Archaeological record
Storage jars with the so-called "LMLK seal" may "demonstrate careful preparations to counter Sennacherib's likely route of invasion" and show "a notable degree of royal control of towns and cities which would facilitate Hezekiah's destruction of rural sacrificial sites and his centralization of worship in Jerusalem". Evidence suggests they were used throughout his 29-year reign.
There are some bullae from sealed documents that may have belonged to Hezekiah himself. In 2015, Eilat Mazar discovered a bulla bearing an inscription in ancient Hebrew script that translates as: "Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz king of Judah." This is the first seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king to come to light in a scientific archaeological excavation. While another, unprovenanced bulla of King Hezekiah was known, this was the first time a seal impression of Hezekiah had been discovered in situ in the course of actual excavations.
Archaeological findings like the Hezekiah seal led scholars to surmise that the ancient Judahite kingdom had a highly developed administrative system. In 2018, Mazar published a report discussing the discovery of a bulla which she says may have to have belonged to Isaiah. She believes the fragment to have been part of a seal whose complete text might have read "Belonging to Isaiah the prophet." Several other biblical archaeologists, including George Washington University's Christopher Rollston, have pointed to the bulla being incomplete and the present inscription not enough to necessarily refer to the Biblical figure.
According to the work of archaeologists and philologists, the reign of Hezekiah saw a notable increase in the power of the Judean state. At this time, Judah was the strongest nation on the Assyrian–Egyptian frontier. There were increases in literacy and in the production of literary works. The city was enlarged to accommodate a large influx, and Jerusalem's population increased to an estimated 25,000, "five times the population under Solomon." Mazar explains, "Jerusalem was a virtual city-state where the majority of the state's population was concentrated," compared to the rest of Judah's cities.
Archaeologist Israel Finkelstein says, "The key phenomenon—which cannot be explained solely against the background of economic prosperity—was the sudden growth of the population of Jerusalem in particular, and of Judah in general." He says the cause of this growth must be a large influx of Israelites fleeing from the Assyrian destruction of the northern state. It is "[t]he only reasonable way to explain this unprecedented demographic development." This, according to Finkelstein, set the stage for motivations to compile and reconcile Hebrew history into a text at that time. Mazar questions this explanation since, he argues, it is "no more than an educated guess."
The construction of the Broad Wall was traditionally attributed to Hezekiah, but has been found to have occurred decades earlier.
The Siloam Tunnel was chiseled through 533 meters (1,750 feet) of solid rock to provide Jerusalem underground access to the waters of the Gihon Spring or Siloam Pool, which lay outside the city.
The Siloam Inscription from the Siloam Tunnel is now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. It "commemorates the dramatic moment when the two original teams of tunnelers, digging with picks from opposite ends of the tunnel, met each other". It is "[o]ne of the most important ancient Hebrew inscriptions ever discovered." Finkelstein and Mazar cite this tunnel as an example of Jerusalem's impressive state-level power at the time.
Archaeologists like William G. Dever have pointed at archaeological evidence for the iconoclasm during the period of Hezekiah's reign. The central cult room of the temple at Arad, a royal Judean fortress, was deliberately and carefully dismantled, "with the altars and massebot" concealed "beneath a Str. 8 plaster floor". This stratum correlates with the late 8th century; Dever concludes that "the deliberate dismantling of the temple and its replacement by another structure in the days of Hezekiah is an archeological fact. I see no reason for skepticism here."
Under Rehoboam, Lachish became the second-most important city of the kingdom of Judah. During King Hezekiah's revolt against Assyria, Sennacherib captured it despite determined resistance (see Siege of Lachish).
As the Lachish relief attests, Sennacherib began his siege of the city of Lachish in 701 BC. The Lachish Relief graphically depicts the battle and the city's defeat, including Assyrian archers marching up a ramp and Judahites pierced through on mounted stakes. "The reliefs on these slabs" discovered in the Assyrian palace at Nineveh "originally formed a single, continuous work, measuring 8 feet ... tall by 80 feet ... long, which wrapped around the room". Visitors "would have been impressed not only by the magnitude of the artwork itself but also by the magnificent strength of the Assyrian war machine."
Sennacherib's Prism was found buried in the foundations of the Nineveh palace. It was written in cuneiform, the Mesopotamian form of writing of the day. The prism records the conquest of 46 strong towns and "uncountable smaller places," along with the siege of Jerusalem where Sennacherib says he just "shut him up ... like a bird in a cage," subsequently enforcing a larger tribute upon him.
The Hebrew Bible states that during the night, the angel of YHWH (Hebrew: יהוה) brought death to 185,000 Assyrians troops, forcing the army to abandon the siege. Yet, it also records a tribute paid to Sennacherib of 300 silver talents following the siege. There is no account of the supernatural event in the prism. Sennacherib's account records his levying of a tribute from Hezekiah, a payment of 800 silver talents, which suggests a capitulation to end the siege. However, inscriptions describing Sennacherib's defeat of the Ethiopian forces have been discovered. These say: "As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities ... and conquered (them). ... Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage."
He does not claim to have captured the city. This is consistent with the Bible account of Hezekiah's revolt against Assyria in that neither account indicates that Sennacherib ever entered or formally captured the city. In this inscription, Sennacherib claims that Hezekiah paid for tribute 800 talents of silver, in contrast with the Bible's 300. However, this could be due to boastful exaggeration, which was common among kings of the period. The annals record a list of booty sent from Jerusalem to Nineveh. In the inscription, Sennacherib claims that Hezekiah accepted servitude, and some theorize that Hezekiah remained on his throne as a vassal ruler. The campaign is recorded with differences in the Assyrian records and in the Biblical Books of Kings; there is agreement that the Assyrians have a propensity for exaggeration.
One theory that takes the biblical view posits that a defeat was caused by "possibly an outbreak of the bubonic plague". Another that this is a composite text which makes use of a 'legendary motif' analogous to that of the Exodus story.
Where the 2 Kings account explains giving 300 talents of silver, Sennacherib's prism records 800 talents. "This discrepancy may be the result of differences in the weight of Assyrian and Israelite silver talents, or it may simply be due to the Assyrian propensity for exaggeration".
