Part 5 (1/2)

All this happened in B.C. 711. The following year the whole power of a.s.syria was hurled against Merodach-baladan. The Elamites were defeated and their border-towns sacked, and the Babylonian king was compelled to retreat southwards, leaving Babylon in the hands of the a.s.syrians. A year later he was pursued by Sargon into his last refuge; Bit-Yagina, his ancestral capital, was taken by storm, and he himself forced to surrender.

His good fortune never returned. On Sargon's death he once more entered Babylon, but his second reign only lasted six months. After a battle which ended in the complete victory of Sennacherib, he fled again to the marshes, but was driven out of them four years later, and sailed across the Persian Gulf to find a new home on the western coast of Elam. But even here his implacable enemies followed him. In B.C. 697, Sennacherib manned a fleet with Phnician sailors and destroyed the town the old Chaldean prince had built. After this we hear of him no more.

The tenth chapter of Isaiah teaches us to look for references to the capture of Jerusalem by Sargon in other parts of the book. It is impossible not to recognise one of these in the twenty-second chapter.

Here the prophet presents us with the picture of a siege which has already lasted some time, and when the inhabitants of Jerusalem are no longer slain by the sword, but by famine, while the city is on the point of being starved out. Here also the message which Isaiah is bidden to deliver is not a promise of deliverance from the enemy, but the reverse: ”It was revealed in my ears by the Lord of Hosts, surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord G.o.d of Hosts.” It is only the campaign of Sargon that can explain these words.

Ten years later Judah was again invaded by an a.s.syrian king, and Jerusalem again threatened by an a.s.syrian army. Sargon had been murdered by his soldiers, and succeeded by his son, Sennacherib, who mounted the throne on the 12th of the month of Ab, or July, B.C. 705. He was a very different man from his father, weak and vain-glorious, fonder of boasting than of deeds. Trusting to the support of Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, Hezekiah threw off his allegiance to a.s.syria, and refused to send the yearly tribute to Nineveh. The Phnicians did the same, while the Jewish king rea.s.serted his former supremacy over the cities of the Philistines.

Padi, the king of Ekron, who remained faithful to a.s.syria, was carried in chains to Jerusalem, and Zedekiah, who is named in the a.s.syrian records as the king of Ashkelon, was probably of Jewish origin. It was not until three years after his accession that Sennacherib found himself able to march against the rebels. In B.C. 701 he crossed the Euphrates, and made his way to the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean. Great and Little Sidon, Sarepta, Acre, and other Phnician towns, surrendered to the invader, the Sidonian monarch fled to Cyprus, and the kings of Arvad and Gebal hastened to pay their court to the conquerer. Metinti of Ashdod, Pedael of Ammon, Chemosh-nadad of Moab, and Melech-ram of Edom, who were also suspected of having taken part in the rebellion, came at the same time. Judah and the dependent Philistine states alone still held out.

The rest of the history had best be told in Sennacherib's own words.

”Zedekiah, king of Ashkelon,” he says, ”who had not submitted to my yoke, himself, the G.o.ds of the house of his fathers, his wife, his sons, his daughters and his brothers, the seed of the house of his fathers, I removed, and I sent him to a.s.syria. I set over the men of Ashkelon, Sarludari, the son of Rukipti, their former king, and I imposed upon him the payment of tribute, and the homage due to my majesty, and he became a va.s.sal. In the course of my campaign I approached and captured Beth-Dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak and Azur, the cities of Zedekiah, which did not submit at once to my yoke, and I carried away their spoil. The priests, the chief men, and the common people of Ekron, who had thrown into chains their king Padi because he was faithful to his oaths to a.s.syria, and had given him up to Hezekiah, the Jew, who imprisoned him like an enemy in a dark dungeon, feared in their hearts. The king of Egypt, the bowmen, the chariots and the horses of the king of Ethiopia, had gathered together innumerable forces and gone to their a.s.sistance. In sight of the town of Eltekeh was their order of battle drawn up; they called their troops (to the battle).

Trusting in a.s.sur, my lord, I fought with them and overthrew them. My hands took the captains of the chariots and the sons of the king of Egypt, as well as the captains of the chariots of the king of Ethiopia, alive in the midst of the battle. I approached and captured the towns of Eltekeh and Timnath, and I carried away their spoil. I marched against the city of Ekron, and put to death the priests and the chief men who had committed the sin (of rebellion), and I hung up their bodies on stakes all round the city. The citizens who had done wrong and wickedness I counted as a spoil; as for the rest of them who had done no sin or crime, in whom no fault was found, I proclaimed their freedom (from punishment). I had Padi, their king, brought out from the midst of Jerusalem, and I seated him on the throne of royalty over them, and I laid upon him the tribute due to my majesty. But as for Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke, forty-six of his strong cities, together with innumerable fortresses and small towns which depended on them, by overthrowing the walls and open attack, by battle, engines and battering-rams I besieged, I captured. I brought out from the midst of them and counted as a spoil 200,150 persons, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, a.s.ses, camels, oxen and sheep without number. Hezekiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem, his royal city. I built a line of forts against him, and I kept back his heel from going forth out of the great gate of his city. I cut off his cities which I had spoiled from the midst of his land, and gave them to Metinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and Zil-baal, king of Gaza, and I made his country small. In addition to their former tribute and yearly gifts I added other tribute, and the homage due to my majesty, and I laid it upon them. The fear of the greatness of my majesty overwhelmed him, even Hezekiah, and he sent after me to Nineveh, my royal city, by way of gift and tribute, the Arabs and his body-guard whom he had brought for the defence of Jerusalem, his royal city, and had furnished with pay, along with thirty talents of gold, 800 talents of pure silver, carbuncles and other precious stones, a couch of ivory, thrones of ivory, an elephant's hide, an elephant's tusk, rare woods, whatever their names, a vast treasure, as well as the eunuchs of his palace, dancing men and dancing women; and he sent his amba.s.sador to offer homage.”

The a.s.syrian and the Biblical accounts complete and supplement one another. Sennacherib naturally glosses over the disaster that befel him in Palestine, and transfers the payment of the tribute from the time when Hezekiah vainly hoped to buy off the siege of Jerusalem to the end of the campaign. But he cannot conceal the fact that he never succeeded in taking the revolted city or in punis.h.i.+ng Hezekiah, as he had punished other rebel kings, nor did he again undertake a campaign in the west. We find him the next year in Babylonia; then he attacked the tribes of Cilicia; but he never again ventured into Palestine. During the rest of his lifetime Judah had nothing more to fear from the a.s.syrian king.

At first sight there seems to be a discrepancy between the number of silver talents stated in the Bible to have been paid by Hezekiah, and the number which Sennacherib claims to have received. But the discrepancy is only an apparent one. It has been shown that there were two standards of value, according to one of which 500 talents of silver would be equivalent to 800 talents, if reckoned by the other. A more real discrepancy is to be found in the statement of Sennacherib that he had built a line of forts round about Jerusalem, and prevented Hezekiah from getting out of it. This is in flagrant contradiction to the words of Isaiah, that the a.s.syrian king should not shoot an arrow into Jerusalem, nor a.s.sault it under the cover of s.h.i.+elds, nor cast a bank against it. Sennacherib claims to have performed more than he actually did.

Another discrepancy has been found in the date a.s.signed by the Biblical narrative to the a.s.syrian invasion. The year B.C. 701 was the twenty-fourth year of Hezekiah, not the fourteenth, which fell in B.C.

711, the year of Sargon's campaign. But this very fact supplies an explanation of the difficulty. In the retrospective record of the prophetical annalist, the two campaigns of Sargon and Sennacherib have been brought into a.s.sociation, though the history dwells only upon that one which ill.u.s.trated G.o.d's way of dealing with His faithful servants.

Hence it is that reminiscences of the earlier invasion are allowed to enter here and there into the narrative. It was Sargon, and not Sennacherib, who was the conqueror of Hamath and Arpad, of Sepharvaim and Samaria (2 Kings xviii. 34-36). It was Sargon, and not Sennacherib, who invaded Judah in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign.

There is a bas-relief in the British Museum which represents Sennacherib seated on his throne in front of Lachish, and receiving the spoil of the city as it pa.s.sed before him. It was while he was encamped before this city that Hezekiah despatched the emba.s.sy with gifts and tribute and prayers for pardon. Sennacherib accepted the gifts, but refused the pardon; nothing would content him but the absolute surrender of Jerusalem and its king. Hezekiah then prepared for his defence. We gather from Isaiah's writings that there were at that period three parties in the State, each of which at different times gained an influence over the king and his councillors. There was first the party headed by Shebna-whose name proves him to have been of Syrian parentage-which advocated alliance with Egypt and hostility to a.s.syria. This was the party with which Isaiah had mainly to contend, but its power was not finally extinguished until after the retreat of Tirhakah from the battle of Eltekeh, and this visible proof that Egypt was but a bruised reed to lean upon. The second party inherited the policy of Ahaz, and urged that Judah's only chance of safety lay in submission to the mighty Empire of a.s.syria. Isaiah was the representative of the third party. He announced G.o.d's own declaration, that He would defend His city and temple if only its inhabitants would trust and fear Him, and reject all alliances with the heathen nations that surrounded them. ”In quietness and in confidence” should be their strength. It was not until events had demonstrated the truth of Isaiah's message that the rulers of Jerusalem reluctantly accepted it, and recognised at last that the true policy of Judah was to abstain from mixing in the wars and intrigues of the foreign idolater.

When the Jewish emba.s.sy arrived at Lachish, the Egyptian party seems still to have been in the ascendant. In spite of the prophet's warning, envoys had been sent to Egypt (Isa. x.x.x. x.x.xi.), and had returned full of confidence in an alliance, which yet was to be to them not ”an help nor profit, but a shame and also a reproach.” The battle of Eltekeh dissipated their hopes. This was fought after the capture of Lachish, when Sennacherib was endeavouring to take the neighbouring fortress of Libnah (2 Kings xix. 8, 9). The Rab-shakeh or Prime Minister had been sent against Jerusalem along with the Tartan or Commander-in-chief and the Rab-saris or Chamberlain, and after delivering his message to its defenders had returned to Sennacherib, leaving a considerable force under the Tartan encamped outside its walls. The message had been delivered in Hebrew, not in a.s.syrian or in Aramaic (Syrian), which at that time was the general language of trade and diplomacy in Western Asia, like French in modern Europe. Every politician was expected to speak it, and Hezekiah's ministers take it for granted that the Rab-shakeh would be able to do so.

The fact that he preferred to speak in Hebrew gives us a high idea of the education of the age. Every cultivated a.s.syrian was acquainted with Accadian, the old dead language of Babylonia, which was to an a.s.syrian what Latin is to us; and in addition to this diplomatists and men of business were required to know Aramaic, while we here find the highest of a.s.syrian officials further able to converse in Hebrew.

A reminiscence of the disaster which befel the a.s.syrian army was preserved in an Egyptian legend, which ascribed it to the piety of an Egyptian king.

Influenced by this legend, some scholars have supposed that it took place at Pelusium, on the Egyptian frontier; but the language of Scripture seems hardly to leave a doubt that it really happened before Jerusalem. The result was the abrupt breaking up of the a.s.syrian camp and the termination of the siege of Jerusalem. Sennacherib hastened back to Nineveh, and the court annalists were bidden to draw a veil of silence over the conclusion of the campaign.

Hezekiah did not long survive his wonderful deliverance. Next to Solomon he seems to have been the most cultivated of the Jewish kings. His public works rendered Jerusalem one of the most formidable fortresses of the ancient world; and if the tunnel of Siloam belongs to his reign, it is clear that he had at his disposal engineering skill of a high order. He was not only himself a poet, but a restorer of the old psalmody and a patron of literature. In imitation, probably, of the libraries of a.s.syria and Babylonia, he established a library in Jerusalem, where scribes were employed, as they were at Nineveh, in making new editions of ancient works (see Prov. xxv. 1.). Ahaz had introduced into Judah the study of astronomy, for which the Babylonians were renowned, and had set up a gnomon or sun-dial in the palace-court (2 Kings xx. 11). It is possible that some of the astronomical literature of Babylonia, which has been recovered from the cuneiform tablets now in the British Museum, was introduced at the same time, with its mult.i.tudinous observations and prediction of eclipses, its notices of the appearance of comets, of the movements of the planets and fixed stars, of the phases of Venus, and even of spots on the sun. It is also possible that the a.s.syrian calendar and the a.s.syrian names of the months now first became familiar to the Jews. At any rate, it would seem, from Jer. xxiii. 10, 11, that clay came to be used in Judah as a writing material, just as it was at Babylon or Nineveh, the inner clay record of a contract being covered with an outer coating, on which was inscribed an abstract of its contents, together with the names of the witnesses. Jeremiah's deed of purchase, moreover, was preserved in a jar, like the numerous clay deeds of the Egibi banking-firm, which existed at Babylon from the age of Nebuchadrezzar to that of Xerxes. These jars served the purpose of our modern safes.

Sennacherib lived for twenty years after his withdrawal from Palestine. In B.C. 681 he was murdered by his two elder sons, Adar-melech and Nergal-sharezer, who were jealous of the favour shown by him towards their younger brother Esar-haddon. A curious evidence of this favour exists among the tablets in the British Museum. This is nothing less than the will of Sennacherib, made apparently some years before his death, in which he bequeaths to Esar-haddon certain private property. The doc.u.ment reads as follows:-”I, Sennacherib, king of mult.i.tudes, king of a.s.syria, bequeath armlets of gold, quant.i.ties of ivory, a platter of gold, ornaments, and chains for the neck, all these beautiful things of which there are heaps, and three sorts of precious stones, one and a half manehs and two and a half shekels in weight, to Esar-haddon my son, whose name was afterwards changed to a.s.sur-sar-illik-pal by my wish. The treasure is deposited in the house of Amuk.” The king was excused the necessity of having his will attested by witnesses, as was obligatory in the case of other persons; and it is plain that at the time when it was made Esar-haddon was not the recognised heir to the throne.

The murder of the old king took place, according to the Bible, ”as he was wors.h.i.+pping in the house of Nisroch his G.o.d.” The reading of the G.o.d's name, however, is corrupt, since no such deity was known to the a.s.syrians, and it is possible that Nusku, the companion of Nebo, the patron of literature, is intended. A war was going on at the time between a.s.syria and Armenia, and the murderers finding, apparently, no adherents in Nineveh, fled to Erimenas, the Armenian king. Esar-haddon, at the head of the a.s.syrian veterans, met them and the Armenian forces, a few weeks afterwards, at a place not far from Melitene, the modern Malatiyeh, in Kappadokia. The battle ended in the complete victory of the a.s.syrians, and Esar-haddon was saluted ”king” on the spot by his soldiers. He then returned to Nineveh, and there formally ascended the throne.

Esar-haddon resembled his father but little. He was one of the ablest generals a.s.syria ever produced, and was distinguished from his predecessors by his mild and conciliatory policy. Under him the a.s.syrian empire reached its furthest limits, Egypt being conquered, and placed under twenty a.s.syrian satraps, while an a.s.syrian army penetrated into the very heart of the Arabian desert. But the conquests which had been won in war were cemented by a policy of justice and moderation. Thus Babylon, which had been razed to the ground by Sennacherib in B.C. 691, and the adjoining river choked with its ruins, was rebuilt, and Esar-haddon endeavoured to win over the Babylonians by residing in it during half the year. This affords an explanation of a fact mentioned in the Second Book of Chronicles (x.x.xiii. 11), which has long been a stumbling-block in the way of critics. It is there said that the king of a.s.syria, after crus.h.i.+ng the revolt of Mana.s.seh, carried him away captive to Babylon. The cause of this is now clear. As Esar-haddon spent part of his time at Babylon it merely depended on the season of the year to which of his two capitals, Nineveh or Babylon, a political prisoner should be brought. The treatment of Mana.s.seh was in full accordance with the treatment of other rebel princes in the time of Esar-haddon's son, a.s.sur-bani-pal. Like them, he was at first loaded with chains, but was afterwards allowed to return to his kingdom and reinstated in the government of it.

The name of ”Mana.s.seth, king of Judah,” twice occurs on the a.s.syrian monuments. Once he is mentioned among the tributaries of Esar-haddon, once among those of a.s.sur-bani-pal. It is clear, therefore, that at some period shortly after Hezekiah's death, Judah was again forced to pay tribute and do homage to the a.s.syrian king. When Esar-haddon pa.s.sed through Palestine on his way to Egypt, he found there only submission and respect. Sidon alone withstood him, and Sidon was accordingly destroyed.

The ”burden” p.r.o.nounced upon Egypt by Isaiah (ch. xix.) must belong to the age of Esar-haddon. The condition of Egypt at the time was exactly that described by the prophet. The country was divided into hostile kingdoms, which fought ”every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.” Tirhakah the Ethiopian, whom the a.s.syrians had driven out, invaded it from the south, and Esar-haddon came down upon it from the north. He it is who is ”the fierce king” who, the Lord declared, should rule over the Egyptians. For about twenty years the unhappy country was wasted with fire and sword. The twenty governors appointed by the a.s.syrians were constantly intriguing against one another and their suzerain; and again and again the a.s.syrian armies were called upon to return to Egypt to suppress a revolt. It was during one of these campaigns-that which happened about B.C. 665, in the reign of a.s.sur-bani-pal-that Thebes, the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, was destroyed. It is termed Ni in the a.s.syrian texts, a name which corresponds to the Hebrew No-Amon, or No of Amun, the supreme G.o.d of the city. Its temples and palaces were overthrown, their treasures were carried away, and two obelisks, which together weighed over seventy tons, were sent as trophies to Nineveh. Nahum (iii. 8) alludes to this destruction of Thebes as a recent event, and thus fixes the approximate age of his life and ministry.

The reign of Esar-haddon was a short one. In B.C. 670, on the 12th day of Iyyar, or April, he convened by edict a great a.s.sembly in Nineveh, and there a.s.sociated his son a.s.sur-bani-pal, whom the Greeks called Sardanapalus, in the government. Two years later he died, and a.s.sur-bani-pal was proclaimed sole king on the 27th of Ab, or July.

a.s.sur-bani-pal, the _grand monarque_ of a.s.syria, whose long reign was a continuous series of wars, and building, and magnificent patronage of art and literature, has little direct contact with Biblical history. The conquest of Elam by his generals removed the last civilized power which could struggle with a.s.syria; but it was not fully accomplished when the mighty empire began to totter to its fall. A general rebellion broke out, at the heart of which was a.s.sur-bani-pal's own brother, the viceroy of Babylonia. All the strength of a.s.syria was spent in crus.h.i.+ng it; and Egypt, which had revolted through the help of Gyges of Lydia, was never reconquered. Palestine, strangely enough, seems to have been but little affected by the almost universal outbreak; indeed, Chemosh-khalta of Moab materially a.s.sisted a.s.sur-bani-pal, by defeating the Kedarites and sending their sheikh in chains to Nineveh. One or two Phnician cities alone took occasion to refuse their tribute. We do not know the year of a.s.sur-bani-pal's death, but it was probably about B.C. 630. He left a troubled heritage to his successors. The viceroy of Babylonia was becoming more and more independent; Elam, the latest a.s.syrian conquest, was threatened by the Persians, and a new and ferocious enemy had appeared in the north. These were the Scythians, who had descended upon the civilised world from the steppes of Southern Russia. They extended their ravages as far as Palestine, and their occupation of Beth-Shan caused it to be known in later days as Scythopolis, ”the city of the Scythians.” The earlier prophecies of Jeremiah refer to the miseries inflicted on the country by these barbarians, who must have entered it towards the middle of Josiah's reign. By this time the authority of a.s.syria in the west could have been but nominal. Nineveh itself had undergone a siege at the hands of the Medes, and was only saved from utter destruction by the Scythian irruption. Hence we can understand how it was that Josiah was able to re-unite the monarchy of David, and extend his sway over what had once been the kingdom of Samaria. There was no longer an a.s.syrian governor to forbid his overthrowing the altar at Bethel or the ”houses of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria.”

The date of the final fall and destruction of Nineveh is not certain, and much depends on the interpretation given to the words ”the king of a.s.syria” in 2 Kings xxiii. 29. If, as is usually supposed, these really signify the king of Babylon, who had succeeded to the power of a.s.syria, we may place the fall of the a.s.syrian capital in B.C. 610; otherwise the date must be as late as B.C. 606. It cannot be later, since, when Jeremiah reviews in this year the existing nations of the east (xxv. 19-26), he says not a word about either Nineveh or a.s.syria. The vengeance the prophets had predicted for the a.s.syrians had already fallen upon them.

What it was to be like we may gather from the language of Nahum.

The last king of a.s.syria was Esar-haddon II, called Sarakos by the Greek writers. He has left us a few records, which were written when his enemies were gathering about him, and when his people were vainly calling upon their G.o.ds for help. The Medes, the Minni, the Kimmerians or Gomer, had all banded themselves together, and were steadily approaching Nineveh. The frontier cities had been stormed, and the enemy was spreading like an inundation over the whole country. In their despair the a.s.syrian rulers ordained a solemn fast of 100 days and 100 nights, and besought the Sun-G.o.d to pardon their sin. But all was in vain. The measure of the iniquities of a.s.syria was filled up; the time had come when the desolater should himself be desolate, and Nineveh, as G.o.d's prophets had threatened, was laid utterly waste.(11)

CHAPTER VII. NEBUCHADREZZAR AND CYRUS.