Part 4 (2/2)
Tiglath-Pileser determined to cement the various states of Western Asia into a single empire, governed by satraps appointed at Nineveh, and accountable only to the king. Each satrapy, or province, had to provide a certain number of men for the imperial army, and to pay a fixed annual tribute to the imperial treasury. Thus, Nineveh itself was a.s.sessed at 30 talents, ten of which went to the general expenditure, while the remaining twenty were devoted to the maintenance of the fleet. Calah paid 9 talents; Carchemish, once the rich capital of the Hitt.i.tes, paid 100; Arpad 30; and Megiddo but 15. Besides gold and silver, the cities and provinces were called upon to furnish chariots, clothing, and other similar contributions.
Two years after his accession (B.C. 743) Tiglath-Pileser II turned his attention to the west. Arpad, now Tel-Erfad, near Aleppo, was the first object of attack. It held out for three years, and did not fall until B.C.
740. But, meanwhile, the kingdom of Hamath had been shattered by the a.s.syrian arms. Nineteen of its districts were placed under a.s.syrian governors, and the a.s.syrian forces made their way as far as the Mediterranean Sea. Azri-yahu, or Azariah (Uzziah), the Jewish king, had been the ally of Hamath, and from him also punishment was accordingly exacted. He was compelled to purchase peace by the offer of submission and the payment of tribute. The alliance between Judah and Hamath had been of long standing. David had been the friend of its king Tou or Toi; and at the beginning of Sargon's reign the king of Hamath bears a distinctively Jewish name. This is Yahu-bihdi, or, as it is elsewhere written, Ilu-bihdi, where the word _ilu_, ”G.o.d,” takes the place of the name of the covenant G.o.d of Israel. It is even possible that Yahu-bihdi was a Jew who had been placed on the throne of Hamath by Azariah. At any rate, the alliance between Judah and Hamath explains a pa.s.sage in 2 Kings xiv. 28, which has long presented a difficulty. It is now clear that Jeroboam is here stated to have won over Hamath to Israel, though previously it had ”been allied with Judah.” But after Jeroboam's death, Jewish influence must once more have gained an ascendency among the Hamathites.
Two years after the fall of Arpad, Tiglath-Pileser was again in the west.
On this occasion he held a _levee_ of subject princes, among whom Rezon of Damascus and Manahem of Samaria came to offer their gifts and do homage to their sovereign lord.(7) The tribute which Tiglath-Pileser states that he then received from the Israelitish king was given, according to the Book of Kings, to Pul. We may infer from this, therefore, that the a.s.syrian monarch was still known to the neighbouring nations by his original name, and that it was not until later that they became accustomed to the new t.i.tle he had a.s.sumed. The inference is further borne out by the statement of an ancient Greek astronomer, Ptolemy. When speaking of the eclipses which were observed at Babylon, Ptolemy gives a list of Babylonian kings, with the length of their reigns, from the so-called era of Nabona.s.sar, in B.C. 747, down to the time of Alexander the Great. In this list, Tiglath-Pileser, after his conquest of Babylon, is named Poros or Por, Por being the Persian form of Pul.
During the lifetime of Menahem Israel remained tributary to a.s.syria, and the a.s.syrian king did not again turn his arms against the west. After the death of Menahem and the murder of his son Pekahiah, however, important changes took place. The usurper, Pekah, in alliance with Rezon of Damascus, attacked Judah with the intention of overthrowing the dynasty of David and placing on the throne of Jerusalem a va.s.sal king whose father's name, Tabeel, shows that he must have been a Syrian. Jotham, the Jewish king, died shortly after the war began, and the youth and weakness of his son and successor Ahaz laid Judah open to its antagonists, who were further aided by a disaffected party within the capital itself (Isa. viii.
6). In his extremity, therefore, Ahaz appealed to the a.s.syrian monarch, who was already seeking an excuse for crus.h.i.+ng Damascus, and reducing the Jewish kingdom, with its important fortress of Jerusalem, to a condition of va.s.salage. In B.C. 734, accordingly, Tiglath-Pileser marched into Syria. Rezon was defeated in a pitched battle, his chariots broken in pieces, his captains captured and impaled, while he himself escaped to Damascus, where he was closely besieged by the enemy. The territory of Damascus was now devastated with fire and sword, its sixteen districts were ”overwhelmed as with a flood,” and the beautiful gardens by which the capital was surrounded were destroyed, every tree being cut down for use in the siege. The city itself, however, proved too strong to be taken by a.s.sault; so, leaving a sufficient force before it to reduce it by famine, Tiglath-Pileser proceeded against the late allies of the Syrian king.
Israel was the first to be attacked. The north of the country was overrun, and the tribes beyond the Jordan carried into captivity. Gilead and Abel-beth-maachah are mentioned by name as among the towns that were taken and sacked.(8) The a.s.syrians then fell upon Ammon and Moab, which had aided Israel and Syria in the attack on Judah, and next made their way along the sea-coast into the country of the Philistines, who had seized the opportunity of the late war to shake off the yoke of the Jewish king.
Their leader, Khanun or Hanno of Gaza, fled into Egypt; but Gaza itself was captured and laid under tribute, its G.o.ds carried away, and an image of the a.s.syrian king set up in the temple of Dagon. Ekron and Ashdod were also punished, and Metinti of Ashkelon committed suicide in order to escape the vengeance of the conqueror.
Now that all fear of danger in the south had been removed, Tiglath-Pileser marched back into the northern kingdom, took Samaria, and (according to his own account) put Pekah to death, appointing Hosea king in his place. A yearly tribute of ten talents of gold and a thousand of silver was at the same time exacted. Shortly afterwards some of the a.s.syrian troops were sent against the Edomites and the Queen of the Arabs, who had also revolted against a.s.syria and joined the Syro-Israelite league. Indeed, this league seems to have been formed for the purpose of checking the a.s.syrian advance, and the war against Judah to have been due to a refusal of Jotham to take part in it. It was an antic.i.p.ation of the league that was afterwards formed in the time of Hezekiah against the growing power of Sargon.
Meanwhile, after a siege of two years, Damascus fell in B.C. 732. Rezon was slain, his subjects transported into captivity, and a great court, like a durbar in modern India, was held in his palace by Tiglath-Pileser.
Among the subject-princes who attended it was Ahaz of Judah. He is called Jehoahaz in the a.s.syrian inscriptions, and it is therefore clear that the sacred historians have dropped the first part of the name, in consequence of the character of the king. The divine name would have been profaned by its a.s.sociation with an idolatrous and unworthy prince. As Khanun appeared at the court along with Kavus-melech of Edom, Metinti of Ashkelon, Solomon of Moab, and Sanib of Ammon, he must have succeeded in obtaining a pardon.
It was while Ahaz was at Damascus in attendance on the a.s.syrian monarch that he saw the altar, the pattern of which he sent to Urijah, ordering it to be set up in the court of the Lord's house.
Tiglath-Pileser died in B.C. 727, and was succeeded by Shalmaneser IV. The refusal of Hosea to continue the annual tribute brought the new a.s.syrian monarch into the west. Tyre was besieged unsuccessfully, Hosea carried away captive, and Samaria blockaded for three years. During the blockade Shalmaneser died, and the crown was seized by one of the a.s.syrian generals. The latter a.s.sumed the name of Sargon, in memory of the famous Babylonian monarch who had reigned so many centuries before. The capture of Samaria took place in his first year (B.C. 722); 27,280 of its inhabitants were sent into exile, but only fifty chariots were found in the city. An a.s.syrian governor was appointed over it, who was commissioned to send each year to Nineveh the same tribute as that paid by Hosea. The comparatively small number of Israelites who were carried into captivity shows that Sargon contented himself with removing only those persons and their families who had taken part in the revolt against him; in fact, Samaria was treated pretty much as Jerusalem was by Nebuchadrezzar in the time of Jehoiachin. The greater part of the old population was allowed to remain in its native land. This fact disposes of the modern theories which a.s.sume that the whole of the Ten Tribes were carried away. The districts to which the captives were taken were Halah, the banks of the Habor, or river of Gozan, and the cities of the Medes. Halah was not far from Haran in Mesopotamia, on the western side of the Habor, the modern Khabur, which flows into the Euphrates, and rises in the country called Guzana, or Gozan, in the a.s.syrian inscriptions. The Medes were the tribes who lived eastward of Kurdistan, which, like Mesopotamia, had been overrun by Tiglath-Pileser.
The places of the captive Israelites were not supplied immediately. We learn from the Old Testament that it was from Hamath and the cities of Babylonia that the new inhabitants were brought. Now Hamath was not conquered by Sargon until B.C. 720, and Babylonia not until B.C. 710.
Hamath had broken into revolt under Yahu-bihdi or Ilu-bihdi, who induced Arpad, Damascus, and Samaria to follow its example. But its chastis.e.m.e.nt was speedy and sharp. Sargon captured Ilu-bihdi in the city of Aroer, and flayed him alive; while Hamath received a colony of 4,300 a.s.syrians and an a.s.syrian governor. Samaria was next punished, and Sargon then marched southward against the combined forces of Khanun of Gaza and Sabako or So of Egypt. A battle at Raphia decided the fate of the struggle, and Khanun fell into the hands of his enemies.
The Babylonian cities from which some of the new settlers in Samaria were taken were Cuthah and Sepharvaim. Cuthah is now represented by the mounds of Tel Ibrahim, to the north-west of Babylon. It was under the special protection of Nergal, whose name means ”the lord of the great city,” the G.o.d of the under-world. Sepharvaim, or ”the two Sipparas,” stood on opposite banks of the Euphrates. The quarter on the eastern bank, now called Abu-Habba, was Sippara proper, where, according to Babylonian tradition, Sisuthros had buried his books before the Deluge; the quarter on the other bank being Agade or Accad, the old capital of Sargon I, which gave its name to the whole of the northern portion of Chaldea. In later times the two quarters were distinguished from one another as ”Sippara of Samas,” the Sun-G.o.d, and ”Sippara of Anunit.” Anunit was the wife of the G.o.d Anu, ”the sky”; and when the Bible says that ”the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Anammelech” reference is made to ”Anu the king.”
Adrammelech, or ”Adar the king,” was another Babylonian deity, who was originally a form of the Sun-G.o.d.
We may gather from Ezra iv. 2, 10, that Samaria was colonised a second time by the a.s.syrians, perhaps in consequence of an unsuccessful revolt.
This took place in the reign of Esar-haddon. His son Asnapper, or a.s.sur-bani-pal, settled a number of Elamite tribes in the country, among them being natives of Susa and of Apharsa or Mal Amir. Men from Babylon and Erech were also settled there at the same time. The names of the new colonists would suit the reign of a.s.sur-bani-pal better than that of Esar-haddon, since it was a.s.sur-bani-pal, and not Esar-haddon, who conquered Elam and Susa, and took by storm both Babylon and Erech. It is, therefore, probable that Esar-haddon in verse 2 is a scribe's error for Asnapper.
The reduction of the northern kingdom of Israel into an a.s.syrian province brought the a.s.syrian empire to the very borders of Judah, and the a.s.syrian kings began to cast longing eyes upon the territory of the latter. Its capital, Jerusalem, was an almost impregnable fortress, the possession of which would open the road into Egypt, as well as block the pa.s.sage of an Egyptian army into Asia. But as yet there was no excuse for attacking it.
Hezekiah, the successor of Ahaz, continued to pay the tribute his father had consented to give to the a.s.syrians, and Sargon accordingly occupied himself in wars elsewhere. Suddenly, however, an event occurred which brought him once more into Palestine. In order to understand this, we must turn our eyes for a moment or two to Babylonia.
The Babylonians had seized the opportunity offered by the death of Tiglath-Pileser to shake off the a.s.syrian yoke. For five years they remained free. Then in B.C. 722 the country was occupied by a man of great energy and ability, Merodach-baladan, the son of Yagina.(9) Merodach-baladan was the hereditary chief of the Kalda or Chaldeans, a small tribe at that time settled in the marshes at the mouth of the Euphrates, but which, in consequence of his conquest of Babylon afterwards, became the dominant caste in Babylonia itself. For twelve years he continued undisputed master of the country we may henceforth call Chaldea. Sargon, however, was becoming every year more powerful, and it was evident that another a.s.syrian invasion of Babylonia would not be long postponed. Merodach-baladan determined to antic.i.p.ate the attack. He therefore endeavoured to form a vast league between the states on both the eastern and the western sides of the a.s.syrian empire, whose independence was menaced by their powerful neighbour. Babylonia and Elam were the eastern members of the league, and amba.s.sadors were sent to the west, to concert measures with the various states of Palestine, as well as with Egypt, for common action against Sargon.
Hezekiah, now in the fourteenth year of his reign (2 Kings xx. 6), had just recovered from a dangerous illness, which had been aggravated by the fear of a.s.syria, and the fact that as yet he had no son to succeed him.
The illness formed the pretext by which the conspirators hoped to blind the eyes of Sargon to the real objects of the emba.s.sy; it was published to the world that the amba.s.sadors had come merely to congratulate the Jewish king on his recovery. But Sargon knew well that Merodach-baladan would not have troubled himself to enquire after the health of a brother-king without a further motive, and he doubtless learned that Hezekiah had shown the amba.s.sadors all the treasures and arms with which he hoped to support the league. The consequence was, that before the confederates were prepared to resist him, the a.s.syrian monarch had swooped down upon them and attacked them singly.
Palestine was the first to suffer. Akhimit, whom Sargon had appointed king of Ashdod, had been dethroned, and the crown given to an usurper named Yavan or ”the Greek.” Yavan seems to have been the nominee of Hezekiah, who at this time exercised a sort of suzerainty over the Philistine cities, and he was set up as king for the purpose of heading the Philistine revolt against a.s.syria. Edom and Moab also sent contingents to the war, and the Ethiopian king of Egypt promised help. Of the details of the struggle between Sargon and the western states we unfortunately know nothing. But it did not last long; neither Babylonia nor Egypt had time to send any a.s.sistance to their allies. The _Tartan_ or Commander-in-chief was ordered to invest Ashdod (see Isa. xx. 1), while Sargon himself overran ”the wide-spreading land of Judah,” and captured its capital Jerusalem. This conquest of Judah by Sargon explains prophecies of Isaiah which have hitherto been unsolved mysteries. Thus an explanation is at length offered of the circ.u.mstances described by the prophet in chapters x. and xi. Here the a.s.syrian army is described as marching along the usual high-road from the north-east, and as halting at n.o.b, only an hour's journey distant from Jerusalem, on the very day when the oracle was uttered,(10) while Isaiah declares that the capital itself shall fall into the hands of the enemy (x. 6, 12, 22, 24, 34).
All this is inapplicable to the invasion of Sennacherib, when a detachment only of the a.s.syrian army was sent against Jerusalem from the south-west, and when Isaiah was commissioned by G.o.d to promise that the king of a.s.syria should ”not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with s.h.i.+eld, nor cast a bank against it.” The older commentators were accordingly driven to the desperate expedient of supposing that the invasion described by Isaiah in the tenth chapter of his prophecies was an ideal one. Thanks, however, to the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, all is now clear, and we can now understand why it is that the a.s.syrian monarch, whose march is described by Isaiah, claims to be the conqueror of Calno and Carchemish, of Hamath and Arpad, of Damascus and Samaria (w. 8-10). All these were conquests of Sargon, not of Sennacherib.
Ashdod was taken and razed to the ground, and its inhabitants sold into captivity. Yavan managed to escape to the Egyptian king, who was cowardly enough to give him up to his enemies. Edom and Moab were punished for the part they had taken in the rebellion, and the authority of Sargon was paramount as far as the frontier of Egypt.
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