And much the same may be said of Isaiah's mention of Sargon of Assyria, who is stated to have taken Ashdod. Yet the very existence of such a king was unknown to secular history, till the last century; when his palace was discovered at Khorsabad, with inscriptions recording, among other things, his capture of Ashdod.[113]
[113] Isa. 20. 1. Orr's Problem of Old Test., 1906, p. 399.
Two other cases are of special interest, because the monuments seemed at first to show that the Bible was wrong. One of these refers to a so-called Pul, King of Assyria;[114] but when the list of Assyrian monarchs was discovered, no such king could be found. It looked like a serious discrepancy, and was even spoken of as 'almost the only important historical difficulty' between the Bible and the monuments.[115] But it has now been discovered that Pulu was the original name of a usurper, who changed it to Tiglath Pileser III. on ascending the throne; though he was still sometimes called Pulu.[116] This not only removes the difficulty, but tends to show the early date of the narrative; for a late writer would probably have called him by his better-known name.
[114] 2 Kings 15. 19.
[115] Rawlinson, Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament, 1871, p. 121.
[116] Hastings, Dict. of the Bible, vol. iv., p. 761.
The other instance refers to Jehu, who is stated in the Assyrian inscriptions to be the son of Omri; though according to the Bible he was no relation whatever. But it has now been shown that the words translated son of Omri may only mean of the land or house of Omri, which is a common Assyrian name for the kingdom of Israel.[117]
[117] Driver, Schweich Lecture, 1908, p. 17.
As a last example we will take the dates given for the Fall of the two capital cities, Samaria and Jerusalem. These were calculated long ago (margin, A.V.) from a number of statements in the Bible, giving the lengths of different reigns, etc., at B.C. 721 and 588 respectively.[118] And now the inscriptions from Assyria and Babylonia fix the former at B.C. 722 and the latter at 586.[119] Everyone must admit that these are remarkable agreements, considering the way in which they have had to be calculated.