The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

BOOK OF ISAIAH XX. 93
69 &c., but from the syllabary IT Rawl. 38, 24—26, where the word
in question is interpreted by urhu i. e. nii< > ^"^ ^'^^ V daragu
i. e. •n-iri, and lastly by mitiku i. e. ppyp "march" from np^ (see
above). With the whole phrase comp. Sanherib, Taylor-cyl. Ill, 50
Norris 451. The completion of the text ru-[u-ki] is adopted from
Bruston ; u-§a-as-bi-tu , in this reading we follow the parallels
and Botta 160, 1, u-si-bi-la-a§-su. We have here supplied the form
illikamma (illik with the conjunct, m a) according to Smith's
Assurban. 140, 5.
From the above account* we clearly see that the revolt
of Ashdod was connected with a corresponding movement
of Aegypt and Aethiopia against Sargon, and likewise that
the enterprise of the Assyrian monarch, directed against
Ashdod, was connected with still another against the great
Western power on the Nile. After the fall of Ashdod,
Aegypt evidently despaired of a successful issue to her 402
undertaking and endeavoured to secure herself from the
further consequences of failure by a timely retreat and the
surrender of Jaman, king of Ashdod, who had revolted
and fled to Kfish (Mlluhha).
* We have a parallel to this record in the cylinder, still un-
published, discovered by George Smith; see G. Smith, Assyr. Discoveries
p. 289 foil. In this cylinder it is noticeable that the exploit against
Ashdod is dated from the ninth, instead of from the eleventh, year of
the king's reign. This discrepancy George Smith attempted to explain
by assuming a two years interregnum, but the truth is probably that
the writer of the cylinder-inscription reckoned the years of the king's
reign not from the first actual and complete year of reigning i. e. 721
B. C, but from the year of the royal eponym i. e. 719. We have a
somewhat analogous instance in the dividing lines that are placed in
the eponym-lists, especially in the case of Tiglath-Pileser II (in Canons
II and III for the year 743) and in the case of Sargon himself for
the year 719. — Thus the discrepancy is only an apparent one : in
reality both the writer of the annals (see below p. 96 ) as well as
the composer of the cylinder -inscription placed the event we are
speaking of in the year 711.