Difficulties Historians Have When Separating Sargon II From Sennacherib

Andrews University Seminary Studies, Autumn 1994, Vol. 32, No. 3, 247-251


Copyright Q 1994 by Andrews University Press.



SARGON'S AZEKAH INSCRIPTION: THE EARLIESTEXTRABIBLICAL REFERENCE TO THE SABBATH?

WILLIAM H. SHEA

Biblical Research InstituteSilver Spring, MD 20904

The Azekah Text

The "Azekah Text," so called because of the Judahite site attackedin its record, is an Assyrian text of considerable historical significancebecause of its mention of a military campaign to Philistia and Judah.'In this article I review the question of the date of the tablet andexamine a line which may be the earliest extrabiblical reference to theSabbath.In this tablet the king reports his campaign to his god. Anunusual feature of this text is the name of the god upon whom theAssyrian king calls: Anshar, the old Babylonian god who wassyncretized with the Assyrian god Assur. This name was rarely used byAssyrian kings, and then only at special times and in specific types oftexts, by Sargon and Sennacherib.The text is badly broken. In fact, until 1974 its two fragmentswere attributed to two different kings, Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon.In that year, Navad Na'aman joined the two pieces, showing that theyonce belonged to. the same tablet.'When Na'aman made the join between the two fragments, heattributed the combined text to Sennacherib, largely on the basis oflinguistic comparison^.^ Because the vocabulary of the text was similarto the language used in Sennacherib's inscriptions, Na'aman argued thatSennacherib was the author. However, since Sennacherib immediatelyfollowed Sargon on the throne, it would be natural to expect that the'A detailed study of the text is given by Navad Na'aman, "Sennacherib's 'Letter toGod' on His Campaign to Judah," BASOR (1974): 25-38,ZIbid., 2628.31bid., 30-3 1.

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248WILLIAM H. SHEAmode of expression would be similar. In all likelihood some of Sargon'sscribes continued to work under Sennacherib, using the same language.Since Na'aman attributed the text to Sennacharib, and knew ofonly one western campaign of that king, he identified the text as adescription of the western campaign of 701 B.C. While that identi-fication was feasible, the reference to two cities taken in that campaignwas hardly specific enough to firmly establish the connection.Given that indistinct connection ...

 

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