(Thoughts extrapolated from brooding over Isaiah 14:24-27)
Assyrian cavalry rider from the reign of Tiglath Pileser III (745-727BC)
Isaiah was like a very Godly and divinely sent character of great importance to the Israeli king’s that were contemporaneous with him and the people of Judah. Although it doesn’t seem quite correct to liken the prophet to Winston Churchill and his role in the Second World War, nevertheless Isaiah’s voice to Kings, national leaders and the general population had the same kind of rallying call. There was no “fighting the enemy on the beaches” that was required, and there was to be at a future date (701 BC to be precise) a moment that could be called Isaiah and Yahweh’s finest hour when 185,000 Assyrian soldiers perished overnight while the city of Jerusalem slept, though perhaps not in perfect peace like Isaiah did. Nevertheless Isaiah’s comprehensive body of teaching and prophetic predictions, together with his calls to repentance and his words of severe judgement and exile if Israel continued on the sinful pathway, were Churchillian in as much as it resonated as a voice with heavenly authority throughout the entire land. I feel safe in likening the situation to Churchill, simply because, in the end, the people and the later king – Manasseh – rejected Isaiah altogether once the Assyrian crisis was over, just like the British did with Churchill once the Second World War was won. Unfortunately, what the people and King Manasseh did not know that fear of Babylon was to be even worse than the fear of Assyria.
Isaiah prophesied publicly and wrote down his burden in the contextual backdrop of an almost universal fear of the nation and Kings of Assyria. It was year upon year with almost the entire Middle East trembling and anticipating the hateful and torturous sword of Assyria to come and do its dastardly work. For over a seventy to eighty year period it was a case of “Assyria rules! OK!” in the most literal sense. It was OK for those with Assyrian affiliations, but it was a humiliatingly distressing scene for the rest of the Biblical world. Those who submitted to Assyria were humiliated by their “Yes sir! No Sir! Three bags full sir!” existence. Nevertheless even though kings (like Ahaz) “sucked up” obscenely to Assyria and Tiglath Pileser III, they had the satisfaction that their cities and their people were not annihilated or exiled and extradited by the cruel and nasty Assyrian jack boot – eh – should I say “Jack-sandal?” Is there such a thing? The reader will know where I am going.
Click on all photos or Media inserts to see them larger and clearer
It was just as it was when the entire globe was fearful of World War III when President John F Kennedy, President of the USA, told Nikita Khrushchev, who was “running” the USSR at the time, “If you are not out of Cuba by next Monday (I believe the phone call took place on a Friday), we are at war.” Imagine the fear and the anxiety that gripped the world for those three or four days in October 1962, and then try to imagine living in that kind of context for a life time. It was the hateful pressure and a fear of sudden death that lasted for 70-80 years, and not just 3 days as it did in 1962. Present Traumatic Stress Disorder was the plague of the day. There was no, “Post- Assyria,” for many, possibly millions. A whole generation was born into the fear of Assyria, and died with the terror of their Assyrian overlords still over their lives. I find it hard to grasp the impact of such an existence. Depression and mental illness might have been unheard of and unimagined in biblical times, yet I guarantee that if we could visit Isaiah by a Time Machine, and walk the streets of Jerusalem with him, I am sure the black dog of depression, and the roaring dragon of mental illness would have been sniffing and growling in almost every home.
Assyria was the biggest and cruellest “world force” ever seen up to Isaiah’s point of time in history. The cruelty and the desire to make the whole world part of the Assyrian empire was greatly intensified or slightly diluted from monarch to monarch. Some Assyrian kings were monsters that make some twentieth century fascist dictators seem tame. None of them could be given a positive thumbs up for kindness.
In Isaiah’s life time there were a few Assyrian successors, just as there were a few Kings on the Davidic throne. Here is the order in which they reigned and the place in the scriptures, with a few notes about them and a brief history.
Tiglath Pileser III.
Long since the reign of Adad-Nirari III (on the throne 810–783 BC) Assyria had been politically and militarily weak. Its northern neighbour, Urartu, dominated the states controlling its principal trade routes to the Mediterranean and to the Iranian plateau. Several sections of the Assyrian empire had ceased to pay the tribute money required by treaties. In the spring of 745 BC a rebellion against the weak king Ashur-Nirari V, a son of Adad-nirari III, brought about an Assyrian civil war from which emerged a new ruler: it was our “friend” “Tiggy.” This new ruler assumed the throne name of “Tiglath-Pileser” (Surely no self-respecting mother would dare to curse her child with that name!?) in what was a deliberate reference to an illustrious forebear, Tiglath-Pileser I (1115– circa 1077 BC). Assyria’s empire expanded meteorically during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III who annexed regions to the west of the Euphrates River and to the east.
Tiglath Pileser III
He “flourished” (That’s how Britannica expresses it) as king of Assyria betwixt 745 and 727 BC. He was the mastermind and dreaded force behind the last and greatest phase of Assyrian expansion during the eighth century BC. He ground down Syria and Israel under his rule, and later (circa 728) actually merged the kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia. This was of course long before Babylon outgrew Assyria and broke the back of their power. It was “Tiggy” who introduced advanced civil, military, and political systems into the Assyrian aggressive fighting culture. Historians refer to Assyria at this time as the Neo-Assyrian Empire. If “Tiggy” had had a mind to relate and exchange notes with some of the kings of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (a mind that he definitely did NOT have) there is the slightest chance that he might have identified with those of the northern kingdom who also manipulated popular coups. In the midst of an Assyrian civil war “Tiggy” killed all of the previous royal family; men, women and children. “Nice chap was Tiggy! NOT! (LOL)” He did this to ensure his position of king. He was obviously utterly ignorant of any thought of a final divine judgement.
Artists impression of Assyrian soldiers extolling Tiglath Pileser III
His victories, particularly in the year of 741BC, were far-reaching, as noted in the Bible when Sennacharib in 701 BC sent a messenger to address Hezekiah and said:
“Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, (He was referring to Tiglath Pileser with his remarks) destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my predecessors deliver them—the gods of Gozan, Harran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? Where is the king of Hamath or the king of Arpad? Where are the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?” (Isaiah 37:11-13).
Tiglath Pileser III stemmed the barbarian pressures from the north that, after his reign, were to threaten several civilizations throughout the area.
“Tiggy’s” soldiering skill is best seen in his handling of affairs in Syria and Palestine. This is where the biblical narrative tells the story that involves him. From an independent military headquarters he bypassed the ringleader of those that had rebelled against Assyria at Damascus, defeated most coastal cities, and then cut off supplies of timber from Egypt. He then sent a force to Ashkelon and Gaza. In 734 the border with Egypt was sealed. The tribes of Ammon, Edom, and Moab, who along with with Israel, had attacked Ahaz of Judah. Ahaz had, because of his cowardice and lack of faith, quite literally asked to be a “vassal” of Assyria, and because of his pleas for Assyrian help the smaller nations mentioned now had to pay tribute money. His insipid surrender to Assyria was not merely political, but included an attempt to absorb the very idolatrous religious culture of Tiglath Pileser’s empire. This is seen in two jaw dropping biblical statements:
So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who have risen up against me. (2 Kings 16:7)
And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, and saw an altar that was at Damascus: and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof. (2 Kings 16:10)
If he was aware of it King David, as the saying goes, would have “shivered in his grave.”
Over the next two years Tiglath-Pileser systematically broke the power of Damascus. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was made subject through the assassination of Pekah and his replacement by a pro-Assyrian vassal: Hoshea. Galilee was made part of an adjacent province, i.e. separate from Israel. This is recorded in scripture:
In the days of Pekah king of Israel Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, came and took Ijon, and Abel beth maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them away captive to Assyria. (2 Kings 15:29)
Tiglath Pileser sensed that rebels were encouraged into outright rebellion by the current Babylonian king at that time who, in 734, had seized the throne. Using supreme and consummate diplomacy, Tiglath-Pileser sowed discord among the other Aramaean tribes involved, one of whose chiefs he won over completely to support him. His strategy paid off. He was then allowed to mobilise the Assyrian army through areas held by loyal governors and vassals east of the Tigris. He split his army into two separate forces. One force seized Babylon and the other captured the rebel stronghold of another hotbed of rebellion called Sapia.
It proved to be the peak of his achievement, one that is not commonly known of, that in 729–728 Tiglath-Pileser himself also seized the crown of Babylon using his personal (or perhaps Babylonian) name of Pul. The name Pul is used in scripture as well as the name of Tiglath Pileser, as in the following:
Later on, King Pul of Aram attacked the land, and Menahem paid Pul 1,000 silver talents so Pul would join forces with Menahem to secure his hold on the kingdom. (2 Kings 15:19) Pul is quite definitely Tiglath Pileser.
Please click on chart to see clearly the supposed Family Tree of Tiglath Pileser III
So the God of Israel incited King Pul of Assyria (also known as King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria), who took them prisoner and brought the descendants of Reuben, the descendants of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh to Halah, Habor, Hara, and to the Gozan River, where they remain to this day. (1 Chronicles 5:26).
Historians tell us that even though the Assyrian army of the generation contemporary with Isaiah was already the greatest fighting machine the world had ever known up to that point of time, before he took the throne, Tiglath Pileser III intensified the Assyrian military training and efficiency by making his entire army a professional standing force of almost impregnable might and fighting skill. This was unique among the nations. Cruelty and downright inhuman hatred was a valid means of promotion within the Assyrian mentality. It is also stated by historians how he developed a philosophy of population transfer. Deportations were intended to break the spirits of defeated former foes of Assyria. During the days when Isaiah was prophesying to Judah and Israel, Tiglath Pileser was a fear inspiring spectre in the subconscious of every monarch and national leader in the Middle Eastern cosmos. It is calculated and assumed that Uzziah died 740 BC. So we know for certain that Isaiah began his ministry as a prophet in the days of the man I personally refer to as “Terrible Tiggy.” I am glad I never met this tyrant who rose to power and built the Assyrian empire into the feared force that we now remember it as.
He seems to have died peacefully of old age and was succeeded by his son and chosen heir, Shalmaneser V.
Shalmaneser V. A stamped seal created in his lifetime.
Shalmaneser V.
This man ruled Assyria for five years i.e.727-722 BC. The name given him by his parents was “Ululayu.” Following the tradition of all Assyrian kings, he invented a chosen name for himself once he was on the throne. Shalmaneser, I believe, is interpreted as “worshipper of fire.” It was Shalmaneser who subjugated the Northern Kingdom of Israel directing a violently punitive campaign to quell the rebellion of Israel’s king Hoshea:
“King Shalmaneser of Assyria attacked him, and Hoshea became his servant and paid tribute to him.” (2 Kings 17:3)
Shalmaneser is mentioned in the Bible, attributing to him the final conquest of Samaria, and the deportation and exile of the population comprising ten tribes of the Israelites.
Shalmaneser V enthroned.
According to 2 Kings 17and18, Shalmaneser accused Hoshea, King of Israel, of colluding against him by sending messages to the Egyptian Pharaoh Osorkon IV, and so he came to Israel and captured him. Shalmaneser initiated the siege of Samaria in 725 BC.
“In the fourth year of King Hezekiah’s reign (that is, during the seventh year of Elah’s son Hoshea’s reign as king of Israel), King Shalmaneser from Assyria invaded Samaria and besieged it.” (2 Kings 18:9)
For three years he laid siege until “he broke the resistance of Samaria” (That is the phrase used in one Assyrian note). There is reason to believe that, as the siege of Samaria was proceeding, Shalmaneser retired to Nineveh and died, for, when the city was taken in 722 B.C, it is Sargon who claims, in his copious annals, to have captured it and carried its inhabitants into captivity. It is just possible that Shalman (Hosea 10:14) is a contraction for Shalmaneser, but the identity of Shalman and of Beth-arbel named in the same passage is not unanimously agreed on amongst academics. (2 Kings 17:4-6; 18:9-11)
It was Shalmaneser that started the three year siege that led to the fall of Samaria and the Northern Kingdom.
Literally there are no proper in depth historical records of Shalmaneser V, just as it was with the king immediately prior to Tiglath Pileser III. None of his royal inscriptions, if indeed he composed any, have survived, with the result that knowledge of the period is indirect. However the list of Babylonian kings where he ruled under the Chaldean name of Ululai, links him with Tiglath-Pileser III, whose son he may have been.
His reign was short, and, because there are no annals, we have only the accounts contained in 2 Kings for his history.
It was Sargon II that claimed credit for the victory when Samaria finally fell.
Sargon II.
Sargon (meaning: True King, or Legitimate King) reigned 722 – 705 BC and was, along with Tiglath Pileser III, one of Assyria’s greatest kings during this, the last full century of its history. Sargon is the Hebrew rendering of Assyrian Sharrukin, a throne name translated as “the king is legitimate.” The name was undoubtedly chosen in reminiscence of two former kings of Assyria, particularly in commemoration of Sargon of Akkad who reigned 2300 BC. He extended and consolidated the conquests of his “presumed” father, Tiglath-Pileser III. The experts are neither unanimous nor clear as to whether he was the son of Tiglath Pileser III or a usurper unrelated to the royal family. In his inscriptions, he styles himself as “a new man,” rarely referring to his predecessors.
It was truly Sargon who, after taking the Assyrian throne, completed Shalmaneser’s destructive siege of Samaria and carried away most of the people beyond the Euphrates, exiles that became known as “the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.”
Sargon’s ancestry is partly veiled in mystery. He was probably a younger son of Tiglath-Pileser III and consequently a brother of his predecessor Shalmaneser V, who may conceivably have died ignominiously or may have been deposed. It was for Sargon to resume the conquests and to improve the administration of the empire that his father had begun to assemble.
The ruins of fallen Samaria.
Upon his accession to the throne, he was faced immediately with major problems: (a) dealing with the Chaldean and Aramaean chieftainships in the southern parts of Babylonia, (b) with the kingdom of Urartu and the peoples to the north in the Armenian highlands, and (c) with Syria Philistia and Judah.
In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon the king of Assyria, came to Ashdod, attacked it, and captured it. (Isaiah 20:1)
By and large, these were the conquests made by Tiglath-Pileser III. Sargon’s problem was not only to maintain the status quo but to make further conquests to “prove the might of the god Ashur,” the national god of the Assyrian empire.
I do not know where the facial features or dress came from but this is supposedly Sargon II. Impressive art. He was a frightening reality.
When Sargon succeeded to the Assyrian throne, Merodach-Baladan (of note in the Old Testament), a dissident chief – cum – king of the Babylonian and Chaldean tribes in the marshes of southern Babylonia, committed the description of his victory over the invading Assyrian armies (720 BC) to writing on a clay cylinder, where it was placed in a public and often read site. The presence of this record obviously did not suit Sargon. After having discharged other commitments, he uncovered Merodach-Baladan’s record and removed it to his own residence, substituting what has been described as an “improved” version that was more to his liking.
“At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, when he heard he had been sick and had survived.” (Isaiah 39:1)
The extant texts reveal little about Sargon himself. With few exceptions, ancient Mesopotamian rulers have left no documents from which to write an actual biography. No personal documents have survived from Sargon’s reign
An astonishing record of Sargon’s eighth campaign (714 BC) in the form of a letter to the god Ashur has been recovered. According to this letter, Sargon led the Assyrian armies from his residence, into the areas around modern Iraqi Kurdistan and into the highlands of the Zagros mountain range beyond. His purpose was to come to the aid of allies of the Assyrian realm who were threatened by a certain Rusa I, a king of Urartu and a bitter enemy of Assyria. During the progress of this campaign, the author of the account visualized, or anticipated, the reactions of his adversary as, from a mountain, he watched the approach of the Assyrian armies. The passage, like many others in this unique text, constitutes an ingenious stylistic device unparalleled in Assyrian historical literature. The phraseology utilised by the writer is original by Mesopotamian principles as they are known today: resourceful, creative, testifying to a fertile mind, and clearly deviating from the conventional inanities that mostly characterize the standard accounts of Assyrian kings. Whether or not Sargon himself is responsible for the wording of this narrative, it is to his credit that an account of this nature emerged “on his watch,” with his approval and endorsement. Sargon is assumed to have died in battle in 705 after a seventeen year reign, in 705 BC.
Sennacharib.
As the crown prince, Sennacherib was placed in charge of the Assyrian Empire while his father, Sargon II, was on military campaigns. He reigned from 705-681 BC. Sennacherib figures prominently in the Old Testament. Believe it or not, all the academics tell us that his name means: “The god Sinn has replaced the brothers.” Mmmm! Full marks for originality anyway. It is generally believed that Isaiah died prior to Sennacharib’s demise, based on silence concerning Isaiah’s death.
Unlike his predecessors, Sennacherib’s reign was not so much embedded in conquering the world and making war but was creative and artistic and became known for architectural renovations, constructions and expansions. After the death of his father Sargon, Sennacherib encountered numerous problems in establishing his power and faced threats to his domain. However, he was able to overcome these power struggles and ultimately carry out his building projects. During his reign, he moved the empire’s capital to Nineveh which he reconstructed in unparalleled splendour building a new palace, extending and beautifying the city, and erecting inner and outer city walls that still stand today. It is a strange phenomenon that Sennacherib not only moved away and vacated the capital city that his father built, but that he does nor mention him in any official inscription during his entire reign either. Perhaps Sargon’s shadow was too much for Sennacharib to handle.
After his biding projects, Sennacherib’s political priority was mainly preoccupied with trying to resolve the situation in Babylon, a region that had only recently been retaken by his father. Sennacherib’s main opponent was the biblically known Merodach-Baladan who was supported by the troops of Elam. From 703-689 BC Sennacherib fought to control south Mesopotamia until finally, after a fifteen-month siege, the city of Babylon was captured and sacked.
In 701 BC Sennacherib sacked the city of Lachish in Judah but failed to take the capital Jerusalem. The details of that story were considered so wonderful that it is duplicated twice over in the Bible.
In 701 BC, a rebellion backed by Egypt and Babylon broke out in Judah, led by King Hezekiah. In response Sennacherib sacked a number of cities in Judah. He laid siege to Jerusalem, but soon returned to Nineveh, with Jerusalem not having been sacked, in order to put down an attempted coup. This event was recorded by Sennacherib himself, Herodotus, Josephus and by several Biblical writers. According to the Bible, Sennacherib also withdrew because the “angel of Yahweh went out and put to death 185,000 in the Assyrian camp” (2 Kings 19:35).
Artiat’s impression of Sennacharib surrounding Jerusalem in 701 BC.
“Because Hezekiah, king of Judah, would not submit to my yoke, I came up against him, and by force of arms and by the might of my power I took 46 of his strong fenced cities; and of the smaller towns which were scattered about, I took and plundered a countless number. From these places I took and carried off 200,156 persons, old and young, male and female, together with horses and mules, asses and camels, oxen and sheep, a countless multitude; and Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in, and raising banks of earth against the gates, so as to prevent escape. Then upon Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of my arms, and he sent out to me the chiefs and the elders of Jerusalem with 30 talents of gold and 300 talents of silver, and diverse treasures, a rich and immense booty… All these things were brought to me at Nineveh, the seat of my government.”
II Kings 18-19 (and parallel passage II Chronicles 32:1-23) details Sennacherib’s attack on Judah and its capital Jerusalem. Hezekiah had rebelled against the Assyrians, so they had captured all of the towns in Judah. Hezekiah realized his error and sent great tribute to Sennacherib. This part of the story is clearly reported as above in Sennacharib’s own record.
Sennacharib
The Assyrian king, however, misses out a critical extra part of how the story ended. The Assyrians still marched toward Jerusalem even though Hezekiah had paid vassal money. Sennacherib sent his supreme commander with an army to besiege Jerusalem while he himself went off to fight Egypt. The supreme commander met with Hezekiah’s officials and threatened them to surrender; while hurling insults, so the people of the city could hear, blaspheming Judah and particularly Yahweh, the God of Israel.
When the King Hezekiah heard of this, he tore his clothes (as was the custom of the day for displaying deep anguish) and prayed to God in the Temple. Isaiah the prophet told the king that God would take care of the whole matter and that the enemy would return to his own lands. That night, the Angel of Yahweh killed 185,000 Assyrian troops. Jewish tradition maintains that the angel Gabriel was the angel sent to destroy the Assyrian troops, and that the destruction occurred on Passover night. Sennacherib returned to Nineveh in disgrace. Some years later, while Sennacherib was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons killed him and fled to Armenia.
Here is every verse of scripture that refers to Sennacharib. For those who trust God, it is exciting reading beyond words.
Ancient art depicting the death of Sennacharib. His own sons killing him while he prays to his idols. Quite shocking really.
During the fourteenth year of the reign of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria approached all of the walled cities of Judah and seized them. (2 Kings 18:13 also Isaiah 36:1)
After all of these acts of faithfulness occurred, King Sennacherib of Assyria came, invaded Judah, and laid siege to the fortified cities, thinking to conquer them for himself. As soon as Hezekiah learned that Sennacherib had arrived and had determined to attack Jerusalem, (2 Chronicles 32:1-2)
Sennacharib’s palace and throne room
After this, King Sennacherib of Assyria sent his messengers to Jerusalem while he was in the middle of a vigorous attack on Lachish. They delivered this message to King Hezekiah of Judah and to all the people of Judah who had gathered in Jerusalem: This is what King Sennacherib of Assyria says: ‘What are you leaning on that makes you stay behind while Jerusalem comes under siege? (2 Chronicles 32:9-10)
King Sennacherib’s spokesmen said even worse things against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah. Sennacherib also wrote letters like this that insulted and slandered the Lord God of Israel: “Just as the gods of the nations in other lands haven’t delivered their people from my control, so also the god of Hezekiah won’t deliver his people from me!” (2 Chronicles 32: 16-17)
Meanwhile, King Hezekiah and Amoz’s son Isaiah the prophet were praying about this and crying out to heaven. (2 Chronicles 32:20)
Sennacharib’s prismatic Stele
Extend your ear, Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, Lord, and look! Listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God. (2 Kings 19:16 and Isaiah 37:17)
Then Amoz’s son Isaiah sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, to whom you prayed concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria. (2 Kings 19:20 and Isaiah 37:21)
Now King Sennacherib had received this report concerning King Tirhakah of Cush: “He has marched out to fight against you.” When he heard it, he returned and sent messengers to Hezekiah: (Isaiah 37:9)
That’s how the Lord delivered Hezekiah, as well as those who lived in Jerusalem, from Assyria’s King Sennacherib and all his forces, and provided for all of their needs. (2 Chronicles 32:22)
So Rab-shakeh returned and found the king of Assyria at war with Libnah, because Rab-shakeh had heard that the king had left Lachish. (2 Kings 19:8 and Isaiah 37:8)
After this, the angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp. When Hezekiah’s army awakened in the morning—there were all the dead bodies! (Isaiah 37:36)
As a result, King Sennacherib of Assyria left and returned to Nineveh where he lived. (2 Kings 19:36 and Isaiah 37:37)
Later on, as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with a sword and fled into the territory of Ararat. Then Sennacherib’s son Esarhaddon became king in his place. (2 Kings 19:37 and Isaiah 37:38)
Ruins of Samaria with what I think are Photoshopped figures. I may be wrong.
Swimming Up the Niagara 