then, after crossing the gorge at Michmash, encamped at Nob, outside Jerusalem on the north. Moreover, the prophet intimates, he is likely to take the city; whereas, in the later chapter, he says, "He shall not take it, nor so much as shoot an arrow against it." It was a great difficulty, and it appeared to be a contradiction; but it is now satisfactorily explained, for we find from the Assyrian inscriptions that there had been an earlier campaign, conducted by Sargon, the father of Sennacherib, ten years before, and that he it was who actually came by the northerly route, and did capture Carchemish, &c., on his way. There can be no doubt that if we read the 10th chapter of Isaiah with Sargon in our minds, and not Sennacherib, all difficulty disappears.
In the 20th chapter of Isaiah there is an incidental mention of this Sargon, "In the year that the Tartan (i.e., the commander-in-chief) came unto Ashdod, when Sargon, the king of Assyria, sent him," &c.; and for twenty-five centuries this had been the only evidence that any such monarch had lived. Not unnaturally the evidence was thought insufficient—this isolated reference standing like a doubtful fossil in old-world rocks—and many historians and critics wished to identify Sargon with Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, or Esarhaddon. Some said that Isaiah had made a mistake. But Nineveh is disinterred, and it turns out that Sargon was a very great king, and not even the first of that name, for there had been two Sargons, heroes of antiquity, before him. M. Botta finds at Khorsabad the palace of Sargon; and it appears that he was the successor of Shalmaneser, he was the father of Sennacherib, and he reigned for seventeen years. Among the treasures which Mr George Smith recovered from the ruins of Nineveh is the royal seal of Sargon, with his name and date.
As soon as Sargon ascended the throne he prosecuted the Syrian war with vigour, keeping up the siege of Tyre,
