Topic 12 of 33 - Your Place in the Learning Journey
The Assyrian Empire
Assyria was the dominant military power of the ancient Near East from roughly the 9th through the 7th century BCE, and its shadow falls across virtually every page of the Old Testament written during that period. The Assyrian Empire, centered in the upper Tigris River valley in what is now northern Iraq, developed the ancient world's most fearsome military machine and used it with systematic brutality to build the largest empire the world had yet seen. Understanding Assyria is essential for understanding the prophetic literature from Amos through Nahum.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire reached its height under a series of extraordinary rulers: Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 BCE), who reorganized the empire and developed the policy of mass deportation; Shalmaneser V and Sargon II, under whom Samaria fell in 722 BCE; Sennacherib (705-681 BCE), who invaded Judah and besieged Jerusalem in 701 BCE; and Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, who extended Assyrian control even into Egypt. Their annals, preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets and stone reliefs, provide detailed records that frequently intersect with the biblical narrative and allow historians to cross-check the Bible's account against Assyrian sources.
Assyrian policy toward conquered peoples was deliberately terrorizing. Mass deportations - relocating entire populations to break their national identity and prevent revolt - were a systematic tool of imperial control. The famous Lachish reliefs in the British Museum, carved to decorate Sennacherib's palace in Nineveh, show in graphic detail the siege and capture of the Judean city of Lachish: soldiers storming the walls, prisoners being led away in chains, captives being impaled on stakes. This was the face of the power that the prophets told Israel to fear - and not to fear, trusting instead in God's ability to deliver.
The Assyrian Empire collapsed with surprising speed. Nineveh, its capital, fell to a coalition of Babylonians and Medes in 612 BCE - an event celebrated in the book of Nahum with a vehemence that reflects the accumulated terror and suffering Assyria had inflicted across more than a century. The prophet Nahum offers no apology for the ferocity of his satisfaction at Nineveh's fall. His book is a reminder that the Bible does not always demand detached equanimity in the face of evil - sometimes it simply names the relief that justice, however delayed, finally arrives.