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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



What actually happened seems, so far 

 as can be judged, to have been somewhat 

 as follows : With the accession of the 

 new Assyrian king came, as always, re- 

 bellion among the subject States. Egypt 

 was busy in the background with prom- 

 ises of help, never to be realized, and all 

 the Syrian States, including Judah, re- 

 volted. Sennacherib marched into Pales- 

 tine, ravaging and destroying, laid siege 

 to Ekron, and when the Egyptian army 

 advanced to its relief, utterly defeated it 

 at the battle of Altaku. 



HEZEKIAH MAKES READY FOR WAR 



Meanwhile Hezekiah had been making 

 feverish preparations for defense against 

 the storm which was about to burst upon 

 him. He repaired the walls of Jeru- 

 salem, and in order to make certain that 

 the waters of the spring Gihon should be 

 secured for the city and not left for the 

 besiegers, he dug the tunnel on the side 

 of the southeast hill of Jerusalem, re- 

 ferred to in the Siloam inscription. 



Sennacherib, fresh from his victory 

 over the Egyptians, sat down before 

 Lachish, and besieged and took it. While 

 he was thus engaged, Hezekiah's heart 

 failed him, and he sent his submission to 

 the Assyrian king, as recorded in II Kings 

 xviii: 13-16, paying a heavy tribute as 

 the price of safety. Sennacherib, how- 

 ever, evidently doubted Hezekiah's faith- 

 fulness, and sent a division of his army 

 under a political officer, the Rab-Shakeh, 

 with a demand for surrender. 



But on this occasion Hezekiah, encour- 

 aged by Isaiah, refused to yield any far- 

 ther than he had already done, and Isaiah 

 bade the king return a scornful and de- 

 fiant answer, giving Hezekiah the assur- 

 ance that the Assyrian should never even 

 succeed in investing the city. 



AX OUTBREAK OF BUBOXIC PLAGUK ? 



So it came to pass. The conqueror 

 had more important things to think of 

 than the immediate destruction of a small 

 and obscure city like Jerusalem. Jeru- 

 salem's turn would come in due time; 

 meanwhile it could wait. So he marched 

 with the main army straight on Egypt, 

 leaving a division to mask Jerusalem. 

 ] lc encamped at Pelusium, on the Egyp- 

 tian frontier, and evervthing was readv 



for a great battle which would have de- 

 cided the fate of the ancient world. 



And then some terrible obscure dis- 

 aster — the legend that links it with mice 

 suggests that it may have been an out- 

 break of the bubonic plague — overtook 

 the Assyrian army. Sennacherib had to 

 retreat with the broken remnants of his 

 force, to call in his column from before 

 Jerusalem, and to return discomfited to 

 Nineveh. So Jerusalem was saved, as 

 Isaiah had foreseen. 



Sennacherib's own account of the cam- 

 paign against Judah is as follows : "But 

 Hezekiah of Jerusalem, who had not 

 submitted to me, 46 of his walled towns, 

 numberless forts and small places in 

 their neighborhood I invested and took 

 by means of battering-rams and the as- 

 sault of scaling-ladders, the attack of 

 foot-soldiers, mines, and breaches. Two 

 hundred thousand, one hundred and fifty, 

 great and small, men and women, horses, 

 mules, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep 

 without number I carried off from them 

 and counted as spoil. 



"Hezekiah himself I shut up like a 

 bird in a cage in Jerusalem, his royal city. 

 I raised forts about him, and the exits of 

 the chief gate of this city I barred. . . . 

 Himself the fear of my august Lordship 

 overpowered. The Arabians and his 

 faithful ones, whom he had brought in 

 for the defense of Jerusalem, his royal 

 city, fell away. 



"Along with 30 talents of gold and 800 

 of silver, precious stones, carbuncles, 

 kassii stones, great pieces of lapis lazuli, 

 ivory thrones, elephant hides and tusks, 

 iishu wood, boxwood, all sorts of things, 

 a huge treasure, and his own daughters, 

 the womenfolk of his palace, men and 

 women singers he brought after me to 

 Nineveh, the city of my Lordship; and 

 for the payment of the tribute and to do 

 homage he dispatched his envoy" (Tay- 

 lor cylinder inscriptions). 



hezekiah's tribute 



This inscription bears out perfectly the 

 account given in II Kings xviii: 13-16: 

 "Now in the fourteenth year of King 

 Hezekiah did Sennacherib, King of As- 

 syria, come up against all the fenced 

 cities of Judah, and took them. And 

 Hezekiah King of Tudah sent to the Kino- 



