The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament; - The Search For ...

SECOND BOOK OF KINGS XVII. 267
but, as we now know, Sargon. See Studien und Kritiken
1867. in. pp. 496 foil.*; see also note on verse 24. 275
and gave them abodes in Chalah and on the Chahor, the
river of Gozan , and in the towns of the Medes. Sargon
gives us no information respecting the districts assigned
by him to the Israelites. On the other hand we find in
the inscriptions mention of the localities referred-to in this
passage. (1) The Chabor : Ha-
bur, Inscr. of Asurndsir-
habal col. I. 77; III, 3. 31; (2) The land Gozan:
Gu-za-na, occurs several times in the list of governors.
In another, a geographical list (II Rawl. 53), Guzana is
mentioned along with Na-si-bi-na i. e. Nisibis. It may
thus be assumed that we have to look for this spot
in Mesopotamia **. With this agrees the fact that the
place is referred-to in 2 Kings XIX. 12 along with two
*) 2 Kings XVII. 1— 6 and 24—33 stood in immediate succession
in the original text of the imperial annals, before the long interpolation
of the Deuteronomic writer 7— 23 was inserted ; see Stud. u. Krit. ibid.
De Wette-Schrader, Einleitung ins Alte Test. 8th ed. § 221 note f
p. 355.
** Delitzsch, Parad. p. 185, is indeed inclined to regard Gozan-Guzana
as very closely connected with Nasibina-Nisibis (?). — To the identifi-
cation of the Ch&bor of the Bible with the Ch§,bflr . ».jL3» emptying
itself North of Niniveh into the Tigris from the North-East, and to the
identification of the Biblical Gozan with the country .•j';^; in the
region where this Ch&bur takes its rise (Jakut II, 957; the same
Moshtarik 150) — a supposition which might appear strengthened by
the accompanying mention of the cities of Media— it may be ob-
jected (1) that the identification of iM'j^j with l^l'j is questionable.
(2) The designation of a river by a country, as a mark of distinction
from another river, presupposes that this country was knowu. This
may apply to the Gozan of Mesopotamia, but not to Gozan of Adher-
beidsban. (3) A Hebrew living in Palestine could properly understand
by the above terms only the Mesopotamian Chabor and the Mesopotamian
Gdz4n.
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