Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/369

 storming the city of Samaria, and subduing the whole country of Israel. The kingdom of Samaria was put an end to, the people being carried into captivity and spread over the northern provinces of the Assyrian empire and in the cities of the Medes. It appears to be Sargon who is referred to in 2 Kings xvii. 6, and xviii. 11 (although the passages had hitherto been understood of Shalmaneser), where "the king of Assyria" took Samaria and carried Israel away, placing in their cities men from Babylon, from Cuthah, from Avva and Hamath and Sepharvaim.

In the eleventh year of Sargon the people of Ashdod in Philistia deposed the ruler whom Sargon had placed over them, and set up a man named Yavan, whose chief recommendation was his hostility to Assyria. Yavan made league with Hezekiah, king of Judah, with Moab, and with Edom, and led the Philistines to revolt. The leaguers sent an embassy to Egypt, asking aid, and Pharaoh held out encouragements, but did not give any assistance when the hour of danger came. Sargon, learning of the revolt, came to Palestine; Yavan fled into Egypt, the rebellion collapsed, and the cities of Ashdod and Gimtu were taken by the Assyrians. Yavan ultimately delivered himself up to the king of Meroe, or Ethiopia, who bound him and sent him in chains to Sargon.

The expedition against Ashdod took place in 711, during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and is the one referred to in the twentieth chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet denounces the conduct of Egypt. The way in which Isaiah speaks of the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, in this and other chapters, is remarkably justified by the account given in the Assyrian inscriptions. Egypt is described in the annals of Sargon as a weak power, always stirring up revolts against Assyria, and unable to help or shield the revolters. "In those days" (remarks Mr George Smith, from whose larger work we are here