It came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. There is an irreconcilable difference between this note of time, in the passage as it stands, and the Assyrian inscriptions. The fourteenth year of Hezekiah was b.
c. 714 or 713. Sargon was then King of Assyria, and continued king till b.c. 705. Sennacherib did not ascend the throne till that year, and he did not lead an expedition into Palestine till b.c. 701.
Thus the date, as it stands, is cloven or twelve years too early. It is now the common opinion of critics that the chronology of the Books of Kings, speaking generally, is "a later addition to the Hebrew narrative".
It is uncertain when the dates were added; but it would not be long from the time when the addition was made before "Isaiah" would be brought into accord with "Kings." Another view is that the date belongs to the original writings, but that it has suffered corruption, "fourteenth" having been substituted for "twenty-sixth," from an overstrict rendering of the expression, "in those days," which introduces the narrative of Isaiah 38:1-22.
That narrative undoubtedly belongs to Hezekiah's fourteenth year. A third view is that of Dr. Hincks, who suggests a derangement of the text, which has attached to an expedition of Sennacherib a date originally belonging to an attack by Sargon.
He supposes the original text to have run thus: "And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that the King of Assyria came up (against him). In those days was King Hezekiah sick unto death, etc.
(Isaiah 38:1-22; Isaiah 39:1-8.). And Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them," etc. (Isaiah 36:1-22; Isaiah 37:1-38.). The subject has been treated at considerable length by Mr.
Cheyne, who has accidentally ascribed to Sir H. Rawlinson the second of the above theories, which really originated with the present writer. Sennacherib, King of Assyria. The Hebrew rendering of the name is Sankherib, the Greek Sanacharibus or Senacheribus.
In the Assyrian the literation is Sin-akhi-irib—and the meaning" Sin (the moon-god) multiplies brothers." Sin-akhi-irib was the son and successor of Sargon. His father was murdered, and he ascended the throne in b.
c. 705. Came up against all the defenced cities; rather, all the fenced cities, as in 2 Kings 18:13,or "all the fortified cities" (Cheyne). And took them. Sennacberib tells us that, in the campaign of his fourth year, he "captured forty-six of the strong cities" belonging to Hezekiah, King of Judah, while of the "fortresses and small cities" he took "a countless number".
(On the causes of the war and its general course, see the Introduction to the book.