[535] One legend of his birth resembles the finding of Moses in the bulrushes.
[536] Schrader, _K. A. T._, pp. 272-274; _Records of the Past_, vii. 28.
[537] Smith, _Eponym Canon_, p. 130.
[538] See Prof. Smith, _Isaiah_, p. 198.
[539] _Records of the Past_, vii. 40. Sargon's words are, "The people of Philistia, Judah, Edom, and Moab were speaking treason. The people and their evil chiefs, to fight against me, unto _Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, a monarch who could not save them_, their presents carried, and besought his alliance" (G. Smith, _Assyrian Discoveries_, 290).
[540] On the monuments called _Turtanu_, "Holder of power." See Schrader in Riehm, _s.v._
[541] Raphia, or Ropeh, is on the borders of the desert. Asia beat Africa in every encounter--at Raphia, at Altaqu, at Carchemish. The impression of the seal of Shabak, attached to his capitulations with Sargon, was found at Nineveh by Sir A. H. Layard, and is now in the British Museum. Shabak died in 712. His son Shabatoh succeeded him in Egypt, and his nephew(?) Tirhakah in Ethiopia. Sabaco's name assumes many forms (LXX., Σηγώρ; Herod., ii. 137; Σαβακώς; Vulg., _Sua_). The Egyptians called him Shaba(ka).
[542] Isa. xx. 1-6.
[543] Lenormant, _Les Premières Civilisations_, ii. 203; _Records of the Past_, vii. 41-46.
[544] Isa. xxi. 6, A.V., "Watch in the watch-tower." Hitzig, Cheyne, "They spread the carpets." Much in this short oracle (xxi. 1-10) is obscure. Isaiah seems, in denouncing the fate of Babylon, to mourn for the ruin of the smaller states of which it was the prelude (G. Smith, _Soc. of Bibl. Arch._, ii. 320 Kleinert, _Stud. u. Krit._, 1877 W. R. Smith in _Enc. Brit._, _s.v._ "Isaiah").
[545] Isa. xxi. 10--_i.e._, "My people threshed and trodden"; LXX., ὁ καταλελειμμένος καὶ οἱ ὀδυνώμενοι _Records of the Past_, vii. 47.
[546] Herod., Σαναχάριβος; Jos., Σεναχήριβος. See Appendix I. Sin was the moon-god; Merodach, the planet Jupiter; Adar, Saturn; Ishtai, Venus; Nebo, Mercury; Nergal, Mars (Schrader, ii. 117).
[547] Sargon seems to have been murdered in the palace of unparalleled splendour which he built at Dur-Sharrukin ("The City of Sargon"). It took him five years to build it with armies of workmen. Its halls, opened by Botta, were the first Assyrian halls ever entered by a modern's foot. It is strange that this greatest of Assyrian kings is only mentioned once in the Bible (Isa. xx. 1). We owe to Assyriology his restoration to his proper place in the annals of mankind. See Ragozin, _Assyria_, 247-254.
[548] Rawlinson, _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 178.
[549] Canon Rawlinson, _Kings of Israel and Judah_, 187.
[550] On his own monuments this campaign, except its final catastrophe, is narrated in four sections: (1) The subjugation of Phœnicia, and of Philistine towns; (2) the conquest of King Zidka of Askelon; (3) the defeat of Ekron, the restoration of their vassal king Padî to his throne, and the defeat of Egypt at Altaqu; (4) the expedition against Jerusalem (Schrader, E. Tr., i. 298). See Appendix I.
[551] This allusion is said to be the only instance of humour--"_grim_ humour, or it would not be Assyrian"--which occurs in the Assyrian annals.
[552] Schrader, pp. 234-279. The account of the memorable campaign is narrated in duplicate on the Taylor Cylinder in the British Museum, and on the Bull Inscription at Kouyunjik.
[553] Sennacherib calls Tirhakah's army "a host that no man could number"; but it was defeated by the better discipline, the heavier armour, and the superior physical strength of the Assyrians.
[554] See Josh. xix. 43.
[555] This very phrase "I imposed on them" is found on Sennacherib's monument (Schrader, ii. 1). The references, when not otherwise specified, are to Whitehouse's English translation.
[556] In 2 Kings xviii. 16 the word "pillars" or "doorposts" is uncertain. LXX., ἐστηριγμένα; Vulg., _laminas auri_.
[557] 2 Chron. xxxii. 9. He had to besiege it "with all his power." He seems to have thought it even more important than Jerusalem, for he superintended the siege in person (Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_, 150; _Monuments of Nineveh_, 2nd series, pl. 21). The ruined Tel of Umm-el-Lakîs lies between the Wady Simsim and the Wady-el-Ahsy (Riehm).