מלכים ב, פרק י״ט, פסוק י״ח

The sweeping military victories of the Assyrian empire often included the complete destruction of the religious centers belonging to the nations they conquered. The primary approach among commentators is that the Assyrians carried this out by burning the temples of these defeated peoples to the ground and casting their idols into the flames.

This historical success, however, was not a victory over actual divine forces. Instead, it simply exposed the physical and limited nature of the idols themselves. The conquering armies could easily harm these objects because the statues lacked any true divinity or real power. They were nothing more than wood and stone, basic material items crafted by human hands. Because these idols were purely physical creations, they were entirely vulnerable to physical destruction, allowing the Assyrian forces to wipe them out completely.