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"The palace of Assur-nazir-pal, servant of Assur, servant of the god Beltis, the god Ninit, the shining one of Anu and Dagon, servant of the Great Gods, Mighty King, king of hosts, king of the land of Assyria; son of Bin-nirari, a strong warrior, who in the service of Assur his Lord marched vigorously among the princes of the four regions, who had no equal, a mighty leader who had no rival, a king subduing all disobedient to him; who rules multitudes of men; crushing all his foes, even the masses of the rebels.... The city of Calah, which my predecessor, Shalmanezer, King of Assyria had built had fallen into decay: His city I rebuilt; a palace of cedar, box, cypress, for the seat of my royalty, for the fullness of my princedom, to endure for generations, I placed upon it.
All the multifarious uses to which it has ever been applied, were just as potent in the days of Shalmanezer or Solomon as they are today.
Shalmanezer, as we have it in holy writings, lay three years before Samaria; yet it fell. Sardanapalus see Diodorus maintained himself seven in Nineveh; but to no purpose. Troy expired at the close of the second lustrum; and Azoth, as Aristaeus declares upon his honour as a gentleman, opened at last her gates to Psammetichus, after having barred them for the fifth part of a century....
In the ninth year of his reign, having proved treacherous to Shalmanezer, the king of Assyria besieged Samaria, and carried him captive to his own capital. Thus ended the kingdom of the ten tribes, who were now carried into captivity beyond the Euphrates, and who settled in the eastern provinces of Assyria, and probably relapsed hopelessly into idolatry, without ever revisiting their native laud.
When the foundations of the temple were laying, and when the Jews were very zealous about building it, the neighboring nations, and especially the Cutheans, whom Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, had brought out of Persia and Media, and had planted in Samaria, when he carried the people of Israel captives, besought the governors, and those that had the care of such affairs, that they would interrupt the Jews, both in the rebuilding of their city, and in the building of their temple.
In 733 B.C. this great conqueror again invaded Syria, beheaded Rezin its king, took Damascus, reduced five hundred and eighteen cities and towns to ashes, and carried back to Nineveh an immense spoil. In 728 B.C. Shalmanezer IV. appeared in Palestine, and invested Samaria.
During his reign, which lasted twenty years, Tiglath-Pilaser, king of Assyria, made war against him, by invitation of Ahaz, and took his principal cities, and carried their inhabitants captive to Nineveh. He was assassinated by Hosea, who reigned in his stead. He also was a bad prince, and became subject to Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, who came up against him.
His son, Shalmanezer, was also a great prince, and added to the dominion of the Assyrian empire. Distant nations paid tribute to him, the Phœnicians, the Syrians, the Jews, and the Medians beyond the Tagros mountains. He defeated Benhadad and routed Hazael. His reign ended, it is supposed, B.C. 850.
Now as to Shalmanezer, he removed the Israelites out of their country, and placed therein the nation of the Cutheans, who had formerly belonged to the inner parts of Persia and Media, but were then called Samaritans, by taking the name of the country to which they were removed; but the king of Babylon, who brought out the two tribes, placed no other nation in their country, by which means all Judea and Jerusalem, and the temple, continued to be a desert for seventy years; but the entire interval of time which passed from the captivity of the Israelites, to the carrying away of the two tribes, proved to be a hundred and thirty years, six months, and ten days.
But when the Samaritans, who were still enemies to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, heard the sound of the trumpets, they came running together, and desired to know what was the occasion of this tumult; and when they perceived that it was from the Jews, who had been carried captive to Babylon, and were rebuilding their temple, they came to Zorobabel and to Jeshua, and to the heads of the families, and desired that they would give them leave to build the temple with them, and to be partners with them in building it; for they said, "We worship their God, and especially pray to him, and are desirous of their religious settlement, and this ever since Shalmanezer, the king of Assyria, transplanted us out of Cuthah and Media to this place."
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