Sanheriv's Campaign against Jerusalem

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  1. Yeshayahu 9-12

    Matan Al HaPerek

    Neta Shapira

    Though Assyria successfully conquered the Israeli Kingdom and significant portions of Yehuda, Yishayahu mocks the arrogance of Assyria and describes its downfall, describing a future of world peace and prosperity. The prophet sees the world returning to the state of the Garden of Eden, before Adam's sin. 

  2. Sanheriv’s Siege of Jerusalem

    Rabbi Alex Israel

    Hizkiyahu takes advantage of a gap in Assyrian rule and joins Egypt and Babylon in rebellion against Assyria. He fortifies Jerusalem and channels water into the walled city, while cutting off the water supply outside of the city. However, the new Assyrian king Sanheriv fights back, destroying 46 fortified cities in Yehuda, and sets his sights on Jerusalem. Sanheriv sends emissaries to Jerusalem to deflate the moral of the people and encourage them to surrender while boasting that God cannot stop him. After Yishayahu first prophecy sends Sanheriv away temporarily, Sanheriv returns to Jerusalem once again. This time Hizkiyahu prays to God and miraculously the entire Assyrian army is killed in one night. This description has an indirect corroboration in Assyrian historical documents that describe the war against Hizkiyahu in a manner which is jarringly inconsistent with other battles. This miracle led to the concept of Jerusalem's invincibility, a concept that the prophet Yirmiyahu could not change when he prophesied its destruction over a century later.

  3. "The Temple of the Lord, Are These"

    Rabbi David Sabato

    Yirmiyahu addresses the "lying words" regarding the Temple's intrinsic holiness and inability to be destroyed. The people's misconception regarding the role of the Temple led them to think that they could continue to sin without repercussions. Further discussed is the connection between this chapter and the prophecy in chapter 3 regarding the Ark and the destruction of Shilo, as well as the contrast with the prophecies of Yishayahu regarding Jerusalem.

  4. The Meaning of the Metaphor: God’s Actions

    Dr. Tova Ganzel

    This prophetic unit is one of the harshest that is delivered to the nation anywhere in Tanakh. The prophet begins by defining and illuminating the severity of the actions of the people. Not only have they not fulfilled God’s commandments; they have even been less loyal to God than the surrounding nations have been towards their own deities.

    The nation had not internalized the idea that God might destroy His Temple. They knew that the Destruction of the Temple would be perceived by the nations as weakness on the part of God, reflecting God’s inability to defend His Temple and ward off its enemies. Thus, the Destruction of the Temple would entail a desecration of God’s Name among the nations. The nations would assume that God had lost His power and might, so much so that He could not even prevent the downfall of His Temple. The nations surrounding Jerusalem would have considered the deliberate divine Destruction of Jerusalem so strange that the people of Jerusalem were lulled into believing that this would be enough to prevent the Temple being destroyed despite their severe sins.

    But Yehezkel describes that the people have defiled the Beit HaMikdash with “detestable things and abominations” – a combined term that is used over 80 times in the book that refers to the range of sins that the people have committed which are detailed by the prophet in the coming chapters. Thus the nations will come to understand how God inflicts such devastating damage on His people not as a sign of weakness but as a Divine punishment.

  5. MiBereisheet: Avishai, Roey, and Ravshakeh's Speech

    Hodaya Bonen

  6. Historical Introduction, Part II – Sennacherib’s Campaign and the Failed Siege of Jerusalem

    Shiur #03

    Dr. Yael Ziegler

    תאריך פרסום: 5778 |

    The extraordinary deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrian army forms an important historical backdrop to the book of Eikha. An episode that began as an inspiring manifestation of God’s miraculous intervention to save Jerusalem developed in a catastrophic direction. Drawing the wrong conclusions in the aftermath of this astounding incident, the nation became complacent in their overconfidence in the city’s sacred status. A stark contrast to their assumptions and belief, the destruction of Jerusalem left a shocked populace in its wake, their physical and ideological world in tatters.

  7. The Lachish Reliefs

    Megalim Institute

    Megalim | 3 minutes

    When King Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria in 701 BCE, Sennacherib launched a campaign against Judah and conquered all of its fortified cities. Sennacherib immortalized the conquest of the city of Lachish in huge reliefs that he installed in his palace in the Iraqi city of Nineveh. This animated video brings alive the reliefs uncovered in archaeological excavations and dramatically depicts the Assyrian war machines assaulting the city. The inhabitants of Lachish appear in the reliefs as they valiantly fight from the walls and then as they are brought a as humiliated prisoners of war before Sennacherib, seated on his throne.

    Courtesy of Megalim Institute