Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant in 701 BCE was a military campaign undertaken by the Neo-Assyrian Empire to bring the region back under control following a rebellion against Assyrian rule in 705 BCE. After the death of Sargon II and the succession of Sennacherib, several states in the Levant renounced their allegiance to Assyria. The rebellion involved several small states: Sidon and Ashkelon (which were taken by force) and Byblos, Ashdod, Ammon, Moab, and Edom who then submitted to the payment of tribute to Assyria. Most notably King Hezekiah of Judah, encouraged by Egypt, joined the rebellion and was subsequently invaded by the Assyrians who captured most of the cities and towns in the region. Hezekiah was trapped in Jerusalem by an Assyrian army, and the surrounding lands were given to Assyrian vassals in Ekron, Gaza, and Ashdod; however, the city was not taken, and Hezekiah was allowed to remain on his throne as an Assyrian vassal after paying a large tribute. The events of the campaign in Judah are famously related in the Bible (2 Kings 18–19; Isaiah 36–37; and 2 Chronicles 32) which culminate in an "angel of the Lord" striking down 185,000 Assyrians outside the gates of Jerusalem, prompting Sennacherib's return to Nineveh.
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Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant in the context of Sennacherib
Sennacherib (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀭𒌍𒉽𒈨𒌍𒋢, romanized: Sîn-aḥḥī-erība or Sîn-aḥḥē-erība, meaning "Sîn has replaced the brothers") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705 BC until his assassination in 681 BC. The second king of the Sargonid dynasty, Sennacherib is one of the most famous Assyrian kings for the role he plays in the Hebrew Bible, which describes his campaign in the Levant. Other events of his reign include his destruction of the city of Babylon in 689 BC and his renovation and expansion of the last great Assyrian capital, Nineveh.
Although Sennacherib was one of the most powerful and wide-ranging Assyrian kings, he faced considerable difficulty in controlling Babylonia, which formed the southern portion of his empire. Many of Sennacherib's Babylonian troubles stemmed from the Chaldean tribal chief Marduk-apla-iddina II, who had been Babylon's king until Sennacherib's father defeated him. Shortly after Sennacherib inherited the throne in 705 BC, Marduk-apla-iddina retook Babylon and allied with the Elamites. Though Sennacherib reclaimed the south in 700 BC, Marduk-apla-iddina continued to trouble him, probably instigating Assyrian vassals in the Levant to rebel, leading to the Levantine War of 701 BC, and himself warring against Bel-ibni, Sennacherib's vassal king in Babylonia.
Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant in the context of History of Palestine
The region of Palestine is part of the wider region of the Levant, which represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. The areas of the Levant traditionally serve as the "crossroads of Western Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Northeast Africa", and in tectonic terms are located in the "northwest of the Arabian Plate". Palestine itself was among the earliest regions to see human habitation, agricultural communities and civilization. Because of its location, it has historically been seen as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. In the Bronze Age, the Canaanites established city-states influenced by surrounding civilizations, among them Egypt, which ruled the area in the Late Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah, controlled much of Palestine, while the Philistines occupied its southern coast. The Assyrians conquered the region in the 8th century BCE, then the Babylonians c. 601 BCE, followed by the Persian Achaemenid Empire that conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE. Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in the late 330s BCE, beginning Hellenization.
In the late 2nd-century BCE Maccabean Revolt, the Jewish Hasmonean Kingdom conquered most of Palestine; the kingdom subsequently became a vassal of Rome, which annexed it in 63 BCE. Roman Judea was troubled by Jewish revolts in 66 CE, so Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE. In the 4th century, as the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, Palestine became a center for the religion, attracting pilgrims, monks and scholars. Following Muslim conquest of the Levant in 636–641, ruling dynasties succeeded each other: the Rashiduns; Umayyads; Abbasids; the semi-independent Tulunids and Ikhshidids; Fatimids; and the Seljuks. In 1099, the First Crusade resulted in Crusaders establishing of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was reconquered by the Ayyubid Sultanate in 1187. Following the invasion of the Mongol Empire in the late 1250s, the Egyptian Mamluks reunified Palestine under its control, before the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1516, being ruled as Ottoman Syria until the 20th century largely without dispute.
Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant in the context of Assyrian siege of Jerusalem
The Assyrian siege of Jerusalem (c. 701 BC) was an aborted siege of Jerusalem, then capital of the Kingdom of Judah, carried out by Sennacherib, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The siege concluded Sennacharib's campaign in the Levant, in which he attacked the fortified cities and devastated the countryside of Judah in a campaign of subjugation. Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, but did not capture it.
Sennacherib's Annals describe how the king trapped Hezekiah of Judah in Jerusalem "like a caged bird" and later returned to Assyria when he received tribute from Judah. In the Hebrew Bible, Hezekiah is described as paying 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold to Assyria. The biblical story claims that Sennacherib marched on Jerusalem with his army only to have it struck down near the gates of Jerusalem by an angel, prompting his retreat to Nineveh.