Page 87 - Biblical Backgrounds student textbook

however, always located at the northeast corner of the Aegean. Today, the independent Republic of
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Macedonia stands to the northwest of its most famous ancient cities.

Building up to the days of Alexander’s conquest, the aforementioned “city-states” saw a series of back-
and-forth pushes for power among them. This is why the story of Philip II, Alexander’s father, is an
important precursor to the rise of Alexander. Macedonia rose to prominence with the ascension of
Philip II in 359 B.C, who ruled from the royal capital of Pella. Philip united the tribes and cities of
Macedonia. He overpowered the northern barbarians and subsequently conquered the Greeks to the
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south. He defeated the armies of Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE Under
Philip II (359–336 BCE), Macedonia came to include Thrace and eventually dominated all of Greece.
Those he conquered he assimilated to his holdings, forming what may be described as a “Greek league.”
In the last chapter, it was shown that over a century before this, the Persian king, Xerxes had invaded
and destroyed Greek cities. With the formation of this league, Philip had one anticipation: the invasion
of Persia. However, he was assassinated in 336 BCE while working toward that end. Philip’s drive to
subdue surrounding powers, regardless of distance, paved the way for his son to conquer the world.
Alexander first fought Persia at the Granicus river in 334 BCE Having overpowered and pushed the
Persian army into mainland Asia Minor, he swiftly secured the coastal cities and territories on the east of
the Aegean Sea. Meanwhile, the Persians staged another battle at Issus (333 BCE). Darius III and his
army were defeated again, and he fled toward Susa, Persia’s capital. After this decisive victory,
Alexander quickly moved to get a hold of the coastal cities on the east of the Mediterranean Sea and
Egypt.

He subdued cities such as Sidon and Damascus but faced fierce opposition from a harbor city of Tyre
(332 BCE). After a siege that took about seven months, Alexander triumphed over Tyre. Having acquired
the plains of the entire east Mediterranean coast, the way was opened for him to march to Egypt and
North Africa. The Egyptians had increasingly grown weary of Persia’s excessive exploitation. They simply
welcomed Alexander as a liberator. On his way back to the pursuit to Darius III, Alexander also subjected
Jerusalem to a surrender.

Side note
Back in the fifth century BCE, the prophet Ezekiel had predicted that Nebuchadnezzar would
capture and destroy the city of Tyre, and that the place would be scraped bare as the top of a
rock when its stones and timbers would be dumped in the water (Ezekiel 26:3–12, 14, 19). Tyre
had once been a two-part city: one on land and the other on an island a half-mile offshore.
Nebuchadnezzar did destroy the city on land, and it remained in ruins.

When Alexander came along without a navy, he decided to build a road out to the island city. To
get the material he used the debris of the mainland city and literally threw it into the water.
After a seven-month siege he managed to take the island city, slaughtering 8,000 in the process,

124 Hartog, P. A. (2016). Macedonia. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair
Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

125 Hartog, P. A. (2016). Macedonia. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair
Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

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