Sennacherib in the context of "Zababa"

The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, North Africa and Eastern Mediterranean throughout much of the 9th to 7th centuries BC, becoming the largest empire in history up to that point. Because of its geopolitical dominance and ideology based in world domination, the Neo-Assyrian Empire has been described as the first world empire in history. It influenced other empires of the ancient world culturally, administratively, and militarily, including the Neo-Babylonians, the Achaemenids, and the Seleucids. At its height, the empire was the strongest military power in the world and ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as parts of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia.

The early Neo-Assyrian kings were chiefly concerned with restoring Assyrian control over much of northern Mesopotamia, eastern Anatolia and Levant, since significant portions of the preceding Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC) had been lost during the late 11th century BC. Under Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC), Assyria once more became the dominant power of the Near East, ruling the north undisputed. Ashurnasirpal's campaigns reached as far as the Mediterranean, and he oversaw the transfer of the imperial capital from the traditional city of Assur to the more centrally located Kalhu (later known as Calah in the Bible and Nimrud to the Medieval Arabs) The empire grew even more under Ashurnasirpal's successor Shalmaneser III (r. 859–824 BC), though it entered a period of stagnation after his death, referred to as the "age of the magnates". During this time, the chief wielders of political power were prominent generals and officials, and central control was unusually weak. This age came to an end with the rule of Tiglath-Pileser III (r. 745–727 BC), who re-asserted Assyrian royal power and more than doubled the size of the empire through wide-ranging conquests. His most notable conquests were Babylonia in the south and large parts of the Levant. Under the Sargonid dynasty, which ruled from 722 BC to the fall of the empire, Assyria reached its apex. Under Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BC), the capital was transferred to Nineveh, and under Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC) the empire reached its largest extent through the conquest of Egypt. Despite being at the peak of its power, the empire experienced a swift and violent fall in the late 7th century BC, destroyed by a Babylonian uprising and an invasion by the Medes. The causes behind how Assyria could be destroyed so quickly continue to be debated among scholars.

The Sargonid dynasty was the final ruling dynasty of Assyria, ruling as kings of Assyria during the Neo-Assyrian Empire for just over a century from the ascent of Sargon II in 722 BC to the fall of Assyria in 609 BC. Although Assyria would ultimately fall during their rule, the Sargonid dynasty ruled the country during the apex of its power and Sargon II's three immediate successors Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BC), Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (r. 669–631 BC) are generally regarded as three of the greatest Assyrian monarchs. Though the dynasty encompasses seven Assyrian kings, two vassal kings in Babylonia and numerous princes and princesses, the term Sargonids is sometimes used solely for Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.

Though the Sargonid dynasty only encompasses the reigns of a few kings, their rule saw the borders of the empire grow to encompass the entire Ancient Near East, the East Mediterranean, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and parts of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, and they witnessed the subjugation of rivals such as Babylonia, Elam, Persia, Urartu, Lydia, the Medes, Phrygians, Cimmerians, Israel, Judah, Phoenicia, Chaldea, Canaan, the Kushite Empire, the Arabs, and Egypt, as Assyria's rivals were either completely conquered or made vassals.

The Lachish reliefs are a set of Assyrian palace reliefs narrating the story of the Assyrian victory over the kingdom of Judah during the siege of Lachish in 701 BCE. Carved between 700 and 681 BCE, as a decoration of the South-West Palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh (in modern Iraq), the relief is today in the British Museum in London, and was included as item 21 in the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects by the museum's former director Neil MacGregor. The palace room, where the relief was discovered in 1845–1847, was fully covered with the "Lachish relief" and was 12 metres (39 ft) wide and 5.10 metres (16.7 ft) long. The Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal sequence was found in the same palace.

The Assyrian captivity, also called the Assyrian exile, is the period in the history of ancient Israel and Judah during which tens of thousands of Israelites from the Kingdom of Israel were dispossessed and forcibly relocated by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. One of many instances attesting Assyrian resettlement policy, this mass deportation of the Israelite nation began immediately after the Assyrian conquest of Israel, which was overseen by the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser III and Shalmaneser V. The later Assyrian kings Sargon II and Sennacherib also managed to subjugate the Israelites in the neighbouring Kingdom of Judah following the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE, but were unable to annex their territory outright. The Assyrian captivity's victims are known as the Ten Lost Tribes, and Judah was left as the sole Israelite kingdom until the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, which resulted in the Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people. Not all of Israel's populace was deported by the Assyrians; some of those who were not expelled from the former kingdom's territory eventually became known as the Samaritan people.

The LMLK seal appears on the handles of several large storage jars from the Kingdom of Judah, where it was first issued during the reign of Hezekiah around 700 BCE. Seals bearing these four Hebrew letters have been discovered primarily on unearthed artifacts in and around Jerusalem, with some in northern Israel. Several complete jars were found in situ at the ancient city of Lachish, where they were buried underneath a destruction layer caused by Sennacherib, who reigned over the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705 BCE to 681 BCE. While none of the original stamp seals have been found, some 2,000 impressions made by at least 21 seal types have been published. The iconography of the two- and four-winged symbols are representative of royal symbols whose meaning "was tailored in each kingdom to the local religion and ideology".

The newer Siloam Tunnel (Hebrew: נִקְבַּת הַשִּׁלֹחַ, romanized: Nikbat HaShiloaḥ), also known as Hezekiah's Tunnel (תעלת חזקיהו, Te'alát Ḥizkiyáhu), is a water tunnel that was carved within the City of David in ancient times, now located in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan in eastern Jerusalem. Its popular name is due to the most common hypothesis that it dates from the reign of Hezekiah of Judah, late 8th and early 7th century BC, and corresponds to the "conduit" mentioned in 2 Kings 20 (2 Kings 20:20) in the Hebrew Bible. According to the Bible, King Hezekiah prepared Jerusalem for an impending siege by the Assyrians, by "blocking the source of the waters of the upper Gihon, and leading them straight down on the west to the City of David" (2 Chronicles 32:30). By diverting the waters of the Gihon, he prevented the enemy forces under Sennacherib from gaining access to water. An older water system, sometimes called the Siloam Channel, partly fulfilled a similar purpose and dates back to the Canaanites (Bronze Age).

The idea of dating the tunnel to Hezekiah's period was derived from the Biblical text that describes construction of a water tunnel in his time. Scientific support for this, however, came from radiocarbon dates of organic matter contained in the original plastering as well as radiometry (uranium-thorium dating of speleothems). The dates were challenged in 2011 by new excavations that suggested an earlier origin in the late 9th or early 8th century BC.

Hezekiah (/ˌhɛzɪˈkaɪ.ə/; Biblical Hebrew: חִזְקִיָּהוּ‎, romanized: Ḥizqiyyāhū), or Ezekias (born c. 741 BC, sole ruler c. 716/15–687/86), was the son of Ahaz and the thirteenth king of Judah according to the Hebrew Bible. He is described as "the best-attested figure in biblical history," due to the extensive documentation of his reign in biblical texts and external sources (notably Assyrian inscriptions). His reign was marked by his significant religious reforms and his revolt against the Assyrian Empire. He witnessed the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians under Sargon II in c. 722 BC and later faced the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem by King Sennacherib in 701 BC.

Hezekiah's changes to the official Yahweh worship, especially his centralization of worship in Jerusalem and his efforts to rid Judah of the worship of other cult gods and goddesses, are a major focus of biblical accounts. He is considered a very righteous king in both the Second Book of Kings and the Second Book of Chronicles. His efforts to consolidate worship around the God of Israel and his destruction of other cult objects, such as the bronze serpent made by Moses, are seen as his way of consolidating power and temple resources during a turbulent time. His reign was marked by prophetic activity, with prophets such as Isaiah and Micah delivering their messages during his time.

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.