(I carried away, I devastated, I destroyed, I burnt with fire)
Assyria was a military nation, highly disciplined; her characteristics being destructive invasion, deportation and taxation. The words of the prophet Nahum: “… Devastation, desolation, and destruction!” echo the war cry of the Assyrians.
Virtually every historian draws attention to the war-like nature of the Assyrian people. James McCabe, author of History of the World, says the Assyrians were a “fierce, treacherous race, delighting in the dangers of the chase and in war. The Assyrian troops were notably among the most formidable of ancient warriors… They never kept faith when it was to their interest to break treaties, and were regarded with suspicion by their neighbours in consequence of this characteristic… In organization and equipment of their troops, and in their system of attack and defence and their method of reducing fortified places, the Assyrians manifested a superiority to the nations by which they were surrounded.” (Vol1, pp155, 160).
James Hastings wrote: “The Assyrians of historic times were more robust, warlike, ‘fierce’, than the mild, industrial Babylonians. This may have been due to the influence of climate and incessant warfare; but it may indicate a different race… The whole organization of the State was essentially military.” (Dictionary of the Bible, article “Assyria and Babylonia”). Leonard Cotrell in Anvil of Civilization, wrote: “In all the annals of human conquest, it is difficult to find any people more dedicated to bloodshed and slaughter than the Assyrians. Their ferocity and cruelty have few parallels save in modern times.” The spirit of Assyria was almost inconceivably cruel. Her methods of warfare were brutal: torture, mass-terror, mutilation, and forced population shifts. The Assyrians of old were much like the Nazis of last century. The Assyrians terrorized the ancient world.
As one of their most famous kings, Sennacherib was the epitome of what it was to be an Assyrian.
Sennacherib – the Soldier
Sennacherib, son of Sargon, came to the throne of Assyria around 704 BC This was in the eleventh year of Hezekiah king of Judah (see Isa 36:1).
As implied by the meaning of his name “the moon god Sin has compensated for (or multiplied) his brothers”—Sennacherib was not Sargon’s firstborn son, but for some reason, not recorded in history, he was chosen as legitimate heir, brought up in the “House of Succession”, and entrusted early with high administrative and military functions, especially on the northern frontier. He was thus well prepared for his royal duties, when in 704 BC he ascended the throne of the Assyrian Empire.
His first efforts were directed to crushing a revolt in Babylonia, led by Merodach-baladan. Sennacherib invaded with a large army that Merodach–Baladan could not resist. The victorious Sennacherib entered Babylon and plundered everything which had belonged to his enemy. He did this without upsetting the citizenry. However he ventured further south into the land of the Kaldi from whence the rebels had drawn supplies. The invasion was carried out with much cruelty. Sennacherib himself records: “I left not one alive; their corpses I bound on stakes and placed them around the city.”
In his third year, after having campaigned against the Kassites, Sennacherib turned his arms toward the west. The lands of the west had been invaded before by Sargon, Shalmaneser, and Tiglath-Pileser. Victories were achieved by them, but rebellion was common. It appears then that Sennacherib’s aim was to break up a powerful combination of these western princes that included Elulaeus, king of Tyre and Sidon, Zedekiah, king of Askelon, and also Hezekiah king of Judah. Having dealt with the Phoenicians, the Edomites, and the Moabites, Sennacherib then attacked the kings of the Philistines. He begins with Askelon, and soon overpowers it. Zedekiah and all his family are dragged away to Assyria. The whole coastland had now submitted and so Sennacherib turned his attention to Ekron. As Sennacherib was about to attack Ekron, Egyptian princes, and some allies, appeared on the battlefield against him. A victory was achieved easily. The princes and the high priest who had led this rebellion were put to death and their corpses were placed on stakes on the town walls. This episode involving the Egyptians is mentioned in Isaiah 37:25 (Sennacherib here relates how he “dried up all the rivers of the besieged places”. This should be rendered “dried up all the Nile-arms of Matsor,” that is, of Egypt, so called from the “Matsor” or great fortification across the Isthmus of Suez, which protected it from invasions from the east). Nevertheless, he did not press the issue with Egypt any further. Rather, he finished the job of routing Ekron.
Finally he turned his attention against Judah. It was at this time that “Sennacherib came up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them” (2 Kings 18:13). (There can be no doubt that the record which Sennacherib has left of his campaign against “Hiskiah” in his third year is the war with Hezekiah so briefly touched in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah; 2 Kings 18:13–16; 2 Chron 32:1–8. His own account of this invasion, as given in the Assyrian annals, compares favourably with the Biblical account in Isaiah’s prophecy.) He accordingly led a very powerful army of at least 200 000 men into Judea, and devastated the land on every side, taking and destroying many cities. Hezekiah sent a message to Sennacherib, admitting that he had done the wrong thing and that he was prepared to do anything Sennacherib requested (2 Kings 18:14). As a result, Sennacherib forced him to hand over silver and gold from the temple at Jerusalem. Sennacherib, not satisfied with this, then sent envoys from Lachish to try to persuade Hezekiah to surrender, but in vain. He next sent an insulting and threatening letter (2 Kings 19:10–14), which Hezekiah carried into the temple and spread before the Lord. Isaiah brought an encouraging message to the pious king (2 Kings 19:20–34) and subsequently in “that night” the angel of the Lord went forth and destroyed the camp of the Assyrians. In the morning, “behold, they were all dead corpses”. The Assyrian army was annihilated.
This great disaster is not, as was to be expected, taken notice of in the Assyrian annals. Sennacherib boasts in his records that he locked Hezekiah up in Jerusalem “like a caged bird”. However this is all he could claim. He did not defeat Hezekiah.
His army’s annihilation did, however, appear to slow him down. He did not fight another campaign until a decade after his meeting with Hezekiah and the God of Israel. Though Sennacherib survived this disaster some twenty years, he never again renewed his attempt against Jerusalem. He was murdered by two of his own sons, Adrammalek and Sharezer, who escaped to Armenia, and he was succeeded by another son, Esarhaddon (in 681 bc), after a reign of twenty-four years.
Sennacherib – the Builder
It was Sennacherib who made Nineveh a truly magnificent city (c 700 BC). The hitherto ancient and ‘royal residence’, was enlarged, fortified, and embellished, and turned into a capital-city worthy of the vast empire it commanded. Like many before and after, Sennacherib wanted to make a name for himself.
In all probability the best description of the city is that given by Sennacherib 
himself on the cylinder recording his expedition to Tarsus in Cilicia. From ancient times, he says, the circuit of the city had measured 9 300 cubits. He claims to have enlarged the city by 12 515 (cubits). The great defensive wall which he built was called by the Sumerian name of Bad-imgallabi-lu-susu, which he translates as “the wall whose glory overthrows the enemy”. He made the brickwork 40 (cubits) thick, which would probably not greatly exceed the estimate of G Smith, who reckoned it to have measured about 50 feet. The height of the wall he raised to 180 tipki, which, admitting the estimate of Diodorus, should amount to about 100 feet. In this enclosing wall were 15 gates, which he enumerates in full. Three of these were situated in the short northwest wall—the gate of Hadad; the gate of Uru or Hadad of Tarbisu (Sherif Khan), and the gate of the moongod Nannar, Sennacherib’s own deity.
Within Nineveh he laid out fresh streets and squares and built within it the famous “palace without a rival”, the plan of which has been mostly recovered and has overall dimensions of about 210 by 200 m (630 by 600 ft). It comprised at least 80 rooms, of which many were lined with sculpture. A large part of tablets was found there; some of the principal doorways were flanked by humanheaded bulls. The palace of Sennacherib lay in the southeast corner of the platform, and consisted of a courtyard surrounded on all four sides by numerous long halls, and rooms, of which the innermost were capable of being rendered private. It was in this palace, that the reliefs were found depicting the siege of Lachish, with the representation of Sennacherib seated on his “standing” throne, while the captives and the spoil of the city passed before him. The grand entrance was flanked by winged bulls facing toward the spectator as he entered. They were in couples, back to back, on each side of the doorway, and between each pair the ancient Babylonian hero-giant, carrying in one hand the “boomerang” and holding tightly with his left arm a struggling lion (Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, 137) was represented
Another claim to fame for Sennacherib, according to the historian Berosus, is that he built the city of Tarsus in Cilicia in about 696 bc Interestingly Sennacherib did not claim to have built it—a little strange in light of his many other boasts.
Sennacherib—the Man
It has been said that very little is known about the man. That assessment needs to be contested. Sennacherib was an Assyrian to the core. He epitomized what it was to be an Assyrian. He was brutal and ruthless. He was not a sophisticated man and spent his entire life, with brief interludes, warring here and there. However, like most selfish people, he was also a cowardly man. Instead of going out to war himself, he sent others. One historian says of him: “Like the Persian Xerxes, he was weak and vainglorious, cowardly under reverse, and cruel and boastful in success.”
His accession to the throne came about after his father’s (that is, Sargon’s) murder. There are historians who consider that he may have been involved in his father’s grisly death. If this were so, then it would show him to be utterly ruthless and without natural tenderness.
The fact that he nowhere mentions his celebrated father’s name, tells us that his relationship with him was either poor or that his ego could not bear a direct comparison with one who clearly was of superior character. The manner of his death also reveals something about the sort of person he was. Yes, he was an idolater—but his slaying at the hands of two of his sons—shows that he engendered no warmth, love, or respect amongst his children.
The records of Sennacherib, translated from one of many cylinders by George Smith and now in the British Museum, certainly give an impression of person who has a high opinion of himself.
“Sennacherib the great king, the powerful king, king of Assyria, king of the four regions, the appointed ruler, worshipper of the great gods, guardian of right, lover of justice, maker of peace, going the right way, preserver of good. The powerful prince, the warlike hero, leader among kings, a giant devouring the enemy, a breaker of bonds.” A quick look at his record shows that he has taken poetic licence with the truth. But it is the ego which shines through so strongly.
One only has to consider the rock inscriptions concerning his campaign against Babylon to see how self-centred he was, and what he saw as important achievements in life:
“As a hurricane, I attacked it, and like a storm, I overthrew it… I carried away, I devastated, I destroyed, I burnt with fire.” These words tell us a lot about the man. Not only does it show him to be cruel and heartless, but the repetition of the personal pronoun reveals him to be self-centred and self-obsessed. The words having been made an inscription are a boast. What a strange boast! ‘I killed people. I destroyed families, lives, communities and, what’s more, I’m proud of it. I don’t care about and am completely oblivious to the feelings of others.’ He was cold to human suffering. Sennacherib (as well as his countrymen) must have been peculiarly ‘unimaginative’, if he was unable to realize within himself the agony of his victims; otherwise he could never have inflicted upon entire nations such hideous pangs of bodily torture as those recorded. In fact, it seems he enjoyed it. The very fact that some of the reliefs at his palace in Nineveh depict the disgustingly sadistic torture of the various peoples that he conquered is strong evidence of his mind set. Like other tyrants through history, he did not have any idea what havoc he wreaked upon others. What mattered to him was himself and the glory of his name. The elevation of self made it possible for him to be blind to the suffering of other people. What is more, this sort of self-centredness is made all the more possible when a person lives a privileged life of wealth and unmerited importance. Sennacherib’s position in the “House of Succession” obviously contributed to his own warped and selfish view of the world. His privileged position surely made him accustomed to wealth, comfort, and getting his own way. (Contrast this with the humble beginnings of our Lord’s life.) Everything, therefore, he does is for his own glory, his own elevation, and his own power. Reading his own account of the campaign in Judah, from the “Sennacherib Prism”, one is confronted with the same theme. There is a constant referral to “I… I… I”. The account also shows the extent to which he was willing to go to get his own way.
“In my third campaign I marched against Hatti. Luli, king of Sidon, whom the terror-inspiring glamor of my lordship had overwhelmed, fled far overseas and perished…. As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke. I laid siege to his strong cities, walled forts, and countless small villages, and conquered them by means of well stamped earth-ramps and battering-rams brought near the walls with an attack by foot soldiers, using mines, breeches as well as trenches. I drove out 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered them slaves. 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 his city’s gate. Thus I reduced his country, but I still increased the tribute and the presents to me as overlord which I imposed upon him beyond the former tribute, to be delivered annually. Hezekiah himself did send me, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, precious stones, antimony, large cuts of red stone, couches inlaid with ivory, nimedu-chairs inlaid with ivory, elephant-hides, ebony-wood, boxwood and all kinds of valuable treasures, his own daughters and concubines. . .”
Power and wealth impressed him greatly. More particularly he loved the fact that he himself possessed both. Phrases from the above record, like “the terror-inspiring glamor of my lordship” and the words on an inscription at Tell ed–duweir in Iraq, which declare “Sennacherib, the king of the world, the king of Assyria”, give insight into the essential shallowness of the man.
Sennacherib’s drive for self elevation is no better illustrated than by his relationship with the city of Nineveh. It was, as previously mentioned, Sennacherib who made Nineveh into a great city. Although Nineveh is mentioned about 1800 bc as a worship place of Ishtar, it was not until Sennacherib came along that it was enlarged and embellished. Up until then it was simply another royal residence. Once again we see his desire for glory and his innate need to boast. His descriptions—“palace without rival” and “the wall whose glory overthrows the enemy”—reveal how he is impressed by symbols of power.
Most men have a desire to be remembered by future generations and it is in architecture and buildings that many men choose to be remembered. In Sennacherib the ego was well developed and so that desire was very strong and his efforts considerable.
A Message of Hope
At the height of his power, Sennacherib would have been intimidating—terrifying to those who were vulnerable. Many suffered from his overwhelming and unjustified cruelty. They lived in fear of him for a long time—about 24 years. Yet Sennacherib, while praying, met with the death he deserved; he was slain with a sword by two of his own sons. There is in his death no better affirmation of that famous dictum: “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” In other words, there is such a thing as justice. Great tyrants do not last forever. God is faithful and He is just; people get what they deserve. Time like an ever flowing stream sweeps them away—just like every other mortal man.
Tyranny is not new. Every age has tyrants, big and small. Likewise every life has periods that are almost unbearable. The message from Sennacherib’s life is that just as all good things must come to an end, so must all bad things.
Sennacherib’s tyranny, his blasphemy, and his subsequent death are not a new story. Hitler also in a way challenged God. He opposed the entire world, attempting to bend it to his will, determined to rule. He was also a ruthless man. We know that in the end he sat in a bunker, trembling from what some doctors have determined was a disease brought on by amphetamines. He took the coward’s way out and committed suicide.
Stalin, who was as great, if not a greater murderer than Hitler, destroyed his own people by the millions. In the end, he is believed to have been killed by his own doctor or someone on the inside close to him. Death swallowed him.
Ghengis Khan was a rabid dog who took vicious bites out of Europe, decimating 
entire populations. His attacks were so ferocious that people trembled with fear at the mere mention of his name, but he died and his kingdom dwindled.
Napoleon is dead. Eichmann is dead. Himmler is dead. Nero is dead. Mussolini is dead. Make your own list. Over and over again, one word will become common to each evil man. “Dead.” They are dead. They all must come to that door and enter. There is no escape. As it was written: “There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it” (Eccles 8:8).
The living often despair under the rule of the wicked: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn” (Prov 29:2). But we know that our future is determined already, that this place is not our ‘home’, and that the pleasures, comforts and wealth of this world and all it offers pale in comparison to our inheritance. We know that the glory of the kingdom age far outweighs the misery and troubles of this age. We know, too, the futility of ordinary human existence. Mortal men are full of grand plans and great determination, but they are oblivious to the obvious. Men forget the obvious— that they are mortal—that all they see around them is temporary. They forget that they will be forgotten and their so-called achievements will turn to dust. In the case of Sennacherib, these happened more quickly than Sennacherib could have imagined. The Assyrian Empire in a few generations rose to rule a mighty empire. Within eighty years of Sennacherib’s death it ceased to exist. It was not just subjugated; it was annihilated. The very name “Assyrian” became just a memory and a tradition. Sennacherib, Sargon, and Tiglath-pileser were forgotten in name and their deeds became vaguely mythical. Even great Nineveh was condemned to a rapid demise. Two centuries after the end of the Assyrian Empire all that remained were ruins covered in mounds.