Byron’s poem dramatizes the supernatural defeat of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, when “the Angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead” (2 KINGS 19:35). The entire account can be read in 2 KINGS 18:1-37 and 2 KINGS 19:1-37, 2 CHRONICLES 32:1-33, and ISAIAH 36:1-22 and ISAIAH 37:1-38.
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