The angel of Yahweh strikes Assyria's army
2 Kings 19; 2 Chronicles 32:20–23; Isaiah 37
Hezekiah spread Sennacherib's threatening letter before Yahweh and prayed; that night the angel of Yahweh struck 185,000 in the Assyrian camp, and Sennacherib went home.
That night, Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
2 Kings 19:35 (World English Bible)
Isaiah sent word that the king of Assyria would not enter Jerusalem or even shoot an arrow there. Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, where he was later killed by two of his sons while worshiping his god.
Sennacherib's own annals boast that he shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage” but never claim to have taken the city.
Places
JerusalemAssyriaNinevehMount ZionLachishLibnahArarat
Ancient witnesses outside the Bible
Historical sources, not Scripture.
- Antiquities 10.1.4 — Herodotus on Sennacherib’s army turned back from Egypt, and Berosus on Sennacherib
Dating notes
Ussher dates the destruction of the army to 710 BC, after a campaign against Egypt, and the invasion to 713 BC. Conventional dating places the whole campaign in 701 BC.