of northern Israelites to far-off lands, settled foreigners in Samaria in their place.
Among those foreigners were people from Babylon and nearby Cutha, as well as those
from towns in Syria. The biblical writer, whenever he wrote, was providing a
geographical “spread,” as if to say that foreigners from all over the Assyrian Empire
had been settled in Samaria.
In Isa 14 : 4 , a caption introducing the famous oracle on the demise of an arrogant
imperial king addresses melek Ba ̄ bel “the king of Babylon/Babylonia,” but this is
misleading. Isa 14 : 4 – 23 follow directly upon a late oracle on the downfall of Babylonia,
and a prediction of Israel’s restoration (Isa 13 : 1 – 14 : 2 ). This placement may have
something to do with the reference to the king of Babylonia in Isa 14 : 4 a. However,
the content of Isa 14 : 4 – 23 suggests that the oracle refers to an Assyrian king, most
likely Sargon II, who was killed in battle and left unburied. The oracle of Isa 14 :
4 – 23 is not, therefore, directly relevant to Babylonian history, though it does tell us
a lot about biblical perceptions of Assyria.
Merodach-Baladan II and HezekiahThe first official contact registered between the two entities, Babylonia and Judah,
was on the diplomatic level. It pertains to a delegation sent by Merodach-Baladan II
of Babylonia to Hezekiah, King of Judah in Jerusalem, as reported in 2 Kings 20 :
12 – 13 and Isaiah 39 : 1 – 2 (cf. 2 Chron 32 : 31 ). John Brinkman ( 1964 ) has provided
a detailed review of the life and role of this Babylonian leader, a veteran fomenter of
anti-Assyrian rebellion. The respective passages in 2 Kings 20 : 12 – 21 and Isaiah 39 ,
are virtually identical, except for the postscript in 2 Kings 20 : 20 – 21 , and it is likely
that Second Kings was the source for the Isaiah passages. Although there is little
reason to question the essential historicity of this report, the precise circumstances
surrounding the event are blurred by the larger literary context in which it is imbedded.
Both in Second Kings and in Isaiah, the arrival of the Babylonian delegation is placed
subsequent to the sparing of Jerusalem and the Assyrian blockade of 701 BCE, which
makes no sense chronologically. The event surely would have occurred prior to 701
BCE, although scholarly opinion has been divided as to precisely when.
Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor ( 1988 : 258 – 265 ) argue that the mission
sent by Merodach Baladan II would have arrived in 714 / 713 , the fourteenth year of
Hezekiah’s reign, which had begun in 727 / 726 BCE. The annals of Sargon II relate
that at this very time rebellion was fomenting in Ashdod of Philistia, and Judeans
are listed among the groups involved in such activity. Cogan and Tadmor consider
it unlikely that Merodach-Baladan would have been able to mount a delegation to
Judah in the brief nine months of his later comeback during the early years of
Sennacherib. In contrast, John Brinkman ( 1964 : 31 – 35 ) accepts the view of Sidney
Smith, and others, that the delegation from Merodach-Baladan II to Hezekiah arrived
about fifteen years before Hezekiah’s death, which occurred in 687 BCE, hence, between
704 – 702 , precisely during that brief period when Merodach-Baladan staged his
comeback. After the death of Sargon II in battle in 705 , Hezekiah rebelled, and there
were rumblings throughout the empire before Sennacherib’s third campaign to Judah
and the West, delayed until 701 BCE.
How was such an event remembered? The stated occasion for the delegation was
Hezekiah’s illness; word of which had reached the Babylonian ruler. The Babylonians
— The view from Jerusalem —