The next definite contact between Israel and Egypt is found in the graphic and terse statement of II Kings 17:4,
“And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.”
From this point on, the records of Egypt and Palestine are so enmeshed and tangled with the records of Babylon and Assyria that we cannot separate them in their presentation. This king So is identified as the Egyptian monarch Shabaka, who is also known by the names Sebichos, Sabakon, Sabacoa, and Seve. He seems to have been a man of implacable cruelty, if we may judge from the Greek record of his manner of succession. He was preceded on the throne by Bakenrenef, who was one of the wise and kindly lawgivers of Egypt. This noble ruler was one of the first of all the Egyptian kings to come in direct contact with the classical Greeks. The Dorian invasion had now come to an end and the Greeks were free to trade and colonize in the Mediterranean, and in the vigour of their advance they had pressed on to the mouth of the Nile. They had established a close connection with Sais, and by 700 B. C. had entrenched themselves strongly in the culture of that section of Egypt.
The Pharaoh of our present interest, So, invaded that section of Egypt and captured Bakenrenef in a swift and short campaign. The Greek records relate that after treating his defeated enemy with brutality, So then burned him alive. He then established himself as king and ruled not only all of Egypt but Ethiopia as well. He was thus a contemporary of Shalmaneser, Sargon, and Sennacherib, all of whom have a direct bearing upon the records of the Old Testament. One of the interesting discoveries made at the royal library at Nineveh was a seal bearing the name of Shabaka, or So. The visitor to the British Museum, upon entering the Assyrian Room, may pause before Table Case “E” and see this fascinating exhibit of the actualities of these events.
In about the year 700 B. C., according to the record of Holy Writ, when Shalmaneser had dealt kindly with Hoshea, who had accepted his yoke and agreed to pay tribute, the faithless king of Judah entered into conspiracy with Sebakah. Since the common name, So, is the one that is used in the Scripture, we shall refer to this pharaoh by that name from this point on. The tribute that Hoshea should have paid to the king of Assyria he diverted, and paid it into the hand of So for the help that was promised him in throwing off the yoke of Assyria. There is abundant reason to believe, from all the collateral records, that this conspiracy was promoted by So and Hoshea.
This action on the part of the Hebrew king was entirely unwarranted and consisted of a breach of faith on his part. Indeed, the prophet Hosea utters a stern and unmistakable reproof against this action in the strong words of the first verse of his twelfth chapter:
“Ephraim feedeth on wind and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt. The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him.”
As a result of this conspiracy, Hoshea was captured by the king of Assyria and carried away into an imprisonment. The plan did not work out as the faithless allies had intended. Shalmaneser invaded Palestine to punish this rebellion. This wise and able general divided his forces, so that a major portion of his military strength lay between Egypt and Palestine at a part of the border that was easily defended. When So found that the cost of reaching Hoshea with aid was to be a major battle which would endanger his entire dominion, he simply defaulted and left Hoshea to bear alone the brunt of the battle. The prophecy of Hosea was thus literally fulfilled. With the faithlessness that Hoshea had manifested toward Shalmaneser, he had been rewarded by the defection of So from his covenant.
It is interesting to note that So seemed to have been a little ashamed of his conduct, for he offers a rather flimsy excuse for his failure to stand by his contract. His statement is that Hoshea had paid only half of the price agreed upon and for that reason he came not to his aid.
In this invasion of Shalmaneser’s, many of the Hebrew people were taken captive. Hoshea, after being for some time incarcerated in disgrace and punishment, was forgiven by Shalmaneser and restored to his throne and dominion. Shalmaneser seems to have reasoned that having once failed and having tasted of punishment, Hoshea was now to be trusted. Thus, the first conspiracy ended with the common people of Samaria paying the price. Two years later the faithless and foolish Hoshea again listened to the siren song of rebellion as it was sung by the deceitful So and again rebelled against his over-lord and benefactor. Shalmaneser, in great wrath, again moved against Samaria, which resisted in a bitter struggle that lasted three years.
Although the following details are not all mentioned in the text of II Kings, seventeenth chapter, they are emphasized by the change of person in the record. In this bitter conflict of three years, no help came from Egypt. The seventh verse of the text says that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord, their God. They had gone again into idolatry and had put themselves back under the yoke of Egypt, from which God had repeatedly redeemed them. The miserable and faithless So turned out to be a bruised reed indeed! But while this campaign was being fought, Shalmaneser disappeared. A revolution took place in the homeland and the common oriental disease which may be described as six inches of steel between the ribs, quietly removed Shalmaneser from the scene. A usurper named Sargon, who writes his own genealogy and calls himself “the son of Nobody,” succeeded to the throne.
Thus in the seventeenth chapter of II Kings we have many royal persons, and in order to keep the records straight, we set them forth this way:
Hoshea was the king of Samaria; and he reigned over Israel nine years.
Shalmaneser the Fifth was the king of Assyria, who is mentioned in the third verse by name.
The fourth verse continues a record of Shalmaneser, in carrying away Hoshea and punishing him.
So is the pharaoh with whom we have been dealing.
The king of Assyria who is not named in the sixth verse, is Sargon, who succeeded to the throne after the probable murder of Shalmaneser.
This Sargon is the second man of that name to have reigned in Assyria. The time of his reign may be given as from 722-705 B. C. The first Sargon reigned sometime in the twentieth century, B. C.
Sargon the Second thus reigned for almost eighteen years. He was a war-loving monarch, and that eighteen year reign was one continuous, unbroken series of foreign campaigns. Combining his forces with the small host of the Philistines, he joined battle with the Egyptians at Raphia. Going directly to this campaign, after the termination of his campaign against Samaria, he administered a crushing defeat to the forces of So and had no further difficulty with this pharaoh during the balance of his reign.
In the British Museum, Table Case “B,” which occupies a section of the second Northern gallery of the Assyrian Room, contains some magnificent baked clay cylinders which are the original annals of Sargon. These priceless records came from the ruins of a tremendous building excavated by M. Botta at the ancient site of Khorsabad, which was later proved to have been the palace of Sargon. Most of the sculptured objects from this discovery are in the Museum at Paris. These written records, however, which are of infinitely more value to the student, are fortunately on deposit in the British Museum.
In the Assyrian Saloon of the British Museum the interested student will also behold an inscription bearing the identification number 12, whereupon are recorded the names and titles of Sargon the Second, together with a brief and epitomized account of his conquests in various sections along the coast lands of the Mediterranean, including his famous victory in Judah.
A more complete record is found in the Assyrian Room. In Table Case “E,” exhibits 11 and 12, are two nine-sided prisms containing a graphic account of the expeditions of Sargon. All of his campaigns in Palestine are covered and include his conquest of Israel, which he calls “Omri land.” (These exhibits are identified by the Museum numbers 22,505 and 108,775.)
A further record of Sargon’s bearing upon the text of the Old Testament will be found in the Assyrian Room in wall case No. 9. Exhibits 1-11 are fragments of an eight-sided cylinder containing part of the records of Sargon, particularly recording the campaign against Ashdod, which is also preserved for us by Isaiah in the twentieth chapter, verse one. The people of Ashdod had made a league with Judah and this outburst of Isaiah’s was a stern reproof against this procedure. The prophet objected chiefly because the league depended upon the strength of Egypt. To the end of his life, Isaiah never gave up his justified distrust of that country. This, in a brief summary, presents the records of Shalmaneser and Sargon as they authenticate the Biblical account of the conduct of the wretched So. Sargon recounts that Azuri, who was king of Ashdod, had refused to pay the tribute that was due to the Assyrians. Consequently he was deposed by Sargon, who elevated his brother Akhimiti to the place of dominion. Whereupon the people of Ashdod rebelled and raised Yamini to the throne. They then entered into a conspiracy with Philistea, Edom, Moab, Egypt, and Judah. Sargon recounts their defeat and the bringing back under the sway of his yoke the cities and peoples who joined the conspiracy.
A graphic and significant story is contained in the brief and short words of Sargon’s own record—“Samaria, I looked at. I captured. 27,280 families who remained therein I carried away.” The tragic end of Hoshea and all of his noble counselors and advisers is thus summed up in a brief and terrible sentence.
Sargon the Second was followed in turn by Sennacherib, of whom a great deal is known from his monuments. Their testimony coincides with the story of the Southern Kingdom during the reign of Hezekiah. Three years after the ascension of Hoshea to the throne of Israel, Hezekiah began to reign over Judah at Jerusalem. He had a long and interesting reign, occupying the throne for twenty-five years. In the course of his reign, Sargon the Second died, and Sennacherib inherited the throne.
Encouraged by the success of his predecessor Sargon in foreign campaigns, Sennacherib invaded Judah to round out his empire. Hezekiah accepted his yoke without offering resistance, and paid him a vast tribute.
We are now in the eighteenth chapter of II Kings which repeats part of the events of the tragedy in Israel as they were observed by the scribe in Judah. The invasions of Shalmaneser and Sargon are recapitulated and the carrying away of the people of Samaria by Sargon is again authenticated. But the scribe is more interested in recording the events that make so stirring a chapter in the closing days of the kingdom of Judah. In verses thirteen to seventeen, the story of this first invasion and the surrender of Sennacherib, is told in these words:
“Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.
“And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.
“And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king’s house.
“At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.”
Between the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the eighteenth chapter of II Kings, ten silent years roll by. They are voiceless as far as our text is concerned, but they are vocal when we listen to the monuments.
It may have been about 705 B. C. when Hezekiah accepted the yoke of Sennacherib. In the meantime Sennacherib had strengthened his alliances and was prepared to essay a conflict with Egypt. The nephew of So, who is called Tirhakah in the Bible, murdered the successor of So, which was his son, Shabataka. Having gained an empire by this ruthless spilling of the blood of the rightful heir, Tirhakah began an ill-fated reign. He rashly matched strength with Sennacherib, who was more than willing to add Egypt to the nations who bore his yoke. The armies of Assyria and Egypt joined battle at the border at the site of Libnah and a mighty conflict resulted. Realizing the strategic importance of an enemy who would threaten the rear of the Assyrian host, Tirhakah made overtures to Hezekiah and invited him to join in a rebellion to throw off the yoke of Assyria. Hezekiah being willing to save the enormous tribute that beggared his country annually, listened to the voice of Isaiah who advised him to join the rebellion. So Hezekiah pronounced defiance against Sennacherib and all of the Assyrian hordes and announced the independence of Judah. The battle of Libnah was then fought, and Tirhakah was disgracefully defeated. The pitiful remnant of his army fled and left Sennacherib the unchallenged conqueror of his day.
The position of Hezekiah can well be imagined. The strength and might of Egypt had been brushed aside by the armed power of Assyria, and tiny Judah was put in the position of defying the greatest military power of that era. While Sennacherib was busy in a mopping-up campaign at Libnah, he sent three trusted generals to lay siege to Jerusalem and to demand the surrender of Hezekiah. The blasphemous oration of one of these generals, Rab-shakeh, is given voluminously in the eighteenth chapter of II Kings. There was a good deal of truth in some of Rab-shakeh’s arguments. He described Pharaoh as “a bruised reed upon which if a man leaned, it would pierce his hand and wound him to the death.” He rightly said that no other countries had been delivered from Sennacherib by the power of their gods. His error was in assuming that therefore the God of Israel would also be defeated by the power of Sennacherib. He gave the king some short while to think over the policy of surrender, and sat down to invest the city. Hezekiah, in his bitter dilemma, sought out Isaiah, whose advice he had followed with such disastrous results.
The thirty-seventh chapter of Isaiah contains the answer that Isaiah made, and the exact words of his prophecy are also found in the nineteenth chapter of II Kings, verses six and seven. To comfort Hezekiah, Isaiah said to the king’s messenger: “Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”
It is well to keep this prophecy of Isaiah’s in mind until we see how perfectly it was fulfilled in complete detail. In the thirty-fifth verse of II Kings, the nineteenth chapter, the “blast” occurred. The statement is made that the angel of the Lord went out and slew 185,000 of the flower of the Assyrian army.
The next verse says in graphic words, “So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed.”
The literal translation in English of that graphic word would be, “So Sennacherib king of Assyria ‘beat it’.” We cannot blame him for the haste of his departure. Arising after a night of slumber to find 185,000 of his best warriors mysteriously slain, terror must have smitten his heart. At that exact moment word reached him of a rebellion in his own land. This was the “rumour” of which Isaiah had prophesied. He returned to put down this rebellion and never again invaded Judah.
Twenty years later he was murdered. Between verses thirty-six and thirty-seven of the nineteenth chapter of II Kings, a full score of years passed by. After his murder, his son, Esar-haddon, came to the throne and continued the story of conquest and intrigue.
In the meantime, the defeated Tirhakah was unquestionably chagrined to learn that little Judah had been delivered from the power that had defeated him. To apologize for his own failure to support Judah, Tirhakah claimed credit for the defeat of the Assyrian horde by claiming that his god, Amon, had caused the camp of the Assyrians to be invaded by millions of field mice. He claimed that these tiny rodents in one night ate up all the bowstrings of the army and thus they were unable to fight. His interpretation of the event is a bit sketchy, to say the least!
In the Assyrian Room at the British Museum, a very important exhibit will be seen in Table Case “E”. This is a six-sided clay prism containing an unabridged record of Sennacherib’s own account of these stirring events. Here he has given us his story of the invasion of Palestine and the siege of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah. So important is this record that we produce here, in its entirety, the fifth oblique (or plane) of this great prism:
“In my third campaign I went to the land of the Hittites. I marched against the City of Ekron and put to death the priests and chief men who had committed the sin of rebellion and I hung up their bodies on stakes all around the City ... but as for Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke 46 of his strong cities, together with innumerable fortresses and small towns that depended upon them by overthrowing the walls and open attack, by battle, engines and battering rams I besieged I captured; I brought out of the midst of them and counted as a spoil 200,000 persons great and small, male and female, besides mules, camels, sheep, asses and oxen without number:
“Hezekiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem his strong city. I built a line of forts against him and kept back himself from going forth out of the great gate of his city. I cut off his cities which I had spoiled out of the midst of his land and I gave them to Metinti, king of Ashdod, and Padi King of Ekron and Til-Baal, King of Gaza and made his country small. In addition to their former yearly tribute and gifts I added other tribute and homage due to my majesty, and I laid it upon them. The fear of the greatness of my majesty overwhelmed him, even Hezekiah, and he sent after me to Nineveh my royal city, the Arabs and his bodyguards, whom he had brought for the defense of his royal city Jerusalem, and had furnished with pay along with thirty talents.... Eight hundred talents of pure silver, carbuncles and other precious stones, a couch of ivory, thrones of ivory, and elephants hide and elephant tusks, rare woods of all kinds a vast treasure, as well as Unachs from his palace, and dancing men and dancing women. And he sent his Ambassador to offer homage.”
This fascinating document is one of the greatest treasures that archeology has produced for the careful student of Christian apologetics. It is notable not only for what it tells but also for much that is left unsaid. In the grim, brutal days of these ancient conquerors, a defeated enemy could expect little mercy at the hands of the victorious. The kings of Assyria ruled by fear and by the implacable, swift certainty of punishment for rebellion. Sennacherib here refers to a common practice of his day, that of impaling rebellious enemies as a lesson to other vassals. In this particular document he recounts how they hung the bodies of the rebel leaders on stakes around their captured cities.
The technique of this execution was simple. A heavy post was driven into the ground until it was about as high as a tall man’s shoulder. The top of the post was sharpened to as fine a point as the tools of that day would permit. In some cases, the rebel was picked up by a pair of burly executioners who swung him through the air and jammed him down with great force upon the pointed stake. There they whirled him as a sort of a human pinwheel until life quickly fled his shattered form. This was a comparatively merciful way of impaling. In other cases the victim was set upon the sharpened stick until gravity bore down his suffering body to the point where death relieved him after hours, and even days of misery and torment.
But while Sennacherib recounted the successful punishment of the rebels of the many cities who had joined in this uprising, it is to be carefully noted that he changed the tone of the record in the case of Hezekiah. He could not say that he impaled him or otherwise punished him for the rebellion! All he could say was, “As for Hezekiah himself, I shut him up like a bird in Jerusalem, his capital city.” Sennacherib can tell of the fenced cities and small villages in the outskirts of Judah which he despoiled from the hand of Hezekiah, but he never laid hand on the person of the king himself, nor did he enter the sacred city. The “blast” of Isaiah’s prophecy can alone account for the failure of Sennacherib to crucify Hezekiah along with his other rebellious enemies.
Also it is to be noted that by a violation of chronological accuracy, Sennacherib “saves face,” after the ancient custom of the Eastern lands. A conqueror of his standing and authority cannot admit that he was defeated before the walls of Jerusalem. Therefore, at the end of this record he gives a list of the treasure that Hezekiah had paid before in his original subjection! This listing of tribute is falsely made to appear as though it were after the siege of Jerusalem. By the simple expedient of introducing at the end of a defeat the record of a previous payment, Sennacherib seeks to delude posterity and wipe out the memory of his one outstanding defeat. This great prism of this Assyrian conqueror is unquestionably one of the strongest bricks in the wall of defense that archeology is erecting around the Sacred Word of God.
There are many other records left by Sennacherib that are also of tremendous importance. The British Museum has a magnificent section which is devoted very largely to those Babylonian and Assyrian chronicles, many of which coincide with this period of history. The murder of Sennacherib that was prophesied by Isaiah and recorded in the nineteenth chapter of II Kings, is accredited and substantiated by archeological sources.
We learn from the records of Babylon that the years between the debacle at Jerusalem and the death of Sennacherib were occupied with wars much nearer home. We read in those chronicles that the Elamites of Suziana, together with certain allied peoples, again rose in rebellion. It took a number of campaigns, which ultimately ravished the whole of Suziana, to put down this uprising. In fact, the campaigns of subjection were not entirely successful until Babylon was destroyed in 689 B. C. In the interim, when not busy subduing his Elamite subjects, Sennacherib campaigned in Cilicia, where he overcame the armed force of the Greeks, penetrating as far as Tarsus in his victorious marches. The Babylonian records conclude by saying that he was assassinated by his sons in the year which by our reckoning would be known as B. C. 681.
In the Babylonian Room of the British Museum, Table Case “E” contains an exhibit which bears the Museum number 92,502. This consists of a clay tablet which is an extensive chronicle written in the Babylonian characters. It delineates a list of the principal events which occurred in both Babylon and Assyria over an extensive period of time.
The history begins with the third year of the reign of Nabu-Nasir, who ascended his throne in Babylon in 744. The record continues to the first year of Shamash-shum-ukim, with whom we shall deal in a future reference. In the third column of this chronicle, lines thirty-four and thirty-five state that Sennacherib was killed by his son on the twentieth day of the month Tebet in the twenty-third year of his reign. This murder is rather graphically described in terse, but satisfactory terms in the record of the nineteenth chapter of II Kings.
There is no more definite and positive example of the coincidence of archeological discovery with the text of the Scripture than is provided by the records of Sennacherib. Though dead for more than two and one-half millenniums, he indeed has a tale to tell! We can condense his record into one graphic, simple sentence which we can sign with the name of this great king, “The historicity of the Sacred Page is unquestionable in the light of archeology!”
The next pharaoh of antiquity who challenges our interest with his confirmation of the Scripture, is variously known by the name of Necho, which is his prenomen as used in the Scripture text, and by the Egyptian forms of Nekau and Uohemibra. He was, perhaps, the greatest of the later conquerors who sought to extend the power of Egypt, and he was certainly the last of that remarkable group. He expended a good deal of the revenues of the crown in rebuilding the canal of Seti the First, which had formed a waterway between the Nile and the Red Sea. It is difficult at times to place absolute credence upon the numerical estimates of the ancient chronicles of Egypt, but it is highly probable that Necho employed more than a hundred thousand men in this work. Herodotus gives great honour to Necho, telling us that he sent out certain ships of Phoenicia which circumnavigated Africa. He maintained a mercenary army of Greeks, and had one fleet in the Mediterranean, and the other in the Red Sea. His record in the Scripture is tangled inextricably with that of Assyria and Babylonia, and for that reason we must sketch-in the background of this coincidence and appearance.
Shalmaneser the Fifth began the phenomenal rise to ascendency of the great power of Assyria. Babylon was the chief adversary and the strongest foe that Assyria faced in the development of her world empire, which ultimately climaxed in Sennacherib. Finding it impossible to preserve the loyalty of the Babylonians, who were a proud and haughty people, Sennacherib finally destroyed Babylon and carried away its people into captivity. When Sennacherib died, according to the record of the nineteenth chapter of II Kings, his son, Esar-haddon came to the throne. Esar-haddon, more of a statesman than a conqueror, rebuilt Babylon. He united Assyria and Babylon into one great domain, naming the combined kingdom Babylonia. For the sake of administration and as a gesture of amity, he made Babylon his capital. Thus the rebuilt city became the seat of government and the center of the culture of Babylonia.
The name Esar-haddon means “victorious,” or “conqueror.” One of the greatest of all the mighty kings of Assyria, he was a worthy successor of Sargon, Shalmaneser, and Sennacherib. His name occurs but three times in Holy Writ. The first occurrence is II Kings 19:37, where it speaks of his ascent to the throne. The next occurrence is in Isaiah 37:28 where this record of II Kings 19:37 is confirmed by the hand of the prophet, who was an active participant in those stirring events. Later, Ezra refers to him in the second verse of his fourth chapter. In this latter reference, the remnant who returned from the Babylonian captivity name him as the cause of their captivity and acknowledged that he gave them the freedom to worship their own God in their own way.
In the reign of Menasseh, Esar-haddon died and was succeeded by two sons. The elder of these was the famous Assur-bani-pal, who was made over-lord of the entire kingdom, with the section that was once called Assyria as his particular domain. His younger brother, Shamis-shum-ukim was given dominion over Babylon, where he reigned as vassal to his wealthy brother. The British Museum is replete with the records and materials from the reign of Assur-bani-pal and from the brief and tragic rule of Shamis-shum-ukim as well.
The fine hand of Egyptian intrigue enters into the record at this point, again tangling up the Assyrian records in a triangular bout between Judah, Egypt, and Babylonia. The Pharaoh Necho, alarmed by the growing power of Babylonia, gathered together a mighty host and invaded the territory of the great Assyrian king. As a preliminary to this invasion, the Pharaoh Necho persuaded Shamis-shum-ukim to rebel against his older brother and to declare his independence. Into this conspiracy Necho succeeded in drawing Syria and Judah. The blow was struck at the dominion of Assur-bani-pal while he was battling certain tribes near his Eastern border. When the couriers brought him word of the revolt of his brother, and of the coalition formed against him at the instigation of Necho, Assur-bani-pal made a swift and remarkable march, returning to his threatened territory. Necho hastily assembled his army, and the major battles were fought on the terrain of Syria. Syria was quickly reduced, Babylon pacified, and Assur-bani-pal emerged completely victorious.
Necho, not having had time to prepare his defenses, was overthrown, defeated, and forced to bow in subjection to Assur-bani-pal. From the record of the victorious king, we offer the following paragraph as a condensed but detailed account of these tremendous events:
“After removing the corpses of the rebels from the midst of Babylon, Cuthra, and Sippara, and piling them in heaps, in accordance with the prophecies I cleaned the mercy seats of their temples. I purified their chief places of prayer I appeased their angry gods and goddesses with supplications and penitential psalms. Their daily sacrifices which they had discontinued, I restored and established as they had been of old. As for the rest of them who had flown at the stroke of slaughter, I had mercy on them. I proclaimed an amnesty upon them. I brought them to live in Babylon. The men of the nations whom Sam ... had led away and united in one conspiracy, I trod down to the uttermost parts of their borders. By the command of Assur, Beltis, and the great gods my helpers, the yoke of Assur which they had shaken off I laid upon them. I appointed over them governors and satraps, the work of my own hands.”
From this account it will be seen that Assur-bani-pal slew his rebellious brother and destroyed the principal leaders of the revolt, with the exception of those who had pleaded for mercy. As a result of this defeat at Charchemish, Necho was dethroned and led in chains to Babylon. This Chaldean conqueror had a policy that was unique for his day. It was his consistent practice to deal mercifully with the repentant. When the Pharaoh Necho professed sorrow for his conduct, Assur-bani-pal, following his established custom, restored him to Sais where he was to rule Egy