Esar-Haddon

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Son of Sennacherib and grandson of Sargon. He succeeded Sennacherib as king of Assyria. He united Babylonia to Assyria without reducing it to a mere province, and resided at Nineveh and sometimes at Babylon. This will account for the captain of the Assyrians carrying Manasseh to Babylon. It was this king who sent foreigners to colonize Samaria (2 Kings 19:3737And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead. (2 Kings 19:37); Ezra 4:22Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. (Ezra 4:2); Isa. 37:3838And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia: and Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead. (Isaiah 37:38)). From the records on the monuments he appears to have been one of the most powerful of the Assyrian kings. He calls himself “the great king, the powerful king, the king of legions.... the just, the terrible.... who reigned from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun.” He says, “I counted among the vassals of my realm twelve kings of Syria, beyond the mountains: Balon, or Baal, king of Tyre; Manasseh, king of Judah,” etc. About B.C. 671 he conquered Egypt, took Memphis, and captured two of the king’s sons. He divided Egypt into twenty provinces, placing some of them under native princes, and others under Assyrian governors with Assyrian troops. He reigned from B.C. 681 to 668.