One of the big lies in today’s world is that the Jews are white supremacist colonizers, while the people in Gaza and the West Bank are the region’s indigenous inhabitants. In fact, the contrary is true. Jews long predated Muslims in the region, as described in the Bible. Now, there’s more evidence that Isaiah, 2 Kings, and 2 Chronicles all accurately describe the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem 2,700 years ago.

During the reign of Hezekiah of Judah in Jerusalem and Sennacherib in Assyria, the mighty Assyrian kingdom attacked Jerusalem (around 701 BC). We know it happened because of a clay prism from Nineveh, Assyria’s one-time capital, describing a great victory there. However, we also know of it because of the Bible, which describes a huge Assyrian loss rather than a victory.

Here are the key points (for purposes of this post) from 2 Chronicles chapter 32. The story picks up after the prophet Isaiah told Hezekiah that he must have the kingdom clean up its act and live again by God’s word:

Image: The Exterminating Angel Vanquishing the Army of Sennacherib by Antonio Tempesta, 1613. National Gallery of Art.

Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, intending to conquer them for himself.

When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come to make war against Jerusalem, 3he consulted with his leaders and commanders about stopping up the waters of the springs outside the city, and they helped him carry it out.

[snip]

Then Hezekiah worked resolutely to rebuild all the broken sections of the wall and to raise up towers on it. He also built an outer wall and reinforced the supporting terraces of the City of David, and he produced an abundance of weapons and shields.

Hezekiah appointed military commanders over the people and gathered the people in the square of the city gate.

[snip]

Later, as Sennacherib king of Assyria and all his forces besieged Lachish, he sent his servants to Jerusalem with a message for King Hezekiah of Judah and all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem

[snip]

Then the Assyrians called out loudly in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them in order to capture the city.

[snip]

In response, King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out to heaven in prayer, and the LORD sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

Good military preparation, faith in God, and divine help won the day for the Jews. Note, especially, the fact that the text says that the Assyrians besieged Lachish, west of Jerusalem.

So, which version is correct? Was Sennacherib victorious or was there a mass troop die-off? Both Berosus, a Babylonian historian, and Herodotus, the Greek historian, believed the Biblical version, which they ascribed to a plague. Indeed, Herodotus noted the prevalence of mice (rats?) in the camp. Given that the Jews prevented the Assyrians from having fresh water and that traveling troops are plague vectors, it seems possible that, whether through an angel or a bacterium, the Assyrian troops really did die en masse.

All of those, though, are tales. Now, however, there’s hard evidence of a giant Assyrian encampment at Lachish. Stephen Compton, an archeologist, contends that he has found proof that the Assyrian army under Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem just as the Bible describes:

A peer-reviewed paper in the prestigious journal Near Eastern Archaeology reports the first-ever discoveries of ancient Assyrian military camps. Created circa 700 BC during military conquests across the Middle East, they mark the expansion of the Assyrian Empire, which became the prototype for the subsequent Persian, Greek, and Roman empires. 

The initial discovery came from a scene carved into the stone walls of the Assyrian King Sennacherib’s palace commemorating his conquest of Lachish, a city to the south of Jerusalem. Matching the landscape in this image to features of the actual landscape (using early aerial photographs of Lachish prior to modern development) created a virtual map to the site of Sennacherib’s camp. This led to ruins similar in size and shape to the camp in Sennacherib’s relief. An archaeological survey of the site found no evidence of human habitation for 2600 years, followed by pottery sherds from the exact time of Sennacherib’s invasion of Lachish, after which it was again abandoned for centuries. Moreover, the ancient Arabic name for the ruins was Khirbet al Mudawwara, “The Ruins of the Camp of the Invading Ruler.” 

The article from which I quoted has pictures of the stone panels in Sennacherib’s palace showing his military camp at Lachish, a 1940s photo of the landscape that matches the stone panels, 2,700-year-old ruins, and an early aerial photo of Jerusalem showing fortifications outside the city. These items all converge inexorably on the fact that the Bible accurately records the Assyrian siege, including the steps Hezekiah took to fortify Jerusalem.

One doesn’t have to believe in God to be awed by the Bible, whether as a profound moral treatise that provides an infallible guide for a thriving culture or as an accurate history covering the Ancient World up to the early years of the Roman Empire. This accuracy explains why the people in Gaza and the West Bank, whenever they stumble across ancient ruins, destroy them as quickly as possible, for they prove, irrefutably, the Jews’ ties to the land and the Muslim role as invader, destroyer, and colonizer of an ancient and continuous indigenous Jewish nation and culture.