Hezekiah's Foreign Policy
Third Act: Hezekiah's Folly
Yerusalem Saved By The Payment Of A Heavy Tribute
Sennacherib had not yet appeared in Palestine. For three years he was kept in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates where one after another he had to put down serious rebellions. In 701 he had concluded these operations and without delay set out for the land of Canaan.
We can follow his campaign by taking for our guide the baked clay prism of Sennacherib (prism of Taylor), now in the British Museum, in which the king gives the details of his conquests.
Sennacherib's first objective was Phoenicia. Tyre was severely punished and a monarch friendly to Assyria placed on the throne. Sidon fell. The other ports submitted without delay.
Leaving Yerusalem on his left Sennacherib then moved towards Philistia, for he was sure that the Egyptian armies would shortly make their appearance; he would have to cut them in pieces before they could join the coalition. He attacked and captured the strongholds of Ashkelon and Ekron, defended by Philistine garrisons. Then the Egyptian troops came on the scene. Sennacherib marched to meet them, encountered them at Eltekeh and routed them.
It was now Yahudah's turn. Hezekiah 'was imprisoned in his capital like a bird in a cage', reads the Assyrian text. Meanwhile, the Assyrian army laid waste the countryside surrounding Yerusalem. 'For my booty,' Sennacherib informs us, 'I took away men and women, young and old, horses, mules, asses, camels, sheep and cattle in countless numbers.' Soon afterwards the Assyrian cavalry appeared before the walls of Yerusalem and took up its position there; the siege was about to begin.
For Hezekiah the situation was desperate. Obviously he would have done better never to have started on this adventure and would have been wiser to follow the exhortations of the Prophet YeshaYahu who was continually thundering forth:
For this day of panic and rout.
They are shouting for help on the mountains. Elam takes up his quiver Aram mounts his horse And Kir fetches out his shield.
Your fairest valleys are filled with chariots. (YeshaYahu 22:5-6)
YeshaYahu saw that this ill-advised adventure must be brought to an end as soon as possible and he advised the king to make an offer of peace without delay. Just then Sennacherib was camped before Lachish whose siege he had just begun. A Judaean embassy was sent to him with a pitiful message from Hezekiah: I have been at fault. Call off the attack, and I will submit myself to whatever you impose on me.' This was surrender pure and simple. Sennacherib did not let the rebel off lightly: as an indemnity he made Hezekiah pay over 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold'11 Hezekiah gave him all the silver in The Tabernacle of YAHWEH and in the treasury of the royal palace. It was then that Hezekiah stripped the facing from the leaves and jambs of the doors of the Tabernacle of YAHWEH...and gave it to the king of Assyria (2 Melechim 18:15-16).12
Hezekiah was inspired no doubt by a proper patriotism, but also by a very foolish policy which led in the end to a deplorable capitulation that might easily have been avoided if he had listened to the advice of YeshaYahu, the messenger of peace.
The encampment of Sennacherib before Lachish The camp was divided into sections. Above, the king's quarters: note his tent, his chariot, and an altar before which two kohens wearing special headdresses are officiating. Below, the men's tents, shown in cross-section. It was a fortified camp, defended by towers which thwarted the possibility of a surprise attack.
After Layard, Monuments of Nineveh
10 The mountains: the hills surrounding Yerusalem; Elam and Aram: these non-Assyrian peoples provided the specialist troops -Elam the archers. Aram, the cavalry. Kir, an unidentified country. The chariots were the Chaldaean chariots, the terror of the Judaeans.
11 The talent was about 75 lbs
12 There has been some discussion about Sennacherib's twofold campaign Many biblical scholars place the whole thing in 701.
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