Sennacherib Marched on Jerusalem With an Army That Emptied Rivers

The Scale of What Was Coming

Sennacherib marched on Judah with over two and a half million horsemen. Forty-five thousand princes rode in chariots attended by their own retinues. Eighty thousand soldiers wore full armor. Sixty thousand swordsmen led the vanguard. The camp stretched four hundred parasangs in every direction. You could walk from one edge of his lines to the other for days and never leave the territory of his army.

This is not military history. This is the tradition's way of saying what Jerusalem was facing: something that should not have been survivable. There is no military strategy that defeats two and a half million horsemen. There is no wall high enough, no garrison large enough. The city's survival would have to come from somewhere that human planning could not reach.

What the Army Did to the Land It Crossed

The army marched in four great divisions, and the rivers they crossed did not survive them. The first division came to the Jordan. They drank it dry. Not the way an army depletes a river by camping along it for weeks. They crossed it and drank it, and it was dry behind them. The second division reached the region and found the Jordan gone. They drew water from wells and ponds and streams and drained those too. The third division came and found even the secondary sources depleted. They licked the moisture from mud. The fourth division crossed ground that was wet only because the three divisions ahead of them had left footprints in the remaining damp earth, and they drank the water pooled in the tracks of those hooves.

The land Sennacherib's army crossed became desert. The living thing that was a river ceased to be a river. The trees and fields along the waterways died in the army's wake. What passed through there left a lifeless corridor behind it.

The Threat Sennacherib Sent Ahead

Rabshakeh, Sennacherib's chief officer, stood outside Jerusalem's walls and shouted. He spoke in Hebrew. He was not speaking to the walls. He was speaking past them, to the people inside who could hear him if they climbed high enough. He told them their God could not save them. He listed the gods of every nation Assyria had already conquered, all of them defeated, all of them unable to protect their cities. The God of Israel was one name on a list of deities who had failed their people. What made Israel think it would be different?

He also offered something. Surrender now, he said, and come out to me, and I will take you to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Come out to me and live. Stay behind those walls and face what is standing outside them.

The people on the walls said nothing. King Hezekiah had given instructions: do not answer. Not a word. They held silence against Rabshakeh's shouting until he ran out of things to say.

What Hezekiah Did With the Letter

Sennacherib sent a letter. Hezekiah received it, read it, and walked to the Temple. He spread the letter out on the floor of the sanctuary. He did not read it aloud. He did not summon advisors. He spread it flat before God and prayed. The letter was an argument that God could not help him. He laid the argument where God could see it and asked for an answer.

Isaiah sent a message: do not be afraid. The king of Assyria would not enter the city, would not shoot an arrow into it, would not come before it with a shield. He would return the way he came. God would take care of it.

The Night the Army Died

An angel went through the Assyrian camp in the night. By morning, 185,000 soldiers were dead. Sennacherib woke to find his army destroyed and turned back toward Nineveh. He did not regroup or attempt a second approach. He returned home, where his sons killed him while he was praying in the temple of his god.

The army that had drunk rivers dry died without a battle. The city it had surrounded remained standing. The king who had spread his enemy's letter on the Temple floor lived fifteen more years.