But not only do we find parallels to Hebrew in the individual words of Assyrian, we also find parallel expressions which illustrate and explain those of the Hebrew text. We all remember the statement that the 'Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.' The same phrase occurs in an unpublished Accadian hymn addressed to a deity whose name is lost, but who was probably Rimmon the Air-god. The Accadian original describes him as 'raining fire and stones upon the enemy,' which the Assyrian translation changes into 'raining stones and fire upon the foe' in exact conformity with the Hebrew phrase. The familiar expression 'the Lord of Hosts,' similarly finds its analogue and illustration in the common Assyrian title of the supreme god Assur: 'lord of the legions of heaven and earth,' these legions being the multitudinous spirits and angels whose home was in 'the heaven above and the earth below.'
We can hardly speak here of the accounts of the Creation, the Deluge, and the Tower of Babel, to which Mr. George Smith gave the name of 'the Chaldean Genesis,' and which agree so closely with the corresponding accounts in the Hebrew Book of Genesis. Though found in the library of Nineveh, they are really copies of older Babylonian works, and therefore belong rather to Babylonian than to Assyrian history. It is only the account of the Creation in six days which may perhaps be of purely Assyrian origin. What a resemblance it offers to the first chapter of Genesis will be seen from the extracts from it in the chapter on Assyrian Religion.
It is in the domain of history that the light cast upon Old Testament Scripture by Assyrian research has been fullest and strongest. No one can read the sketch of Assyrian history as revealed by the monuments which is given in the following pages, without perceiving how important it is for the proper understanding of the ancient Scriptures. For the first time the prophecies in Isaiah which refer to a capture of Jerusalem receive their explanation, and the sceptical criticism is answered which found in them a prediction of events that never took place. The chapter in which Isaiah describes the onward march of the Assyrian host against Jerusalem (ch. x.) is no 'ideal' description of 'an ideal campaign,' the verses in which he tells us of the sufferings endured by the beleaguered inhabitants of the Jewish capital (ch. xxii.) are no 'exaggerated account of a possible catastrophe,' the prophecies in which he declares that the devoted city was about to fall into the hands of its enemies (x. 34, xxii. 14) were not unfulfilled threats. We learn from the inscriptions of Sargon that already, ten years before the campaign of his son Sennacherib, the Assyrian monarch had swept through 'the wide-spread land of Judah,' and had made it a tributary province. It was not the army of Sennacherib to which Isaiah was alluding on the day whereon he declared that the Assyrian host was at Nob, only a short half-hour to the north of Jerusalem, but the more terrible veterans of Sargon who marched against the holy city along the northern road. Similar light is thrown by the Assyrian monuments upon another prophecy of Isaiah, in which he pronounces the doom upon the land of Egypt (ch. xix.). The prophecy has sometimes been referred by critics to a later age than that of the great prophet; but the records of Esar-haddon prove that it is strictly applicable to his time, and to his time only. The unexpected revelation they have made to us of the Assyrian conquest of Egypt, and its division into twenty vassal satrapies shows us who was the 'cruel lord' and 'fierce king' into whose hands the Egyptians were given, and paints the picture of an epoch in which 'the Egyptians' fought 'every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.' The Isaianic authorship of 'the burden of Egypt' can never again be denied.
Nahum, again, we can now read with a new interest and a new understanding. The very date of his prophecy, so long disputed, can be fixed approximately by the reference it contains to the sack of No-Amon or Thebes (iii. 8). The prophecy was delivered hard upon sixty years before the fall of Nineveh, when the Assyrian Empire was at the height of its prosperity, and mistress of the Eastern world. Human foresight could little have imagined that so great and terrible a power was so soon to disappear. And yet at the very moment when it seemed strongest and most secure, the Jewish prophet was uttering a prediction which the excavations of Botta and Layard have shown to have been carried out literally in fact. As we thread our way among the ruins of Nineveh, or trace the after history of the deserted and forgotten site, we see everywhere the fulfilment of Nahum's prophecy. Of the words that he pronounced against the doomed city, there is none which has not come to pass.
Those who would learn how marvellously the monuments of Assyria illustrate and corroborate the pages of sacred history, need only compare the records they contain with the narratives of the Books of Kings which relate to the same period. The one complements and supplies the missing chapters given by the other. The Bible informs us why Sennacherib left Hezekiah unpunished, and never despatched another army to Palestine; the cuneiform annals explain the causes of his murder, and the reason of the flight of his sons to Ararat or Armenia. The single passage in Scripture in which the name of Sargon is mentioned, no longer remains isolated and unintelligible; we have no longer any need to identify him with Tiglath-Pileser, or Shalmaneser, or any other Assyrian prince with whom the fancy of older commentators confounded him; we now know that he was one of the most powerful of Assyrian conquerors, and we have his own independent testimony to that siege and capture of Ashdod which is the occasion of the mention of his name in Scripture. Between the history of the monuments and the history of the Bible there is perpetual contact; and the voice of the monuments is found to be in strict harmony with that of the Old Testament.
Before concluding this Preface, I have to thank Mr. W. G. Hird for his kindness in undertaking the task of compiling an Index to the volume.