SENNACHERIB
(ac.: “Sin [the moon god] has multiplied his brothers”).
Son and successor of Sargon, king of Assyria. He invaded Syria and Palestine in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign.
Hezekiah recognized that he was guilty, and paid him a tribute of three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. Sennacherib left a record of it on a clay tablet.
He states that he captured forty-six fortified cities and the forts and towns around them that belonged to Hezekiah the Jew, taking captive 200,150 souls, and horses, mules, donkeys, camels, oxen and sheep, etc.
He locked Hezekiah in his house in Jerusalem like a bird in his cage (cf. 2 Kings 18:13-16; 2 Chron. 32:1-8).
During his second invasion, Sennacherib sent insulting and impious messages to Hezekiah, who was evidently again relying on Egypt.
But an angel of God destroyed the Assyrian army. Naturally, Assyrian monuments silence this fact. The king returned to Assyria, and did not venture to invade Palestine again.
Finally, he was killed by two of his sons, and was succeeded by Esarhaddon, another of them (2 Kings 18:17-37; 19:1-37; 2 Chron. 32:9-22; Isa. . 36; 37).
It is evident that Sennacherib was in co-regency with Sargon in 714 BC. when he first invaded Judea; He reigned alone from 705 to 681 BC.