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Updated: May 31, 2025
And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it. And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is in the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.
It is he who fulfills the wishes of the kings; and when the kings enter upon a campaign against Babylonia, as they frequently did to quell the uprisings that were constantly occurring in the one or the other of the southern districts, they emphasize, as Shalmaneser II. does, that he enters upon this course at the command of Marduk.
While he thus cursorily disposes of the prophetical writers, he seizes on any scrap of Hellenistic authors which he could find to confirm the Bible story, or rather to confirm the existence of the personages mentioned in the Bible. Thus he quotes the Phoenician historian Menander, who confirms the existence and exploits of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser.
He repaired and adorned the palace of Shalmaneser II., in the centre of the Nimrud mound; and he built a new edifice at the south-eastern corner of the platform, which seems to have been the most magnificent of his erections. Unfortunately, in neither case were his works allowed to remain as he left them.
So also Shalmaneser II., Obelisk, l. 179, unless Marduk here is an error for Ramman, cf. l. 175. See above, p. 146. The so-called Prunkinschrift, ll. 174 seq. Ashurbanabal, Rassam Cylinder, col ix. ll. 76, 77. See above, p. 205. IR. II. col. iv. ll. 34, 35. See below, pp. 231, 237. Rawlinson, ii. 66. Rassam Cylinder, col. x. ll. 25-27. See Tiele, Babyl. Assyr. Geschichte, p. 127. Obelisk, l. 52.
Judah saw that her sister was put away, and delivered by God into the hands of Shalmaneser, who carried her away beyond Babylon, and yet, though she saw it, she went and played the harlot also a sign of great hardness of heart, and of the want of the fear of God indeed.
Shalmaneser, upon this, came up against Samaria for the second time, determined now to punish his vassal's perfidy with due severity. Apparently, he was unresisted; at any rate, Hoshea fell into his power, and was seized, bound, and shut up in prison. A year or two later Shalmaneser made his third and last expedition into Syria.
Shalmaneser does not assert that he either received submission or imposed a tribute; and the fact that he did not venture to renew the war for five years seems to show that the resistance which he had encountered made him hesitate about continuing the struggle.
Under the immediate successors of Shalmaneser the Assyrian prestige was maintained at a high level by dint of the same lavish bloodshed and truculent energy; but towards the eighth century it began to decline. There was then a period of languor and decadence, some echo of which, and of its accompanying disasters, seems to have been embodied by the Greeks in the romantic tale of Sardanapalus.
To illustrate this fact, let us take the black obelisk of Shalmaneser II., found by Layard at Nimroud. It is a column of basalt seven feet high and about two feet wide at the base, from which it narrows slightly, until near the top it is reduced by three steps.
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