Then (and) the king of Assyria came up... and besieged it three years. — Sargon states that he took Samaria (Samerίna) in his first year. Shalmaneser therefore had besieged the city some two years before his death.
The brief narrative before us does not discriminate between the respective shares of the two Assyrian sovereigns in the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel, but it is noticeable that it does not say that Shalmaneser “besieged Samaria three years,” and “took Samaria.” (Comp. 2 Kings 18:11.)