- 87-
And for this silence, or even the ascription of this campaign wholly to Shalmaneser, there
may be reasons, unknown to us, connected with the relation between Sargon and
Shalmaneser, and the part which the former may have taken in the military operations or
the conduct of the siege. Certain it is that Sargon was not the son of Shalmaneser,
although apparently of princely descent - perhaps the scion of a collateral branch of the
royal family. Nor do we know the circumstances of his accession - possibly in
consequence of a revolution, easily accounted for by dissatisfaction with the king's failure
both before Tyre and Samaria. In any case, the inscriptions distinctly inform us that
Sargon captured Samaria, led away 27,280 of its inhabitants, took fifty chariots, leaving
his subordinates to take the rest of the property found in the city, and appointing a
governor, with the same tribute as Hoshea had paid.
Similarly, the Biblical account of the deportation of Israel into exile is supplemented and
confirmed by the Assyrian records. The places to which they were carried are not indeed
enumerated in the Assyrian inscriptions, but their location can mostly be ascertained.
"Halah" (or rather "Chalah"), the first place mentioned in 2 Kings 17:6, was, judging
from its conjunction with "the river Chabor" and with "Gozan" (comp. 1 Chronicles
5:26), a district contiguous to them, called Chalcitis, where a mound called Gla may
represent the city.* There cannot be any doubt in regard to the other localities to which
the Israelites were carried. They were "placed" "on the Chabor, the river of Gozan,**
and in the cities of the Medes."
- Comp. Canon Rawlinson, in the Speaker's Comment. ad loc.
** Some writers, however, have regarded this "Chabor" as representing not the well-
known river, but a smaller affluent of the Tigris, north of Nineveh. Similarly, it has been
maintained that the right rendering would be "the river Gozan," a river flowing into the
Caspian Sea. Thus, while all writers are approximately at one as to the general direction
of the place of exile, there are sufficient divergences to make the precise district and
localities matter of controversy.
"Gozan" - Gausanitis - the Assyrian Gu-za-nu, is a district in Mesopotamia traversed by
the Chabor (Ass., Ha-bur), the "great" river, with "verdant banks," which springs near
Nisibis, and is navigable long before it drains the waters of Gozan into the Euphrates.
The last district mentioned lies east of the others. "Media" is the province stretching east
of the Zagros Mountains, and north to the Caspian Sea, or rather to the Elbur mountain-
chain, which runs parallel to its southern shore. Its "cities" had only lately been overrun
by the Assyrian conqueror. In them the legendary book of Tobit still places these exiles*
(Tobit 1:14; 3:7).
- But the supposition that the birthplace of the prophet Nahum was the Elkosh not far
from Nineveh, and on the left bank of the Tigris, is at least unproved.
(^)