Sennacherib to tell us in his own words of his great works and military
expeditions. Respecting the decoration of Nineveh, he says: "I raised
again all the edifices of Nineveh, my royal city; I reconstructed all its
old streets, and widened those that were too narrow. I have made the whole
town a city shining like the sun."

Concerning an expedition against Hezekiah, king of Judah, he says: "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, asses 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." [Footnote: Rawlinson's _Ancient Monarchies_,
Vol. II. p. 161.]

While Sennacherib was besieging Jerusalem, the king of Egypt appeared in
the field in the south with aid for Hezekiah. This caused Sennacherib to
draw off his forces from the siege to meet the new enemy; but near the
frontiers of Egypt the Assyrian host, according to the Hebrew account, was
smitten by "the angel of the Lord," [Footnote: This expression is a
Hebraism, meaning often any physical cause of destruction, as a plague or
storm. In the present case, the destroying agency was probably a
pestilence. ] and the king returned with a shattered army and without
glory to his capital, Nineveh.

Sennacherib employed the closing years of his reign in the digging of
canals, and in the erection of a splendid palace at Nineveh. He was
finally murdered by his own sons.