Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them.
This and Isaiah 37:1-38; Isaiah 38:1-22; Isaiah 39:1-8, form the historical appendix closing the first division of Isaiah's proprecies, and were added to make the parts of these referring to Assyria more intelligible. So Isaiah 52:1-15 in Jeremiah: cf. 2 Kings 22:1-20. The section occurs almost word for word, 2 Kings 18:13; 2 Kings 18:17-20; 2 Kings 19:1-37. 2 Kings 18:14-16 (respecting the tribute of 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold imposed on Hezekiah by Sennacherib), however, is additional matter. Hezekiah's writing also is in Isaiah, not in Kings (Isaiah 38:9-20). We know from 2 Chronicles 32:32 that Isaiah wrote "the acts of Hezekiah." It is therefore probable, that his record here (Isaiah 36:1-22; Isaiah 37:1-38; Isaiah 38:1-22; Isaiah 39:1-8) was incorporated into the Book of Kings by its compiler. Sennacherib lived, according to Assyrian inscriptions, about twenty years after his invasion, and was succeeded by Esar-haddon; but, as Isaiah survived Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:32), the record of Sennacherib s death (Isaiah 37:38) is no objection to this section having come from Isaiah; 2 Chronicles 32:1-33 is probably an abstract drawn from Isaiah's account, as the chronicler himself implies (Isa. 36:32
).
Pul, the first of the Assyrian kings mentioned in Scripture, was probably the last of the old dynasty, (about 770 BC) A new dynasty began with Tiglath-pileser II. Shalmaneser II followed; then followed Sargon, a powerful satrap, who contrived to possess himself of supreme power and found a new dynasty (see note, Isaiah 20:1). That Sargon was an usurper appears from his avoiding all mention of his father in the deciphered inscriptions. Probably he took advantage of Shalmaneser's protracted absence in besieging Samaria (2 Kings 17:5) to effect a revolution and substitute himself as king. No attempt was made by Judah to throw off the Assyrian yoke during his vigorous reign. The accession of Sargon's son Sennacherib was thought by Hezekiah the opportune time to refuse the long-paid tribute; Egypt and Ethiopia, to secure an ally against Assyria on their Asiatic frontier, promised help; Isaiah, while opposed to submission to Assyria, advised reliance on Yahweh, and not on Egypt, but his voice was disregarded, and so Sennacherib invaded Judah 700 BC, in the third year of his reign, for the first time.
The reason alleged in the inscription is, because the Ekronites had sent their king, Padya, a prisoner to Jerusalem (cf. 2 Kings 18:8). He was the builder of the largest of the excavated palaces, that of Kouyunjik. It is his monument that yet remains at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, on the coast of Syria, side by side with an inscription of Rameses the Great recording conquests six centuries earlier. Hincks has deciphered his name in the inscriptions. In the third year of his reign (his accession was 702 years B.C., according to the canon of Ptolemy), these state that he overran Syria, took Sidon and other Phoenician cities, and then passed to Southwest Palestine, where he defeated the Egyptians and Ethiopians (cf. 2 Kings 18:21; 2 Kings 19:9). His subsequent retreat, after his host was destroyed by God, is of course suppressed in the inscriptions. But other particulars inscribed agree strikingly with the Bible: the capture of the "defensed cities of Judah," the devastation of the country and deportation of its inhabitants: the increased tribute imposed on Hezekiah-thirty talents of gold-this exact numher being given in both: the silver is set down in the inscriptions at 800 talents, in the Bible 300; the latter may have been the actual amount carried off, the larger sum may include the silver from the temple doors, pillars, etc. (2 Kings 18:16) (Layard).
The fine imposed was 800; but perhaps only 300 was paid. It was in 699 or 698 B.C. that Sennacherib made his second invasion of Palestine. The first invasion of Palestine falls into Hezekiah's 27th year, not his 14th, as stated here in Isaiah 36:1; because his reign extends from 726 BC to 697 BC A scribe may have conjecturally changed 27th into 14th, applying to Sennacherib's invasion what was true of Sargon's earlier invasion-namely, that it was in the 14th year of Hezekiah's (Isaiah 20:1-6). Then the section as to Hezekiah's sickness and addition of 15 years (Isaiah 38:1-22; Isaiah 39:1-8) must refer to the earlier period, Sargon's time, not Sennacherib's
(G. Rawlinson).
The fourteenth - the third of Sennacherib's reign. Hincks agrees with Rawlinson in making it the 26th or 27th year of Hezekiah. But the transposition of Hezekiah s sickness and the embassy from Babylon to a position in Sargon's time, eleven years before Sennacherib's invasion, seems to me forced, seeing that the events stand in the same order in 2 Kings 2:1-25 Chronicle, and Isaiah. Again, Isaiah's record of Sennacherib's death, which took place twenty years later than the invasion, accords with the view that Hezekiah survived the invasion 15 years, and not merely two, which would put Isaiah more than 18 years under Manasseh, which is very improbable. Scripture is at least as trustworthy a document of history as any pagan monument. In chronology numbers of course are more liable to suffer by transcription. The date of the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, as our Bible text stands, would be 713 BC Sennacherib's ultimate object was Egypt, Hezekiah's ally. Hence, he, with the great body of his army (2 Chronicles 32:9), advanced toward the Egyptian frontier, in South-west Palestine, and did not approach Jerusalem.
Sennacherib ... came up against all the defensed cities of Judah, and took them - 46, according to the inscriptions recently deciphered, and 200,000 prisoners.