As gathered from the Scriptures onli/, the course of events appears to have been as follows : Ahaz had placed his kingdom as tributary under the protection of Tig- lath-Pileser (2 Kings xvi, 7). It would seem from Isa. X, 27, and xxviii, 22, that in the time of Shahnaneser, to which the latter passage certainly, and the former probably, belongs, Judah was still mider the yoke of this dependence. The fact that Sargon (whether or not the same with the Shalmaneser of the history), in his expe- dition against Egypt, left Judah untouched (Isa. xx), implies that Judah had not yet asserted its indepen- dence. A powerfid party, indeed, was scheming lor re- volt from Assyria and a league with Egypt ; but there appears no reason to believe that Hezekiah all along fa- vored a policy which Isaiah in the name of the Lord, to the last, strenuously condemned. It was not till after the accession of Sennacherib that Hezekiah refused the tribute, and at the instigation of his nobles made a league with Egj^pt by ambasadors sent to Zoan (Tanis) (Isa. XXX, xxxi ; compare xxxvi, 6-9). (Some, indeed [as Ewald and Caspari], place Isa. xxix-xxxii before the fall of Samaria, to which time ch. xxviii must un- (piestionably be assigned. Possibly ch. xxix maj' be- long to the same time, and ver. 15 may refer to plottings for a league with Egypt already carried on in secret. Knobel, A'^i exer/. Ildb. p. 215, 223, decides too peremp- torily that such imist be the reference, and consequently that ch. xxix falls only a little earlier than the follow- ing chapters, Avhere the league is openly denounced, viz. in the early part of the reign of Sennacherib.)
The subsequent history, as gathered from the Scrip- tures, compared with the notices on the ancient monu- ments, is thought to be as foUo\vs. Sargon -was suc- ceeded by his son Sennacherib, whose two invasions occupy the greater part of the Scripture records con- cerning the reign of Hezekiah. The first of these took place in the third year of Sennacherib, and occupies only three verses (2 Kings xviii, 13-16), though the route of the advancing Assyrians may be traced in Isa. x, 5 ; xi. The rumor of the invasion redoubled Hezekiah's exer- tions, and he prepared for a siege by providing offensive antl defensive armor, stopping up the wells, and divert- ing the watercourses, conducting the water of Gihon into the city by a subterranean canal (Ecclus. xlviii, 17. For a similar precaution taken by the Mohammedans, see Will. Tyr. viii, 7, Keil). But 'the main hope of the political faction was the alliance with Egj'pt, and they seem to have sought it by presents and private entreat- ies (Isa. XXX, 6), especially with a view to obtaining chariots and cavalry (Isa. xxxi, 1-3), which was the weakest arm of the Jewish service, as we see from the derision which it excited (2 Kings xviii, 23). Such
overtures kintUed Isaiah's indignation, and Shelma may have lost his high office for recommending them. The prophet clearly saw that Egypt was too weak and faith- less to be serviceable, and the applications to Pharaoh (who is compared by Habshakch to one of the weak reeds of his own river) im,)lied a want of trust in the help of God. But Isaiah diil not disai)prove of the siion- taneously proft'ered assistance of the tall and warlike Ethiopians (Isa. xviii, 2, 7, ace. to Ewald's transl.), be- cause he may have regarded it as a providential aitl.
The account given of this first invasion in the cunei- form "Annals of Sennacherib" is that he attacked Heze- kiah because the Ekronites had sent their king Padiya (or " Haddiya," ace. to Col. Rawlinson) as a prisoner to Jerusalem (comp. 2 Kings xviii, 8) ; that he took forty- six cities (" all the fenced cities" in 2 Kings xviii, 13 is apparently a general expression; compare xix, 8) and 200,000 prisoners; that he besieged Jerusalem with mounds (comp. 2 Kings xix, 32) ; and although Heze- kiah promised to pay 800 talents of silver (of which per- haps only 300 were ever paid) and 30 of gold (2 Kings xviii, 14; but see Layard, Ntn. and Bab. p. 148), yet, not content with this, he mulcted him of a part of his dominions, and gave them to the kings of Ekron, Ash- dod, and Gaza (Rawlinson, Herod, i, 475 sq.). So im- portant was this ex[)edition that Demetrius, the Jewish historian, even attributes to Sennacherib the Great Captivity (Clem. Alexand. Strom. \). 147, ed. Sylb.). In almost every particular this account agrees with the notice in Scripture, and we may see a reason for so great a sacrifice on the part of Hezekiah in the glimpse which Isaiah gives us of his capital city driven by desperation into licentious and impious mirth (xxii, 12-14). This campaign must at least have had the one good result of proving the worthlessness of the Egyptian alliance ; for at a place called Altagu (the Eltekon of Josh, xv, 59 ?) Sennacherib inflicted an overwhelming defeat on the combined forces of Egypt and Ethiojiia, which had come to the assistance o*" Ekron. But Isaiah regarded the purchased treaty as a cowardly defection, and the sight of his fellow-citizens gazing peacefully from the house- tops on the bright array of the car-borne and quivered Assyrians filled him with indignation and despair (Isa. xxii, 1-7, if the latest explanations of this chapter be correct).