Kings xix. 96-36a, and in this has been inserted a long
prophecy of Isaiah's (xix. 21-31) which has but a vague
connection with the rest of the narrative. In this
Sennacherib defied Hezekiah in a letter, which the Jewish
king spread before the Lord, and shortly afterwards received
a reply through the prophet. The two versions were combined
towards the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth
century, by the compiler of the _Book of Kings_, and passed
thence into the collection of the prophecies attributed to
Isaiah.

The Jewish king was to give up his wives and daughters as hostages,
to pledge himself to pay a regular tribute, and disburse immediately a
ransom of thirty talents of gold, and eight hundred talents of silver:
he could only make up this large sum by emptying the royal and sacred
treasuries, and taking down the plates of gold with which merely a short
while before he had adorned the doors and lintels of the temple. Padî
was released from his long captivity, reseated on his throne, and
received several Jewish towns as an indemnity: other portions of
territory were bestowed upon Mitinti of Ashdod and Zillibel of Graza as
a reward for their loyalty.*

* The sequence of events is not very well observed in the
Assyrian text, and the liberation of Padî is inserted in 11.
8-11, before the account of the war with Hezekiah. It seems
very unlikely that the King of Judah would have released his
prisoner before his treaty with Sennacherib; the Assyrian
scribe, wishing to bring together all the facts relating to
Ekron, anticipated this event. Hebrew tradition fixed the
ransom at the lowest figure, 300 talents of silver instead