That this prudent and pious king was not defi cient in military qualities, is shewn by his suc cesses against the Philistines, seemingly in the latter part of his reign after the overthrow of Sennacherib, Kings xviii. 8, and by the efficient measures taken by him for the defence of Jerusalem against the Assyrians. But he assiduously culti vated the arts of peace, and by wise management of finance, and the attention which, after the ex ample of David and Uzziah, he paid to agriculture and the increase of flocks and herds, he became possessed, even in troubled times, of an ample ex chequer and treasures of wealth (2 Chron. xxxii. 27-29 ; 2 Kings xx. ; Is. xxxix. 2). Himself a sacred poet, and probably the author of other psalms besides that in Is. xxxviii., he seems to haw col lected the psalms of David and Asaph for the Temple-worship, and certainly employed compe tent scribes to complete the collection of Solomon's Proverbs (Prov. xxv. I). He appears also to have taken order for the preservation of genealogical records. A critical examination of the principal documents relating to the Levitical families in Chron. has satisfied the present writer that the originals terminated in the reign of Hezekialt (Re view of Lepsitts 07Z Bible Chronoloff, in Arnold's Theological i. 59 ff. ) At what time it was that Hezekiah rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not,' we do not learn from the direct history : in the brief summary, 2 Kings xviii. 7, 8 (for such it clearly is), of the successes with which the Lord prospered him, that particular statement only introduces what is more fully detailed in the sequel, xviii. 13 xix. 37. That it precedes the notice of the over throw of Samaria, ver. 9, ff., does not warrant the inference that the assertion of independence be longs to the earliest years of Hezekiah's reign (see Winer, Real TV. B. i. 497, n. 2). Ewald, how ever, thinks othenvise : in the absence of direct evidence, making history, as his manner is, out of his own peremptory interpretation of certain pas sages of Isaiah (c. i. and xxii. 1-14), he informs us that Hezekiah, bolding his kingdom absolved by the death of Ahaz from the obligations contracted with Tiglath-Pileser, prepared himself from the first to resist the demands of Assyria, and put Jerusalem in a state of defence. (It matters not to Ewald that the measures noted in 2 Kings xx. 20, 2 Chron. xxxii. 3-5, 30, are, in the latter pas sage, expressly assigned to the time of Senna cherib's advance upon Jerusalem.) From Simi maneser's hosts at that time stationed in Phcenicia and elsewhere in the neighbourhood of Judah, forces were detached which laid waste the land in all directions: an army sent against them from Jerusalem, seized with panic a.t the sight of the unwonted enemy, took to flight, and, Jerusalem now lying helplessly exposed, a peace was con cluded in all haste, upon the stipulation of a yearly tribute, and the ignominious deliverance was cele brated with feastings in Jerusalem' (Cesch. des V.
p. 33o, ff.) : all of which rests upon the sup position that Ewald's interpretation of Is. i. 22 is the only possible one : it cannot be said to be on record as history.
As gatheredfrom the Scriptures only, the course of events appears to have been as follows : Ahaz had placed his kingdom as tributary under the protection of Tiglath-Pileser (2 Kings xvi. 7). It would seem from Is. x. 27, and xxviii. 22, that in the time of Shal maneser, to which the latter passage certainly, and the former probably, belongs, Judah was still un der the yoke of this dependence. The fact that Sargon (whether or not the same with the Shal maneser of the history) in his expedition against Egypt left Judah untouched (Is. xx.), implies that Judah had not yet asserted its independence. A powerful party, indeed, was scheming for revolt from Assyria and a league with Egypt ; but there appears no reason to believe that Hezeldah all along favoured a policy which Isaiah in the name of the Lord, to the last, strenuously condemned. It was not till after the accession of Sennacherib that Hezekiah refused the tribute, and at the insti gation of his nobles made a league with Egypt by ambassadors sent to Zoan (Tanis) Is. xxx., xxxi. ; comp. xxxvi. 6-9.* IIereupon, 'in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, Sennacherib came up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them' (2 Kings xviii. ; Is. xxxvi. ; and Hezekiah by
an embassy sent to Lachish, made humble sub mission, and bought the king's forbearance by a tribute of 300 talents of silver, and 30 talents of gold (2 Kings xviii. 14-16 : it is remarkable that in Is. xxxvi. and 2 Chron. xxxii. there is no mention made of this submission). To this conjuncture Is. xxii. 1-14 may be most suitably referred, as pro phecy (not with Eichhorn, Ewald, Maurer, as his tory, to the time of Shalmaneser, in the early years of Hezekiah). The untimely and shameful rejoic ing there condemned was, however, turned into renewed dismay when Sennacherib, alleging the Egyptian alliance as the provocation, sent his Tartan, or chief of the body-guard, with two other high officials, the Rab-saris and the Rab-shakeh, with a powerful force from Lachish against Jeru salem (2 Kings xviii, 17 ; Is, xxxvi. 2 ; 2 Chron. xxxii. 9). What length of time elapsed between the acceptance of the submission and the hostile advance from Lachish, the history does not inform us ; only it is clear that in the view of the writer of thc narrative in 2 Kings xviii., and especially of him by whom it was transferred to the volume of Isaiah's prophecies, the two are separated by no great interval, and both are referred to Hezekiah's fourteenth year. According to the chronicler, ibid. 2, ff., it was after the attack upon the fenced cities of Judah,' and in the prospect of an assault upon Jerusalem," that Hezekiala took measures for its defence, and especially for at once cutting off from a besieging army the principal run of vvater without the walls (` the upper water-course of Gihon,' on the north-west side), and bringing it within the walls for the supply of the western por tion of Jerusalem : a work for which his memory was honoured in later times (2 Chron. xxxii. 3, ff., 3o; comp. 2 Kings xx. 20; and Ecclus xlviii. Whether the reservoir traditionally called the Pool of IIezekiah' was the work of this king, is disputed by Ritter, Erdkunde xvi. 371, ff. ; but Robinson's latest investigations, p. 112, comp. Bartlett, Walks about Yerusaleni, p. 82, ff., leave little doubt that it WaS (Thenius, le. s., p. 409).
The assault, however, did not take place, and Scnnacherib's officers drew off their force to join him at Libnah, another fortified town in the south of Judah. Alarmed by tidings of the ad vance of Tirhaka, king of Ethiopia,' Sennacherib dispatched a letter to Hezekiali (whether from Libnah or what other place is not said), imperi ously urging him to abandon all further resistance. The miraculous overthrow of the Assyrian army, which is represented as following immediately, may have been brought about by a pestilence (Xm ,u1Kil vdcros, Josephus), if the angel of the Lord' has the same reference as in 2 Sam. xxiv. 16. It is not said where it occurred : the prophecies qoncerning it, Is. x.-xxxvii., seem to denote the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, as -,vould Ps. lxxvi., if it was written at that time. On the other hand, the narrative would surely have been fuller, had the overthrow, with its attendant opportunities of be, holding the bodies of their dreaded enemies and oi ;athering great spoil, befallen near Jerusalem, or even within the limits of Judah. That version of the story which reached Herodotus (ii. 1,M—for fcw will hold with Ewald (Gesell. iii. 336) that the story is not substantially the same—indicates the frontier of Egypt near Pelusium as the scene of the disas :er. The Assyrian army would probably break up from Libnah on the tidings of Tirhaka's approach, and advance to meet him. in ascribing it to a vast swarm of field-miee, which, devouring the luivers and bow-strings of the Egyptians, com pelled them to flee in the morning, Hcrodotus may have misinterpreted the symbolical language of the Egyptians, in which the mouse denotes annihila tion (dopcu,Icr,a6s, Horapoll. i. so): though, as Knobel (u. s. p. 2So) has shewn by apposite instances, an army of mice is capable of committing such ravages and also of leaving pestilence behind it. That the destruction was effected in the course of one night, is clearly expressed in z Kings xix. 35, where that night' is plainly that which followed after the delivery of Isaiah's prophecy, and is evidently im plied alike in Is. xxxvi. 36 (` when men arose early in the morning'), and in the story of Herodotus.