It is in the domain of history that the light cast upon Old Testament Scripture by Assyrian research has been fullest and strongest. No one can read the sketch of Assyrian history as revealed by the monuments which is given in the following pages, without perceiving how important it is for the proper understanding of the ancient Scriptures. For the first time the prophecies in Isaiah which refer to a capture of Jerusalem receive their explanation, and the sceptical criticism is answered which found in them a prediction of events that never took place. The chapter in which Isaiah describes the onward march of the Assyrian host against Jerusalem (ch. x.) is no 'ideal' description of 'an ideal campaign,' the verses in which he tells us of the sufferings endured by the beleaguered inhabitants of the Jewish capital (ch. xxii.) are no 'exaggerated account of a possible catastrophe,' the prophecies in which he declares that the devoted city was about to fall into the hands of its enemies (x. 34, xxii. 14) were not unfulfilled threats. We learn from the inscriptions of Sargon that already, ten years before the campaign of his son Sennacherib, the Assyrian monarch had swept through 'the wide-spread land of Judah,' and had made it a tributary province. It was not the army of Sennacherib to which Isaiah was alluding on the day whereon he declared that the Assyrian host was at Nob, only a short half-hour to the north of Jerusalem, but the more terrible veterans of Sargon who marched against the holy city along the northern road. Similar light is thrown by the Assyrian monuments upon another prophecy of Isaiah, in which he pronounces the doom upon the land of Egypt (ch. xix.). The prophecy has sometimes been referred by critics to a later age than that of the great prophet; but the records of Esar-haddon prove that it is strictly applicable to his time, and to his time only. The unexpected revelation they have made to us of the Assyrian conquest of Egypt, and its division into twenty vassal satrapies shows us who was the 'cruel lord' and 'fierce king' into whose hands the Egyptians were given, and paints the picture of an epoch in which 'the Egyptians' fought 'every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.' The Isaianic authorship of 'the burden of Egypt' can never again be denied.