Sargon

Sargon II (reigned 722–705 BC) was the Assyrian king who completed the conquest of Samaria and the deportation of the northern kingdom of Israel. His name (Sharru-kinu, meaning the legitimate king) echoes the famous Sargon of Akkad, founder of the first Semitic empire. When his predecessor Shalmaneser V died during the siege of Samaria (2 Kings 17:3–6), Sargon took the throne and completed the city's fall in 722/721 BC, deporting approximately 27,290 Israelites (according to his own annals) and resettling the region with peoples from Babylon, Cuthah, and other subject territories. He is mentioned by name only once in Scripture, in Isaiah 20:1, where he is identified as the Assyrian king who sent his commander against the Philistine city of Ashdod. His great palace at Khorsabad, excavated beginning in 1843, confirmed his biblical identification after centuries of uncertainty about his historicity.