Nadav Na'aman, «New Light on Hezekiah's Second Prophetic Story (2 Kgs 19,9b-35)», Vol. 81 (2000) 393-402
The article re-examines some elements in Account B2 (2 Kgs 19,9b-35) in an effort to shed more light on the date and place in which the story was composed. It is suggested that the list of cities mentioned in vv. 12-13 reflects the conquests of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadrezzar in the late seventh century BCE. It is also suggested that vv. 17-18 may reflect the Babylonian practice of destroying cult statues during their conquest of Assyria. The author of Account B2 was probably a descendant of a Judean deportee who lived in eastern Babylonia in the second half of the sixth century BCE. It is further suggested that the Deuteronomist combined chronistic and narrative early texts (Accounts A and B1) and integrated them into his composition of the history of Israel.
identified in the area of eastern Babylonia11. It is mentioned before Samaria, the region where the deportees were settled. The text of 2 Kgs 18,33-34 refers to three cities that participated in the rebellion against Sargon in 720 BCE, and to a place in eastern Babylonia that was conquered by Sargon during his campaigns against Babylonia in the years 710-709 BCE12. It is evident that the four toponyms mentioned in Account B1 are drawn from the western and eastern campaigns of Sargon II, Sennacheribs father.
The list of cities in 2 Kgs 19,12-13 is almost entirely different from the list in 2 Kgs 18,33-34, and from the list of peoples settled by Sargon II in Samaria according to 2 Kgs 17,24. Most scholars agree on the identification of the places mentioned in vv. 12-1313. Some of these places (Gozan, Harran, Rezeph-Ras[appa and EdenB|4t Adini) are located in northern Mesopotamia, and were conquered and annexed by Assyria in the time of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859) and the early years of Shalmaneser III (858-824). Why did the author of Account B2 select places which were conquered and annexed hundreds of years before his time to exemplify the Assyrian conquests? Another group of places (Telassar, Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah) is probably located in eastern Babylonia. Again, why did the author include these remote and unimportant eastern places in his list of conquered towns? Hamath and Arpad are located in Syria, and their location and history differ from the other places in this list. The selection of these places requires an explanation, and we shall first examine some suggestions offered by scholars for this enigmatic list.
H. Wildberger doubted whether the narrator had any clear idea about the time and circumstances in which these places fell to the hands of Assyria and suggested that the author simply expanded the list of Isa 36,1914. F.J. Gonçalves suggested that some cities are connected with the deportation to Samaria (Hamath, Sepharvaim, Ivvah), whereas Gozan is one of the places to which inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom were deported15. E. Ben Zvi assumed that v. 12 refers to places where deportees from the Northern Kingdom were settled, and v. 13 refers to places from which came the deportees who were settled in Samaria16. However, only one name (Gozan) is common to v. 12 and the list of Israelite deportees settled in Assyria (2 Kgs 17,6), and only two names (Sepharvaim and Ivvah/Avva) appear in v. 13 and the list of deportees to Samaria (2 Kgs 17,24)17. The assumption that the author of Account B2 was better acquainted with the Assyrian deportations of