From the Egypt of the 1400’s BC, we travel to ancient Assyria in its heyday, under one of its mightiest Emperors, King Sennacherib. His reign is recorded as 705 to 681. He is mentioned by name in three Bible portions: II Kings 18, 19; II Chronicles 32; Isaiah 36, 37. All three texts tell the same story of a proud Emperor, depending on his own strength and his god Nisroch to defeat the tiny nation of Judah. After all, he had already taken Israel captive, he reasoned, and no one stopped him.

What he did not understand was that God, our God, had orchestrated the captivity of Israel for His own purposes, using Sennacherib as His willing tool. God’s protection is eventually removed when a nation has gone too far. Judah would eventually fall, but not until God’s time, and not under Sennacherib’s rule.

Let’s see how many of the traits for which we seek are found in this man.

• World-class empire, with desire for total control? Yes
• Against Jews? Indeed! It was Sennacherib’s Assyria that first made major inroads into Jewish lands, eventually taking all of the northern Kingdom (Israel) captive, and populating that land with its own people. Soon it would threaten Judah, but after some initial intimidation by the proud king of Assyria, God would stop him there.
• Anti God? Yes, he defied the God of Israel, belittled Him, mocked Judah and her king. Wikipedia gives us these insights into Assyrian Emperors and their relationship to religion: The religion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire centered around the Assyrian king as the king of their lands as well. However, kingship at the time was linked very closely with the idea of divine mandate.[8] The Assyrian king, while not being a god himself, was acknowledged as the chief servant of the chief god, Ashur. Isaiah 36:20 shows us the sneering domineering attitude this man had toward other gods and gods in general. He boasts to the Jews, through his chosen representative: “Who among all the gods have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”
• Violent death? Yes, killed by his two sons while he worshiped his false god.
• Killed by sword? Yes, that was the method chosen by his own sons to end their father’s life.

There is another connection with Assyria to the “seven kings” picture of Revelation, in that Assyria, in Micah 5, is called “the land of Nimrod,” bringing us back to candidate #1.

Seven heads. Seven times Satan has risen up seeking to control all, and humiliate the God and the people of Israel.

Those who seek to find antichrist in Scripture also point, in that same prophecy of Micah to the mention of “The Assyrian” that will come into the land of Israel, tread in their palaces. Messiah will rise up and deliver the people from this man, says Micah.

This intriguing prophecy lends itself to other interpretations, but a word study of the two words “the Assyrian” brings up some interesting possibilities. Is the Assyrian, Sennacherib, indeed coming back, only to be destroyed again?

I leave this candidate by means of the work of one of England’s finest, a “romantic” look at our subject, as proof that Sennacherib’s fame lives on…

The Destruction of Sennacherib, 1815

BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen:

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,