have applied this chapter to the expedition of Sargon on account of the reference in Isaiah 10:9 to

Hamath, Arpad, Samaria, and Damascus, which were taken, not by Sennacherib, but by Sargon.

But the mention of these places occurs similarly in 2 Kings 18:34. For an explanation of it we

refer t o our subsequent remarks on that passage.

Beyond Ascalon it was scarcely safe for Sennacherib to advance much further. The Egypto-

Ethiopian army was expected in front; behind him, yet unconquered, was Ekron, and on his flank

the strong fortress of Jerusalem, with the whole flower of the Judaean army and the hired

auxiliaries to whom the Assyrian monuments refer. It was therefore a wise strategic movement on

the part of Sennacherib to turn aside and lay siege to Lachish, the modern Umm Lakis.*

* We reme mber it as the place to which Amaziah fled, and where he was murdered (2 Chronicles

It was still a continuation of his advance in the direction of Egypt, although a departure from the

straight road to it, and it would oblige the Egyptian army to make a disadvantageous digression

inland, thus removing it from the main basis of its operations. But in Lachish, Sennacherib also

held a strong position both against Ekron and Jerusalem, the latter being at the apex of an isosceles

triangle, of which Ekron and Lachish form the extremities of the base. Thus he would be able to

turn upon either one or the other line converging upon Lachish, or else to move rapidly upon

Gaza. On the other hand, Hezekiah, seeing the success of the Assyrian advance, and perhaps

despairing of a timely approach of the Egyptian army, sought to make his peace with Sennacherib,

and sent to Lachish the embassy and tribute of which we read in 2 Kings 18:14 -16. It was, no

doubt, on this occasion also that Hezekiah set at liberty the captive king of Ekron, according to the

Assyrian records, and sent him to Sennacherib.

After this point the Assyrian inscriptions purposely become confused, and mix up a series of

different events, with the evident intention of conveying a false impression and concealing the

virtual, if not the actual, defeat of Sennacherib. As we infer from a comparison of the Assyrian

account with the Biblical record, Sennacherib, who by that time must have been aware of the

advance of an Egyptian army, detached a large div ision ("a great host") against Jerusalem, which,

however, held out alike against the power and the threats of the Assyrian leaders (2 Kings 18:17-

Meantime the Egyptian host was approaching, and the Assyrian leaders returned, and found

Sennacherib in Libnah, somewhere east of Lachish and north of Eleutheropolis. This probably

before the battle which Sennacherib fought with the Egyptians at Altaku, on a parallel line

between Jerusalem and Ekron. This indicates a further retreat of Sennacherib with his army. In

much vainglorious language the Assyrian monarch claims a victory; but from the wording of the

account, it is evident that the victory, if such it was, could only have been nominal, and was a real

defeat. Instead, therefore, of turning upon Jerusalem, the Assyrians advanced against Ekron and

took it, having already previously failed in their attempt to obtain the surrender of Jerusalem by a

second message full of boastful and blasphemous threats (comp. 2 Kings 19:9-34). Then followed

the destruction of the Assyrian host (ver. 35), and Sennacherib's return to Nineveh (ver. 36). On

the Assyrian monuments nothing is said of these disastrous events, while Sennacherib boasts that

he had shut up Hezekiah in his capital "as a bird in a cage," and the deputation and the tribute sent

to Lachish are represented as if Hezekiah had dispatched them to Nineveh, implying a triumph of

Assyrian arms and the final submission of Judah. The real course of events is, however, perfectly

clear, and the accuracy of the Bib lical account of Sennacherib's ignominious failure before

Jerusalem and of his final retreat has been universally admitted.

With these facts before us, we turn to the "prophetic" narrative of them, in their spiritual import on

the theocracy. As regards the history which we have been hitherto reading from the Assyrian

monuments,* the account in 2 Kings 18:13-19 keeps so parallel with what is written in Isaiah 36,

37, as similarly that in 2 Kings 20, with Isaiah 38 and 39 (with the exception of Hezekiah's hymn