Assyrian Siege of Jerusalem | Part 2

welcome so we're exploring the second crisis of Isaiah's ministry which is the confrontation between king hezekiah of judah and King Sennacherib of Assyria so let's bring up the map and review why this confrontation took place so in 705 BC Sennacherib becomes the king of Assyria and as soon as he takes the throne both Mara Dick paladin of Babylon and hezekiah of judah both decide that it's the perfect time to revolt against Assyria Sennacherib in response first heads down to babylon and defeats mara doc paladin and then he heads west to go deal with Hezekiah and this is where our confrontation between turn a crib and Hezekiah takes place and we read about it in Isaiah chapters 36 to 39 in chapter 36 verse 1 we read quote in the 14th year of King Hezekiah King Sennacherib of Assyria came against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them and quote so this verse tells us that Sennacherib doesn't at first directly attack Hezekiah in Jerusalem rather before attacking Jerusalem he tacks other fortified cities in Judah and one of these cities is Lachish which is a city southwest of Jerusalem as you can see and in fact we know that Sennacherib destroyed latesh not because of the Bible tells us but rather Sennacherib himself tells us for you see we have found reliefs which depict the Assyrian attack upon Lokesh these reliefs once decorated Cenac herbs palisade Nineveh and can now be found in the British Museum in London the reliefs were discovered in about 1850 by Austen Henry Layard laid right in 1853 quote he therefore was the actual picture of the taking of Lachish the city as we know from the Bible besieged by Sennacherib when he sent his generals to demand tribute of Hezekiah and quote and as you can see these reliefs depict Assyrian soldiers attacking Lokesh with Spears rocks with slings and bows and arrows and then once entering location we have images of the Assyrians inflicting horrible torture upon the Judeans for example tearing them heart and impaling them one of the images portrays Sennacherib seated upon a throne with the following inscription beside him quote Sennacherib the mighty king king of the country of Syria sitting on the throne of judgment before the city of the quiche I give permission for slaughter and quote furthermore excavations of Lachish have revealed slings and stones used by the Assyrians as well as an Assyrian siege ramp so we just have a wealth of archaeological evidence for the Assyrian siege of location now after destroying the quiche Sennacherib then turns his attention to Jerusalem but before he attacks the city he sends one of his military leaders to Jerusalem to warn the inhabitants about this coming attack we read about this in chapter 36 starting in verse 2 quote then the king of Assyria sent to the Rev Shaka from Lakeisha to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem with a great army he stood by the conduit or the upper pool on the highway to the fullest field and there came out to him alaikkum son of halakhah who was in charge of the palace and ship nerd the secretary and Jawa son of asif the recorder and quote so in these verses we are introduced to the rough shaka which is a title of an assyrian military leader and the rub shaka is sent it to Jerusalem to warn the city about this coming Assyrians Haqq and the people who go out and meet the RUP shaka are alaikkum Shabnam and jaw who are all high-ranking officials in Hezekiah government so Hezekiah fishes go and meet the Syrian military leader to hear about this impending attack upon Jerusalem now the way in which the rubb shaka warns the Judeans about this coming attack can only be described in one way and that is trash-talk now i do like to keep things scholarly on this channel but there simply isn't any other way to describe it so let's now read a few excerpts to get a flavor of the RUP Shockers warning to jerusalem and i'm actually going to be reading from the NLT which while it does lack the precision of other translations it really doesn't make up for it by really capturing the tone and character of the text so let's start in verse 4 quote then the Syrians king's chief of I told them to give this message to Hezekiah this is what the great king of Assyria says what are you trusting in that makes you so confident do you think that me words can substitute for military skill and strength who are you counting on that you've rebelled against me on Egypt if you lean on Egypt it will be like a reed that splinters beneath your weight and pieces your hand Pharaoh the king of Egypt is completely unreliable but perhaps you'll say to me we are trusting in the Lord our God but isn't he the one who was insulted by Hezekiah didn't Hezekiah tear down his shrines and altars and make everyone in Judah and Jerusalem worship only at the altar here in Jerusalem I'll tell you what strike a bargain with my master the king of Assyria I will give you two thousand horses if you can find that many men to ride on them with your tiny army how can you think of challenging even the weakest contingent of my Master's troops even with the help of Egypt's carrots and charities what's more do you think we have invaded your land without the Lord's direction the Lord Himself told us attacked this land and destroy it end quote in another section of this text of the Rep Shaka continues hurling insults at the Judeans in verse 18 we read don't let Hezekiah mislead you by saying the Lord will rescue us and the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Syria what happened to the cause of hamath and arpád what about the gods of Sarah Veen did any God rescue Samaria from my power what God of any nation has been able to save his people from my power so what makes you think that the Lord can rescue Jerusalem from me and quote after the rap Chaka finishes warning the Judeans about at the coming attack he returns to Sennacherib who's now in the city of lidner and it is a Talib now that we read that the king of ethiopia becomes involved in this crisis so let's now read all of that which is in verses eight to nine quote the assyrian chief of staff left Jerusalem and went to consult the king of Assyria who had left Lachish and was attacking lidner soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King taharka of Ethiopia was leading an army to fight against him and quote so let's stop here for a moment and discuss this King taharka of Ethiopia the NLT translates it as Ethiopia but other translations will refer to it as cush and we know that cush is a country below Egypt so the text tells us that the king of cush comes to the aid of the Judeans now it's very important that we know what's going on in cush in Egypt at this time because during this time period cush has taken control of Egypt which means we have African Pharaohs and we know that Pharaoh taharka was one of these African Pharaohs taharka is not just mentioned in the biblical text he's also mentioned in Egyptian records and we actually have many artifacts of him so this dehaka who ruled over both cush and Egypt came to the aid of Hezekiah in an attempt to repel the Assyrian attack now when Sennacherib sees suhaka coming to help Hezekiah he becomes infuriated and he sends this letter to Hezekiah quote before leaving to meet at the attack he sent messengers back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem with this message this message is for king hezekiah of judah don't let your god in whom you trust deceive you with promises that jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria you know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone they've completely destroyed everyone who stood in their way why should you be any different after Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it he went up to the Lord's temple and spread it out before the Lord and Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord and quote Hezekiah then proceeds to deliver a heartfelt and faithful prayer for God's protection of Jerusalem when the prophet Isaiah he's Hezekiah prayer to God Isaiah announces that because Hezekiah has been faithful God will protect Jerusalem Isaiah proclaims in verse 33 quote and this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria his armies will not enter Jerusalem they will not even shoot an arrow at it they will not march outside its gates with their shields no build banks of Perth against its walls the king will return to his own country by the same road on which he came he will not enter the city says the Lord for my own honor and for the sake of my servant David I will defend the city and protect it and quote so now the question is how is God going to protect his city and we read about this in verses 36 to 37 in quote that night the angel of the Lord went out to the Syrian camp and killed 185 thousand Assyrian soldiers when the surviving Assyrians woke up at the next morning they found corpses everywhere then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own country he went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there and quote so there you have it God saves his city by a miracle an angel comes from heaven and killed 185 thousand Assyrian soldiers outside the walls of Jerusalem so according to the Bible which obviously represents a Jewish perspective and miracle stopped the Assyrian invasion of Jerusalem now what are we to think about such a miraculous claim should we believe it or should we be doubtful what we would really love in this situation is some more information on the event from different perspectives to truly understand what took place and in fact for this crisis we actually do have independent reporting of the event from different perspectives so not only do we have the biblical account in Isaiah which gives us at the Jewish perspective but we also have an account from King Sennacherib himself who left behind a prism which recounts all his military campaigns and includes his siege upon Jerusalem so this prism provides us with an Assyrian perspective on the event also if you remember when we were reading the biblical text we read about Pharaoh taharka who ruled over both cush and Egypt and we read about how Pharaoh taharka got involved in this conflict so you might be thinking to yourself well do we have an Egyptian perspective on this event since Egypt was involved in it and in fact we do Herodotus provides us with an account of this event which he tells us he got from the Egyptians thus Herodotus provides us with an Egyptian perspective of this account so this is really quite an amazing fact we have three different accounts of this event from three different perspectives if this doesn't get you excited then nothing will so in the next video we'll be reading some Arabs prism to find out house and a crib perceived the event does his prism talk about an angel coming and killing his soldiers well to find out you're going to have to stay tuned until my next video so thank you so much for watching this video if you've enjoyed it it would really help me out if you hit the like button and left some feedback in the comment section below also subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon so you'll be notified when I release my next video thank you again and as always I'll see you in the next one

Channel: The Study of Christianity

Views: 18,699

Rating: 4.9392266 out of 5

Keywords: Isaiah, Assyrian, Jerusalem, Siege, Isaiah 36, Hezekiah, Prism, Sennacherib, Sennacerib's Prism, Sargon, Assyria, Merodach-Baladan, Merodach, Baladan, Babylon, Isaiah 37, Isaiah 38, Isaiah 39, The Prophet

Id: Y3i-C1HxVVg

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2019