_HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA_
B.C. 701
2 KINGS xviii. 13--xix. 37.
Ἀλλ' ὁ σοφώτατος βασιλεὺς οὐχ ὅπλα ταῖς ἐκείνων βλασφημίαις, ἀλλὰ
προσευχὴν καὶ δάκρυα καὶ σάκκον ἀντέταξεν.--THEODORET.
"When, sudden--how think ye the end?
Did I say 'without friend'?
Say rather from marge to blue marge
The whole sky grew his targe,
With the sun's self for visible boss,
While an Arm ran across
Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast,
Where the wretch was safe pressed."
BROWNING.
Although during a few memorable scenes the relations of Judah with
Assyria in the reign of Hezekiah leap into fierce light, many previous
details are unfortunately left in the deepest obscurity--an obscurity
all the more impenetrable from the lack of certain dates. It will
perhaps help to simplify our conceptions if we first sketch what is
known of Assyria from the cuneiform inscriptions, and then fill up the
sketch of those scenes which are more minutely delineated in the Book
of Kings and in the prophecies of Isaiah.
Sargon--perhaps a successful general of royal blood, though he never
calls himself the son of any one[535]--seems to have usurped the
throne on the death of Shalmaneser IV., during the siege of Samaria in
B.C. 722. He took Samaria, deported its inhabitants, and repeopled it
from the Assyrian dominions. "In their place," he says, in his tablets
in the halls of his palace at Khorsabad, "I settled the men of
countries conquered [by my hand]."[536] In 720 he suppressed a futile
attempt at revolt, headed by a pretender named Yahubid, in Hamath,
which he reduced to "a heap of ruins." For some years after this he
was occupied mainly on his northern frontiers, but he tells us that
until 711 tribute continued to come in from Judah and Philistia.
Meanwhile, these terrified and oppressed feudatories, writhing under
the remorseless dominion of Nineveh, naturally began to listen to the
intrigues of Egypt, whose interest it was to create a bulwark between
herself and the invasion of the armies which were the abhorrence of
the world. Under the influence of Sabaco, which gave new strength and
unity to Egypt, she succeeded in seducing Ashdod from its allegiance
to Sargon. Sargon at once deposed Azuri, King of Ashdod, and put his
brother Ahimit in his place. The Ashdodites soon after deposed Ahimit,
and elected in his place Jaman, who was in alliance with Sabaco.[537]
This revolt was evidently favoured by Judah, Edom, and Moab; for
Sargon says that they, as well as the people of Philistia, "were
speaking treason." The rebellion was crushed by Sargon's
promptitude.[538] He tells his own tale thus:--
"In the wrath of my heart I did not divide my army, and I did not
diminish the ranks, but I marched against Ashdod with my warriors,
who did not separate themselves from the traces of my sandals. I
besieged, I took Ashdod and Gunt-Asdodim. I then re-established these
towns. I placed [in them] the people whom my arms had conquered, I put
over them my lieutenant as governor. I regarded them as Assyrians, and
they practised obedience."[539]
Sargon does not, however, seem to have conducted this campaign in
person; for we read in Isa. xx. 1 that he sent his Turtan--_i.e._, his
commander-in-chief,[540] whose name seems to have been Zir-bâni--to
Ashdod, who fought against it and took it. The wretched Philistines
had put their trust in Sabaco. "The people," says Sargon, "and their
evil chiefs sent their presents to Pharaoh, King of Egypt, a prince
who could not save them, and besought his alliance." Isaiah had for
three years been indicating how vain this policy was by one of those
acted parables which so powerfully affect the Eastern mind. He had, by
the word of the Lord, stripped the shoes from on his feet and the
upper robe of sackcloth from his loins, and walked, "naked and
barefoot, for a sign and portent against Egypt and Ethiopia," to
indicate that even thus should the people of Egypt and Ethiopia be
carried away as captives, naked and barefoot, by the kings of Assyria.
Egypt was the boast of one party at Jerusalem, and Ethiopia, which had
now become master of Egypt under Sabaco, was their expectation; but
Isaiah's public self-humiliation showed how utterly their hopes
should come to nought.[541] Before the outbreak at Ashdod, Sargon had
suppressed a revolt of Hanun, or Hanno, King of Gaza, and Egypt and
Assyria first met face to face at Raphia (about B.C. 720), where
Sabaco fought in person with an Egyptian contingent, at a spot
half-way between Gaza and the "river of Egypt."[542] Sabaco, whom
Sargon calls "the Sultan of Egypt" (Siltannu Muzri), had been
defeated, and fled precipitately, but Sargon was not then sufficiently
free from other complications to advance to the Nile. The hoarded
vengeance of Assyria was inflicted upon Egypt nearly a century later
by Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal.
In the two suppressions of revolt at Ashdod, Sargon or his Turtan must
have come perilously near Jerusalem, and perhaps he may have inflicted
sufficient damage to admit of the boast that he had "conquered" Judæa.
If so, his military vanity made him guilty of an exaggeration.
Far more serious to Sargon was the revolt of Merodach-Baladan, King of
Chaldæa. Babylon had always been a rival of Nineveh in the competition
for world-wide dominion, and for twelve years, as Sargon says,
Merodach-Baladan had been "sending ambassadors"[543]--to Hezekiah among
others--in the patient effort to consolidate a formidable league. Elam
and Media were with him; and at a solemn banquet, for which they had
"spread the carpets,"[544] and eaten and drank, the cry had risen,
"Arise, ye princes! anoint the shield." Standing in ideal vision on his
watch-tower, Isaiah saw the sweeping rush of the Assyrian troops on
their horses and camels on their way to Babylon. What should come of it?
The answer is in the words, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon, and all the
images of her gods he [Sargon] hath broken to the ground." Alas! there
is no hope from Babylon or its embassy! Would that Isaiah could have
held out a hope! But no, "O my threshed one, son of my threshing-floor,
that which I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, that
have I declared unto you."[545] And so it came to pass. The brave
Babylonian was defeated. In 709 Sargon occupied his palace, took
Dur-yakin, to which he had fled for refuge, and made himself Lord
Paramount as far as the Persian Gulf. It was his last great enterprise.
He built and adorned his palaces, and looked forward to long years of
peace and splendour; but in 705 the dagger-thrust of an assassin--a
malcontent of the town of Kullum--found its way to his heart; and
Sennacherib reigned in his stead.
Sennacherib--Sin-ahi-irba ("Sin, the moon-god, has multiplied
brothers")[546]--was one of the haughtiest, most splendid, and most
powerful of all the kings of Assyria, though the petty state of Judah,
relying on her God, defied and flouted him. The son of a mighty
conqueror, at the head of a magnificent army, he regarded himself as
the undisputed lord of the world.[547] Born in the purple, and bred up
as crown prince, his primary characteristic was an overweening pride
and arrogance, which shows itself in all his inscriptions. He calls
himself "the Great King, the Powerful King, the King of the Assyrians,
of the nations of the four regions, the diligent ruler, the favourite
of the Great Gods, the observer of sworn faith, the guardian of law,
the establisher of monuments, the noble hero, the strong warrior, the
first of kings, the punisher of unbelievers, the destroyer of wicked
men."[548] He was mighty both in war and peace. His warlike glories
are attested by Herodotus, by Polyhistor, by Abydenus, by Demetrius,
and by his own annals. His peaceful triumphs are attested by the great
palace which he erected at Nineveh, and the magnificent series of
sculptured slabs with which he adorned it; by his canals and
aqueducts, his gateways and embankments, his Bavian sculpture, and his
_stêlê_ at the Nahr-el-Kelb. He was a worthy successor of his father
Sargon, and of the second Tiglath-Pileser--active in his military
enterprises, indefatigable, persevering, full of resource.[549]
On one of his bas-reliefs we see this magnificent potentate seated on
his throne, holding two arrows in his right hand, while his left
grasps the bow. A rich bracelet clasps each of his brawny arms. On his
head is the jewelled pyramidal crown of Assyria, with its embroidered
lappets. His dark locks stream down over his shoulders, and the long,
curled beard flows over his breast. His strongly marked, sensual
features wear an aspect of unearthly haughtiness. He is clad in
superbly broidered robes, and his throne is covered with rich
tapestries, and bas-reliefs of Assyrians or captives, who, like the
Greek caryatides, uphold its divisions with their heads and arms.
Yet all this glory faded into darkness, and all this colossal pride
crumbled into dust. Sennacherib not only died, like his father, by
murder, but by the murderous hands of his own sons, and after the
shattering of all his immense pretensions--a defeated and dishonoured
man.
One of his invasions of Judæa occupies a large part of the Scripture
narrative.[550] It was the fourth time of that terrible contact
between the great world-power which symbolised all that was tyrannic
and idolatrous, and the insignificant tribe which God had chosen for
His own inheritance.
In the reign of Ahaz, about B.C. 732, Judah had come into collision
with Tiglath-Pileser II.
Under Shalmaneser IV. and Sargon, the Northern Kingdom had ceased to
exist in 722.
Under Sargon, Judah had been harassed and humbled, and had witnessed
the suppression of the Philistian revolt, and of the defeat of the
powerful Sabaco at Raphia about 720.
Now came the fourth and most overwhelming calamity. If the patriots of
Jerusalem had placed any hopes in the disappearance of the ferocious
Sargon, they must speedily have recognised that he had left behind him
a no less terrible successor.
Sennacherib reigned apparently twenty-four years (B.C. 705-681). On
his accession he placed a brother, whose name is unknown, on the
vice-regal throne of Babylon, and contented himself with the title of
King of the Assyrians. This brother was speedily dethroned by a
usurper named Hagisa, who only reigned thirty days, and was then slain
by the indefatigable Merodach-Baladan, who held the throne for six
months. He was driven out by Belibus, who had been trained "like a
little dog" in the palace of Nineveh,[551] but was now made King of
Sumîr and Accad--_i.e._, of Babylonia. Sennacherib entered the palace
of Babylon and carried off the wife of Merodach and endless spoil in
triumph, while Merodach fled into the land of Guzumman, and (like the
Duke of Monmouth) hid himself "among the marshes and reeds," where the
Assyrians searched for him for five days, but found no trace of him.
After three years (702-699) Belibus proved faithless, and Sennacherib
made his son Assur-nadin-sum viceroy of Babylon.
His second campaign was against the Medes in Northern Elam.
His third (701) was against the Khatti (the Hittites)--_i.e._, against
Phœnicia and Palestine.[552] He drove King Luli from Sidon "by the mere
terror of the splendour of my sovereignty," and placed Tubalu (_i.e._,
Ithbaal) in his place, and subdued into tributary districts Arpad,
Byblos, Ashdod, Ammon, Moab, and Edom, suppressing at the same time a
very abortive rising in Samaria. "All these brought rich presents and
kissed my feet." He also subdued Zidka, King of Askelon, from whom he
took Beth-Dagon, Joppa, and other towns. Padî, the King of Ekron, was a
faithful vassal of Assyria; he was therefore deposed by the revolting
Ekronites, and sent in chains into the safe custody of Hezekiah, who
"imprisoned him in darkness." The rebel states all relied on the
Egyptians and Ethiopians. Sennacherib fought against Egyptians and
Ethiopians, "in reliance upon Assur my God," at Altaqu (B.C. 701), and
claims to have defeated them, and carried off the sons and charioteers
of the King of Egypt, and the charioteers of the kings of Ethiopia.[553]
He then tells us that he punished Altaqu and Timnath.[554] He impaled
the rebels of Ekron on stakes all round the city. He restored Padî, and
made him a vassal. "Hezekiah [Chazaqiahu] of Judah, who had not
submitted to my yoke, the terror of the splendour of my sovereignty
overwhelmed. Himself as a bird in a cage, in the midst of Jerusalem, his
royal city, I shut up. The Arabians and his dependants, whom he had
introduced for the defence of Jerusalem, his royal city, together with
thirty talents of gold, eight hundred of silver, bullion, precious
stones, ivory couches and thrones, an abundant treasure, with his
daughters, his harem, and his attendants, I caused to be brought after
me to Nineveh. He sent his envoy to pay tribute and render homage." At
the same time, he overran Judæa, took forty-six fenced cities and many
smaller towns, "with laying down of walls, hewing about, and trampling
down," and carried off more than two hundred thousand captives with
their spoil. Part of Hezekiah's domains was divided among three
Philistine vassals who had remained faithful to Assyria.
It was in the midst of this terrible crisis that Hezekiah had sent to
Sennacherib at Lachish his offer of submission, saying, "I have
offended; return from me; that which thou puttest upon me I will
bear."[555] The spoiling of the palace and Temple was rendered necessary
to raise the vast mulct which the Assyrian King required.[556]
It is at Lachish--now Um-Lakis, a fortified hill in the Shephelah,
south of Jerusalem, between Gaza and Eleutheropolis--that we catch
another personal glimpse of the mighty oppressor. We see him depicted,
on his triumphal tablets, in the palace-chambers of Kouyunjik,
engaged in the siege; for the town offered a determined
resistance,[557] and required all the energies and all the trained
heroism of his forces. We see him next, carefully painted, seated on
his royal throne in magnificent apparel, with his tiara and bracelets,
receiving the spoils and captives of the city. The inscription says:
"Sennacherib, the mighty king, the king of the country of Assyria,
sitting on the throne of judgment at the entrance of the city of
Lakisha. I give permission for its slaughter." He certainly implied
that he took the city, but a doubt is thrown on this by 2 Chron.
xxxii. 1, which only says that "he _thought_ to win these cities"; and
the historian says (2 Kings xix. 8) that he "departed from Lachish."
Lachish was evidently a very strong city, and it is so depicted in the
palace-tablets at Kouyunjik. It had been fortified by Rehoboam, and
had furnished a refuge to the wretched Amaziah.[558]
If Judah and Jerusalem had listened to the messages of Isaiah,[559]
they might have been saved the humiliating affliction which seemed to
have plunged the brief sun of their prosperity into seas of blood. He
had warned them incessantly and in vain. He had foretold their
present desolation, in which Zion should be like a woman seated on the
ground, wailing in her despair. He had taught them that formalism was
no religion, and that external rites did not win Jehovah's approval.
He had told them how foolish it was to put trust in the shadow of
Egypt, and had not shrunk from revealing the fearful consequences
which should follow the setting up of their own false wisdom against
the wisdom of Jehovah. Yet, intermingled with pictures of suffering,
and threats of a harvestless year, designed to punish the vanity and
display of their women, and the intimation--never actually
fulfilled--that even the palace and Temple should become "the joy of
wild asses, a pasture of flocks," he constantly implies that the
disaster would be followed by a mysterious, divine, complete
deliverance, and ultimately by a Messianic reign of joy and peace.
Night is at hand, he said, and darkness; but after the darkness will
come a brighter dawn.
FOOTNOTES:
[535] One legend of his birth resembles the finding of Moses in the
bulrushes.
[536] Schrader, _K. A. T._, pp. 272-274; _Records of the Past_, vii. 28.
[537] Smith, _Eponym Canon_, p. 130.
[538] See Prof. Smith, _Isaiah_, p. 198.
[539] _Records of the Past_, vii. 40. Sargon's words are, "The people
of Philistia, Judah, Edom, and Moab were speaking treason. The people
and their evil chiefs, to fight against me, unto _Pharaoh, the King of
Egypt, a monarch who could not save them_, their presents carried, and
besought his alliance" (G. Smith, _Assyrian Discoveries_, 290).
[540] On the monuments called _Turtanu_, "Holder of power." See
Schrader in Riehm, _s.v._
[541] Raphia, or Ropeh, is on the borders of the desert. Asia beat
Africa in every encounter--at Raphia, at Altaqu, at Carchemish. The
impression of the seal of Shabak, attached to his capitulations with
Sargon, was found at Nineveh by Sir A. H. Layard, and is now in the
British Museum. Shabak died in 712. His son Shabatoh succeeded him in
Egypt, and his nephew(?) Tirhakah in Ethiopia. Sabaco's name assumes
many forms (LXX., Σηγώρ; Herod., ii. 137; Σαβακώς; Vulg., _Sua_). The
Egyptians called him Shaba(ka).
[542] Isa. xx. 1-6.
[543] Lenormant, _Les Premières Civilisations_, ii. 203; _Records of
the Past_, vii. 41-46.
[544] Isa. xxi. 6, A.V., "Watch in the watch-tower." Hitzig, Cheyne,
"They spread the carpets." Much in this short oracle (xxi. 1-10) is
obscure. Isaiah seems, in denouncing the fate of Babylon, to mourn for
the ruin of the smaller states of which it was the prelude (G. Smith,
_Soc. of Bibl. Arch._, ii. 320 Kleinert, _Stud. u. Krit._, 1877 W. R.
Smith in _Enc. Brit._, _s.v._ "Isaiah").
[545] Isa. xxi. 10--_i.e._, "My people threshed and trodden"; LXX., ὁ
καταλελειμμένος καὶ οἱ ὀδυνώμενοι _Records of the Past_, vii. 47.
[546] Herod., Σαναχάριβος; Jos., Σεναχήριβος. See Appendix I. Sin was
the moon-god; Merodach, the planet Jupiter; Adar, Saturn; Ishtai,
Venus; Nebo, Mercury; Nergal, Mars (Schrader, ii. 117).
[547] Sargon seems to have been murdered in the palace of unparalleled
splendour which he built at Dur-Sharrukin ("The City of Sargon"). It
took him five years to build it with armies of workmen. Its halls,
opened by Botta, were the first Assyrian halls ever entered by a
modern's foot. It is strange that this greatest of Assyrian kings is
only mentioned once in the Bible (Isa. xx. 1). We owe to Assyriology
his restoration to his proper place in the annals of mankind. See
Ragozin, _Assyria_, 247-254.
[548] Rawlinson, _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 178.
[549] Canon Rawlinson, _Kings of Israel and Judah_, 187.
[550] On his own monuments this campaign, except its final catastrophe,
is narrated in four sections: (1) The subjugation of Phœnicia, and of
Philistine towns; (2) the conquest of King Zidka of Askelon; (3) the
defeat of Ekron, the restoration of their vassal king Padî to his
throne, and the defeat of Egypt at Altaqu; (4) the expedition against
Jerusalem (Schrader, E. Tr., i. 298). See Appendix I.
[551] This allusion is said to be the only instance of humour--"_grim_
humour, or it would not be Assyrian"--which occurs in the Assyrian
annals.
[552] Schrader, pp. 234-279. The account of the memorable campaign is
narrated in duplicate on the Taylor Cylinder in the British Museum,
and on the Bull Inscription at Kouyunjik.
[553] Sennacherib calls Tirhakah's army "a host that no man could
number"; but it was defeated by the better discipline, the heavier
armour, and the superior physical strength of the Assyrians.
[554] See Josh. xix. 43.
[555] This very phrase "I imposed on them" is found on Sennacherib's
monument (Schrader, ii. 1). The references, when not otherwise
specified, are to Whitehouse's English translation.
[556] In 2 Kings xviii. 16 the word "pillars" or "doorposts" is
uncertain. LXX., ἐστηριγμένα; Vulg., _laminas auri_.
[557] 2 Chron. xxxii. 9. He had to besiege it "with all his power." He
seems to have thought it even more important than Jerusalem, for he
superintended the siege in person (Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_, 150;
_Monuments of Nineveh_, 2nd series, pl. 21). The ruined Tel of
Umm-el-Lakîs lies between the Wady Simsim and the Wady-el-Ahsy (Riehm).
[558] See 2 Chron. xi. 9, xxv. 27; Jer. xxxiv. 7. The allusion to this
city in Micah (i. 13) is obscure: "O thou inhabitant of Lachish [swift
steed], bind the chariot to the swift steed: she is the beginning of
sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were
found in thee." This seems to imply that some form of idolatry had
come from Israel to Lachish, and from Lachish to Jerusalem. In
Sennacherib's picture of the city, foreign worship is represented as
going on in it (Layard, _Monuments of Nineveh_, Pls. 21 and 24;
Rawlinson, _Herodotus_, i. 477).
[559] Isa. xxix., xxx., xxxi.