than of practical
importance,* whether the sickness of Hezekiah or rather the embassy of Merodach-
baladan had been during the reign of Sargon or in that of Sennacherib, whether they had
preceded the campaign of the former in Palestine, or that of the latter.**
- Viewed from the prophetic stand-point. For this is not an ordinary history, and the
connection which determines the form of the narrative is not that of succession in the
order of time, but of spiritual cause and effect - the inward, not the outward, nexus of
events.
** English critics (Rawlinson, Sayce, Cheyne) place it in the time of Sargon; the most
competent German authorities(Schrader, Friedrich Delitzsch) in that of Sennacherib.
The text itself seems to point to the period immediately before the invasion of
Sennacherib, since in the time of Sargon Jerusalem was not in such danger as is indicated
in the reassuring promise given concerning it (ver. 6). But this is not all. On any theory,
the numeral "fifteen" years in the promised addition to the spared life of Hezekiah (ver.
6), must have crept into the text by some mistake.
Admittedly, it would not synchronize with the period of Sennacherib's campaign; while
on the other and it is certain that Sargon came into hostile contact with Hezekiah in the
second year of his reign* (that after the taking of Samaria), that is, in the sixth or
seventh, scarcely in the eighth, year of Hezekiah's reign (2 Kings 18:10).
- See the Article Sargon in Riehm II. p. 1374.
But fifteen years added to this would give at most twenty-two or twenty-three for the
reign of Hezekiah, whereas we know that it lasted twenty-nine years (2 Kings 18:2) If,
therefore, it is impossible to date the illness of Hezekiah and the embassy in the time of
Sargon, we have to assign these events to the period immediately preceding the campaign
of Sennacherib in Palestine. It may have been that the number "fifteen," as that of the
years added to the life of Hezekiah, had originally been a marginal remark.*
- The critical questions connected with Isaiah 38:5, 6 cannot here be entertained.
With whomsoever it originated or however it passed into the text, the copyist, annotator,
or editor, who regarded the fourteenth year of Hezekiah as that of Sennacherib's invasion
(2 Kings 18:13), would naturally deduct this number from twenty-nine, the total of the
years of Hezekiah's reign, and so arrive at the number fifteen as that of the years added to
the king's life.
But, on the other hand, this also implies that in the view of this early copyist, annotator,
or editor, the sickness of Hezekiah and the embassy of Merodach-baladan had
(^)