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.

3. How was it that the crucial time for both the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah came during the reign of King Hezekiah?

³ The destruction of all false religion was foreshadowed in the eighth century before our Common Era. At that time the Assyrian Empire, with capital at Nineveh, was the world power. In the progress of this empire’s expansion, the ten-tribe Kingdom of Israel, with capital at Samaria, was destroyed and the adjacent two-tribe Kingdom of Judah, with capital at Jerusalem, came under terrific attack. The crucial time for both of those kingdoms came during the reign of King Hezekiah of Jerusalem, who began to reign in the year 745 B.C.E. Five years later, or in 740 B.C.E., the ten-tribe Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrian aggressors. It then appeared that the neighboring Kingdom of Judah would be next to fall, and that right soon! Yet, eight years passed, with Hezekiah still on the throne at Jerusalem. Also, Sennacherib, the son of Sargon II, had become king of the expanding Assyrian Empire.