Sargon

SAR'GON (in Assyrian Sarrukin, "established is the king"), the successor of Shalmaneser and father of Sennicherib, king of Assyria by usurpation, b.c. 722-705. Of his existence nothing was known for many centuries save the single fact, incidentally stated by Isaiah as the mere date of one of his prophecies, that Tartan took Ashdod by command of Sargon. Isa 20:1. The name was a stumbling-block. But Isaiah was correct, and to-day the buried ruins of the Khorsabad palace attest the accuracy of the prophet. From excavations made at the latter place, we are able to form a chronology, defective, however, of sixteen of the seventeen years of his reign. These ruins prove him, says Prof. Schrader, the distinguished Assyriologist, who is the authority for these statements, "to have made a quite unmistakable progress in originality and fineness of design, in neatness of execution and variety of pattern." The colored enamelling of bricks was carried to a finish unattained in later Assyrian history. The reign was an almost unbroken series of military triumphs; all the nations round felt the power of his arm. His annals describe his expeditions against Babylon and Susiana on the south; Media on the east: Armenia and Cappadocia on the north; Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt on the west and south-west. He had, indeed, very able generals, of whom Tartan was the chief; but this fact does not detract from his personal glory. The expedition against Philistia in which the city of Ashdod was taken, as Isaiah mentions, Isa 20:1, took place in b.c. 711. But this was not the first time Sargon was near Judah, for in b.c. 720 he conducted an expedition against Egypt, and in the year before he took Samaria, carrying away part of the inhabitants. 2 Kgs 17:6; 2 Kgs 18:9-11. "The king of Assyria" referred to is not

Shalmaneser, but Sargon, who claims it, and the indefiniteness about 2 Kgs 18:10; - "they took it" - agrees with the inscriptions, and shows that during the siege Sargon became king. The inscriptions show further that Judah was already a vassal of Sargon at the time of the siege of Ashdod. For the interesting account of this event given by the conqueror himself see Smith (George), Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 289-292. The next year after this important capture Sargon turned his arms against Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon, and reduced him to vassalage. In b.c. 707 he completed the building of the palace of Khorsabad, which was near Nineveh, and in this magnificent building, in b.c. 705, he was murdered.