Gozan

Gozan is a Mesopotamian district remembered as one of the resettlement zones for the deported population of Israel after the Assyrian conquest of Samaria. The name appears in the deportation notices of the Northern Kingdom and once on the lips of an Assyrian officer boasting of past conquests.

The Resettlement of Israel

The Chronicler links the Transjordanian deportation to the river of Gozan. After Pul and Tilgath-pilneser carry off the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, they are brought "to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day" (1Ch 5:26). The Kings narrative gives the same destination after the fall of Samaria in Hoshea's ninth year: "the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (2Ki 17:6). The notice is repeated a chapter later in summarizing the same deportation: "the king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (2Ki 18:11).

In the Rabshakeh's Boast

Gozan also surfaces in the speech of Sennacherib's officer outside Jerusalem, where it stands as one of the conquered places whose gods could not deliver: "Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?" (2Ki 19:12). The argument lists Gozan among Assyria's earlier conquests as a warning to Hezekiah.