veh, the seat of my government, Hezekiah having
sent them by way of tribute, and as a token of his submission to my
power."

It appears then that Sennacherib, after punishing the people of Ekron,
broke up from before that city, and entering Judaea proceeded towards
Jerusalem, spreading his army over a wide space, and capturing on his
way a vast number of small towns and villages, whose inhabitants he
enslaved and carried off to the number of 200,000. Having reached
Jerusalem, he commenced the siege in the usual way, erecting towers
around the city, from which stones and arrows were discharged against
the defenders of the fortifications, and "casting banks" against the
walls and gates. Jerusalem seems to have been at this time very
imperfectly fortified. The "breaches of the city of David" had recently
been "many;" and the inhabitants had hastily pulled down the houses in
the vicinity of the wall to fortify it. It was felt that the holy place
was in the greatest danger. We may learn from the conduct of the people,
as described by one of themselves, what were the feelings generally of
the cities threatened with destruction by the Assyrian armies. Jerusalem
was at first "full of stirs and tumult;" the people rushed to the
housetops to see if they were indeed invested, and beheld "the choicest
valleys full of chariots, and the horsemen set in array at the gates."
Then came "a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity"--a
day of "breaking down the walls and of crying to the mountains." Amidst
this general alarm and mourning there were, however, found some whom a
wild despair made reckless, and drove to a ghastly and ill-timed
merriment. When God by His judgments gave an evident "call to weeping,
and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth--behold
joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and
drinking wine"--"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die."
Hezekiah after a time came to the conclusion that resistance would be
vain, and offered to surrender upon terms, an offer which Sennacherib,
seeing the great strength of the place, and perhaps distressed for
water, readily granted. It was agreed that Hezekiah should undertake the
payment of an annual tribute, to consist of thirty talents of gold and
three hundred talents of silver, and that he should further yield up the
chief treasures of the place as a "present" to the Great King. Hezekiah,
in order to obtain at on