“In my third campaign I went to the land of the Hittites. I marched against the City of Ekron and put to death the priests and chief men who had committed the sin of rebellion and I hung up their bodies on stakes all around the City ... but as for Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke 46 of his strong cities, together with innumerable fortresses and small towns that depended upon them by overthrowing the walls and open attack, by battle, engines and battering rams I besieged I captured; I brought out of the midst of them and counted as a spoil 200,000 persons great and small, male and female, besides mules, camels, sheep, asses and oxen without number:
“Hezekiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem his strong city. I built a line of forts against him and kept back himself from going forth out of the great gate of his city. I cut off his cities which I had spoiled out of the midst of his land and I gave them to Metinti, king of Ashdod, and Padi King of Ekron and Til-Baal, King of Gaza and made his country small. In addition to their former yearly tribute and gifts I added other tribute and homage due to my majesty, and I laid it upon them. The fear of the greatness of my majesty overwhelmed him, even Hezekiah, and he sent after me to Nineveh my royal city, the Arabs and his bodyguards, whom he had brought for the defense of his royal city Jerusalem, and had furnished with pay along with thirty talents.... Eight hundred talents of pure silver, carbuncles and other precious stones, a couch of ivory, thrones of ivory, and elephants hide and elephant tusks, rare woods of all kinds a vast treasure, as well as Unachs from his palace, and dancing men and dancing women. And he sent his Ambassador to offer homage.”
This fascinating document is one of the greatest treasures that archeology has produced for the careful student of Christian apologetics. It is notable not only for what it tells but also for much that is left unsaid. In the grim, brutal days of these ancient conquerors, a defeated enemy could expect little mercy at the hands of the victorious. The kings of Assyria ruled by fear and by the implacable, swift certainty of punishment for rebellion. Sennacherib here refers to a common practice of his day, that of impaling rebellious enemies as a lesson to other vassals. In this particular document he recounts how they hung the bodies of the rebel leaders on stakes around their captured cities.
The technique of this execution was simple. A heavy post was driven into the ground until it was about as high as a tall man’s shoulder. The top of the post was sharpened to as fine a point as the tools of that day would permit. In some cases, the rebel was picked up by a pair of burly executioners who swung him through the air and jammed him down with great force upon the pointed stake. There they whirled him as a sort of a human pinwheel until life quickly fled his shattered form. This was a comparatively merciful way of impaling. In other cases the victim was set upon the sharpened stick until gravity bore down his suffering body to the point where death relieved him after hours, and even days of misery and torment.
But while Sennacherib recounted the successful punishment of the rebels of the many cities who had joined in this uprising, it is to be carefully noted that he changed the tone of the record in the case of Hezekiah. He could not say that he impaled him or otherwise punished him for the rebellion! All he could say was, “As for Hezekiah himself, I shut him up like a bird in Jerusalem, his capital city.” Sennacherib can tell of the fenced cities and small villages in the outskirts of Judah which he despoiled from the hand of Hezekiah, but he never laid hand on the person of the king himself, nor did he enter the sacred city. The “blast” of Isaiah’s prophecy can alone account for the failure of Sennacherib to crucify Hezekiah along with his other rebellious enemies.
Also it is to be noted that by a violation of chronological accuracy, Sennacherib “saves face,” after the ancient custom of the Eastern lands. A conqueror of his standing and authority cannot admit that he was defeated before the walls of Jerusalem. Therefore, at the end of this record he gives a list of the treasure that Hezekiah had paid before in his original subjection! This listing of tribute is falsely made to appear as though it were after the siege of Jerusalem. By the simple expedient of introducing at the end of a defeat the record of a previous payment, Sennacherib seeks to delude posterity and wipe out the memory of his one outstanding defeat. This great prism of this Assyrian conqueror is unquestionably one of the strongest bricks in the wall of defense that archeology is erecting around the Sacred Word of God.
There are many other records left by Sennacherib that are also of tremendous importance. The British Museum has a magnificent section which is devoted very largely to those Babylonian and Assyrian chronicles, many of which coincide with this period of history. The murder of Sennacherib that was prophesied by Isaiah and recorded in the nineteenth chapter of II Kings, is accredited and substantiated by archeological sources.
We learn from the records of Babylon that the years between the debacle at Jerusalem and the death of Sennacherib were occupied with wars much nearer home. We read in those chronicles that the Elamites of Suziana, together with certain allied peoples, again rose in rebellion. It took a number of campaigns, which ultimately ravished the whole of Suziana, to put down this uprising. In fact, the campaigns of subjection were not entirely successful until Babylon was destroyed in 689 B. C. In the interim, when not busy subduing his Elamite subjects, Sennacherib campaigned in Cilicia, where he overcame the armed force of the Greeks, penetrating as far as Tarsus in his victorious marches. The Babylonian records conclude by saying that he was assassinated by his sons in the year which by our reckoning would be known as B. C. 681.
In the Babylonian Room of the British Museum, Table Case “E” contains an exhibit which bears the Museum number 92,502. This consists of a clay tablet which is an extensive chronicle written in the Babylonian characters. It delineates a list of the principal events which occurred in both Babylon and Assyria over an extensive period of time.
The history begins with the third year of the reign of Nabu-Nasir, who ascended his throne in Babylon in 744. The record continues to the first year of Shamash-shum-ukim, with whom we shall deal in a future reference. In the third column of this chronicle, lines thirty-four and thirty-five state that Sennacherib was killed by his son on the twentieth day of the month Tebet in the twenty-third year of his reign. This murder is rather graphically described in terse, but satisfactory terms in the record of the nineteenth chapter of II Kings.
There is no more definite and positive example of the coincidence of archeological discovery with the text of the Scripture than is provided by the records of Sennacherib. Though dead for more than two and one-half millenniums, he indeed has a tale to tell! We can condense his record into one graphic, simple sentence which we can sign with the name of this great king, “The historicity of the Sacred Page is unquestionable in the light of archeology!”