The number 185,000 represents God's miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem, when an angel struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in a single night.
In 2 Kings 19:35 (and Isaiah 37:36), it is told that the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in the Assyrian army during King Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem. The background was that King Hezekiah turned to God in prayer after receiving Sennacherib's threatening message, and the prophet Isaiah conveyed God's answer: the Lord himself would defend the city. That following night, the angel of the Lord intervened with a blow that completely crushed the Assyrian military power. The number thus symbolizes God's sovereign power to protect his people against overwhelming enemies, and that human military strength is nothing compared to God's intervention. In Jewish tradition, this event is used as a prominent example of divine deliverance and as a reminder to trust in God when facing seemingly impossible odds. The Greek historian Herodotus (Histories 2.141) tells of an Assyrian army that suffered a catastrophic defeat near Egypt, where mice allegedly gnawed through bowstrings and other equipment overnight. Many scholars have viewed this as a possible parallel account to the biblical story, perhaps with mice symbolizing plague. In the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 95b), rabbis discuss how the angel carried out the killings. Among the suggestions are that the angel blew into their nostrils or that they heard a heavenly song and died. This discussion reflects the rabbis' awe at the supernatural nature of the event. Assyrian source texts, including Sennacherib's own annals (the Taylor Prism), confirm the siege of Jerusalem and mention that Hezekiah was 'shut up like a bird in a cage,' but remarkably do not claim any victory over the city—a silence that many scholars regard as indirect confirmation of the biblical defeat.*