2Ki 15:29 Tiglath-pileser led them captive to A
2Ki 17:6 led Israel captive to A, and put them in
Isa 7:18 and to the bee that is in the land of A
Isa 10:5 O rod and staff of my wrath, in your
Isa 20:4 so the king of A will lead the captives
Isa 30:31 He who has struck with a rod will be broken
Isa 31:8 then A shall fall by a sword not of man
Hos 8:9 they went up to A, like a wild donkey to themselves
Zep 2:13 will stretch out his hand..and destroy A
Assyria (Heb. ‘Ashshûr or *Ashshur, perhaps “step”, “hero” or “equal”; ‘erets *Ashshûr ; Ac. Ashshur; Eg. ‘Iswr; Ph. *Shr; Gr. Assuria, whence transliterates the Spanish form). Country on the upper Tigris in Mesopotamia; also the empire dominated by the Assyrians. The name became synonymous with imperial rule over that region, so that the Babylonians and later the Persians (who succeeded the Assyrians as world powers) were sometimes called “Assyrians” (Lam 5:6; Ezr 6:22 ). In the same sense the Seleucid rulers are called “Assyrians” in a document in the collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I. Territory. The homeland of the Assyrians had its southern boundary at the Little Zab, a tributary of the Tigris. In the vicinity of the mouth of the Little Zab, and on the right (west) bank of the Tigris, was Assur (Ashur), the ancient capital of Assyria. From there the homeland of the Assyrians stretched northwest for about 130 km along the Tigris River. The most important cities were along the left (eastern) bank of the river: KarTukulti-Ninurta (to the north, not far from Ashur), Cala, Nineveh, and Dur-Sharrukin. The country was not very large, for to the west of the river was a desert, and the strip of agricultural land between the river and the mountains to the east was narrow and much less fertile than the soil of southern Mesopotamia. Map XI. 47. An Assyrian city gate (modern reconstruction) in Baghdad. The scarcity of land may have been responsible for some of the peculiarities of the Assyrians. It was an enterprising trading people, and it had bold adventurers, valiant warriors, and talented organizers. Rigidly self-disciplined, they were cruel to others. They were not a scientific or literary people, like their relatives to the south, the Babylonians, yet they were not without artistic talent. Their sculptures reveal their mastery of stone provided by the nearby mountains (figs 30, 308, 312, 421, etc.). II. Idiom. Like the Babylonians and Arameans, they were Semites and spoke a language (Assyrian) closely related to Babylonian (Gen 10:22). They also used the cuneiform script of the Babylonians, with some local modifications in the form of the characters. Over time Assyrian was replaced by Aramaic. It is worth noting the immense literary contribution in the form of war annals, synchronic tables and various documents on mythology, astrology and medicine. III. Culture. By the 1st millennium BC, when they came into close contact with the Hebrews in Palestine, they had lost their racial purity, because by ruling over an entire empire they had absorbed many of the subjugated peoples (such as the Horites) and thus displayed a great mixture of them in their appearance and in their characteristics. Of great artistic wealth are the architectural forms (reflected mostly in the temples) and the ivory carvings. IV. Religion. Because they were Semites, they had many gods in common with other Semitic nations, especially the Babylonians. They worshiped the great gods of these: the sun god Shamash; Sin, the moon goddess; Ea, the god of the Earth; and Ishtar, the great goddess of fertility. They also honored Anu, Marduk (Bel *) and his son Nabu (Nebo *). However, their main god, throughout their history, was Ashur (who did not belong to the Babylonian pantheon). He was represented as a winged sun that protected and guided the king, his main servant (fig 274, center). He was also represented with a tree, a symbol of fertility. But he was first and foremost a warrior god, and war became part of the national religion of the Assyrians. They thought that every military campaign was done in response to direct orders from Assur. Therefore, participation in war was an act of worship. This association of the god with Assyrian military campaigns explains why the cult of him disappeared with the extinction of the empire, in contrast to the cult of the gods in other nations, which survived the death of the nation. (For example, the patron god of the Babylonians, Marduk, remained the main deity of the valley of Mesopotamia under the Persians, who conquered Babylon; but Ashur never reappeared in the ancient world after the destruction of Nineveh.) V. Period pre-imperial A brief statement in Gen 10:11 and 12 shows that the Assyrian cities owed their existence to an expansion of the power of early Babylon. Mic 5:6 simply calls Assyria the land of Nimrod, who was the 1st founder of empires, starting from lower Mesopotamia. In secular history, Assyria first appears in the 19th century BC as a vassal kingdom of the kings of southern Mesopotamia. From that time it continuously fought for its independence, for supremacy and sometimes for imperial power over other nations. Its most ambitious rulers during its early period were Sargon I (c1780 BC) and Samsi-Adad I (c1749-1717 BC), an Amorite, both of whom extended their economic or military influence as far as Anatolia and Syria. Then followed a fight against the Horites of Mitanni and the Hittites, from which, after several setbacks, Assyria emerged the victor. During the latter part of the 2nd millennium BC several strong and ambitious rulers tried to establish an empire and had temporary successes. The following may be mentioned: Adad-nirari I (c 1306-c 1274 BC), who defeated Babylon and campaigned to the east and north with great success; Shalmaneser I (c 1274-1244 BC); Tukulti-Ninurta I (c 1244-1207 BC), again victorious over the Babylonians and conqueror of their capital, also won victories over Elam, the Arameans, and the Urarteans; and Tiglath-pileser I (1113-1074 BC), who established his rule over an area stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Several weak kings followed, whose power barely reached beyond the borders of their homeland. SAW. imperial period. About 150 years after the death of Tiglath-pileser I, Assyria was for about 300 years (from 933 to just before 612 BC) the most powerful nation on earth. He formed an empire that covered all of Mesopotamia and most of its neighboring countries, large tracts of Anatolia, all of Syria and Palestine, and even, for a short time, Egypt. It was during this period that Assyria made contact with the Hebrews and later destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel. For this reason, several Assyrian kings are mentioned in the Bible, and its records include 11 Hebrew kings (of Israel: Omri, Ahab, Jehu, Joash, Menahen, Pekah, and Hosea; of Judah: Azariah, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh ). Map XI. 1. Ashur-dan II (933-910 BC). First strong ruler of this new period; he conquered northern Mesopotamia. Since his time Assyrian armies have been campaigning in foreign countries practically every year, and have continued to do so for centuries. Rivers of blood flowed and the corpses piled up like mountains, to use the language of that people. 2. Shalmaneser* III. Then some 14 years of weak governments. 3. Adad-nirari III (810-782 BC). This does not mean that Assyria was powerless during that period, for his military campaigns occasionally reached as far as Damascus: Adad-nirari conquered it from Hazael, and King Joash of Israel gave him tribute; but Assyrian military successes were not permanent. It would have been at this time that Jonah fulfilled his ministry in Nineveh. This period of comparative weakness in Assyria was exploited by Jeroboam II, a strong king of Israel, to re-establish control over territories that had been lost after the time of Solomon. 4. Tiglath-pileser* III. 5. Shalmaneser* V. 6. Sargon* II. 7. Sennacherib.* 8. Esarhaddon.* 9. Ashurbanipal (669-c 627? BC). Under this monarch the empire reached the pinnacle of its glory and territorial extension. Egypt, which had rebelled in the last years of Esar-haddon’s reign, was subjugated once more, and Thebes,* perhaps the largest city in the world at the time, was sacked. From these raids the king took 2 obelisks and statues of the Egyptian pharaoh back to Assyria (2 of these statues were recently found in a fragmentary state in Ashurbanipal’s burned palace at Nebi Yunus, one of the ruin mounds of ancient Nineveh). Babylon, led by Shamash-shum-ukin (brother of the monarch), also rebelled, but this rebellion was crushed. Ashurbanipal also alleges that King Manasseh of Judah paid him tribute. Perhaps he (or his father Esar-haddon) temporarily banished the rebellious Manasseh to Babylon (2Ch 33: 11-13). On top of all these military successes, however, Ashurbanipal is known as the founder of a great palace-library at Nineveh (the library was discovered at Kuyunjik, another ruin mound in the Nineveh area). A great lover of art and literature, Ashurbanipal sent his scribes throughout the nation to copy – for his library, on thousands of clay tablets and in cuneiform writing – literary productions (tablets that are today one of the priceless treasures of the British Museum). Generations of Assyriologists worked on these relics, which became the greatest source of literary, historical and cultural information on the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations (fig 48). But the signs of a future collapse were already clearly visible in the days of Ashurbanipal, and some 2 decades after his death the empire declined and collapsed. Details of the final years of the Assyrian Empire are scant, for lack of clear historical accounts. Two of Ashurbanipal’s sons ruled it for a few years, but they were unable to stand against the forces arrayed against the Empire, especially that of the Babylonians and the Medes. The former, who had declared their independence under Nabopolassar in 626 BC, were almost permanently at war with the Assyrians. In 614 BC the Medes under Cyájares destroyed the city of Assur, and Nineveh met the same fate 2 years later (612 BC), when it fell to the combined armies of Cyájares and Nabopolassar. The last king, Asurubalit II, was able to gather a remnant of the Assyrian forces around himself and retreat to Haran, which was his capital for a short time. However, the Babylonians soon expelled him from the city, and with his departure the Assyrians disappeared from history (c 609 BC). Bib.: Herodotus ii. 141. AT Olmstead. History of Assyria (New York, 1923); AL Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (Chicago, 1964); CAH I-III (1970-1975).
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