If that clash was what truly forced Sennacherib to lift the siege at Jerusalem, it would, as Luckenbill says, have had to take place after the siege was under way. Second Kings says that Sennacherib was at Lachish during the siege: Sennacherib’s invasion took him from Sidon south down Khor’s coastal plain, and Eltekeh is located well before Lachish. After capturing Lachish, Sennacherib’s army would have had to travel about 20 miles north, as the crow flies, to an area through which it had already passed. Why? What possible strategic objective could Sennacherib have attained by backtracking to
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