When the Jewish embassy 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. xxx. xxxi.), 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 Assyrian 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 [pg 126] 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 Assyrian was acquainted with Accadian, the old dead language of Babylonia, which was to an Assyrian 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 Assyrian officials further able to converse in Hebrew.
A reminiscence of the disaster which befel the Assyrian 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 Assyrian 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 Assyria and Babylonia, he established a library in Jerusalem, where scribes were employed, as they were at Nineveh, in making new editions of ancient [pg 127] 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 multitudinous 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 Assyrian calendar and the Assyrian 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. [pg 128] The document reads as follows:—“I, Sennacherib, king of multitudes, king of Assyria, bequeath armlets of gold, quantities 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 Assur-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 worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god.” The reading of the god's name, however, is corrupt, since no such deity was known to the Assyrians, 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 Assyria and Armenia, and the murderers finding, apparently, no adherents in Nineveh, fled to Erimenas, the Armenian king. Esar-haddon, at the head of the Assyrian 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 Assyrians, 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 Assyria ever produced, and was distinguished from his predecessors by his mild and [pg 129] conciliatory policy. Under him the Assyrian empire reached its furthest limits, Egypt being conquered, and placed under twenty Assyrian satraps, while an Assyrian 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 (xxxiii. 11), which has long been a stumbling-block in the way of critics. It is there said that the king of Assyria, after crushing the revolt of Manasseh, 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 Manasseh was in full accordance with the treatment of other rebel princes in the time of Esar-haddon's son, Assur-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 “Manasseth, king of Judah,” twice occurs on the Assyrian monuments. Once he is mentioned among the tributaries of Esar-haddon, once among those of Assur-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 Assyrian king. When Esar-haddon passed through Palestine on his way to Egypt, he found there only submission and [pg 130] respect. Sidon alone withstood him, and Sidon was accordingly destroyed.
The “burden” pronounced 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 Assyrians 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 Assyrians were constantly intriguing against one another and their suzerain; and again and again the Assyrian 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 Assur-bani-pal—that Thebes, the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, was destroyed. It is termed Ni in the Assyrian texts, a name which corresponds to the Hebrew No-Amon, or No of Amun, the supreme god 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 assembly in Nineveh, and there associated [pg 131] his son Assur-bani-pal, whom the Greeks called Sardanapalus, in the government. Two years later he died, and Assur-bani-pal was proclaimed sole king on the 27th of Ab, or July. Assur-bani-pal, the grand monarque of Assyria, 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 Assyria; 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 Assur-bani-pal's own brother, the viceroy of Babylonia. All the strength of Assyria was spent in crushing 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 assisted Assur-bani-pal, by defeating the Kedarites and sending their sheikh in chains to Nineveh. One or two Phœnician cities alone took occasion to refuse their tribute. We do not know the year of Assur-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 Assyrian 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 [pg 132] 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 Assyria 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 Assyrian 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 Assyria” in 2 Kings xxiii. 29. If, as is usually supposed, these really signify the king of Babylon, who had succeeded to the power of Assyria, we may place the fall of the Assyrian 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 Assyria. The vengeance the prophets had predicted for the Assyrians had already fallen upon them. What it was to be like we may gather from the language of Nahum.