Records from the King of Assyria recovered in the 19th and 20th centuries back up the explanation in the Old Testament of the exile from Judah to Babylon

Explaining the Exile from Judah to Babylon

for later Generations

James Tissot, The Flight of the Prisoners.

… The prediction of the future was necessary to explain the exile.  Without the messages of the prophets, the people might have concluded that the gods of the nations were more powerful than Yahweh, which was why they had been captured and taken away into exile by these nations.  This wrong belief is clearly illustrated in Isaiah 36:16-20 and 37:1-13.  During that time period, the Assyrians attacked Judah and Jerusalem and conquered most of the cities in Judah.  Today we have the documents and records from the King of Assyria, which were uncovered by archaeologists. 

The Annals of Sennacherib were recorded

on a clay prism

The Annals of Sennacherib were recorded on a clay prism on which the Assyrian king states:

As for Hezekiah, the Judean, I besieged forty-six of his fortified walled cities and surrounding smaller towns, which were without number.  Using packed-down ramps and applying battering rams, infantry attacks by mines, breeches and siege machines, I conquered [them].  I took out 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, cattle, and sheep.  He himself I locked up in Jerusalem, his royal city, like a bird in a cage.  I surrounded him with earthworks and made it unthinkable for him to exit by the city gate. (Mordecai Cogan, "Sennacherib's Siege of Jerusalem (2.11B)," in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger Jr. (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2003), 2:303.)

The gods of Assyria are bigger and better than Yahweh,

Rabshakeh claims

Assyrian soldier, using a dagger, about to behead a prisoner from the city of Lachish. Detail of a wall relief dating back to the reign of Sennacherib, 700–692 BC. From Nineveh, Iraq, currently housed in the British Museum

In Isaiah 36 and 37 the commander general of the Assyrian army, Rabshakeh, gives a message to the people in Jerusalem telling them not to trust in Yahweh and not to let King Hezekiah deceive them by telling them that Yahweh will deliver Jerusalem.  The Rabshakeh gives a list of countries that Assyria has conquered and demonstrates that the gods of those conquered places had been unable to deliver their people.  Then Rabshakeh insults and mocks Yahweh, saying that he is no different from the gods of the conquered nations and will not be able to deliver Judah and Jerusalem.  The gods of Assyria are bigger and better than Yahweh, Rabshakeh claims.  According to Deuteronomy 32:27, this is exactly what Yahweh said the enemies would think.

Imagine undertaking the journey on foot,

in chains for weeks, perhaps months,

and finally arriving in Babylon

in a land far away from home

Illustration from the Nuremberg Chronicle of the destruction of Jerusalem under the Babylonian rule

The reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin

Apart from the prophetic word, imagine what the people of Jerusalem would have thought when the Babylonians came and conquered the city and razed it to the ground, exiling the citizens to Babylon.  Imagine undertaking the journey on foot, in chains for weeks, perhaps months, and finally arriving in Babylon in a land far away from home.  Imagine walking down a corridor of high walls, beautifully decorated, and arriving at the massive Ishtar Gate of the city of Babylon.  Archeologists have reconstructed this gate, and it is displayed in a museum in Berlin.  Even today, simply viewing the reconstruction is an overwhelming experience.  Were it not for the prophetic word, the people of Judah and Jerusalem would surely have concluded: "Now we know why the Babylonians conquered us.  It is because the gods of Babylon are bigger and more powerful than Yahweh."

They were conquered for only one reason:

they had violated the covenant

Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem (1867 painting by Francesco Hayez)

Such a conclusion, of course, would have been utterly wrong.  They were conquered for only one reason: they had violated the covenant, and the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28 had come upon them.  God had promised that he would send enemies and kick them out of their land, and he had finally kept his word and done it.  God brought the Assyrians and the Babylonians against his own people for violating the covenant.  It was necessary, then, for the predictions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel to be written down so that when those events occurred, the people of Israel would draw the right conclusions.

Source: Gentry, Peter J. How to Read and Understand the Biblical Prophets. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017.