Sargon is mentioned by name but once in the Bible record. (Isa 20:1) In the early 1800’s the Biblical reference to him was often discounted by critics as of no historical value. However, from 1843 onward archaeological excavations uncovered the ruins of his palace at Khorsabad and the inscribed records of his royal annals.​—PICTURE, Vol. 1, pp. 955, 960.

Inscriptions relating to Sargon illustrate the folly of placing great confidence in the ancient secular records, even to the point of equating them in value with the Biblical record. Following Sargon’s accession to the throne, the Babylonians under Merodach-baladan revolted, with the support of Elam. Sargon warred against them at Der but was evidently unable to smash the revolt. Sargon’s inscriptions show him claiming a complete victory in the battle, yet the Babylonian Chronicle states that the Elamites defeated the Assyrians, and a text of Merodach-baladan boasts that he ‘overthrew the Assyrian hosts and smashed their weapons.’ The book Ancient Iraq observes: “Amusing detail: Merodach-Baladan’s inscription was found at Nimrud, where Sargon had taken it from Uruk . . . , replacing it in that city with a clay cylinder bearing his own and, of course, radically different version of the event. This shows that political propaganda and ‘cold war’ methods are not the privilege of our epoch.”​—By G. Roux, 1964, p. 258.