Sargon in the Old Testament: Israel

The Old Testament texts explicitly mention Sargon once—Isaiah, in an oracle against Egypt, mentions Sargon II and his military action against Ashdod in 711 bc. Two other passages in Isaiah may implicitly refer to Sargon and his reign. Stager asserts that Isaiah 14:9–11 indirectly references Sargon (Stager, 375). Rainey labels the idea that Sargon II’s Assyria is the target of Isa 10:27–32 as “conjectural but not impossible” (Rainey, The Sacred Bridge, 235). However, the most significant biblical passage that intersects with the known history of Sargon II, 2 Kings 17:3–6, does not mention him at all.

Second Kings 17:3–6 recounts the demise of the northern kingdom of Israel, ruled by Hoshea, at the hands of the Assyrians in 722 bc. Hoshea, a vassal of the Assyrians, conspired with an Egyptian king to rebel against Assyria, possibly as part of a greater anti-Assyrian movement in Syria-Palestine (Kelle—Strawn, 469; Miller—Hayes, 334). According to the Babylonian Chronicles, the Assyrians responded with a show of force and laid siege to Samaria for three years, which culminated in the defeat and subjugation of Samaria just prior to 722 bc (Younger, COS, 2.118A). Shalmaneser V arrested Hoshea either before, or during, the siege; however, the inhabitants of Samaria continued to hold out against “the king of Assyria,” despite the loss of their king. At the end of the siege, “the Assyrian king” captured the city of Samaria and deported some of the Israelites to other parts of the Assyrian Empire.

The biblical text attributes some of the Assyrian actions to Shalmaneser V and others to “the king of Assyria,” which seems to imply Shalmaneser as well. However, a problem arises when the biblical record is compared to the Assyrian records, which parallel these events. Unfortunately, no records of Shalmaneser V have survived, most likely because few, if any, were produced during his brief five-year reign. The Babylonian Chronicles’ record of the ravaging and destruction of Samaria to Shalmaneser around 722 bc (Millard, COS, 1.137) seems to be at odds with the Assyrian Summary Inscriptions found within Sargon’s palace at Khorsabad, in which Sargon claims to have captured Samaria, installed a governor, and deported 27,290 Israelites (alternate text, Nimrud Prism, reads 27,280; [Younger, COS, 2.118D]) in 720 bc (Younger, COS 2.118E). The account of this event within the biblical text of 2 Kings 17 seems to align with The Babylonian Chronicles, but it uses the phrase “the king of Assyria” rather than giving a specific name.