SARGON sär’ gŏn (סַֽרְגֹ֖ון; Akkad. šarrukēn, “the king is legitimate”).
The name is found only once in the Bible (Isa 20:1) where it refers to Sargon II of Assyria (721-705 b.c.). This Sargon was the son of Tiglath-pileser III, successor to his brother Shalmaneser V, and father of Sennacherib. His reign is amply known from his inscrs. at Khorsabad and from letters and historical texts found at Nineveh and Nimrud. Although he is named only once in the OT, his campaigns are of importance for understanding the historical background of the prophecies of Isaiah.
Sargon II claimed the fall of Samaria (721 b.c.), which had been besieged by his predecessor Shalmaneser V for three years (2 Kings 17:5, 6) until his death in 722 b.c. According to Sargon’s records, he deported 27,290 people from the area of Samaria to Mesopotamia. During the first part of his reign he faced serious domestic problems which were settled only by grant of privileges to the citizens of Assur. In the following year (720 b.c.) Ilu-bihdi of Hamath led Arpad, Damascus, and Pal. into revolt. Sargon defeated this anti-Assyrian coalition near Qarqar in N Syria. In 720 b.c. the kingdom of Judah, under Ahaz, together with Philistia, Edom, and Moab, submitted to vassalage and paid tribute. In the following years, people deported from Babylonia, Hamath, and elsewhere were resettled in Samaria; these, with others brought in later, mingled with the surviving Israelite population, and their descendants years later were known as the Samaritans.
Sargon had scarcely completed the reduction of Samaria when he was greeted by a rebellion in Babylonia in 720 b.c. led by the Chaldean prince Marduk-apal-iddina (Biblical Merodach-baladan who ruled 721-711 b.c.) in Babylonia not simply as a barbarian chieftain but as a great Mesopotamian monarch who left behind traces of his building activities in various cities. Although backed by Humbanigash, king of Elam, an indecisive battle was fought at Der, between the Tigris and the Zagros, making it expedient for Sargon to leave Merodach-baladan as king in Babylonia. Thus Sargon lost control of Babylonia and did not regain it for c. twelve years.
Meanwhile, other campaigns claimed his attention. In Asia Minor, Mita (Midas), king of the Phrygian Mushki, proved a troublesome foe. A rebellion by the vassal state of Carchemish in Syria (717 b.c.) provoked Sargon to destroy that ancient center of Hitt. culture and deport its population, and subsequently to make various campaigns into Asia Minor. Sargon also turned on Urartu, already weakened by Tiglath-pileser III and now gravely threatened by the incursions of an Indo-Aryan barbarian people called the Cimmerians who were moving down from the Caucasus. Seizing the opportunity, Sargon broke the power of Urartu completely, thus removing an ancient rival—and Assyria’s strongest dike against the barbarian tide at the same time.
After 720 b.c. Sargon conducted no major campaign in Pal. This may have encouraged the restless vassals to imagine that he was a man who could be trifled with. By 713 b.c. Ashdod rebelled and other Philistine towns were drawn into the revolt and, as Sargon told it, Judah, Edom, and Moab were invited to join. That Egyp. aid had been promised is clear both from the Assyrian texts and the Bible (Isa 20). In fact, according to Isaiah 18, ambassadors of the Ethiopian king himself waited on Hezekiah, hoping to enlist his cooperation. Opinions were divided in Judah: to go or not. Isaiah was bitterly opposed, both calling on his king to give the Ethiopian envoys a negative answer, and symbolically illustrating (Isa 20) the folly of trusting in Egypt by walking about Jerusalem barefoot and clad only in a loincloth.
Sargon at this time was at the peak of power and preparing to reconquer Babylon. Ashdod, the center of revolt, was quickly taken by storm, and Judah, Moab, and Edom paid homage to the conqueror. The expected Egyp. aid failed completely to materialize and Judah was held in subjection. Later Hezekiah revolted against Sargon’s son, Sennacherib.
At the beginning of 710 b.c., Sargon was everywhere victorious. The whole of Syria-Pal. and most of the Zagros range were firmly in Assyrian hands; Urartu was dressing its wounds; the Egyptians were friendly; the Elamites and Phrygians were hostile but peaceful. Babylon, under Merodach-baladan, remained a thorn in the side of Assyria, and in 710 b.c. Sargon attacked it for the second time in his reign. It was a smashing victory, with Merodach-baladan fleeing to Elam for refuge, and the fame of Sargon continued to grow. The repeated efforts made by its enemies to undermine the Assyrian empire had been of no avail; at the end of Sargon’s reign it was larger and apparently stronger than ever.
As a war chief, Sargon liked to live in Kalḫu (Nimrud), the military capital of the empire, where he occupied, restored, and modified Ashurnasirpal’s palace. Moved by great pride, he soon decided to have his own palace in his own city. In 717 b.c. he laid the foundations of “Sargon’s fortress,” Dur-Sharrukin, a hitherto virgin site twelve m. NE of Nineveh, near the modern village of Khorsabad.
Ten years later the workmen completed a town which was square in plan, each side measuring c. one in. The palace itself stood on a sixty-ft. high platform overriding the city wall and comprised more than 200 rooms and thirty courtyards. The royal abode was richly decorated and the gates of the town were guarded by colossal bull-men. Evidence, however, indicates that the city was scarcely inhabited and almost immediately abandoned at the king’s death. One year after Dur Sharrukin was officially inaugurated, Sargon was killed (705 b.c.). His successors preferred Nineveh, and Khorsabad, deserted, fell slowly to ruins.
Bibliography Malamat, “The Historical Setting of Two Biblical Prophecies on the Nations,” IEJ, 1 (1950/51), 150ff.; G. Roux, Ancient Iraq, 257-262; H. W. F. Saggs, Iraq, 17 (1955), 146-149; H. Tadmor, “The Campaigns of Sargon II of Assyria,” JCS 12 (1958), 22-40; 77-100; W. W. Hallo, “From Qarqar to Carchemish: Assyria and Israel in the Light of New Discoveries,” BA, 23 (1960), 50-56.