What is the significance of Lachish in the Bible?

An Amorite city in the lowlands of Judah. Its king was one of the four called upon by the king of Jerusalem to join him in attacking Gibeon because it had made peace with the Israelites. But the Amorites were smitten, and Lachish was taken by Joshua after a siege of two days. It was a fortified city in the route running from north to south. On the division of the kingdom it was garrisoned by Rehoboam. It was taken by Sennacherib, and among the slabs discovered at Nineveh is one representing the king sitting on his throne, with captives from Lachish kneeling before him, while his troops, passing in review, show the spoils they have taken. The inscription reads, "Sennacherib, king of multitudes, king of Assyria, sitteth upon a lofty throne, and the spoil of the city of Lachish passeth before him." This slab is now in the British Museum. Joshua 10:3-35; Joshua 12:11; Joshua 15:39; 2 Kings 14:19; 2 Kings 18:14, 17; 2 Kings 19:8; 2 Chr. 11:9; 2 Chr. 25:27; 2 Chr. 32:9; Neh. 11:30; Isa. 36:2; Isa. 37:8; Jer. 34:7; Micah 1:13. Identified by some with Tell el Hesy, 31 33' N, 34 44' E.

The inhabitant of Maroth waited anxiously for good, but evil came from the LORD unto the gate of Jerusalem (Maroth means bitterness). In the Assyrian cylinder, known as Taylor's cylinder, Sennacherib mentions the great gate of Jerusalem.

Then follows a call to Lachish to escape. "Bind the chariot to the swift beast." Lachish was a fortified city, as the excavations have shown, and was taken by Sennacherib. Here is still another play of words in the original. Lachish means "Horse-town," so that it can be translated "Bind the chariot to the horse, O inhabitant of Horse-town." It has been suggested that the sin mentioned in connection with Lachish was that "the horses of the sun" in connection with idolatry were kept there (2 Kings 23:11).

Amaziah lived more than fifteen years after his humiliating defeat and capture by the king of Israel. He died by violence, like his father and grandfather before him. "Now after the time that Amaziah did turn away from following the Lord they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem; and he fled to Lachish: but they sent to Lachish after him, and slew him there. And they brought him upon horses, and buried him with his fathers in the city of Judah," or of David. His "turning away from following the Lord" was probably his final and complete apostasy from Jehovah God of Israel; not when he first bowed down to the gods of Seir, which was the beginning of his downward course. Lachish was the first of the cities of Judah to adopt the idolatries of the kingdom of Israel ("the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee," Micah 1:13), and it was natural for the idolatrous Amaziah to seek an asylum there. They brought his body back to Jerusalem on horses, as they would a beast. (Contrast Acts 7:16.) His name means "strength of Jah"; but we read, "he strengthened himself" (2 Chron. 25:11); his character of self-sufficiency thus belying his name — a thing not uncommon in our day, especially among a people called "Christians."

City in the south-west taken by Joshua and its inhabitants totally destroyed. It was allotted to Judah and was afterwards given to the priests. It revolted from Jehoram. Afterwards it was besieged by Sennacherib, but apparently was not taken. Joshua 10:29-39; Joshua 21:13; 1 Chr. 6:57; 2 Chr. 21:10; Isa. 37:8; Jer. 52:1. Not identified.

Japhia king of Lachish is the fourth confederate. Lachish is again a difficult word. Gesenius from the Arabic gathers the meaning "obstinate," as referring to its impregnability to assault. Young makes it similar to Jarmuth — "height;" but he has at least twelve other names of Israelitish cities translated in the same way: we may well suppose there is some difference of meaning among so many different words. In Hebrew we can only find a meaning, as it would seem, by dividing it. Lach-ish may then mean walk (as) men." In fact Lachish stood longer than most cities of the land against Joshua, though not long; for it was taken the second day.

Japhia corresponds with his city: his name means "shining, resplendent." In the world at large the manly virtues are thus lustrous; but there is manifest danger when shining qualities are prized as such. When lustre is king then the king is surely Canaanite. Lachish comes thus into the confederacy against Joshua, and is not the least among the enemies of Israel. A world of show and splendor is such "darkness" for the people of God as the "principalities and powers" which are "rulers of" it love to work with. Dazzle is easily read as darkness: and alas! the children of God can both be dazzled, and love to dazzle. Eyes that see the glory of God are alone strong enough to meet the resplendent king of Lachish.

The spiritual lesson more concerns us here, and this seems to be the manifestation of divine power as acting for Israel. Sun and moon were both worshiped in many forms by the nations around them, Baal and Ashtoreth standing for them respectively among the Canaanite population. Hence Israel's God was proclaimed here to be "God of gods." The very deities of Canaan lengthened the day to accomplish their destruction! as indeed they had in every generation been the destruction of their worshipers. But Israel warred not in their own strength, and it was not their right hand saved them. If they or their enemies imagined this, the significance of their victories was wholly lost and turned to the glorification of man. Hebron could never in this way have been redeemed from the Anakim, but would have been Kirjath-arba still. Lachish would have kept its resplendent Japhia; and Eglon's wheel have revolved but to grind out "vanity of vanities." So important is it that Israel's victories should be seen not as their own but God's!

"After these things and their faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria entered into Judah, and encamped against the fortified cities, and thought to break into them" (2 Chr. 32:1). Was it not strange? A great work had been wrought in restoring the defaced lineaments of the worship of the true God throughout Judah: yet this was no sooner done, than the enemy came to swallow them up! Those who judged not by scripture but by providence would at once be stumbled: was it not plain that Hezekiah had done wrong in rejecting the traditions of his fathers? Was not, God now chastening him and them for his rash reformation? Had he not lifted up his sacrilegious hand to destroy the brazen serpent that Moses made, treating with contempt as a piece of brass the venerable sign of divine grace to their perishing fathers in the desert, to which the children of Israel had till his days burned incense? Was the Assyrian a judgement?

Moreover the pious king did what he could to fortify himself, sent the lowliest message to the proud Assyrian, gave him all the silver in Jehovah's house, and stripped off for him the gold from its doors and pillars; but in vain. There was little of the simplicity, strength, or wisdom of faith in all this: no wonder that the blessing of God was not with him there, and that the enemy was emboldened to ask all. Rabshakeh is sent from Lachish to insult king Hezekiah, to blaspheme the God of Israel, and seduce the people to surrender at discretion to his master. Along with insolent, deceitful, and profane reproach of all kinds like this, truth is mingled; for there were those (not Hezekiah) who did look to Egypt for help. But the aim of all was to reduce the Jews to despair, and to accomplish the designs of Assyria. Hence the very piety of the king, his zeal for Jehovah in throwing down the altars of false gods, is cunningly perverted into a charge of robbing Jehovah of His honour, from Whom (he pretended) his master had received his charge to come up against Hezekiah. Thus the enemy knows how to give a religious gloss to his own wicked devices as easily as he can blacken the most faithful of God's servants. What a mercy to have the unerring standard of His word to test and be tested by!

Thus the account stands in the prophecy. "And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah [that] Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them. And the king of Assyria sent Rab-shakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem, to king Hezekiah with a strong force. And he stood by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller's field" (vv. 1, 2). There it was where Ahaz despised the gracious word of Jehovah through Isaiah some thirty years before; there now the Assyrian rudely insulted Jehovah and the king.

The king of Assyria, who had besieged and conquered Lachish, sends his servants, the Tartan or general at the head of his armies, the Rabsaris (chief chamberlain) whose functions are not too well-known, and the Rab-shakeh, the political head of the king's household and his mouthpiece on important occasions. They stand before Jerusalem, and Hezekiah's servants, Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah come out to them. Except for this moment, our account agrees almost word for word with that in Isaiah 36 and 37.

SENNACHERIB succeeded Sargon his father, B.C. 705. Hezekiah had been tributary; but on his revolting Sennacherib took the fenced cities of Judah, and then Hezekiah sent him the treasures of his own house and the house of the Lord. Still Jerusalem was attacked, and profane speeches made against the God of Israel. Hezekiah humbled himself before God, and the angel of the Lord smote of the Assyrians 185,000. Sennacherib returned to his land and was eventually murdered by two of his sons. 2 Kings 18:13 - 19:37. In Sennacherib's own account he says, "Hezekiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem, his royal city . . . . in addition to his former tribute and yearly gifts I added other tribute and the homage due to my majesty, and I laid it upon them." The above date would clash with the date of Hezekiah, but it is probable that Sennacherib was co-regent with his father some nine years before he reigned alone.

A tablet shows Sennacherib sitting on a throne to receive the spoils of the city of Lachish. It is supposed he lived 20 years after he left Palestine before he was assassinated. He says nothing of the loss of his army, and perhaps never recovered the shock.

City in the plain of Judah with adjacent villages, near Shochoh, the scene of one of Joshua's victories. It was fortified by Rehoboam, and was in existence at the time of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion. The Jews inhabited it after the return. Joshua 10:10-11; Joshua 15:35; 1 Sam. 17:1; 2 Chr. 11:9; Neh. 11:30; Jer. 34:7. Identified with Tell Zahariya 31 42' N, 34 55' E.