Hezekiah was a loyal vassal of Sargon II, but when Sennacherib ascended to the throne in Nineveh, Hezekiah formed alliances with surrounding countries to remove Judah from Assyrian hegemony. It is an indisputable fact that the Assyrians under Sennacherib destroyed the Judean city of Lachish in ca. 701 BC. In addition to the biblical accounts (2 Kgs. 18–19, 2 Chr. 32, and Is. 36–37) the Assyrian texts, archaeological evidence, and the Lachish Reliefs document the event. The tw