ADRAMELECH (Hebrew 'adrammèlek'). — A deity probably of Syrian origin (Adad-malik) of the inhabitants of Sepharvaim (perhaps Sabara'in) transplanted by Sargon to Samaria. Others hold that it is an Adar-shamash, a solar god of Sippar. (2 Kings 17:31).
Francesco Spadafora
ADRAMELECH. — Son of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704–681), in Assyrian Adar-malik. Adramelech and his brother Sharezer, because they were not chosen to succeed him, killed their father while he was praying in the temple of Nesrok (read Marduk with Winckler and Dhorme, or, according to others, Assur) at Babylon (Winckler and Dhorme; according to others at Nineveh; cf. 2 Kgs 19:36–37). In the Babylonian Chronicle and in the inscription of Nabonidus’s stele, only one son, unnamed, is the murderer of Sennacherib. But in Prism B of Esarhaddon, discovered in 1927–28, the king’s murderers are several brothers, as the sacred text states. Adramelech and Sharezer were then pursued and defeated by the heir Esarhaddon (q.v.) in Ararat (northern Mesopotamia).