The name of Sargon occurs only
once in the Old Testament. In Isaiah xx. 1, it is said that “Sargon the king of
Assyria” sent his tartau or “commander-in-chief” against Ashdod and that
the city was taken by the Assyrian general. The statement is in full accordance
with what we learn from the annals of Sargon himself. Akhimit, whom Sargon had
appointed king of Ashdod, had been dethroned and the crown given to a usurper,
who seems to have been a nominee of Hezekiah. As the usurper is called Yavan or
“the Greek,” it would appear that Greek were already settled in this part of
Palestine, and that Hezekiah had found in them allies against the Philistines.
He was now exercising a sort of suzerainity over the Philistine cities, and Ashdod,
under its Greek prince, was induced to head them in the revolt against Assyria.
Judah, Edom, Moab, and Egypt were the other members of the league. (A. H.
Sayce, The “Higher Criticism” and the Verdict of the Monuments [2d ed.;
London: 1894], 424-25)
. . . cuneiform decipherment has
made it questionable whether the occurrence of words which may be of Greek
origin is equally certain evidence of a late date. As we have seen, there were
Greek colonies on the coast of Palestine in the time of Hezekiah, and they
already enjoyed so much power there that a Greek usurper was made king of
Ashdod. The Tel el-Amarna tablets have enabled us to carry back a contact
between Greece and Canaan to a still earlier period. In one of them mention is
made of a Yivana or “Ionian,” who sent on a mission in the country about Tyre.
(A. H. Sayce, The “Higher Criticism” and the Verdict of the Monuments [2d
ed.; London: 1894], 494)
