The date is approximately 701 BC. The nation of Israel disappeared into Assyria some twenty year prior and now the Assyrians have surrounded Jerusalem and demanded that King Hezekiah surrender.
2 Kings 19: 1-4, Despair and prayer
They told him, "This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. It may be that the LORD your God will hear all the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the LORD your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives."
In distress, Hezekiah tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and goes into the temple. He sends for the prophet Isaiah. His communication to Isaiah includes a desperate plea. Judah is at a desperate point, like a woman giving birth who has no more strength and may die on the birthing stool, with her unborn child.
Hezekiah identifies YHWH as Isaiah's God. He repeats to Isaiah that the Assyrian field commander has ridiculed the "living God".
2 Kings 19: 5-7, Isaiah speaks
When King Hezekiah's officials came to Isaiah, Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, `This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard--those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.'"
Isaiah goes to Hezekiah and says, "You will be victorious because the king of Assyria has taunted YHWH and will soon be defeated." It is not good to taunt YHWH!
2 Kings 19: 8-13, Withdrawal
Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the Cushite king [of Egypt], was marching out to fight against him. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word:"Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, `Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.' Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them: the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?"
The field commander who taunts Jerusalem and YHWH has now to withdraw as the king of Assyria is fighting Libnah. (Lachish is 35-40 miles southwest of Jerusalem; Libnah is a few miles closer to Jerusalem in the same direction.) When the king of Assyria is drawn away to meet the king of Egypt, he still manages to send Hezekiah a final taunt, repeating the earlier claim of victories over all gods.
2 Kings 19: 14-10, Prayer of Hezekiah
Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: "O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Give ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; listen to the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.
"It is true, O LORD, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste these nations and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by men's hands. Now, O LORD our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
Hezekiah takes the message from the king of Assyria, reads it and then takes it into the temple and spreads it out before the ark and cherubim. He offers a despondent, pleading prayer for escape from Assyria. He identifies YHWH as the Creator, the One in charge of all kingdoms.
2 Kings 19: 20-22, Isaiah to Sennacherib
Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says:
I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria.
This is the word that the LORD has spoken against him:
"`The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you.
The Daughter of Jerusalem tosses her head as you flee.
Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
Isaiah's response is a message to Assyria. Assyria may have defeated the other gods and kingdoms, but this is the land of the one true God. Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion, laughs at the taunts of the macho king of Assyria. She tosses her head in contempt. The virgin city will not be possessed by the impotent king. The mockery is clear.
2 Kings 19: 23-24, Isaiah to Sennacherib
By your messengers you have heaped insults on the Lord. And you have said,
"With my many chariots I have ascended the heights of the mountains,
the utmost heights of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars,
the choicest of its pines.
I have reached its remotest parts,
the finest of its forests.
I have dug wells in foreign lands
and drunk the water there.
With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt."
Isaiah repeats Assyria's boasts. The king of Assyria claims to has conquered the highest mountains, the remotest parts of the forests, dug wells in foreign land and dried up the streams of Egypt. But these are empty boasts before the one who really did divide the waters of Egypt at the Red Sea.
2 Kings 19: 25-26, Have you not heard?
"`Have you not heard?
Long ago I ordained it.
In days of old I planned it;
now I have brought it to pass,
that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone.
Their people, drained of power,
are dismayed and put to shame.
They are like plants in the field,
like tender green shoots,
like grass sprouting on the roof,
scorched before it grows up.
YHWH warns Assyria that everything they have done has been part of His plan. They tore down fortified cities, drained people of power. But...
2 Kings 19: 27-28, Your insolence has reached my ears
"`But I know where you stay
and when you come and go
and how you rage against me.
Because you rage against me
and your insolence has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
and I will make you return by the way you came.'
YHWH's message to Assyria, given through Isaiah, is that He has planned long ago the coming destruction of Assyriah. The Assyrian insolence will be met. Indeed, Assyria will receive the treatment it gives to its captives, a hook through the nose, a bit in the mouth (like a horse) so that every turn they make is the turn YHWH directs.
2 Kings 19: 29-31, Three years to sow and reap
"This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah:
"This year you will eat what grows by itself,
and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
Once more a remnant of the house of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.
For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
While the Assyrians are being defeated, the people of Judah will be able to plant vineyards and reap from them. A band of people will survive the threats of Assyria.
2 Kings 19: 32-34, YHWH will defend Jerusalem
"Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning the king of Assyria:
"He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow here.
He will not come before it with shield
or build a siege ramp against it.
By the way that he came he will return;
he will not enter this city, declares the LORD.
I will defend this city and save it,
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant."
Assyria will not be allowed to return and conquer Jerusalem.
2 Kings 19: 35-37, Angel of YHWH devastates the army of Assyria
That night the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning--there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.
Sennacherib will not enter the city of Jerusalem. Thousands of Assyrian soldiers are killed and Assyria withdraws. Later Sennacherib is assassinated by two of his sons and a third son, Esarhaddon, becomes king of Assyria. So much for the taunts of Sennacherib.
There are parallel passages, with additional information on this seige and the downfall of Sennacherib, in 2 Chronicles 32: 1-23 and Isaiah 36-37. A Biblical Archaeology Society article has more on the assassination of Sennacherib here.
We now have considerable archaeological material from the seventh century BC, much up it from Assyrian and Babylonian sources. The Taylor Prism (also called Sennacherib's Annals) is a clay hexagonal block that boasts of Sennacherib's exploits, including his siege of Jerusalem.
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