And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
Judah sent to ... Lachish, saying ... that which thou puttest on me will I bear. Disappointed in his expectations of aid from Egypt, and feeling himself unable to resist so mighty a conqueror, who was menacing Jerusalem itself, Hezekiah made his submission. The payment of 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold (351,000 pounds sterling), brought a temporary respite; but in raising the imposed tribute, which he appears to have been under great pressure to pay at once, he was obliged not only to drain all the treasures of the palace and temple, but even to strip the doors and pillars of the sacred edifice of the gold that adorned them. A most important inscription, being the annals of Sennacherib (Sanki-rib), was discovered by Mr. Layard upon a bull at the grand entrance of the palace of Kouyunjik. Among other military expeditions he undertook, he describes minutely his invasion of Syria, mentioning the towns of Phoenicia and Judah he reduced and made tributary.
Then follows an account of his attack on Hezekiah, which is recorded in the following terms: 'Because Hezekiah, king of Judah, would not submit to my yoke, I came up against him, and by force of arms, and by the might of my power, I took forty-six of his strong fenced cities; and of the smaller towns which were scattered about, I took and plundered a countless number. And from these places I captured and carried off as spoil 200,150 people, old and young, male and female, together with horses and mares, donkeys and camels, oxen and sheep, a countless multitude. And Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape. Then upon this Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of my arms, and be sent out to me the chiefs and the elders of Jerusalem, with 30 talents of gold and 800 talents of silver, and various treasures, a rich and immense booty [the treasures of his palace, his sons and daughters, his men-servants and maid-servants, I carried captive].
All these things were brought to me at Nineveh, the seat of my government, Hezekiah having sent them by way of tribute, and as a token of submission to my power.' This is the translation of Sir H. Rawlinson. It had been translated at the same time by other three Assyrian scholars, whose translations, executed independently, were all of them found to be substantially the same. This record, which is written in the boastful style of the Assyrian monarchs, is given in full, in order that it may be compared with the narrative of the sacred historian; and it is interesting, as well as instructive, to observe how closely the register of the conqueror approaches to the account of Scripture; the few points of divergence, which can be satisfactorily accounted for, serving only to increase the weight and value of its testimony. The same amount of gold is stated in both, while that of the silver, as given in Sennacherib's register, exceeds the sum stated in the sacred narrative by five hundred talents. But this difference may be reconciled by supposing that the inspired historian recorded the actual amount of silver coinage, while Sennacherib included the additional weight of silver that Hezekiah gave from 'the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house.'
In the characteristic manner of these royal inscriptions, which were designed for the glorification of the king's military prowess, Sennacherib represents this large amount of treasure as spoil taken from the enemy, instead of tribute received in accordance with a treaty of peace. The mention of 'casting banks and building towers' against the walls of the city; the close imprisonment of the king and his people in the beleaguered city, as birds in a cage; the great and general consternation and tumult of the inhabitants; and the reckless despair of some, together with the misgivings of Hezekiah, and his eventual resolution to send an embassy to the Assyrian monarch at Lachish, suing for terms of submission-these and other points which are specified in Sennacherib's inscription, are all alluded to by Isaiah in his historical account of the crisis (Isaiah 22:1-13; Isaiah 29:1-4; Isaiah 36:2; Isaiah 37:8). As to the sons and daughters of Hezekiah, and the servants of his palace, which are said to have been carried captive to Nineveh, in a clause of the inscription, which, though omitted by Sir H. Rawlinson, is contained in the translation of Mr. Fox Talbot, it may have been a loose statement of the Ninevite historiographer; or, if it have any foundation, it may be accounted for on the supposition that, having been sojourning in some of the fenced cities at the time of the siege, they were involved in the general fate of the inhabitants.
In short, the native annals of Sennacherib, so far as they relate to his famous expedition against Hezekiah, accord in all essential points, even down to the most important of the details, with the Scriptural record of the event. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of such a discovery, which is not only full of interest, as being, to use the words of Mr. Layard, 'one of the most remarkable coincidences of historic testimony on record,' but which, in this instance, as in several analogous ones, has furnished a most welcome corroborative, because independent, proof of the truth and accuracy of the sacred narrative (see Layard's 'Nineveh and Babylon,' pp. 143-145; Rawlinson's 'Ancient Monarchies,' 2:, p. 434; also his 'Bampton Lectures,' p. 141; Gosse, 'Assyria,' pp. 37, 60, 61; Bonom 'Nineveh and its Palaces,' p. 71).