th presents.

[Illustration: SEAL OF SHABAK.]

Six years afterwards Sargon died, and his son, Sennacherib, mounted the
Assyrian throne. At once south-western Asia was in a ferment. The
Phoenician and Philistine kings recently subjected by Tiglath-Pileser and
Sargon, broke out in open revolt. Hezekiah, king of Judah, joined the
malcontents. The aid of Egypt was implored, and certain promises of
support and assistance received, in part from Tehrak, in part from
Shabatok and other native rulers of nomes and cities. Sennacherib, in
B.C. 701, led his army into Syria to suppress the rebellion, reduced
Phoenicia, received the submission of Ashdod, Ammon, Moab, and Edom; took
Ascalon, Hazor, and Joppa, and was proceeding against Ekron, when for
the first time he encountered an armed force in the field. A large
Egyptian and Ethiopian contingent had at last reached Philistia, and,
having united itself with the Ekronites, stood prepared to give the
Assyrians battle near Eltekeh. The force consisted of chariots,
horsemen, and footmen, and was so numerous that Sennacherib calls it "a
multitude that no man could number." Once more, however, Africa had to
succumb. Sennacherib at Eltekeh defeated the combined forces of Egypt
and Ethiopia with as much ease and completeness as Sargon at Raphia; the
multitudinous host was entirely routed, and fled from the field, leaving
in the hands of the victors the greater portion of their war-chariots
and several sons of one of their kings.

After this defeat, it is not surprising that Tehrak made no further
effort. Hezekiah, the last rebel unsubdued, was left to defend himself
as he best might. The Egyptians retreated to their own borders, and
there awaited attack. It seemed as if the triumph of Assyria was
assured, and as if her yoke must almost immediately be imposed alike
upon Judea, upon Egypt, and upon the kingdom of Napata; but an
extraordinary catastrophe averted the immediate danger, and gave to
Egypt and Ethiopia a respite of thirty-four years. Sennacherib's army,
of nearly two hundred thousand men, was almost totally destroyed in one
night. "The angel of the Lord went forth," says the contemporary writer,
Isaiah, "and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore
and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold,
they were all dead corpses" (Isa. xxxvii. 36). Whatever the agency
employed in this remarkable destruction--whether it was caused by a
simoon, or