Sennacherib

It describes a war of the Vanic king against Assur-Nirari, son of Hadad-Nirari, Adadi-Nirari of Assyria, thus revealing not only the true form of the Assyrian name, but also the parentage of the last king of the older Assyrian dynasty.

From another inscription, belonging to Rusas II, the son of Argistus, we learn that campaigns were carried on against Hittites and the Moshi in the later years of Sennacherib's reign, and therefore only just before the eruption of the Cimmerians into the northern regions of Western Asia.

The two German explorers have also discovered the site and even the ruins of Muzazar, called Ardennis by the people of Van.

They lie on the hill of Shkena, near Topsana, on the road between Kelishin and Siddak.

You can be saved or delivered from a physical, um, predicament.

Just like when Hezekiah prayed because Assyria and Sennacherib were about to attack them.

Hezekiah prayed.

Was Hezekiah saved? Yeah.

Today, we covered, uh, Sefer Melachim Bet, Perek Yod Tes.

And of course, uh, we talk a lot about, uh, Sanherib and how HaKadosh Baruch Hu went ahead on that famous Pesach night and wiped out a hundred and eighty-five thousand, which may be a hundred eighty-five thousand chiefs, not necessarily a hundred eighty-five thousand, which could make the force, uh, surrounding Yerushalayim as many as three hundred and seventy million.

And yet, of course, in one fell swoop, they all, one hundred eighty-five thousand people were dead.

Uh, uh, we talk about this in, uh, the, uh, piyut we say during Nir Tza, [Hebrew].

Now, in many communities, uh, we tend to sometimes try to place and expose our children not only to, and ourselves, not only to Torah sources, but we, we find it very exciting when we can find historical sources that sort of enhance our, um, our understanding of the period of the time and the history of the time.

My dear friend and, uh, rabbinic colleague and rebbi, Rabbi Chaim Jachter, in his famous book, uh, From David to Destruction: Mining Essential Lessons from Sefer Melachim, actually describes this particular perek in Tanakh as, uh, one that, uh, causes us to have and exhibit much caution.

In the Israel Museum, we have, uh, one can find something called the Sanherib, uh, prism.

And of course, in the Sanherib's prism, uh, prism, we can see the records of the, uh, sa- of the conquest of Sanherib, uh, through the Middle East, including most of Yehuda.

It describes a war of the Vanic king against Assur-nirari, son of Hadad-nirari, Adad-nirari of Assyria, thus revealing not only the true form of the Assyrian name, but also the parentage of the last king of the older Assyrian dynasty.

From another inscription, belonging to Rusas II, the son of Argistus, we learn that campaigns were carried on against Hittites and the Moshi in the later years of Sennacherib's reign, and therefore only just before the eruption of the Cimmerians into the northern regions of Western Asia.

The two German explorers have also discovered the site and even the ruins of Muzazar, called Ardennis by the people of Van.

They lie on the hill of Shkena, near Tapsana, on the road between Kelishin and Siddak.

Open your eyes, O Lord, and see.

Hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God.

Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have hurled their gods into the fire, though there were no gods but the work of human hands, wood and stone, and so they were destroyed.

So now, O Lord, O God, save us, I pray you, from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.

His name, meaning "God will hear," already bore the weight of a prophetic destiny.

While Isaac became the father of Esau and Jacob, the latter being the ancestor of the twelve tribes of Israel, Ishmael also fathered twelve sons who became leaders of powerful clans.

To ignore this lineage is to ignore a fundamental part of the formation of the Middle East.

Even today, the Ishmaelite presence can be felt interwoven into the region's complex ethnic fabric.

His birth was more than the fulfillment of a wish.

It was the beginning of a powerful lineage marked by the seal of divine promise.

God not only heard Hagar's cry in the desert, but also promised that Ishmael would be the father of a great nation.

And that promise, though marginalized for centuries, was fulfilled in the trade routes, in nomadic tribes, in caravans crossing the Fertile Crescent, in the peoples who left their marks carved into stone and dust.

Nineveh was truly a colossal city.

The palace of King Sennacherib was found with over 80 rooms, all adorned with intricately carved reliefs depicting in remarkable detail the military conquests of the Assyrian Empire.

But perhaps the most fascinating find was its library, one of the first organized libraries in human history, containing more than 22,000 clay tablets.

These texts covered topics ranging from law and medicine to astronomical records.