near Pelusium, as the scene of the disaster. The Assyr- ian army would probably break up from Libnah on the tidings of Tirhakah's approach, and advaiice to meet him. In ascribing it to a vast swarm of field-mice, which, devom-ing the quivers and bow-strings of the Egj'ptians, compelled them to flee in the morning, He- rodotus may have misinterpreted the symbolical lan- guage of the Egj'ptians, in which the mouse denotes an- nihilation {cKpaviaiioQ, Horapoll. i, 50) : though, as Kno- bel (u. s. p. 280) has shown by apposite instances, an army of mice is capable of committing such ravages, and also of leaving pestilence behind it. That the destruc- tion was effected in the course of one night is clearly expressed in 2 Kings xix, 35, where " that night" is plainly that which followed after the delivery of Isaiah's prophecy, and is evidently implied alike in Isa. xxxvi, 36 ("when men arose early in the morning"), and in the story of Herodotus.
After this reverse Sennacherib fled precipitately to Nineveh, where he revenged himself on as many Jews as were in his power (Tob. i, 18), and, after many years (not fifty-five days, as Tobit says, i, 21), was murdered by two of his sons as he drank hiinself drunk in the house of Nisroch (Assarac ?) his god. He certainly lived till B.C. 695, for his 22d year is mentioned on a clay tablet (Rawlinson, I. c.) ; he must therefore have sur- vived Hezekiah by at least one year. It is probable that several of the Psalms (e. g. xlvi-xlviii, Ixxvi) allude to his discomfiture.
" In those daj's was Hezekiah sick unto death." So beguis, in all the accounts, and immediately after the discomfiture of Sennacherib, the narrative of Hezekiah's sicluiess and miracidous recovery (2 Kings xx, 1 ; 2 Chron. xxxii, 24; Isa. xxxviii, 1). The time is defined, by the promise of fifteen years to be added to the hfe of Hezekiah, to the fourteenth year complete, or fifteenth current, of his reign of twenty-nine years. But it is stated to have been in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah that Sennacherib took the fenced cities of Judah, and thereafter threatened Jerusalem and came to his over- throw. The two notes of time, the express and the im- plied, fully accord, and place beyond question, at least, the view of the writer or last redactor in 2 Kings xviii, xix ; Isa. xxxvi, xxxvii, that the Assyrian invasion began before Hezekiah's illness, and lies in the middle of his reign. In the received chronology, as the first year of Hezekiah precedes the fourth of Jehoiakim = first of Nebuchadnezzar (i. e. B.C. 604 iji the Canon, B.C. 606 in the Hebrew reckoning) by 29, 55, 2, 31, 3 = 120 years, the epoch of the reign is B.C. 724 or 726, and its 14th year B.C. 711 or 713. But it is contended that so early a year is irreconcilable with definite and unquestionable data of contemporary historj', Egj^ptian, AssjTian, and Babylonian. From these it has been inferred that dur- ing the siege of Samaria Shalmaneser died, and ^^'as suc- ceeded by Sargon, who, jealous of Egyptian influence in Jud£ea, sent an army under a Tartan or general (Isa. xx, 1), which penetrated Egypt (Nah. iii, 8-10) and destroy- ed No- Anion ; although it is clear from Hezekiah's re- bellion (2 Kings xviii, 7) that it can have produced but little permanent impression. Sargon. in the tenth year of his reign (which is regarded as parallel with the four- teenth year of the reign of Hezekiah), made an expedi- tion to Palestine ; but his annals make no mention of any conquests from Hezekiah on this occasion, and he seems to have occupied himself in the siege of Ashdod (Isa. XX, 1), and in the inspection of mines (Rosenmiil- ler, Bibl. Geogr. ix). This is therefore thought to be the expedition referred to in 2 Kings xviii, 13; Isa. xxxvi, 1 ; an expedition which is merely alluded to, as it led to no result. But if the Scripture narrative is to be reconciled with the records of AssjTian history, it has been thought necessary to make a transposition in the text of Isaiah (and therefore of the book of Kings). That some such expedient must be resorted to, if the Assyrian history is trustworthy, is maintained by Dr. Hincks in a paper On the rectification of Chronology^
4
HEZEKIAH
229
HEZEKIAH
vkich the newhj-dhcovered Apis-steles render necessary (in Jour, of Sac. Lit. Oct, 1858). '• The text," he says, " as it originally stood, was probably to this effect (2 Kings xviii, 13) : Now in the fourteenth year of king Hc'zt'kiali t/ie king of Assyria came ujy [alluding to the attack mentioned in Sargon's "Annals"], xx, 1-19. In those days was king Hezekiah sick unto death, etc., xviii, 13. And Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them, etc., xviii, 13 ; xix, 37." It has been conjectured that some later transcriber, unaware of the earlier and unim- portant invasion, confused the allusion to Sargon in 2 Kings xviii, 13 with the detailed story of Sennacherib's attack (2 Kings xviii, 14 to xix, 37), and, considering that the account of Hezekiah's illness broke the continu- ity of the narrative, removed it to the end. • According to this scheme, Hezekiah's dangerous ilhiess (2 Kings XX ; Isa. xxxviii ; 2 Chron. xxxii, 24) nearly synchro- nized with Sargon's futile invasion, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign, eleven years before Sennache- rib's invasion. That it must have j)receded the attack of Sennacherib has also been inferred from the promise in 2 Kings xx, 6, as well as from modern discoveries (Layard, Aln. and Bab. i, 145) ; and such is the view adopted by the Rabbis (Seder 01am, cap. xxiii). Usher, and by most commentators, except Vitringa and Gese- nius (Keil, ad loc. ; Prideaux, i, 22). It should be ob- served, however, that the difficulties experienced in .rec- onciling the scriptural date with that of the Assyrian monuments rests on the sj-nchronism of the fall of Sa- maria with the 1st or 2d year of Sargon (q. v.). Col. Rawlinson has lately given reasons himself (Lond. Athe- nmim, No. 1869, Aug. 22, 1863, p. 246) for doubting this date ; and it is probable that further researches and com- putations may fully vindicate the accuracy of the Bib- lical numbers.