Sepharvaim

Sepharvaim is an Assyrian city named in two narrative settings: the resettlement of the cities of Samaria after the fall of the northern kingdom, and the Rabshakeh-Sennacherib taunt against Hezekiah. In both settings it is paired with Hamath and listed inside a roster of cities the king of Assyria has already absorbed. From Sepharvaim come both a transplanted population that helps compose the post-exile mixed nations of Samaria and a pair of fire-cult gods, Adrammelech and Anammelech.

A Source-City of the Assyrian Resettlement

Sepharvaim first appears as one of the five origin-cities from which the king of Assyria draws the men he installs in Samaria after the deportation of Israel. "And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the sons of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in its cities" (2Ki 17:24). The five-city source-roster — Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, Sepharvaim — fixes Sepharvaim as one named foreign city among the named origin-points of the replacement population, transplanted directly into the cities vacated by the exiled northern kingdom.

Origin-City of the Samaritans

Because Sepharvaim stands in the founding source-roster, it belongs to the origin of the Samaritans themselves. The same king-of-Assyria-brought-men founding-clause that gives Sepharvaim its place in the roster also installs that Sepharvaim-component, alongside the men of Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, and Hamath, as part of the population that "possessed Samaria, and dwelt in its cities" (2Ki 17:24). The post-exile Samaritan population, exhibited across the closing half of 2 Kings 17 as the Assyrian-planted mixed-nations whose lion-chastened, Beth-el-priest-taught, nation-by-nation worship composes the hybrid religion of the northern land, has Sepharvaim among the five cities whose exiles compose it.

The Gods of Sepharvaim: Adrammelech and Anammelech

The worship Sepharvaim brings with it is named in the same chapter's nation-by-nation catalog of gods made in the cities of Samaria: "and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their sons in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim" (2Ki 17:31). The Sepharvites-burned-their-sons-in-the-fire clause sets a child-fire cult under the names Adrammelech and Anammelech as the Sepharvaim contribution to the syncretistic god-roster of the resettled cities, set parallel to the Avvite making of Tartak and Nibhaz.

Sepharvaim in the Rabshakeh Taunt

Sepharvaim returns in the Sennacherib campaign as a name in the Rabshakeh taunt. Standing before Hezekiah's wall, Rabshakeh asks, "Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?" (2Ki 18:34). The where-are-the-gods rhetorical question parades Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah as already-conquered nations whose gods have failed, and closes by pointing back to already-fallen Samaria. The clause is at once a Sepharvaim-included roster of subdued peoples and a self-vaunting boast that puts the king of Assyria above every named national deity, including Samaria's Yahweh-associated gods.

The same taunt is renewed in Sennacherib's letter and in its Isaiah parallel. "Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?" (2Ki 19:13). The Isaiah doublet repeats the catalog: "Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?" (Isa 36:19); "Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?" (Isa 37:13). Across the four Rabshakeh-Sennacherib lines, Sepharvaim is held up — first under its gods, then under its king — as another item in the Assyrian's catalog of accomplished conquests, the very catalog that Hezekiah lays before Yahweh and that the rest of the Sennacherib narrative answers.