Sargon

Biblical Record

Sargon's name appears only once in the entire Bible, in Isaiah 20:1. The text reads: "In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it." Tartan is understood not as a personal name but as a title designating the supreme commander of the Assyrian army. Ashdod was a major city of Philistia.

This event serves as the time setting for a sign: at God's command, the prophet Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years (Isaiah 20:2-3). The sign foreshadowed that the Egyptians and the Cushites would be led away captive by the king of Assyria (Isaiah 20:4), and it warned the people of Judah not to rely on Egypt (Isaiah 20:5-6).

Scripture records nothing further about Sargon's life or deeds. According to extrabiblical sources, he succeeded Shalmaneser V on the throne, and after his death his son Sennacherib became king. Sennacherib is the king who appears in 2 Kings 18–19 and Isaiah 36–37.

Significance in the Bible

Sargon represents the era in which Assyria was conquering, one after another, the nations surrounding Israel and Judah. In Isaiah, his name serves as a chronological marker showing that God's warning was proclaimed in connection with actual historical events. The New Testament does not mention Sargon.

Interpretations and Debates

Who captured Samaria? Second Kings 17:3-6 and 18:9-10 record that Shalmaneser king of Assyria besieged Samaria and that the city fell three years later. However, 2 Kings 17:6 does not name the king who captured Samaria. Sargon's inscriptions, for their part, are known to claim that he conquered Samaria and deported more than 27,000 of its inhabitants. Scholars are therefore divided:

• One view holds that Shalmaneser completed the capture and that Sargon, early in his reign, recorded the achievement as his own.
• Another view holds that Shalmaneser began the siege and that Sargon completed it or carried out the deportation of the population.

This question is also bound up with the debate over the date of the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel. The fall of Samaria is generally placed around 722 or 721 BC, and the conquest of Ashdod around 712 or 711 BC, though scholars differ on the dates.

Relationship to archaeology. For a long time, Sargon's name was almost unknown outside the Bible. Then, in the mid-nineteenth century, the remains of his palace and his inscriptions were excavated at Khorsabad. Introductions to biblical archaeology and apologetic works frequently cite this discovery as an example of a biblical record confirmed by extrabiblical sources.

Distinguishing the name. Sargon II is a different person from Sargon of Akkad, a king of a much earlier era.

In the Korean Church

Sargon is rarely the subject of a sermon in his own right. He is mentioned mainly in expository preaching on Isaiah 20 or in Bible study when the historical background of the book of Isaiah is explained. Lectures and textbooks introducing biblical archaeology also treat him as an example demonstrating the historicity of the Bible.