Sennacherib invades Judah
2 Kings 18:13–37; 2 Chronicles 32:1–19; Isaiah 36
In Hezekiah's 14th year, the Assyrian king Sennacherib captured Judah's fortified cities, and his officer mocked Hezekiah's trust in God outside Jerusalem's walls.
Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.
2 Kings 18:13 (World English Bible)
Hezekiah stripped gold from the temple doors to pay tribute, but Sennacherib wanted Jerusalem too. His field commander stood at the aqueduct and shouted in Hebrew to the people on the wall: no god had saved any nation from Assyria, so why would Yahweh save them?
Hezekiah had prepared by cutting a tunnel to bring spring water inside the city walls (2 Kings 20:20). The tunnel still exists; an inscription found in it describes the two crews of diggers meeting in the middle.
Places
JerusalemAssyriaCity of DavidLachishMilloWasher’s Field
Dating notes
Hezekiah's 14th year (2 Kings 18:13), 713 BC counting from Ussher's 726 BC for his accession. Sennacherib's own annals and his Lachish reliefs describe this campaign; conventional dating puts it in 701 BC.