Maybe I made the comment twenty years ago, that it isan important piece of evidence that Sennacherik did not return the next year. He didn't need to. He had achieved his goals for the 701 campaign. But he was proud of what he had achieved as can be sen for his reliefs at home, showing the storming of Lachish.
He totally smashed Hezekiah's kingdom, apart from Jerusalem. I guessed earlier that the reason for sparing Jerusalem was imply logistics. End of the campaign. The Assyrian soldiers were not fulltime professionals. They jad to come home to their farms to prepare for next years harvest.
But it is obviously correct that it was seen by the local population as a magic escape from annuhilation.
Maybe I made the comment twenty years ago, that it isan important piece of evidence that Sennacherik did not return the next year. He didn't need to. He had achieved his goals for the 701 campaign. But he was proud of what he had achieved as can be sen for his reliefs at home, showing the storming of Lachish.
He totally smashed Hezekiah's kingdom, apart from Jerusalem. I guessed earlier that the reason for sparing Jerusalem was imply logistics. End of the campaign. The Assyrian soldiers were not fulltime professionals. They jad to come home to their farms to prepare for next years harvest.
But it is obviously correct that it was seen by the local population as a magic escape from annuhilation.