Ahaz of Judah appears to have continued submissive and tributary to the end of his days, but his son Hezekiah inaugurated a nobler policy. He cast off the Assyrian yoke, and sought the alliance of Taharak (Tirhakah), king of Ethiopia and Egypt. Tirhakah, at the early age of twenty, began his troubled and eventful reign. Many years had to be spent in assuring his own sovereignty over the land he claimed to rule. That land was, as he must have known, the prize on which the Assyrian kings had ‘cast their eyes,’ but, whilst his grasp of the central power was so uncertain, inaction and delay appeared the safest policy—‘their strength was to sit still’ (Isa. xxx. 7.) The Delta being always in a state of disaffection and disunion, it was no easy task to undertake military enterprises beyond the borders—‘city’ being ever ready to ‘fight against city, and kingdom against kingdom’ (see Isa. xix. 2). Meantime the rush of Assyrian invasion had swept over Palestine. Sargon had attacked Ashdod; Sennacherib directed his march upon Lachish; both lay on the road that led to Egypt, towards which country the Assyrians had been gradually creeping nearer and nearer across the ruins of conquered states. Forty-six fenced cities of Judah, besides many smaller towns, were taken and plundered by the invaders, and Hezekiah was ‘shut up in Jerusalem like a bird in his cage.’ The king of Judah delayed no longer to send his humble submission, and the arrears of his unpaid tribute, to Sennacherib encamped before Lachish. But the submission was hollow and the tribute extorted, for Hezekiah was in treaty with Egypt all the while. His messengers made the weary journey through the burning desert, their camels and asses laden with gifts and offerings,[88] to implore the aid of the king, who seems then to have been at Zoan in the Delta—preparing at last to march against the foe. Nor was the haughty Assyrian monarch unaware of the secret hopes of the king of Judah. He had captured Lachish, with the cruel massacre and torture of the captives that usually accompanied Assyrian conquests. His attack upon Libnah was postponed, for tidings came that Tirhakah, at the head of the Egypto-Ethiopian army, had crossed the frontiers. Aware of the secret understanding between that sovereign and the king of Judah, Sennacherib vented his bitter indignation and scorn in menaces and insult. He now demanded from Hezekiah nothing less than unconditional and absolute surrender, and taunted him with his vain reliance upon that ‘broken reed,’ the king of Egypt. At this crisis silence falls upon the scene, a silence broken only by the exulting cry of the great Hebrew prophet, as the mighty Assyrian host perishes before an unseen foe.