The Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance Between Hebrews and Africans in 701 BC

by Henry T. Aubin

In the 33 years up to and including 701, Assyria invaded Khor six times. Now, starting in 679, or within two years of Sen-nacherib’s death, Assyrian armies would return with dogged regularity to Khor. In 679, 674, 671 and 667 Assyria mounted expeditions that reached the Egyptian border or beyond, a policy that climaxed with the capture of Thebes in 663. With this ferocious pattern, it is easier to appreciate how the peace between Assyria and Khor/Egypt that lasted 21 years12 represented a truly radical shift in Nineveh’s foreign policy. No other theory for Sen-nacherib’s withdrawal can account for this extraordinary hiatus. Assyria might have left Judah alone if it were paying bounteous tribute, but that would not explain why during this period the empire did not even try to attack the land that was so patently the apple of its eye—Egypt itself.