Sennacherib (705-681 BC)
Hezekiah’s submission, probably in 701 B.C., to the Assyrian demand for the payment of tribute does not seem to have brought Judah much respite. It appears that an Egyption army under Pharoah Tirhakah (1 Kings 19. 9), of whom a figure is exhibited in the British Museum, advanced against the army of Sennacherib and that this threat led the Assyrian to demand further tribute from Hezekiah, most likely in 686 B.C. Perhaps Sennacherib hoped to increase his ability to meet the Egyptian menace by freeing himself from anxiety about Jerusalem. This time, however, his envoys received a different reception. Instead of meek acceptance of their demands, they met with refusal and a declaration by Hezekiah of his trust in Yahweh, the God of Judah. The defiance was supported by the Prophet Isaiah, who declared the word of the Lord against the enemy, “He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. For I will defend it to save it” (2 Kings 19. 32-34). His words were quickly proved correct—”It came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians, an hundred, fourscore and five thousand.”
A noteworthy feature of Sennacherib’s inscriptions is the fact that he makes no claim to have captured Jerusalem, which indicates quite clearly that he did not do so, since it has never been the habit of military leaders to minimise their successes. An interesting commentary on what happened is afforded by the historian Herodotus, who, echoing an Egyptian version, says, “A multitude of field-mice by night devoured all the quivers and bow strings of the enemy and all the straps by which they held their shields”, so that “next morning, they commenced their flight and great numbers fell, as they had no arms with which to defend themselves”. It is clear that a great disaster befell the Assyrians at that time.
Sennacherib had once boasted, “I overthrew the district of Judah. I imposed my (yoke) ropes upon him”, but now his enterprise was in ruins. His failure to capture Jerusalem is underlined by the many sculptures with their inscriptions, which he devoted to the description of his campaign against Lahish, which he did capture, as described in the previous article.
Esar-Haddon (601-669 BC)
Of necessity, after the loss of his army, Sennacherib went home to Nineveh. He did not long survive his disaster. The Bible records: “Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. It came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead” (2 Kings 19. 36-37).
The Babylonian Chronicle records:
“On the 20th day of the month Tebat, his son killed Sennacherib king of Assyria during a rebellion. For 23 years Sennacherib had exercised kingship over Assyria. The rebellion continued from the 20th of the month Tebat to the end of the month Adar. On the eighteenth of the month Adar, Esarhaddon, his son, sat on the throne in Assyria.”
Esar-haddon was the son of NakayaZakutu, West-Semitic wife of Sennacherib. He became king in 681 B.C. and the Assyrian records make it clear that he had to overcome strong resistance from his brothers, and during the lifetime of his father he was in exile for a time. The house of Nisroch is probably the Temple of Nusku, or Ninurtu, at Nineveh, or possibly at Calah.
As soon as Esar-haddon was established on the throne, he resumed the Assyrian practice of invading foreign territories, penetrating as far afield as Egypt, where he defeated Tirhakah, the Pharoah who had aided Hezekiah of Judah against Sennacherib. On the way he fought against a number of kings in Syria, Canaan, and the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. Amongst them, his inscriptions specify Manasseh (Menasishar-mat laudi) king of Judah. He states that, with the other kings, he summoned Manasseh–
“to drag with pain and difficulty to Nineveh, the city of my dominion, as supplies needed for my palace, big beams, long posts, trimmed planks of cedar and cypress wood, products of the Sirara and Lebanon mountains, where, for long they had grown tall and thick; also from their place of origin in the mountains, the form of winged bulls . . .”
The form of winged bulls were the rough-hewn outlines of colossal stone figures, which were dragged to Nineveh as unfinished blocks. An inscribed tablet found at Nineveh, now in the British Museum, describes how the inhabitants of Judah also sent silver to Assyria. The submission of Mannasseh to Esar-haddon is referred to in 2 Chron. 33. 11,
“The captains of the host of the king of Assyria took Manasseh among the thorns, bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon”.
The scriptural record adds that, when Manasseh repented. God listened to his prayer and he was released and returned to Jerusalem. Ezra 4. 2 informs us that Esarhaddon also brought certain peoples from abroad and settled them in Palestine. These peoples under Rehum, the chancellor, and Shimshi the scribe, were successful in bringing to an end, for the time being, the building of the temple in the days of the return from exile under Zerubbabel.
Assur-Bani-Pal (669-632 BC)
Esar-haddon was succeeded by Assurbani-pal. This king also lists Mannaseh as being one of his vassals, calling him Minse. He is not mentioned in Scripture by the name quoted here, but in Ezra 4. 10 he is referred to as the “great and noble Asnapper” (or Osnapper) who is reported as having colonised Samaria. Assur-bani-pal is chiefly remembered for the magnificent library he established at Nineveh, which has been unearthed in modern times and has provided the master-key to Mesopotamian literature. His naive record of his studies is fascinating:
“I have studied the heavens with learned masters, I have solved the laborious problems of division and multiplication which were not clear. At times I have taken pleasure in the reading of inscriptions which came from before the flood: at times I have been angered because I was stupid and addled by the beautiful script.’
The Fall of Nineveh (621 BC)
The Prophet Isaiah had declared that Egypt should be delivered into the hand of a cruel lord and a fierce king (Isaiah 19. 4). This monarch was Esar-haddon, who conquered Egypt, overthrowing Tirhakah (671 B.C.). Ten years later Tirhakah tried again to deliver Egypt from the Assyrians. Assur-bani-pal was now on the throne and his strong measures destroyed Tirhakah’s threat. The Assyrian king claims that the Egyptian was driven mad by his assault, and, endeavouring to escape by sea, was overtaken by death.
Assyria, with the conquest of Egypt however, had reached the zenith of its power and now declined. The fulfillment of the words of the Jewish prophets was at hand. Nahum had written,
“The burden of Nineveh . . . it shall come to pass that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee and say, Nineveh is laid waste, who will bemoan her” (Nahum 1. I; 3. 7).
Zephaniah had said,
“And he (God) will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria and will make Nineveh a desolation and dry like a wilderness” (Zephaniah 2. 17).
The Babylonian Chronicle describes the end of the Assyrian Empire and the destruction of Nineveh. “The final attack was made by a coalition of Medes, Babylonians and ScYthians. The king of Unman-Manda and the king of Babylon met each other in . . . Kyaxares (a Mede) made . . . the king of Babylon to cross, and they marched along the Tigris river bank and pitched camp by Nineveh. . . . They made strong attack on the citadel and in the month of Ab (on the. . . the day the city was taken) and a great defeat inflicted on the people and (their) chiefs. On the same day (Sinshar-lshkun, the Assyrian king) perished in the flames. They carried off much spoil from the temple area and turned the city into a ruined mound and heap of debris.” In the British Museum are fire-blackened wall slabs from the palace of the king at Nineveh.
Another Jewish prophet had said concerning Israel,
“I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered them. yet will I not make a full end of thee”.
For Assyria the full end had come, but, over 2,500 years later, Israel abides.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One