King Hezekiah and Sennacherib

Sennacherib used different ways to chronicle his war campaigns. The final versions were three prisms made of red baked clay and hexagonal in shape inscribed in Akkadian script.In the picture is the Jerusalem Prism, which was dedicated to his campaigns against the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah.

One of the sections reads as follows:

‍He (Hezekiah) called upon the kings of Egypt. The bowmen, the chariots, and the cavalry of the King of Ethiopia... I fought with them and inflicted a defeat upon them... I personally captured alive the charioteers of the King of Ethiopia.

This inscription confirms Isaiah’s account in 36:6 of Rabshake’s intimidating speech during the besiegement:

‍You are relying on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which enters and punctures the palm of anyone who leans on it. That’s what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like to all who rely on him.