Also known as: Senacherib, Sennacherib, Sennacherib, Sanherib
The divided kingdomKingWarriorc. 745–681 BC
Sennacherib was king of Assyria who reigned from about 705 to 681 BC. He is best known in the Bible for his failed attempt to conquer Jerusalem during King Hezekiah's reign, when the Lord's angel struck down his army. He was eventually killed by his own sons while worshiping in his god's temple in Nineveh.
14So Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish: "I have sinned. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me." The king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
16At that time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped the doors of the temple of the LORD and the doorposts he himself had overlaid, and gave them to the king of Assyria.
17The king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They came up to Jerusalem and took their stand by the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Launderer's Field.
18They called for the king, and Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebnah the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder came out to them.
21Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who trust in him.
22And if you say, 'We trust in the LORD our God'—is he not the very one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, telling Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship before this altar in Jerusalem'?
26Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, along with Shebnah and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall."
27But the Rabshakeh answered, "Was it only to your master and to you that my lord sent me to say these things? Was it not also to the men sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine along with you?"
30Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, 'The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.'
31"Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat from your own vine and your own fig tree and drink water from your own cistern,
32until I come and take you away to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey. Live, and do not die! Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, 'The LORD will deliver us.'
37Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and reported to him what the Rabshakeh had said.
4The king of Egypt made Eliakim, his brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Jehoahaz his brother and carried him off to Egypt.
5Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD his God.
8The rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, the detestable things he did, and all that was found against him are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. And Jehoiachin his son became king in his place.
9Jehoiachin was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD. [Footnote: The Hebrew text reads "eight years"; the parallel account and some ancient witnesses read "eighteen years."]
10In the spring King Nebuchadnezzar sent and had him brought to Babylon, along with the precious vessels of the house of the LORD, and he made Zedekiah, Jehoiachin's brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem. [Footnote: Hebrew "his brother"; the term can denote a close male relative — Zedekiah was Jehoiachin's uncle.]
12He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD his God, and he did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD.
13He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear an oath by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning back to the LORD, the God of Israel.
14And all the leaders of the priests and the people multiplied their treachery, following all the detestable practices of the nations, and they defiled the house of the LORD, which he had made holy in Jerusalem.
15The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again through his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.
16But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against his people burned beyond remedy.
17So he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in their own sanctuary. He spared neither young man nor young woman, neither the elderly nor the aged; God gave them all into his hand.
18All the vessels of the house of God, great and small, the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and his officials—all of it he carried off to Babylon.
20Those who survived the sword he carried into exile in Babylon, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power—
King Hezekiah prayed to the Lord after receiving Sennacherib's threatening letter, and the prophet Isaiah delivered God's answer that Sennacherib would not enter Jerusalem.
15And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD: "LORD, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.
20Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria.
21This is the word the LORD has spoken against him: "The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head as you flee.
23By your messengers you have mocked the Lord, saying, 'With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the far reaches of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses. I have reached its farthest lodging place, its densest forest.
25Have you not heard? Long ago I determined it; from days of old I planned it, and now I have brought it about—that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of rubble.
26Their inhabitants are stripped of strength, dismayed and put to shame. They are like grass in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it can grow.
28Because you rage against me and your arrogance 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.
29"And this will be the sign for you: 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.
32Therefore this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: "He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with a shield or build a siege ramp against it.
The Angel of the Lord Strikes Down the Assyrian Army
During the night, the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp, forcing Sennacherib to return to Nineveh in disgrace.
35That night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When men rose early in the morning, there they were—all of them dead bodies.
16When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered him: "What share do we have in David? What part in the son of Jesse? To your tents, Israel! Look after your own house, David!" And all Israel went home to their tents.
Sennacherib was killed by his own sons Adrammelech and Sharezer while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch at Nineveh, and his son Esarhaddon became king after him.
37While he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son became king in his place.
1After all this faithful work, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, intending to take them for himself.
9Afterward, while Sennacherib king of Assyria was still at Lachish with all his forces, he sent his servants to Jerusalem, to Hezekiah king of Judah and to all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem, with this message:
11Is not Hezekiah misleading you, handing you over to die of hunger and thirst, when he says, 'The LORD our God will rescue us from the hand of the king of Assyria'?
12Was it not this same Hezekiah who removed his God's high places and altars and told Judah and Jerusalem, 'You must worship at one altar and burn your offerings there'?
13Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands ever able to save their land from my hand?
14Among all the gods of those nations that my fathers destroyed, which one could save his people from my hand? How then can your God save you from my hand?
15So do not let Hezekiah deceive you or mislead you like this, and do not believe him. For no god of any nation or kingdom has been able to save his people from my hand or from the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God save you from my hand!"
17Sennacherib also wrote letters mocking the LORD, the God of Israel, and speaking against him: "Just as the gods of the nations of other lands did not save their people from my hand, so the God of Hezekiah will not save his people from my hand."
18Then they shouted loudly in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, so that they might capture the city.
21And the LORD sent an angel, who cut down every mighty warrior, every commander and officer, in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he went back to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, his own sons struck him down there with the sword.
22So the LORD saved Hezekiah and the people of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib king of Assyria and from every other hand, and he gave them rest on every side.