Nadene Goldfoot
Jerusalem was under siege in 701 BCE by the Assyrians, yet they suddenly turned back. Why? Yes, a plague likely struck the Assyrian army during the siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE: In the Bible, the angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in the night, forcing Sennacherib to break camp. The Babylonian historian Berossus wrote that a plague devastated the Assyrian army.
Sennacherib, until 689 BCE, was busy fighting with Elam and Babylon. The kings of Phoenecia and Israel, led by Hezekiah (720-692 BCE) , rose in revolt, Sennacherib, the Assyrian, invaded Judah in 701 BCE. he captured 46 cities but not Jerusalem. He took many prisoners. A plague broke out in his camp, causing him to retreat.
In 720 BC, the Assyrian army captured Samaria, the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel, and carried away many Israelites into captivity. The virtual destruction of Israel left the southern kingdom, Judah, to fend for itself among warring Near-Eastern kingdoms. After the fall of the northern kingdom, the kings of Judah tried to extend their influence and protection to those inhabitants who had not been exiled. As they were about to lose a battle with Sennacherib, the Assyrians were hit with a terrible plague that ended their war. Although Judah was a vassal of Assyria during this time and paid an annual tribute to the powerful empire, it was the most important state between Assyria and Egypt. Hezekiah didn't pay during the plague, though. It is more difficult to know the role of disease in biblical times. One area where it may have had an impact is the Assyrian war led by Sennacharib against ancient Judah in 701 B.C.E. Though the Assyrian armies were mighty, and conquered most of the kingdom, they departed after a siege of Jerusalem, without invading and destroying the city. In the biblical account (2 Kings 18), an angel killed many of the soldiers, and so they departed.
Could it have been some form of flu-virus, like COVID? It's mutating now, and people are still catching it. Being angels were thought to be the cause, that means they had no way of seeing the cause, I would think. Suddenly soldiers were getting ill and dying. It sounds like WWI's plague.
The 1918 influenza pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu, was a plague that affected the U.S. Army and other armies during World War I: The virus originated in Kansas and was likely carried to Camp Funston by young men leaving the area for military service. The virus spread through the Western Front in France, Germany, Austria, and the Slavic nations. Soldiers constantly moved between camps across the country, which helped the virus spread. The pandemic killed an estimated 50,000 U.S. soldiers, and may have killed up to 100,000 soldiers overall. It also rendered millions of soldiers ineffective. The pandemic shortened World War I, and it's unclear if it had an impact on the course of the war. However, the cessation of fighting in the fall of 1918 may have prevented battle casualties from exceeding the deaths from influenza. The pandemic also had a significant impact on the U.S. population, infecting over a quarter of the population and killing about 675,000 people.
Herodotus wrote the army was overrun by mice, a possible reference to mouse-borne diseases. Some Biblical scholars take this to an allusion that the Assyrian army suffered the effects of a mouse- or rat-borne disease such as bubonic plague. More recently, historian William H. McNeill speculated that cholera, due to lack of access to fresh water, weakened the soldiers. He felt this may have saved Judaism from annihilation, and thus also saved the still-fledgling concept of monotheism.
The Antonine Plague, also known as the Plague of Galen, was a severe epidemic that struck the Roman Empire between 165 and 189 CE. It's believed that soldiers returning from fighting in the Near East brought the disease to Rome. The plague is thought to have been smallpox, based on the skin eruptions that appeared on the body. The Antonine Plague had a devastating impact on the Roman Empire, affecting the economy, military, and population. It's estimated that the plague killed between 5 and 10 million people, which was about 10% of the empire's population. The plague is thought to have contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire, and some historians believe it may have even hastened the empire's collapse.
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