Sennacherib before Lachish. For the translation of the inscription, see the opposite page. British Museum, Assyrian Saloon. The face of the king is mutilated in the original bas-relief, and has been restored.
The precise date of this expedition to Egypt and second siege of Jerusalem is unknown, but it must have taken place between 688 and 680 b.c. It is not by any means improbable that the date may some time or other be fixed, for an account of it will probably be found in the ruins of the cities of Assyria somewhere. That Herodotus calls Sennacherib “king of the Arabians and the Assyrians” is probably due to the fact that he seems to have been in alliance with “the queen of the Aribi”—(šar)rat D.P. Aribi—or Arabians, at the time. Esarhaddon speaks of his father Sennacherib as having captured the Arabian city Adumū, and inscriptions of Aššur-banî-âpli also refer to Sennacherib's expedition thither, and to his connection with an Arabian king named Ḫaza-îlu (Hazael). With regard to Palestine itself, the reality of the siege of Lachish is testified to by the fact, that a large portion of Sennacherib's sculptures represent him as being present at the siege of Lachish in person, when the prisoners and the booty taken were passed before him in procession. The inscription accompanying this scene reads as follows—
“Sin-âḫê-iriba, king of the world, king of the land Aššur,
sat upon his throne of state, and
the spoil of Lakisu
passed before him.”
It would be strange indeed if this event, of which he was evidently very proud, were omitted from the history of what he must have regarded as his glorious deeds. As it does not occur in the account of his expedition to the land of Ḫatti, there is hardly any doubt that it belongs to the later campaign there, when he took the city, though he failed, as has been seen, to take Jerusalem. In all probability there were two sieges of Lachish, and it was very possible that the city was taken only on the second occasion. In any case, it was from Lachish that Sennacherib sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh to Hezekiah, with a great army to besiege Jerusalem, and it is noteworthy that the Rabshakeh reproaches him with trusting to Egypt, the power with which Assyria was at that moment in conflict; and in Sennacherib's second message to Hezekiah (2 Kings xix. 9) the words accompanying it clearly show that the general opinion was, that it was the march of Tirhakah against him which called it forth. It is noteworthy in this connection, that Tirhakah cannot have been on the throne of Egypt so early as 700 b.c., the date of Sennacherib's first campaign against the West.
There are therefore many arguments in favour of two expeditions of Sennacherib to Palestine, with two sieges of Jerusalem, and also, to all appearance, two sieges of Lachish.
The following is the account of his death given in the Babylonian Chronicle—