page_title: 2 Kings 18
section_title: The Assyrians attack and force tribute payment (18:13–16)
hierarchical_section_title: 2 Kings 18 / The Assyrians attack and force tribute payment (18:13–16)
caption_attribution_description: English: Assyria: Siege of Lachish. Prisoners from Lachish. Assyrian, about 700-692 BC. From Nineveh, South-West Palace, Room XXXVI, panels 9-10. The procession of prisoners from Lachish continues, moving through a rocky landscape with vines, fig-trees and perhaps olives in the background. Officials regarded as responsible for the rebellion against Assyria are treated more severely; two of them are being flayed alive. WA 124908-9. Lachish Reliefs, Object 21 of 100, British Museum
context_page_description: 2 Kings 18 is the eighteenth chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the events during the reign of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, a part of the section comprising 2 Kings 18:1 20:21, with a parallel version in Isaiah 36–39.
context_section_description: The Assyrians stormed Judah, likely in response to Hezekiah's rebellion (verse 7) in 701 BCE. In a short time many cities of Judah were occupied and Jerusalem was besieged. King Sennacherib depicted his victory over Lachish in a stone relief in his palace at Nineveh (Lachish reliefs, now in the British Museum) and described Hezekiah's desperate situation on several victory monuments (Sennacherib's Annals):
  'As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities... Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were leaving his city's gate' (ANET 288).'
  The Bible text records that Hezekiah initially tried to free himself from Assyrian pressure by conceding defeat and paying a heavy tribute, which also conforms with Sennacherib's record:
  'Hezekiah... did send me, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, precious stones ... [and] all kinds of valuable treasures, his [own] concubines, male and female musicians' (ANET 288).'
caption: Lachish reliefs, British Museum
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