sefi;g:v. - A Kabbalist walks into a bar, and the

SENNAGHERIB SENNAGHERIB
waxes eloquent over the immense array that faced the
Assyrian army. They were ’like a great swarm’ of
locusts. ‘ The dust of their feet was like a heavy storm
cloud which spreads over the wide heaven about to
break in downpour.’ The account of the battle given
by Sennacherib is a masterpiece of description, but too
long to quote. He claims to have defeated his enemies
with tremendous slaughter and terrible butchery. The
Babylonian Chronicle, however, claims the victory for
Elam. At any rate Sennacherib returned to Nineveh for
a time. It is not clear in which year the battle occurred ;
perhaps it was in 691 B.C. In 689 B.C. (Nisan the rgth),
Urnman-minilnu had a stroke of paralysis and lost his
speech. Sennacherib seized the opportunity to attack
Babylon, which was without Elamite assistance. On
the first of Kislimu the city was taken, MuSezib-
Marduk was carried away captive to Xssyria, hfarduk
himself was taken to ASur. Babylon was sacked,
its walls razed to the ground, the greater portion
of the houses burnt, its inhabitants driven out, or deported,
and the waters of the Euphrates turned over
the site. For eight years the Babylonian Chronicle and
Ptolemy’s Canon write the city down as ‘ kingless.‘
Some time after this Sennacherib made an expedition
to Arabia. This we learn from a notice by Esarhaddon.
Adumd was captured and the gods carried off to Assyria.
Winckler sees in this an excuse for postulating a second
expedition of Sennacherib to the W., at any rate to
Arabia and Egypt. Several fragmentary inscriptions
have been published which are consistent with the
supposition that there is a cylinder at least partly preserved,
which narrated events occurring after 688 B.C.
There is no means, however, of dating the events until
the remaining historical inscriptions are published. The
reference to Xzekah, noted by Homniel, may belong to
the reign of Sargon. No convincing evidence from
cuneiform sources is available to support a second
expedition of Sennacherib to the W. All sources are
silent as to the last eight years of his reign.
Sennacherib was the maker of NINEVEH (4.v.).
His inscriptions are very full on the subject of his
4. Other great buildings there.
Some think that it
was with a view to make Nineveh supreme
details. that he humbled Babylon so completely;
but the trouble it had given him and the memory of
his son amply account for his policy.
Besides ASur-&din-Sum, king of Babylon, 699-693
B.c., doubtless Sennacherib’s eldest son, we know of a
son Ardi-Bilit, crown prince in Nineveh, in 694 8. c. ;
ASur-Sum-ugabS, a son for whom Senoacherib built a
palace at Scherif Khan ; Nergal-Sum-(usur?), named in
693 B. c. ; Sar-efir-ASur, whom Wiuckler wow make the
Sharezer of z K. 1937 ; and ESARHADDON (g.~.), who
succeeded him. The mother of Esarhaddon seems to
have borne the names ZakQtu and Nakla. For an
account of a jewel belonging to this queen, see Scheil,
Rec. des Trav., and see the article ESARHADDON for
her rBle as regent in Assyria. Her sister was called
Abirami. Sennacherib also left a daughter called
Matt&.
Sennacherib was murdered by his son, according to
the Babylonian Chronicle, and the Canon Lists, on the
20th of ’TebCtu, 682 B.C. On the biblical account of
the murder, see ADRAMMELECH, SHAREZER, and
NISROCH. C. H. W. J.
With regard to the history of the relations between
Sennacherib and the kingdom of Judah, th-re is much
~. Relations difference of opinion. The chief pods
with Judah. in dispute are (I) whether the Hebrew
narratives, except where they coincide
with the cuneiform record, can be used at all for
historical purposes, and (2) whether these narratives, if
based upon facts, relate to one period, or to two, in
the reign of Sennacherib. That the first of the three
portions, into which Stade and his successors have
nnalysed the Hebrew record, agrees in the main with
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the cuneiform record, is obvious. That portion con-
sists of barely four verses (2 K. 18136 [from n$y]-16),
and probably comes from the royal annals of Judah.
It states (so too Is. 3616) that Sennacherib took
‘ all ’ the fortified cities of Judah (Sennacherib himself
says forty-six), and exacted a heavy tribute from Heze-
kiah as the price of forgiveness; two points of differ-
ence in the respective accounts, ( I) as to the amount of
the tribute.l and (z) as to the place to which the
tribute was sent (Lachish? Nineveh?), need not be
dwelt upon. The second and the third portion (Le.,
18 17-19ga and 363 19g6-35), however, contain several
statements which are unconfirmed by Sennacherib.
Thus (I) in z K. 199 (Is. 379)--i.e., in the second
narrative-we are told that Tirhakah took the field
against Sennacherib, and it is implied that this stood
in close relation to the withdrawal of Sennacherib from
Palestine. (2) 2 K. 1935 (Is. 3736) tells us that 185,000
men in the Assyrian army were destroyed in one night
by pestilence-the explanation which the third narrative
gives of the failure of Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah.
(3) z K. 198 (Is. 37.8) speaks of Sennacherib as engaged
in the siege of Libnah when the news respecting Tir-
hakah reached him-ie., the third narrative gives the
prominence to Libnah which the first and the second (see
2 K. 18 14 17 Is. 362) give to Lachish. The first and the
second of these statements are commonly supposed to
be confirmed by the legend in Herod.2141, that when
ZavaXdptpos, king of the Arabians and Assyrians,
invaded Egypt and besieged Pelusium in the days of
the pious king Sethas, field-mice gnawed the quivers
and shield-handles of the invaders, who precipitately
fled. Even Winckler and PraHek accept this view, and
they find in the passage of Herodotus a support for
their theory (which is accepted by Guthe [Cesch. 2051
and Benzinger) that Sennacherib made a second expedi-
tion to S. Palestine and NW. Arabia (in the course of
which he actually besieged Jerusalem) some time between
690 and 681, which is referred to in the third narrative.
whilst the second narrative relates to the expedition of
701, in the course of which Jerusalem was onlyblockaded,
not besieged.
We shall do well in considering this theory to put
aside altogether the material in the second and the third
Hebrew narrative, for a close examination of them
clearly shows that they are paxallel. The two narratives
are no doubt inconsistent in some respects ; but
upon the whole they interlace and are mutually complementary.
All depends, therefore, on the justice of the
inference drawn from Herod. 2 141. PraSek conceives
himself to have shown that the SPthds of Herodotus is
no other than Tirhakah. That Egypt was a member
of the coalition against Sennacherib is shown by the
presence of ‘kings of Egypt’ at the battle of Altaku
(Schr. KA TCa) 302J ), and the designation of Zavaxdp~pos
as ‘king of the AraBiuns and Assyrians’ is
thought to be a record of the fact (?) that after his
successes against the NW. Arabian tribes Sennacherib
assumed the title of ‘ king of Arabia’ ; lastly, the
mouse is said to be the symbol of pestilence. The
objection is threefold. (I) As Winckler has shown, it
was the kings of Mu+ (m!~), not of Egypt (o:ifp),
who fought at Altaku; (2) We have no occasion to
assume that ‘ Sethos ’ is written in error for ‘ Tirhakah ’ ;
and (3) there is no trustworthy evidence that a mouse is
the symbol of pestilence (see HEZEKIAH, 5 2, col.
2059). The second of these criticisms may need some
explanation. The reason why scholars equate Sethos
with Tirhakah is simply that Herodotus gives his
Arabian and Assyrian king the name of Zavaxdpcpos.
But how if Herodotus or his informant has made a
confusion? And how if the king of Egypt really in-
1 See Winckler in KAT@) 342.
9 cp in& rs. Z2 ff
8 Furschungen Bur Gesch. 8cs A It. 2 TI-21.
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