2 Kings 18:10

at the end of three years they took it The consonants of the word rendered -they took it" might, if different vowel points were added to them, be translated -he took it". That the vowels for the plural form have been written by the Massoretes can only be the result of a long retained tradition. The history must have died out of their knowledge entirely, but the word had been read as -they took it" from the earliest times, and in that form they recorded it when they added the vowels to make their reading clear to the eye. Notice has already been taken of the remarkable way in which the Biblical record, though containing no record that the commencement of the siege and its close were in different reigns, yet avoids here any mistake in the history by the use of the pronoun -they". See note on 2 Kings 17:6 above. The siege of Samaria lasted from b.c. 724 to b.c. 722 and the capture was among the earliest events of Sargon's reign.