his sons … put him to the sword: Although Sennacherib's assassination occurred twenty years later in 681 BC, the narrator mentions it here to finish discussing the Assyrian king and highlight the irony of his death. Sennacherib had bragged that no gods could save the people he attacked, yet his own god could not protect him from assassins within his family.
At Sennacherib's death, his son Esarhaddon took over and ruled until 669 BC.