Back Again

I'm still of the position that I don't care in the least if this represents failed prophecy. That aside, regardless of any specific word that is used, the prophesy was about attempts to get over or through the walls of Jerusalem with earthen works. Sennacherib claims no direct offensive action and mentions earthen works in order to block the gates. I think a reasonable person wouldn't consider this much of a failed prophesy.

If I had to guess, I would say that the authors of Isaiah had no clue whatsoever about the details of the siege of Jerusalem...and were reasonably sure that their readers had no clue either. The important part is that Jerusalem was surrounded but never breached and that an expensive and humiliating tribute was paid to avoid conflict. I repeat again, that if I were going to be critical, I would focus on the bullshit story about angels killing 185,000 men. I would be shocked if Sennacherib had anywhere near that many men in his entire army and certainly wouldn't need a fraction of that to surround Jerusalem. I am also morally outraged that a god would kill that many human beings rather than simply killing Sennacherib. Like so many bullshit stories from the bible, thousands of nameless innocent people are killed by God just to prove a point to the stories' protagonists who, themselves, are spared and allowed to see the error of their ways for a time.