(13-37) THE INVASION OF SENNACHERIB.

(13) In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah.--The fall of Samaria is dated 722-721 B.C. , both by the Bible and by the Assyrian inscriptions. That year was the sixth of Hezekiah, according to 2Kings 18:10. His fourteenth year, therefore, would be 714-713 B.C. Sennacherib's own monuments, however, fix the date of the expedition against Judah and Egypt at 701 B.C. (See the careful discussion in Schrader's Keilinschriften, pp. 313-317.) This divergence is remarkable, and must not be explained away. It must be borne in mind that the Assyrian documents are strictly contemporary, whereas the Books of Kings were compiled long after the events they record, and have only reached us after innumerable transcriptions; while the former, so far as they are unbroken, are in exactly the same state now as when they first left the hands of the Assyrian scribes.

Sennacherib.--Called in his own annals Sin-ahi-erib, or Sin-ahi-erba, i.e., "Sin (the moon-god) multiplied brothers." He was son and successor of Sargon, and reigned from 705-681 B.C. He invaded Judah in his third campaign.

All the fenced cities . . . took them.--See Sennacherib's own words, quoted in the Note on 2Chronicles 32:1.

Verses 13-16. - FIRST EXPEDITION OF SENNACHERIB AGAINST HEZEKIAH. The writer now, as is his manner, omitting as comparatively unimportant all Hezekiah's dealings with Sargon, which were without positive result, proceeds to give a brief account of Sennacherib's first expedition against him, and of its unfortunate, if not disgraceful, issue:

(1) the capture of all the important cities except Jerusalem;

(2) the submission of Hezekiah to any terms which Sennacherib chose to impose; and

(3) the purchase of peace by the payment of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold out of the treasures of the temple and of the royal palace. The narrative obtains copious illustration from the inscriptions of Sennacherib. Verse 13. - Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah did Sennacherib King of Assyria come up. It is impossible to accept this note of time as genuine without rejecting altogether the authority of the Assyrian inscriptions. Sargon took Samaria in his first year, B.C. 722, and then had a reign of between seventeen and eighteen years, for fifteen of which we have his annals. He certainly did not associate Sennacherib with him on the throne, nor did the latter exercise any authority at all until B.C. 705, when, "on the 12th of Ab (July), he the throne ascended" ('Eponym Canon,' p. 67). Sennacherib places his first expedition against Hezekiah in his fourth year, B.C. 701. Thus, according to the Assyrian records, which are very ample, and of which we have the actual originals, twenty years intervened between the capture of Samaria and the attack of Sennacherib on Hezekiah; according to the present passage, compared with vers. 9, 10, eight years only intervened. No contradiction can be more absolute. It has been proposed to alter the date from "the fourteenth year" to "the twenty-sixth year; ' but it seems most probable that the original writer inserted no date, but simply said, "And Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up," etc., just as he had said, without a date, "Pul the King of Assyria came up against the land" (2 Kings 15:19); and "against him (Hoshea) came up Shalmaneser" (2 Kings 17:3); and, with a very vague date, if it may be called a date, "In the days of Pekah King of Israel came Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria" (2 Kings 15:29. Comp. also 2 Kings 24:1, 11). Later on, a redactor - perhaps the same who inserted the whole series of synchronisms - introduced the words, "In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah," having obtained the number from 2 Kings 20:6, which he assumed to belong to the time of Sennacherib's attack. Against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them. Sennacherib himself says, "And of Hezekiah of Judah, who did not submit to my yoke, forty-six strong cities, fortresses, and smaller cities round about them without number, by the march of my troops... by the force of battering-rams, mining, and missiles, I besieged, I captured" ('Eponym Canon,' p. 134, lines 6-12. Comp. also 2 Chronicles 32:1 and Isaiah 36:1).

18:9-16 The descent Sennacherib made upon Judah, was a great calamity to that kingdom, by which God would try the faith of Hezekiah, and chastise the people. The secret dislike, the hypocrisy, and lukewarmness of numbers, require correction; such trials purify the faith and hope of the upright, and bring them to simple dependence on God.Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah,.... Eight years after the captivity of Israel:

did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them; many of them, the frontier towns, and proceeded as far as Lachish; ambitious of enlarging his dominions, his father having subdued the kingdom of Israel, and being also provoked by Hezekiah's refusing to pay him tribute. Mention is made of this king by name, by Herodotus and other Heathen writers, see the note on Isaiah 36:1 in the Apocryha:"Now when Enemessar was dead, Sennacherib his son reigned in his stead; whose estate was troubled, that I could not go into Media.'' (Tobit 1:15)he is called Sennacherib, and is said to be son of Enemassat, that is, Shalmaneser; however, he succeeded him in his kingdom; though some (o) take him to be the same with Shalmaneser: he is said by Metasthenes (p) to reign seven years, and was succeeded by Assaradon, who, according to him, reigned ten years.

(o) Lud. Vives in Aug. de Civ. Dei, l. 18. c. 24. (p) De Judicio Temp. fol. 221. 2.