26. What did Jehovah now find the occasion ripe for doing, and what particular Assyrian king was involved?

²⁶ King Hezekiah broke off the political alliance that his father, King Ahaz, had made with Assyria. This brought on a confrontation between “the Assyrian” and Jehovah, the God of Hezekiah. Under such circumstances it was that Jehovah found the occasion just ripe to punish the God-defying king of Assyria, thereby to “make an accounting for the fruitage of the insolence of the heart of the king of Assyria and for the self-importance of his loftiness of eyes.” (Isa. 10:12) The particular king here involved was Sennacherib, the son of Sargon II. His long name means “Sin Has Multiplied The Brothers,” or, “May Sin Replace The (Lost) Brothers,” the word “Sin” being the name of the Assyrian moon god.

27. Without interfering with Assyria’s internal organization, how could Jehovah nonetheless use it as his symbolic “ax”?

²⁷ Sennacherib has his counterpart in our day.

[Picture on page 46]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

[Artwork​—Assyrian characters]

Sin achi ir-i-ba

(Moon) (brothers) (he increased)

“the Moon has multiplied brothers”

Cuneiform for the name of Sennacherib along with its meaning

Also, Sennacherib, the son of Sargon II, had become king of the expanding Assyrian Empire.