Hezekiah's Assyrian King Foe

Taken from: http://creationwiki.org/Hezekiah

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Identity of the Assyrian King

The name of the king of Assyria with whom Hezekiah ultimately fought a war is in dispute. James Ussher^[1] states that Shalmaneser V, the conqueror of the Kingdom of Israel, died in 717 BC, four years after his successful conquest. His authority for this appears to be the Apocryphal book of Tobit. Secular scholars, using modern archaeological evidence, state that Shalmaneser died in 723 BC, which is why Thiele insists that the Fall of Samaria took place in that year). Sargon II succeeded him, and he completed the conquest of Samaria. He died in 705 BC and Sennacherib acceded to the throne in that year, and this is why Thiele insists that Hezekiah's suspension of the annual tribute took place in that year, and the siege of Jerusalem then took place in 701 BC.

Mackey^[21] presents an excellent analysis providing independent support of Ussher's claim^[1] that Sargon was the same man as Sennacherib, the immediate successor to Shalmaneser. Mackey's basis is the appearance of identical sequences of six different wars in both men's inscriptions. Although Mackey still assumes that Shalmaneser died before completing the capture of Samaria, Mackey's most important and relevant contribution in this context is showing that Sargon and Sennacherib are one and the same man.

Jones^[2] finds no grounds to dispute the placement of Sargon between Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, or the traditional dates of accession of Sargon and Sennacherib. He cites Isaiah (Isaiah 20:1 ) for proof that Sargon existed independently of Shalmaneser. Then he suggests that Sennacherib was Sargon's chief-of-staff, or "Tartan," when he first invaded Judah, (2_Kings 18:13 ) and had become viceroy of Assyria under his father Sargon when he besieged Jerusalem five years later. (Isaiah 36-37 )

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