You’ve seen them throughout the Bible, the Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Romans, etc. They were not particularly a friendly bunch. In fact, the very definition of an empire is a state that has political and military control over other states. If they were ever mentioned in the Bible, chances are they had locked horns with God’s people. The earliest empire that appeared in the Bible was Egypt, but we know Egypt all too well already. So how about the next in line, Assyria?
Assyria has cameoed in this newsletter quite a few times (about Nebuchadnezzar, Hezekiah, and Nahum), so perhaps it’s time for a proper introduction. Assyria 亞述 {ya3-shu4} (very different from Syria) was one of Israel’s strongest adversaries in the Old Testament. Although Assyria as a civilization dates back to 21st Century BC, its most notable dynasty, the Neo-Assyrian Empire 新亞述帝國, came into being more than 100 years after Israel’s first king, Saul. Its influence started in Mesopotamia 兩河流域 {liang3-he2-liu2-yu4} and reached the Bible when King Pul 普勒 {pu3-le4} (the face of this issue) invaded Israel during Menahem’s reign.
Pul, a.k.a. Tiglath-Pileser III 提革拉毗尼色三世 {ti2-ge2-la1-pi2-ni2-se4-san1-shi4}, didn’t stop there. He invaded Israel yet again during Pekah’s reign and captured many cities including Galilee, where Jesus later grew up. Assyrians employed a famous and cruel strategy over all the captured cities by deporting their people to distant foreign lands, thereby rendering those cities unrecognizable and eliminating threats of future revolts. In the same campaign, he subjugated Judah and made its king, Ahaz, his vassal. But TPIII did not completely destroy Israel or Judah.
Pul’s son, Shalmaneser V 撒縵以色五世 {sa1-man4-yi3-se4-wu3-shi4}, dealt the fatal blow to the Kingdom of Israel after he discovered that his vassal king betrayed him. (2 Kings 17:4) As a result, he finished the deportation of Israel and erased it completely from the map.
Shalmaneser’s grandson Sennacherib 西拿基立 {xi1-na2-ji1-li4} thirsted for more expansion and had his eyes set on Judah. This prompted Hezekiah to wisely seek God’s help (2 Kings 19). God answered his prayer and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night. With the battle lost before it even began, Sennacherib withdrew in defeat and was later killed by his own sons because of a dispute of succession.
After that, Assyria no longer posed any further threat to Judah. Sennacherib’s son, Esarhaddon 以撒哈頓 {yi3-sa4-ha1-dun4}, and his son, Ashurbanipal 亞斯那巴 {ya3-si1-na2-ba1}, only got passing mentions in the Bible. Two more successors later, Nabopolassar (father of Nebuchadnezzar) of Babylon rebelled against Assyria and completely destroyed it.
Empires rise and fall. Kings come and go. Compared to God’s mighty hands that thread all of them according to His perfect love and perfect will, they are mere creations and vessels. This fierce and formidable empire lasted a little over 300 years. Few empires that came after fared much better. All of them repeatedly remind us how fragile things built by human hands must be, and how futile any effort to stand against God is.
Photo from Wikipedia, Public Domain