Assyria in Biblical History

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What is Assyria?
ASSYR'IA
, a great empire of Western Asia, founded by Asshur, Gen 10:10-11, who built Nineveh, Rehoboth (?), Calah, and Resen. Assyria proper appears to have included about the same territory as modern Kurdistan. The empire covered at times a far larger extent of territory, and in its prosperity nearly all of western Asia and portions of Africa were subject to its power. Physical Features. -- The chief rivers of Assyria were the Euphrates and Tigris. The country was well watered. On the east and north were ranges of mountains, the highest covered with snow. The central portions were along the fertile valleys of the two great rivers. There are immense level tracts of the country, now almost a wilderness, which bear marks of having been cultivated and thickly populated in early times. Among its products, besides the common cereals, were dates, olives, cotton, mulberries, gum-arabic, madder, and castor-oil. Of animals, the bear, deer, wolf, lynx, hyena, antelope, lion, tiger, beaver, and camel were common. The fertility of the country is frequently noted by ancient writers. Biblical History. -- Assyria is among the earliest countries mentioned in the Bible, Gen 2:14, and is referred to about one hundred and twenty times in the Old Testament, though only four or five of its kings are noticed by name. Scripture, tradition, and the monuments of the country unite in testifying that Assyria was peopled from Babylon. Gen 10:10-11. From the time of Nimrod until two centuries after the division of the Israelitish kingdom the Scriptures make no mention of Assyria. During the rule of Menahem, Pul, the king of Assyria, invaded Israel and levied a heavy tribute upon it, 2 Kgs 15:19; a few years later, when Pekah was king of Israel, and Ahaz, king of Judah, Tiglath-pileser, another king of Assyria, aided Judah in a war against Israel and Syria. 2 Kgs 16:7-9; 2 Kgs 15:29; 2 Chr 28:6. In the reign of Hoshea the Assyrians under Shalmaneser again invaded Israel, and after besieging its capital, Samaria, for three years, captured it, destroyed the kingdom, and carried the people into captivity, b.c. 721, and repeopled the land by colonies from Babylon, Cuthah, and Hamath. 2 Kgs 17:1-6, Jud 6:24 Sargon, a usurper and great warrior, succeeded Shalmaneser as king of Assyria, and perhaps completed the conquest of Samaria and of Israel undertaken by his predecessor. Sargon deposed Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon, made an expedition against Egypt, when he captured Ashdod, Isa 20:1-4, conquered Syria, and subdued a large portion of western Asia. Under Sargon, Nineveh, the capital of the empire, was repaired and adorned with a royal palace and many magnificent buildings. See illustration on p. 80. He was succeeded by his son, Sennacherib, about b. c. 704, who became the most celebrated of all the Assyrian kings. During his reign of 22 years he crushed the revolt of Berodach Baladan, and drove him from the country; carried his conquests into Egypt, Philistia, Armenia, Media, and Edom. He invaded the kingdom of Judah in the reign of Hezekiah, and his army was miraculously destroyed, and he returned home in shame, and was slain by his two sons. 2 Chr 32:1-21; 2 Kgs 19:35-37. He was succeeded by Esarhaddon, who reigned 13 years, and was succeeded by Assur-banipal (Sardanapalus), a noted warrior and builder, who extended the limits of the empire and erected a grand palace at Konyunjik. After his reign the empire began gradually to decline, until in b.c. 625 (some say 606) it was subdued by the Medes and Babylonians, and the latter became the dominant power during the great Captivity. 2 Kgs 24:1; 2 Kgs 25:1-8; Dan 1:1;Dan 3:1; Jud 5:1;Eze 29:18. See Nineveh and Babylon. Art, Language, and Religion. -- The artistic skill, genius, and magnificence displayed by the Assyrians in architecture and in the arts, as shown bv the exhumed remains of their great cities, are the admiration of scholars. The massive walls and towers which surrounded their towns; the vastness and beauty of their ruined palaces at Khorsabad and Koniyunjik; the elaborate finish and adornments of their temples and other edifices at Nimroud and Kileh Sherghat; the sculptures in marble, stone, bronze, and clay; the remarkable specimens of transparent glass vases; the tables, chairs, and articles of luxury for the home; their chariots and implements of war, -- are the wonder of explorers of our day. Canon Rawlinson declares the much lauded Egyptians to be very decidedly the inferiors of the Assyrians, excepting in the one point of the grandeur and durability of their architecture. The language of Assyria was Semitic, and in style derived, according to Rawlinson, from the Chaldaean, but of a less archaic type. It was written without pictorial representations of objects, and in the arrow-headed or wedge-shaped characters, of which over 300 different signs or characters are now known to have been used in the Assyrian alphabet. "Their language and alphabet are confessedly in advance of the Egyptian." -- Rawlinson's Five Ancient Monarchies, 1870, i. p. 247. Of their religion the same author says it is "more earnest and less degrading than that of Egypt. Idols and idol-worship prevailed. Of eleven chief gods and an equal number of goddesses, the greatest was Asshur, one of whose symbols was a winged sphere with the figure of a man armed with a bow issuing from the centre. Among the other gods were Bel, Sin the moon-god, Shamas the sun-god, Ishtar, and Nebo. Their idols were of stone and clay, and were worshipped with sacrifices, libations, and offerings, and by fastings of man and beast. The tablets testify to the attention given to religion by the learned, and the records and sculptures indicate the general spirit of worship prevailing among the people, while it also shows their gross idolatry." Modern Discoveries and General History. -- Concerning the history of the Assyrian kingdom and empire, comparatively little was known previous to recent discoveries. The researches of Assyrian Palace Restored. (After Ferguson.) Botta, 1842-1850; Layard, 1851-1853; Sir H. Rawlinson, 1850-1867; Oppert, 1857-1870; Lenormant, 1868-1873; George Smith, 1872-1877; and those of Rassam, 1878, -- have rescued the annals of that country from obscurity, and furnished the materials for a trustworthy history. These records, together with the vast buildings, monuments, and grand palaces, were buried many feet beneath mounds of earth, and their existence for hundreds of years was wholly unknown to the world. By patient excavation the monuments, temples, palaces, and other evidences of Assyrian greatness have been brought to light within the past forty years; even large portions of the vast libraries of her kings have been discovered, the unknown characters in which they were written have been deciphered, and the inscriptions and records translated into modern languages, not only giving a history of the exploits of this remarkable nation, but also throwing much light on its customs, religious life, and language, and upon the many Scripture references to Assyria. A vast mass of documents has been dug up from the mounds, written in cuneiform or wedge-shaped characters and in the Assyrian tongue. The inscriptions were upon slabs of stone, which formed the panels of the palace walls, on obelisks of stone, on clay tablets, and on cylinders or hexagonal prisms of terra cotta two or three feet long. These tablets and cylinders were undoubtedly a part of the royal library in the days of Tiglath-pileser and of other noted kings. "The Assyrian power was a single monarchy from the beginning, and gradually grew by conquering the smaller states around it; and there is consequently a uniformity in its records and traditions which makes them easier to follow than those of the sister kingdom." -- George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, 1875, p. 447. A list of 50 Assyrian kings who reigned from b.c. 1850 to b.c. 607 has been compiled from the royal tablets by George Smith. Of these kings, twenty eight reigned previous to Tiglath-pileser I., b.c. 1120; fifteen reigned from Tiglath-pileser I. to Tiglath-pileser II., b.c. 745; and after his time reigned the following seven, four of whom are certainly mentioned in Scripture history: Shalmaneser IV., Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Assur-banipal, Bel-zakir-iskun, and Assur-ebil-ili. The first capital of Assyria was Asshur, on the Tigris, about 60 miles south of Nineveh; its second capital, founded or more probably rebuilt and enlarged by Shalmaneser I., was Calah or Halah. As Assyrian conquests extended north and east, the capital was removed to Nineveh, which became a vast city, and according to Layard covered the present site of Konyunjik, Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Karamles. This space would correspond to the measurements of the city given by Diodorus. -- Layard: Nineveh, 1849, vol. ii. pp. 243-247. In his view, Nimrud was the original site of Nineveh, whose founder built a new city at Kileh Sherghat. In later periods palaces were built at Khorsabad, Karamles, and the largest of all these structures at Konyunjik. About 630 b.c. the Medes from the north and the Susianians from the south invaded Assyria; after a brief contest they conquered it, and the empire was divided between the conquerors. The kingdom of Assyria extended over a period of 1200 years, though the empire can only at the utmost be considered to have lasted six and a half centuries, and its ascendency in western Asia not more than 500 years, b.c. 1125-625. Of the importance of the recent discoveries it is said, "Every spadeful of earth which was removed from those vast remains tended to confirm the truth of prophecy and to illustrate Scripture. But who could have believed that records themselves should have been found which, as to their minuteness of details and the wonderful accuracy of their statements, should confirm, almost word for word, the very text of Scripture? And remember that these were no fabrications of a later date, on monuments centuries after the deeds which they professed to relate had taken place, but records engraved by those who had actually taken part in the events." -- Layard: Address in London on being presented the freedom of the city, 1854. See Nineveh and Babylon

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Schaff, Philip, Dr. "Biblical Definition for 'assyria' in Schaffs Bible Dictionary".
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