God could no more protect them than the gods of the conquered nations
had saved their worshippers. In answer to the prayer of Hezekiah, came,
by the mouth of Isaiah, an assurance that the boaster who insulted the
living God, was only an instrument in His Hands, unable to go one step
against His will. Not one arrow should he shoot against the holy city,
but he should hear a rumour, a blast should be sent on him, and he
should fall by the sword in his own land.

Accordingly, on the report that Tirhakah, the great King of Ethiopia,
was coming to the aid of the Egyptians, he hurried on to reinforce the
army he had sent against him, intending to take Jerusalem on his way
back. But on the night when the two armies were in sight of each other,
ere the battle, the blast of death passed over the Assyrians; and in
early morning the host lay dead, not by the sword, but by the breath of
the Lord, and Sennacherib was left to return without the men in whom he
had trusted! Even heathens recorded this deliverance, but they strangely
altered the story. They said that it was the prayer of the Egyptian king
that prevailed on his gods to send a multitude of mice into the enemy's
camp, to gnaw all the bow-strings, so that they could not fight; and
they showed a statue of the king with a mouse in his hand, which was,
they said, a memorial of the wonder.

Sennacherib, in rage and fury, cruelly persecuted the Israelites at
Nineveh for their connection with the Jews; and then it was that the
pious Tobit buried the corpses that were cast in the street until he
lost his sight, afterwards so wonderfully restored. Sennacherib was
murdered in the year 720 by two of his sons, while worshipping his god
Nisroch; and another son, Esarhaddon, became king.

Esarhaddon, who is known by many different names, soon after came out