Book 4 — XIX.—SENNACHERIB.
Reading edition
1. Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, that which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.
2. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.
3. Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.
4. By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots, I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar-trees thereof, and the choice fir-trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.
5. I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places.
6. Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.
7. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.
8. But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.
9. Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.
10. And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.
11. And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
12. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.
13. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.
14. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.
15. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
16. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
17. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.
II Kings, xix, 20–36.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.
1. The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 2. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with its banners at sunset was seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. 3. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still. 4. And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide, But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 5. And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail, And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 6. And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.
Byron.
