Hezekiah and Monolatry
The Book of Kings, as it stands today, seems to suggest that the religion of Israel and Judah was primarily monotheistic, with one or two wayward kings (such as the Omrides) who tried to introduce Canaanite polytheism, the people occasionally joining in this 'apostasy' from monotheism, but a close reading and the archaeological record reveals that the opposite was true. Iron Age remains show that in the time of the setting of the Book of Kings, sacrifices continued to be offered at hilltop shrines (which the Bible terms "high places"), incense and libations were being offered throughout the land, and clay figurines of deities were still being used in homes everywhere in the land as household gods; one inscription from the Shephelah, dating from the period, even refers to "YHWH and his Asherah".
The world changed for Judah when the kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 720 BCE. Judah was flooded with refugees; the population of Israel had been nine times larger than that of Judah, so many small Judean villages suddenly became cities, archaeology evidencing that the population of Jerusalem itself expanded by about 15-fold, turning it from a small hilltown into a large city. The social and religious struggles, which obviously would occur with such a large influx of population, are not mentioned by the Bible. Finkelstein and Silberman argue that the priests of Jerusalem began to promote Yahweh-based monolatry, aligning themselves with king Hezekiah's anti-Assyrian views, perhaps because they believed that Assyrian domination of Israel had caused social injustice, or perhaps because they just wanted to gain economic and/or political control over the newly wealthy countryside; Hezekiah advanced their agenda, banning the worship of deities other than Yahweh, destroying the hilltop shrines, actions which The Bible Unearthed views as preparation for rebelling against Assyria.
By 701 BCE, the Assyrians had captured most of Judah, and then they besieged Jerusalem; the Bible's coverage of the events leading up to the siege is sparse, briefly listing only a few refortifications of Jerusalem, giving a passing mention to Hezekiah's water-supply tunnel, and briefly admitting to the loss of most of Judah's cities, but archaeology gives much more detail. For example, the fortifications of Lachish were heavily strengthened by Hezekiah, but it was besieged, fell, and was then burnt to the ground; according to an illustration on the walls of the Assyrian palace at Ninevah, the Assyrians deported the city's population and religious objects before they burnt it.
The Bible claims that nearly 200,000 men in the army besieging Jerusalem were slaughtered one night by an angel, causing the Assyrian king Sennacherib to relent and return to Assyria; it immediately goes on to state that Sennacherib was killed by his sons, while he was praying to his god, implying that this was shortly after the battle. However, as The Bible Unearthed points out, this contrasts with the Assyrian record on the Taylor Prism, in which Hezekiah's mercenaries abandoned him, and he only then convinced the Assyrian army to leave by handing over not only vast amounts of money, jewels, and high quality ivory-inlaid furniture, but also his own daughters, harem, and musicians, and making Judah into a tributary state of the Assyrians. Additionally, although Sennacherib was clearly murdered (by person(s) uncertain), it was in 681 BCE; he had lived for over 19 years beyond the end of the siege, conducting several military campaigns elsewhere, and rebuilding and refurnishing his palace entirely.
Hezekiah predeceased Sennacherib, dying just a couple of years after the siege. His successor (and son), Manasseh, reversed the religious changes, re-introducing religious pluralism; Finkelstein and Silberman suggest that this may have been an attempt to gain co-operation from village elders and clans, so that he would not need so much centralised administration, and could therefore allow the countryside to return to economic autonomy. According to the archaeology there must have been a deliberate expansion of agriculture into the Judean desert, and the rich finds from this period suggest that much profit was gained from Judah's now peaceful position in the middle of many of the caravan routes between Assyria's allies; the state certainly increased its administration of trade to levels that far exceed those before.
Hezekiah's actions had given away the gold and silver from the Jerusalem Temple, impoverished his state, lost him his own daughters and concubines, and reduced his territory to a small region around Jerusalem, most of the people elsewhere in Judah being deported; Manasseh had brought peace and prosperity back to the country, but because the Book of Kings bases its decisions on theological prejudice, it condemns him as the most sinful monarch ever to rule Judah and hails instead Hezekiah as the great king. The Bible Unearthed suggests that the priesthood and populace outside Jerusalem may well have held the opposite opinion—that Hezekiah's imposition of monolatry was blasphemous, and the disasters that befell the country during his reign had been punishment from the gods.
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