I And II Chronicles: A Commentary (The Old Testament Library)

by Sara Japhet

This, however, is not the picture which one takes from the Chronicler’s presentation. According to his account, Sennacherib did not actually conquer the cities of Judah but only thought ‘to win them for himself’. Therefore, the move against Jerusalem is not the end but the beginning of this campaign, part of his plans for the whole of Judah. The theological significance of this change is transparent. According to the Chronicler’s most basic theological principles, the conquest of the Judaean cities would constitute a divine punishment. Cf. II Chron. 12.2–4: ‘In the fifth year of king Rehoboam, because they had been unfaithful to the Lord, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem . . . And he took the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem’, which includes the telling Chronistic addition ‘because they were unfaithful to the Lord’. At this point in Judah’s history, any kind of punishment would be quite inappropriate, and thus all we have is Sennacherib’s ‘plan’ to take over these cities. The change of the historical picture is so very clearly the result of theological considerations that hardly any historical value should be assigned to it.