Sargon

Sargon is named once in Scripture: “In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it” (Isaiah 20:1). At that time Yahweh had Isaiah walk “naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia” (Isaiah 20:2–3), a warning that “the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia,” so that those who had looked to them for help would ask, “And we, how will we escape?” (Isaiah 20:4–6).

He is Sargon II of the Assyrian records, who reigned about 722–705 BC; his army took Ashdod about 711 BC, in the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah. For a long time this verse was almost the only record of him, until the excavation of his palace at Khorsabad, begun in 1843, recovered his own inscriptions, which tell of the capture of Ashdod. His son Sennacherib succeeded him and invaded Judah in Hezekiah's fourteenth year (2 Kings 18:13).