Hezekiah improved the defences and arranged for a good water supply, preparatory to the siege by Sennacherib, the Assyrian general.
The Elamite king was dethroned and imprisoned in 700 B.C. by his brother Khallusu, who six years later marched into Babylonia, captured the son of Sennacherib, whom his father had placed there as king, and raised a nominee of his own, Nergal-yusezib, to the throne.
His successor KudurNakhkhunte invaded Babylonia; he was repulsed, however, by Sennacherib, 34 of his cities were destroyed, and he himself fled from Madaktu to Khidalu.
Sennacherib here conducted a campaign (2 Kings xviii.
Smith's History of Sennacherib, p. 69).
9-10) in the dark days of Ahaz (735-734 B.C.) were among the oracles which God commanded Isaiah " to seal up among his disciples " (verse 16), and that they were quoted once more with effect as the armies of Sennacherib closed around Jerusalem.
Hezekiah and Sennacherib (xviii.
It is uncertain whether Sennacherib invaded Judah again shortly before his death, never,- theless the land was practically under the control of Assyria.
In 734 their king Sanip(b)u was a vassal of Tiglathpileser IV., and his successor, P(b)udu-ilu, held the same position under Sennacherib and Esarhaddon.
Sennacherib speaks of one at Tarbisu to the north of Nineveh, but it is significant that although Nebuchadrezzar II.
Thus there were two great political events (the Syro-Israelitish invasion under Ahaz, and the great Assyrian invasion of Sennacherib) which called forth the spiritual and oratorical faculties of our prophet, and quickened his faculty of insight into the future.
The Sennacherib prophecies must be taken in connexion with the historical appendix, chaps.
Special mention may be made here of the tale of Abikar - the wise and virtuous secretary of Sennacherib, king of Assyria - and of his wicked nephew Nadhan.
An interesting example of the long plain variety is afforded by the prisoners of Lachish before Sennacherib (701 B.C.); the circumstances and a comparison of the details would point to its being essentially a simple dress indicative of mourning and humiliation.
The sculptures of Sennacherib show the bare-headed and bare-footed suppliants of Lachish meanly clad before Sennacherib (Ball, p. 192, contrast the warriors with caps and helmets, ib.
3750 B.C.), and Sagarakti-suryas Boo years; and we learn from Sennacherib that Shalmaneser I.
Prism Of Sennacherib, Tablet From Assur Inscribed With Hisbani-Pal'S Library, Torical Annals Of Inscribed With His Reign.
Sargon, who meanwhile had crushed the confederacy of the northern nations, had taken (717 B.C.) the Hittite stronghold of Carchemish and had annexed the future kingdom of Ecbatana, was now accepted as king by the Babylonian priests and his claim to be the successor of Sargon of Akkad acknowledged up to the time of his murder in 705 B.C. His son Sennacherib, who succeeded Serena- hi m on the 12th of Ab, did not possess the military or cherlb. ?
Sennacherib, his son Merodach-zakir-sumi, I month Merodach-baladan III., 6 months.
Bel-ebus of Babylon Assur-nadin-sumi, son of Sennacherib 700 Nergal-yusezib 694 Musezib-Merodach.
693 Sennacherib destroys Babylon.
1215 Sennacherib, his son Esar-haddon, his son 1200 Assur-bani-pal, his son.
Gave the riders saddles and high boots, and Sennacherib created a corps of slingers.
And Sennacherib, kings of Assyria, of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and of Cyrus, king of Persia, all contain direct references to Hebrew history.
Most interesting of all, perhaps, are the annals of Sennacherib, the destruction of whose hosts by the angel of God is so strikingly depicted in the Book of Kings.
The court historian of Sennacherib naturally does not dwell upon this event, but he does tell of an invasion and conquest of Palestine.
The Hebrew account of the death of Sennacherib is corroborated by a Babylonian inscription.
Sennacherib (Sargon's successor in 705) marched to the land of the " Hittites," traversed ' See G.
Not a few of the astrological and omen tablets in the Kuyunjik collection of the British Museum, however, although found at Nineveh, were executed, according to their own testimony, at Calah for the rab-dup-sarre or principal librarian during the reigns of Sargon and Sennacherib (716-684 B.C.).
(745-727), Sargon (722-705), Sennacherib (704-781),Esarhaddon (681-668), and Asshurbanipal or Assur-bani-pal (668-626).
This interval does not depend upon a mere list of Eponym years; we have in the annals of Sargon and Sennacherib full particulars of the events in all the intervening years.
Sennacherib records that several of his royal ancestors had been buried in Nineveh and they presumably had resided there.
At the commencement of his reign Sennacherib found Nineveh a poor place.
Sennacherib restored and enlarged the northern platform now covered by the Kuyunjik mound and built his palace on the south-western portion of it.
On the adjoining platform to the south, now Nebi-Yunus, Sennacherib erected an arsenal for military supplies.
Nineveh was badly supplied with water for drinking; the inhabitants had to " turn their eyes to heaven for the rain," but Sennacherib conducted water by eighteen canals from the hills into the Husur and distributed its waters round the moats and into store tanks, or ponds, within the city.
Sennacherib made Nineveh his court residence and, after his destruction of Babylon and the influx of the enormous booty brought back from his conquests, it must have been the most magnificent and wealthiest city of the East.
Especially is his palace famous for the celebrated library, of which Sennacherib had made a commencement.
The enormous mound of Kuyunjik now separated from that of Nebi-Yunus by the deep and rapid Khausar, marks the site of the palace of Sennacherib and Assur-bani-pal.
But Elulaeus, according to Menander, suppressed the revolt of Citium, and early in the reign of Sennacherib joined the league of Philistia and Judah, which had considerable effect upon the' cities of Phoenicia (above, Justin xviii.
In the great campaign of 701 Sennacherib came down upon the revolting provinces; he forced Lull., king of Sidon, to fly, for refuge to Cyprus, took his chief cities, and set up Tuba'lu (Ethbaal) as king, imposing a yearly tribute ii.
Sennacherib, however, so far accomplished his object as to break up the combination of Tyre and Sidon, which had grown into a powerful state.'
To the great powers Phoenician ships and sailors were indispensable; Sennacherib, Psammetichus and Necho, Xerxes, Alexander, all in turn employed them for their transports and sea-fights.
Further, we know that in the 8th century B.C., there were observatories in most of the large cities in the valley of the Euphrates, and that professional astronomers regularly took observations of the heavens, copies of which were sent to the king of Assyria; and from a cuneiform inscription found in the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, the text of which is given by George Smith,5 we learn that at that time the epochs of eclipses of both sun and moon were predicted as possible - probably by means of the cycle of 223 lunations or Chaldaean Saros - and that observations were made accordingly.
When Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem in 701, Kamus(Chemosh)-nadab also submitted, and subsequently both Esarhaddon and Assurbani-pal mention the Moabite king Musuri ("the Egyptian," but cf.
22, 3) - Sennacherib conquered a fortress of "Aribi" named Adumu, - and Jetur is obviously the Ituraea of classical geographers.4 "Ishmael," therefore, is used in a wide sense of the wilder, roving peoples encircling Canaan from the north-east to the south, related to but on a lower rank than the "sons" of Isaac. It is practically identical with the term "Arabia" as used by the Assyrians.
A recently published inscription of Sennacherib (of 694 B.C.) mentions enslaved peoples from Philistia and Tyre, but does not name Judah.
Gave the Assyrians trouble; and when in 689 B.C. Sennacherib, whose patience had been exhausted by the difficulties encountered in maintaining peace in the south, actually besieged and destroyed the city of Babylon, he removed the statue of Marduk to Nineveh as a symbol that the god's rule had come to an end.
4), and to which the murderers of Sennacherib fled (2 Kings xix.
Whether he came to the throne before or after the fall of Samaria (722721 B.C.) is disputed,' nor is it clear what share Judah took in the Assyrian conflicts down to 701.2 Shortly before this date the whole of western Asia was in a ferment; Sargon had died and Sennacherib had come to the throne (in 705); vassal kings plotted to recover their independence and Assyrian puppets were removed by their opponents.
3 Sennacherib completely routed them at Eltekeh (a Danite city), and thence turned against Hezekiah, who had been in league with Ekron and had imprisoned its king Padi, an Assyrian vassal.
Hezekiah was imprisoned "like a bird in a cage" 4 - to quote Sennacherib, and the Urbi (Arabian?} troops in Jerusalem laid down their arms. Thirty talents of gold, eight hundred of silver, precious stones, couches and seats of ivory - "all kinds of valuable treasure", - the ladies of the court, male and female attendants (perhaps "singers") were carried away to Nineveh.
14-16, supplements the Assyrian record by the statement that Sennacherib besieged Lachish, a fact which is confirmed by a basrelief (now in the British Museum) depicting the king in the act of besieging that town.
This theory of a second campaign (first suggested by Sir Henry Rawlinson) has been contested, although it is pointed out that Sennacherib at all events did not invade Egypt, and that 2 Kings xix.
The allusion to the murder of Sennacherib (xix.
In the Book of Tobit Ahikar is represented as the prime minister of Sennacherib and his son Esar-Haddon, and is claimed by Tobit as his nephew.
That they differed from the Arabs and Aramaeans is also seen from the distinction made by Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) between the Chaldaeans and these races.
21 he is named as the angel who destroyed the host of Sennacherib; and in similar writings of a still later period he is spoken of as the spirit who presides over fire, thunder, the ripening of the fruits of the earth and similar processes.
Sennacherib took it in 701 B.C. The conquest of Alexander hellenized its civilization, and after his time it became tributary alternately to Syria and Egypt.
Sennacherib alone seems to have failed in securing the support of the Babylonian priesthood; at all events he never underwent the ceremony, and Babylonia throughout his reign was in a constant state of revolt which was finally suppressed only by the complete destruction of the capital.