II KINGS 15-20: ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

In marked contrast to the “historical” books of Mormon, the veracity of the historical writings in the Old Testament has been confirmed over and over by archeological findings. Of course, this by no means proves that the miraculous happenings recorded in them also took place, but it goes a long ways toward answering those critics who over the years have dismissed much of these writings as pure fable. Below are just a few examples relating to II Kings 15-20:

II Kings 15:1-5 The remains of the house of an obviously wealthy person dating from this period have been found within Israel and shown to contain symbols of the goddess Astarte.

15:19-20 Menahem's tribute to the king of Assyria is mentioned in Assyrian tablets. Also, from Assyrian contracts we learn that fifty shekels was the value placed on a slave at that time.

15:30 The cuneiform of Tiglath-pilesar III reads: “They overthrew Pekah their king and I made Hoshea to be king over them.”

II Kings 16:9 This cuneiform continues, reading “I besieged and captured the native city of Resin of Damascus...800 people with their belongings I led away.”

II Kings 17:5-6 The fact that Samaria was captured by Assyrian troops in 724 BC is mentioned in other Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions.

17:24 The annals of Sargon II (722-705 BC) read “The town I rebuilt better than it was before, and settled herein people from countries which I myself had conquered.”

II Kings 18:14-15 There are the remains of a bas-relief found in Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh. The inscription reads “Sennacherib, King of Assyria, sitting on his throne while the spoil from the city of Lachish passed before him.”

The famous cylinder of Sennacherib states that he shut up Hezekiah “like a caged bird in Jerusalem, his royal city” and imposed a tribute of thirty talents of gold and 800 of silver.

18:26-35 Some Assyrian clay tablets show that they used the same sort of psychological warfare in an earlier military campaign.

II Kings 19:35 A mass grave containing about 2,000 men was found at the edge of Lachish. It has been suggested that the angel of the LORD visited a plague upon them. The Greek historian Herodotus comments on this same event by saying that a multitude of field mice (symbols of pestilence in Greece) attacked the Assyrian camp.

II Kings 20:7 A plaster of figs is cited as an ancient remedy recorded in a veterinary book dating to around 1500 BC.

20:20 In 1880, an Arab school boy in Jerusalem was playing in the Pool of Siloam and found a tunnel with an ancient inscription of the wall telling how Hezekiah king of Judah had the tunnel cut to ensure an adequate water supply prior to the Assyrian siege.