The Siege of Jerusalem: Part I

During the ninth-seventh centuries BCE, Assyrian monarchs were intent on imposing their rule over territories to the west of Mesopotamia. In 722/721 BCE, Samaria, the Kingdom of Israel’s capital, was conquered by Sargon II (or his predecessor, Shalmaneser V), who then deported its rebellious inhabitants to Assyria.¹ The Bible attributes this disaster to the Israelites’ sinful practice of idolatry (II Kgs. 17:7-18, 18:12). Later campaigns were mounted by Sennacherib, Sargon’s son and successor, who put down rebellions close to home (702 BCE in Babylonia) and a year later in “Syro-Palestine.”

In the course of his reign (the actual date, between 717 and 704 BCE, is uncertain), Hezekiah, the God-fearing king of Judah, led an anti-Assyrian coalition and suspended his annual payment of tribute to Sennacherib. Anticipating an enemy invasion, he prepared troops and weapons of war, strengthened the fortifications of Jerusalem, and dug a tunnel diverting water from the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam within the city walls.² According to his Annals, Sennacherib captured 46 fortified cities from Tyre and Sidon in Phoenicia down to “innumerable small cities” (towns and villages) in Judah.³ When the Assyrians invaded his kingdom, Hezekiah sent an urgent letter from Jerusalem to Sennacherib in Lachish, a Judean city then under siege, apologizing for the non-payment of tribute and offering to compensate him in full. Not only was Hezekiah forced to hand over all the silver in the Temple and the royal treasury, he had to strip all the gold from the Temple’s doors and doorposts as well (II Kgs. 18:14-16).

Even this immense tribute – 30 talents of gold and 300 talents of silver – did not appease Sennacherib, who besieged Jerusalem and dispatched three envoys to Hezekiah, urging him to surrender. Sennacherib boasted that he had taken 200,150 prisoners of war, together with livestock, precious stones, and other items.⁴ The biblical account of Sennacherib’s march through the kingdom of Judah indicates that Hezekiah and Jerusalem’s inhabitants were eventually spared the fate of Samaria because of their faith in God and the vision of His prophet Isaiah.⁵

In a previous article,⁶ I set out to identify the general commanding Jabin’s Canaanite forces (as related in chapter 4 of Judges) and the probable location of his chariot army. This new essay, utilizing ancient and later (especially archaeological) sources, will endeavor to shed light on another enigmatic figure, the envoy of Sennacherib who made every effort to browbeat the inhabitants of Jerusalem into submission (II Kings 18-19; Isaiah 36-37). One of three high-ranking officers, this messenger bore the Assyrian title of Rabshakeh.

Assyria’s High Officials

There are two accounts of the Rabshakeh’s appearance and taunting harangue before the Jerusalemites, of which the more detailed one begins as follows:

Now the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh from Lachish with a large force to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. They marched up to Jerusalem; and when they arrived, they took up a position near the conduit of the Upper Pool, by the road of the Fuller’s Field. They summoned the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to meet them.

The Rabshakeh said to them, “You tell Hezekiah: Thus said the Great King, the King of Assyria: What makes you so confident? You must think that mere talk is counsel and valor for war! Look, on whom are you relying, that you have rebelled against me? You rely, of all things, on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which enters and punctures the palm of anyone who leans on it…” (II Kgs. 18:17-21).

Although verses 19-21 reappear almost verbatim in the Book of Isaiah (36:4-6), the historical introduction (II Kgs. 18:13-18) is abbreviated there, mentioning neither the Tartan nor the Rabsaris. Whereas two medieval Jewish Bible commentators, Rashi and Kimhi (Radak), maintain that there were two missions (the Rabshakeh alone came the first time, and the Tartan and the Rabsaris the second time), it is also possible that the Rabshakeh headed the delegation bearing Sennacherib’s final message to Hezekiah (II Kgs. 19:9-13; Isaiah 37:9-13).⁷

The Hebrew Bible seemingly regards the titles of these Assyrian officials as proper names, omitting the ha- prefix used for the definite article.⁸ It also lists them in their order of importance. Tartan (tartān or turtānu in Akkadian) was the title of the Assyrian commander in chief, one who ranked next to the king.⁹ Apart from the Tartan who led the delegation to Hezekiah, a general bearing this title was sent by Sargon II in 711 BCE to conquer Ashdod (Isa. 20:1).¹⁰ Rabsaris (rab ša-rēši in Akkadian), literally “chief of the head,” was the title of another Assyrian dignitary. Saris can mean “eunuch” in Hebrew, but even if Rav-Saris once meant “chief eunuch,” it must have lost that connotation because the Akkadian term signifies “a person close to the king” or “chief of the king’s attendants.”¹¹ Elsewhere in the Bible, Nebushazban, a Rav-Saris, was one of the Babylonian commanders who liberated the prophet Jeremiah from his imprisonment (Jer. 39:13-14); Ashpenaz, another Rav-Saris, trained young Jews of noble birth to serve in Nebuchadnezzar’s court (Dan. 1:3 ff.).¹²

Rabshakeh, often hyphenated as Rab-shakeh (rab-šāqẻ or rab-šaqû in Akkadian), was the title of the third official listed in our narrative. It supposedly means “chief of the princes [or officers],” but in Middle Assyrian texts the šaqẻ (“butler”) is referred to as a member of the palace’s domestic staff. Originally, therefore, the rab šaqẻ was the king’s “chief butler” and in time he became his “chief cupbearer” or vizier.¹³ The title, “chief cupbearer,” has a biblical equivalent in the sar ha-mashkim of Genesis 40:2, 9, 20-21 and 23. He is simply called ha-mashkeh (“cupbearer”) in the same chapter (verses 1, 5), a term also designating Nehemiah, the Jewish courtier who served wine to the king of Persia (Neh. 1:11, 2:1). Though ranking only fourth in the Assyrian hierarchy, this particular Rabshakeh was evidently chosen to act as the king’s spokesman – for reasons that will be explained in due course.

The Annals of Sennacherib

Sennacherib obviously attached great importance to the defeat of Hezekiah and the obliteration of his Judean kingdom. This is evident from the extensive wall reliefs in his palace at Nineveh, depicting the siege and capture of Lachish,¹⁴ and from the detailed account of Sennacherib’s third campaign recorded in his Annals. Like other Akkadian documents, these Annals were inscribed with a stylus in cuneiform (wedge-shaped) characters on clay tablets or pottery, making them almost imperishable.¹⁵ They have survived in three hexagonal prisms, made of red baked clay and measuring approximately 38 cm in height, which bear virtually identical inscriptions and were created during the reign of Sennacherib. The Taylor Prism, discovered in 1830 and purchased by the British Museum in 1855, is one of the earliest cuneiform artifacts, dating from 691 BCE.¹⁶ A second version, the Oriental Institute Prism, was written in 689 BCE; purchased from a Baghdad antiques dealer in 1919, it is now housed in the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute.¹⁷ The third example, known as the Jerusalem Prism (and also dating from 691 BCE), was acquired by the Israel Museum at a Sotheby’s auction in 1970, but the text was only published 20 years later.¹⁸

When comparing the Annals of Sennacherib with the Bible’s version of his campaign, I will quote from the relevant section of the Chicago (Oriental Institute) Prism.¹⁹ This document’s bombastic opening lines set the tone for what follows:

Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters of the earth, the wise shepherd, favorite of the great gods, guardian of the right, lover of justice, who lends support, who comes to the aid of the needy, who turns his thoughts to pious deeds, perfect hero, mighty man, first among all princes, the powerful one who consumes the unsubmissive, who strikes the wicked with the thunderbolt; the god Assur, the great mountain, an unrivaled kingship has entrusted to me, and above all those who dwell in palaces, has made powerful my weapons…²⁰

Not content with defeating his enemies in battle, Sennacherib appropriated everything of value and executed all the captured warriors: “Not one escaped. Their corpses I hung on stakes [impaled]… I destroyed, I devastated, and I turned [their small towns] into ruins.”²¹ During his third campaign, “against the Hittite land” (Syria), Sennacherib defeated, despoiled, and dethroned one ruler after another. He also vanquished an Egyptian-Ethiopian army that came to assist the rebels and turned his armed might against the defiant kingdom of Judah:

As for Hezekiah the Jew, who did not submit to my yoke, 46 of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small cities in their neighborhood, which were without number – by levelling with battering-rams and by bringing up siege-engines, by attacking and storming on foot, by mines, tunnels and breaches – I besieged and took those cities. 200,150 people, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, cattle and sheep, without number, I brought away from them and counted as spoil. Himself, like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city. Earthworks I threw up against him… The cities of his, which I had despoiled, I cut off from his land and to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and Silli-bêl, king of Gaza, I gave. And thus I diminished his land. I added to the former tribute, and laid upon him the giving up of their land, as well as imposts – gifts for my majesty.²²

This portion of the Assyrian record largely agrees with the biblical account (II Kgs. 18:13-16; Isa. 36:1) but is far more detailed. It also establishes the fact that a siege of Jerusalem took place and that Hezekiah was forced to pay an increased tribute to Sennacherib. However, in contrast to the Annals, the Bible makes no mention of the circumstances leading to the Assyrian campaign – notably the revolt of vassal states in the West and Hezekiah’s bid for political independence.²³ The text of the Prism goes on to declare:

As for Hezekiah, the terrifying splendor of my majesty overcame him, and the Urbi [Arabs] and his mercenary troops which he had brought in to strengthen Jerusalem, his royal city, deserted him. In addition to the 30 talents of gold and 800 talents of silver, there were gems, antimony, jewels, large sandu-stones [carnelians], ivory[-inlaid] couches, ivory[in-laid] house-chairs, elephant hides, elephant tusks, ebony, boxwood, and all kinds of valuable treasures, as well as his daughters, his harem, his male and female musicians, which he had brought after me to Nineveh, my royal city. To pay tribute and accept servitude, he dispatched his messengers.²⁴

As stated earlier, the Bible does mention a tribute of gold and silver (II Kgs. 18:14), but the figure of 800 (instead of 300) talents of silver given here is either an exaggeration or a scribal error. The remaining items do not appear in biblical sources, and the seizure of Hezekiah’s daughters and “harem” may be pure invention. Furthermore, while Sennacherib boasts that he has shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem “like a caged bird,” there is no reference in his Annals to dispatching envoys or to capturing and looting Hezekiah’s “royal city” – a sure indication that the victory Sennacherib claimed was by no means decisive.²⁵

Assyrian Terror Tactics

While the Greeks, Babylonians, Persians, and Romans were also capable of great brutality, what particularly distinguished Assyrian kings and armies was their sheer ruthlessness. They combined terror propaganda with the wholesale extermination of rebel leaders and soldiers, also deporting conquered populations to serve as forced labor. In the ninth century BCE, the “calculated frightfulness” of Ashurnasirpal II was impressed on his vassals by the reliefs carved on the walls of his palace; and Shalmaneser III directed the “hammer blows” of his armies against his western neighbors – the Israelites, Arameans, Phoenicians, and others – who at one point fought the Assyrians to a draw at the battle of Karkara in 853 BCE.²⁶

The rulers of many ancient civilizations were fond of enumerating the casualties they had inflicted on the enemy, along with the prisoners, booty, and cities they had taken. Sennacherib did likewise, but his treatment of the vanquished shows that Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BCE) was, by comparison, almost benign. Not only did Sennacherib gleefully list the cities he had destroyed, devastated, burned down, and reduced to ashes,²⁷ he also delighted in recording the atrocities committed against prisoners of war, describing in gruesome detail how he cut down enemy soldiers, impaled their corpses, poured out terror on his foes, and filled the plain with the bodies of their warriors.²⁸ Sennacherib renamed one captured city for himself and brought deportees from other lands to settle there.²⁹ He also sought to magnify and immortalize his battlefield victories in characteristic fashion: “I had a stela made, and the might of my conquering hand… I had inscribed upon it.”³⁰ Little wonder that the Judeans and other peoples regarded the Assyrian armies with horror and prayed for Nineveh’s overthrow.³¹

Among the Assyrians, warfare was considered a religious duty. At his coronation the king swore to extend the land of the national god Ashur, who demanded stability and order, so that the imagery of battles and sieges that line the palace walls should be understood not only as statements of power but as statements of a religious responsibility achieved with divine support.³² By 700 BCE, the Assyrians had created an empire stretching from the borders of Egypt to the Persian Gulf, and the imagery in the royal palaces was adapted accordingly, replacing earlier symbolic images of conquest with representations of the defeat of actual enemy tribes, cities and individuals.³³

The Assyrians fully understood the importance of terrorizing their enemies. To conserve manpower, they preferred to accept the surrender of their opponents or else destroy their ability to resist. This could be achieved by parading an irresistible military machine; by threatening restless subjects with mass deportation; and, where necessary, by removing one rebellious population and settling it among another.³⁴ Even with all the heavily armed troops and formidable equipment at his disposal, Sennacherib would refrain from conducting a long and costly siege if an enemy fortress was prepared to submit. He invariably attained that objective through the use of bloodcurdling threats and psychological warfare.³⁵ My follow-up article in the next issue of the JBQ will show how these tactics were adopted before the walls of Jerusalem.