.
To the former tribute, paid yearly,
I added the tribute and presents of my lordship and
laid that upon him. Hezekiah himself
was overwhelmed by the fear of the brightness of my lordship;
the Arabians and his other faithful warriors
whom, as a defense for Jerusalem his royal city
he had brought in, fell into fear.
With 30 talents of gold [and] 800 talents of silver, precious
stones,
_gukhli daggassi_ (?), large lapis lazuli,
couches of ivory, thrones of ivory,
ivory, _usu_ wood, box wood (?), of every kind, a heavy
treasure,
and his daughters, his women of the palace,
the young men and young women, to Nineveh, the city of
my lordship,
I caused to be brought after me, and he sent his ambassadors,
to give tribute and to pay homage.

These are, perhaps, the most important historical inscriptions
illustrating specific events in the history of Israel and Judah. There
are, however, many more that make important, though more or less
indirect, contributions toward a better understanding of Old Testament
history. Just to mention a few: Tirhaka of Egypt, who, temporarily at
least, interfered with the plans of the Assyrians, {140} appears
several times in the inscriptions; the real significance of the events
recorded in 2 Kings 20. 12ff., and Isa. 39, can be understood only in
the light of the inscriptions; an interesting sidelight is thrown by
the inscriptions on the biblical account of Sennacherib's death. In
one of the inscriptions of Esarhaddon, the son and successor of
Sennacherib, we are told that among the twenty-two kings of the land of
the Hittites who assisted him in his building enterprises was Manasseh,
king of Judah. Ashurbanipal, the successor of Esarhaddon, includes
Manasseh in a similar list. Though this king is not mentioned in the
Old Testament under his Assyrian name, it is very probable that he is
the king referred to in Ezra 4. 10, where it is said that the "great
and noble Osnappar" brought Babylonians, Susanians, Elamites, and men
of other nationalities to Samaria. The inscriptions do not throw much
light upon the closing years of Judah's history, but we can understand
the events in which Judah played a part better because the inscriptions
set into clearer light the general history of Western Asia. The
advance of the Scythians, the revival of Egypt in the seventh century,
the fall of Nineveh, the rise of the Chaldean empire, which reached its