The Siege of Jerusalem: The Biblical Accounts

King Hezekiah of Judah paid tribute to the king of Assyria so that he would end his siege of Jerusalem, as related in 2 Kings 18:15. So why did Sennacherib then send a great army to Jerusalem? Could there have been a second siege, as some scholars believe? The paragraphs below show where this theory was born.

The First Siege

2 Kings 18:13–16: In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. King Hezekiah of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear.” The king of Assyria demanded of King Hezekiah of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house. At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the doorposts that King Hezekiah of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria.