palace. It was written in cuneiform, the Mesopotamian form of writing of the day. The prism records the conquest of 46 strong towns and "uncountable smaller places," along with the siege of Jerusalem during Hezekiah's reign where Sennacherib says he just "shut him up...like a bird in a cage," subsequently enforcing a larger tribute upon him. The Hebrew Bible states that during the night, the angel of Jehovah (YHWH Hebrew) brought death to 185,000 Assyrians troops (), forcing the army to abandon the siege, yet it also records a tribute paid to Sennacherib of 300 silver talents following the siege. There is no account of the supernatural event in the prism. Sennacherib's account records his levying of a tribute from Hezekiah, the king of Judea, who was within Jerusalem, leaving the city as the only one intact following the exile of the northern ten-tribe kingdom of Israel due to idolatry. (2 Kings 17:22,23; 2 Kings 18:1-8) Sennacherib recorded a payment of 800 silver talents, which suggests a capitulation to end the siege. However, Inscriptions have been discovered describing Sennacherib’s defeat of the Ethiopian forces. These say: “As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities . . . and conquered (them) . . . Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage.” (Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 288) He does not claim to have captured the city. This is consistent with the Bible account of Hezekiah’s revolt against Assyria in the sense that neither account seems to indicate that Sennacherib ever entered or formally captured the city. Sennacherib in this inscription claims that Hezekiah paid for tribute 800 talents of silver, in contrast with the Bible’s 300, however this could be due to boastful exaggeration which was not uncommon amongst kings of the period. Furthermore, the annals record a list of booty sent from Jerusalem to Nineveh. In the inscription, Sennacherib claims that Hezekiah accepted servitude, and some theorize that Hezekiah remained on his throne as a vassal ruler. The campaign is recorded with differences in the Assyrian records and in the biblical Books of Kings; there is agreement that the Assyrian have a propensity for exaggeration. One theory that takes the biblical view posits that a defeat was caused by "possibly an outbreak of the bubonic plague". Another that