- 79-
also historically the most trustworthy has in important parts been destroyed or rendered
illegible by a later monarch of a different dynasty (Esarhaddon).**
- We are here following the arrangement of Schrader, both in his work, Die
Keilinschrifter u. d. A. Test. and in the articles contributed by the same scholar to
Riehm's Hand-Worterb.
** Schrader, Die Keilinschr. pp. 242, 243. That scholar complains of the misarrangement
of the texts. One of the plates, seen by Sir Henry Rawlinson, which records the killing of
Rezin, had been left in Asia, and has since hopelessly disappeared.
Nevertheless we are able to gather a sufficiently connected history at any rate of twelve
out of the eighteen years of the reign of Tiglath-pileser. Its beginning, and to the period of
the taking of Arpad, has been described in the previous chapter. And thus much may be
added generally, that "the picture of Tiglath-pileser derived from the Assyrian
inscriptions entirely corresponds with what we know of him from the Bible.*
- Schrader u.s. p. 247.
Further, we learn that in Tiglath-pileser's expedition against the Syro-Israelitish league
his first movement was against Israel and the smaller nations around Judah (2 Chronicles
28:17, 18). A brief account of the campaign against Israel is given in 2 Kings 15:29, 30,
which we cannot help thinking is there out of its place.*
- This may in part account for the confusion in the notice about "the 20th year of
Jotham."
But it correctly indicates, in accordance with the Assyrian inscriptions, the priority of the
march against Israel to that upon Damascus, which is recorded in 2 Kings 16:9, and it
seems also alluded to in 2 Chronicles 28:16, comp. ver. 17. From the Assyrian
inscriptions we learn that Tiglath-pileser made an expedition against Philistia - that
country being presumably named as the utmost western objective of a campaign which
was equally directed against Samaria, the Phoenician towns, Edom, Moab, and Ammon,
and even affected Judah. To the latter the notice in 2 Chronicles 28:20 may possibly bear
reference.
Judging from the order of the conquered cities mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions,
Tiglath-pileser had left Damascus aside, and marched straight on the old Canaanitish
towns at the western foot of Lebanon, which commanded the road to Palestine. Two of
these are specially mentioned, Arka* (Genesis 10:17), the modern Irka, about twelve
miles north-east from Tripolis, and Zemar (Genesis 10:18), the modern Symra, the
ancient Simyros.**
(^)