The Siege of Lachish, Carved in Stone

In 1845, a twenty-eight-year-old named Austen Henry Layard was digging in a palace at Nineveh. What he found was a whole siege, carved in stone.

Scripture: Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, “I have offended you. Return from me. That which you put on me, I will bear.” The king of Assyria appointed to Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

The chapter says Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against the fortified cities of Judah and took them. The verse places the Assyrian king at a city called Lachish.

The siege of Lachish is dated to 701 BC. The Assyrians recorded it on a palace wall.

The scene has two phases, meeting at the city gate. On the left, the assault. On the right, booty carried off and residents deported, while Sennacherib sits enthroned on a hill.

Soldiers carry off a governor's throne, a chariot and a ceremonial mace. Three prisoners are shown impaled by the road, one with a helmet plume, who likely marks the commander.

Scripture: Layard saw a link at once. He wrote that here was the actual picture of the taking of Lachish.

Henry Rawlinson, called the father of Assyriology, noted that the city's name is written differently in cuneiform, the wedge-shaped script. Layard and others answered him, and the identification prevailed.

Sennacherib's own royal records, called annals, claim forty-six fortified Judean towns destroyed, and over two hundred thousand captives. Scholars widely see that captive number as exaggeration.

The reliefs illustrate the siege, not the message in the verse, so the link is indirect. Today they are in the British Museum in London.

A stone record, made by the conquerors themselves. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today. Follow Bible Evidence for more.