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The Mighty Assyrian Empire Emerges From the
Dust
Perhaps archaeology's most
dramatic find among the treasure troves of the past was the discovery of the remains
of the ancient Assyrian Empire.
Assyria first appears as an empire early in the second millennium B.C. The remains
of a ziggurat, or temple tower, from that era still stand near the site of its ancient
capital.
In the ninth century B.C., Assyria developed into an aggressive and powerful empire.
By this time, about 40 years after the reign of Solomon, Israel had split into two
distinct kingdoms: Israel and Judah (1Kings 12:16-24). Led by able and ruthless
monarchs, the Assyrians began to menace and eventually conquer their neighbors. They
eventually subjugated the whole of the Fertile Crescent from Mesopotamia to Egypt.
By the late eighth century they crushed the kingdom of Israel.
About this same time they also invaded the southern kingdom of Judah, conquering
its major cities and besieging its capital, Jerusalem (Isaiah 36:1-2). The Bible
records the boastful words of the arrogant Assyrian monarch, Sennacherib, as he tried
to intimidate and humiliate Hezekiah, king of Judah (Isaiah 36:4-10).
Did this really happen, or is it a fable? Remember, many scoffers at one time disputed
even the existence of the Assyrian Empire. But it was no myth. As the debris of centuries
was removed from Nineveh, the capital, dramatic proof of the Assyrian invasion was
laid bare.
Assyrian records of these events quote King Sennacherib of Assyria boasting of his
devastating invasion of Judah: "Forty-six of (Hezekiah's) strong walled towns
and innumerable smaller villages . . . besieged and conquered. . .
. As for Hezekiah, the awful splendor of my lordship overwhelmed him" (Erika
Bleibtreu, "Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death," Biblical
Archaeology Review, January-February 1991, p. 60). Of Judah's king, Sennacherib
noted that he had made Hezekiah "a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence,
like a bird in a cage" (Magnus Magnusson, Archaeology and the Bible, Simon
& Schuster, New York, 1977, p. 186).
The biblical record agrees with Sennacherib's account of the Assyrian invasion and
notes the desperation of the kingdom of Judah as the Assyrians laid siege to Jerusalem,
their last surviving stronghold. However, the Bible continues the story where the
Assyrian records are silent. With Jerusalem facing imminent destruction, the people
of Judah, led by King Hezekiah, prayed fervently to God (Isaiah 37:15-20) and were
miraculously delivered against overwhelming odds.
Sennacherib, the warrior king, had bragged about his humbling of Hezekiah, trapping
him in Jerusalem as he surrounded and prepared to storm the city.
Although Sennacherib painstakingly recorded the cities he captured and destroyed,
one city is conspicuously absent: Jerusalem. The Assyrians, like other great empires
of the time, left no records of their military defeats. A disaster befell them as
they waited to storm Jerusalem's walls.
"And it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord went out,
and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and
when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses-all dead. So Sennacherib
king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh"
(2Kings 19:35-36).
Sennacherib himself would later ignominiously die at the hands of two of his sons.
"Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god,
that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword . . ."
(verse 37).
Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon took his father's place, but the Assyrian Empire soon
peaked and fell into decline. Assyria had been an instrument to punish Israel for
its
repugnant sins (Isaiah 10:5-6). In turn, the Assyrians were punished for their sins
(verse 12). Nineveh, the capital city, fell to the Babylonians in 612 B.C. About
50 years after its acme, this voracious empire collapsed and virtually vanished from
history.
By the time of Jesus Christ and the apostles, no physical evidence of Nineveh could
be seen. Lucian of Samosata (A.D. 120-180), a Greek writer, lamented: "Nineveh
has perished. No trace of it remains. No one can say where once it existed"
(Magnusson, p. 175). Such a lack of visible remains led some scholars of the
19th century to express skepticism that Nineveh or any part of the Assyrian Empire
even existed, much less dominated a significant part of the world.
Indeed the only historical source in those days that verified the existence of the
empire was the Bible. The Old Testament histories and prophecies spoke about Assyria.
Jesus proclaimed the existence of Nineveh as a historical fact (Matthew 12:41). Yet
some scholars disputed the testimony of Jesus and the prophets; that is, until "one
spectacular decade in the middle of the nineteenth century . . . (when)
Austen Henry Layard and Paul Emile Botta rediscovered in northern Iraq the ancient
remains of three Assyrian cities (including Nineveh) and evidence of the military
panoply that had crushed all resistance from the Tigris to the Nile. The Assyrian
empire . . . in all its awesome power had been resurrected through archaeology"
(Magnusson, p. 175).
The skeptics were silenced. There was nothing they could say. The excavations at
Nineveh and other cities in the area yielded a staggering wealth of historical evidence
including "tens of thousands of tablets" containing "an immense amount
of data" (The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Abingdon Press,
Nashville, 1962, Vol. 1, s.v. "Assyria and Babylon," p. 275).
©1999 United Church of God, an International Associtaion
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