King of Egypt, made an alliance with Hoshea king of Israel, and promised him assistance; but was unable to prevent Shalmaneser king of Assyria from taking Samaria and subverting the kingdom, B. C. 721, 2Ki 17:4. See PHARAOH. So is believed to have been the Servetus or Sabaco II of secular history, the second king of the Ethiopian or twenty-fifth dynasty, and the predecessor of Trihakah. A singular fact has been brought to light by the recent explorations at Nineveh, corroborating the Scripture record the more forcibly, because unexpected and direct. The Bible shows that Egypt and Assyria, though remote, were often in conflict during the height of the Assyrian ruins power, and that So was at war with Shalmaneser. After war comes the treaty of peace; and as the Bible prepares us to suppose such treaties were made, the Assyrian ruins furnish evidence of their existence. In the remains of Sennacherib's palace recently disentombed, a small room was found which seems to have been a hall of records; and among the seals it contained was the seal of So, well known to students of Egyptian antiquities. It was impressed, as was then the custom, on a piece of fine clay, which also bore the impress of a royal signet of Assyria; thus showing the probability that such a treaty between the two nations had here been deposited. If so, when the two monarchs affixed their seals to a document, which like themselves has turned to dust, the Most High by their act affixed an additional seal to his holy word, which is true and abideth forever.

(Nubian, Sabako), an Ethiopian king who brought Egypt under his sway. He was bribed by Hoshea to help him against the Assyrian monarch Shalmaneser (2Ki 17:4). This was a return to the policy that had been successful in the reign of Jeroboam I.

The Egyptian king to whom Hoshea, Israel's last king, applied in the ninth year of his reign for help, when casting off the obligation to pay tribute to Assyria (2Ki 17:4). So did not venture to encounter the Assyrian king Shalmaneser, but deserted his protege, as Egyptian kings often did (Isa 30:3; 36:6). Israel was conquered and Samaria taken. Egyptian monuments illustrate Scripture; precisely in Hoshea's time a change occurs in the Egyptian dynasties. Manetho's 25th or Ethiopian dynasty extended its influence into Lower Egypt in 725 B.C.

So or Seveh answers to "Sabacho" of Manetho, and "Shebek I" of the hieroglyphics. A little later So contended with Sargon in southern Palestine. A seal of fine clay, impressed from the bezel of a metallic finger ring, an oval two inches long by one wide, bears the image, name, and titles of Sabacho. Some make So the first Sabacho, others Sabacho II. Tirhakah or Tehrak, the third and last of the dynasty, is thought to have put So to death. Sabaku (according to G. Smith's deciphering) married the sister of Tirhakah who helped Hezekiah against Sennacherib; at Sabaku's death Tirhakah succeeded, Sabaku's son being set aside.

The king of Egypt (Mizraim), Hoshea's correspondence with whom led shortly to the captivity of Israel (2Ki 17:4). In b.c. 725 the kingdom of Egypt was probably in confusion (end of Dyn. 23), the land being divided among petty princes, and threatened or held by the Ethiopians. It is difficult to find an Egyptian name of this period that would be spelt So in Hebrew. Assyrian annals, however, inform us that in 722, shortly after the fall of Samaria, a certain Sib'i, 'tartan' (commander-in-chief) of Musri, was sent by Pir'u, king of Musri (i.e. probably Pharaob, king of Egypt), to the help of Gaza against Sargon. This Sib'i may be our So (or Seve), not king, but commander-in-chief. It has been thought that the Heb. So, Seve, and the Assyrian Sib'i might stand for the name of the Ethiopian Shabako of the 25th Dyn., as crown prince and then king, but they would be singularly imperfect renderings of that name. Shabako gained the throne of Egypt about b.c. 713.

F. Ll. Griffith.

King of Egypt. See EGYPT.

So.

So, king of Egypt, is once mentioned in the Bible --

2Ki 17:4

So has been identified by different writers with the first and second kings of the Ethiopian twenty-fifth dynasty, called by Manetho, Sabakon (Shebek) and Sebichos (Shebetek).