word of God was literally accomplished.

But to return to Sennacherib.(1024) After he had ravaged Egypt, and taken
a vast number of prisoners, he came back with his victorious army,
encamped before Jerusalem, and besieged it anew. The city seemed to be
inevitably lost: it was without resource, and without hope from the hands
of men; but had a powerful protector in Heaven, whose jealous ears had
heard the impious blasphemies uttered by the king of Nineveh against His
sacred name. In one single night a hundred and eighty-five thousand men of
his army perished by the sword of the destroying angel. After so terrible
a blow this pretended king of kings, (for so he called himself,) this
triumpher over nations, and conqueror even of gods, was obliged to return
to his own country with the miserable remnant of his army, covered with
shame and confusion: nor did he survive his defeat more than a few months,
only to make a kind of open confession of his crime to God, whose supreme
majesty he had presumed to insult, and who now, to use the Scripture
terms, having "put a ring into his nose, and a bridle into his mouth," as
a wild beast, made him return in that humbled, afflicted condition,
through those very countries, which a little before had beheld him so
haughty and imperious.

Upon his return to Nineveh, being enraged at his disgrace, he treated his
subjects in the most cruel and tyrannical manner. The effects of his fury
fell more heavily upon the Jews and Israelites, of whom he caused great
numbers to be massacred every day, ordering their bodies to be left
exposed in the streets, and suffering no man to give them burial.(1025)
Tobit, to avoid his cruelty, was obliged to conceal himself for some time,
and suffer all his effects to be confiscated. In short, the king's savage
temper rendered him so insupportable to his own family, that his two
eldest sons conspired against him, and killed him in the temple,(1026) in
the presence of his god Nisroch, as he lay prostrate before him. But these
two princes, being obliged after this parricide to fly into Armenia, left
the kingdom to Esarhaddon, their youngest brother.

(M170) ESARHADDON. We have already observed, that after Merodach-Baladan
there was a succession of kings at Babylon, of whom history has
transmitted nothing but the names.(1027) The royal family becoming
extinct, there was an eight years' interregnum, full of troubles and
commotions. Esarhaddon, taking advantage of th