Page 70 - Advanced Biblical Backgrounds Student Textbook

Nineveh for repenting at the preaching of Jonah, while condemning the Jewish leaders for resisting His
own message.

In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign (king in Judah), in 701 BC, the Assyrians under Sennacherib
took 46 of Judah’s fortified cities (Isaiah 36:1). Then they laid siege to Jerusalem—the Assyrian king
engraved upon his stele that he had the king of Judah caught like a caged bird in his own country.

However, even though Sennacherib’s army occupied Judah up to the very doorstep of Jerusalem, and
even though Sennacherib’s emissary Rabshakeh boasted against God and Hezekiah (Isaiah 36:4-21),
Assyria was rebuffed. Hezekiah prayed, and God promised that the Assyrians would never set foot inside
the city (Isaiah 37:33). God slew 185,000 Assyrian forces in one night (Isaiah 37:36), and Sennacherib
returned to Nineveh where he was slain by his own sons as he worshiped his god Nisroch (Isaiah 37:38).

In 612 BC, Nineveh was besieged by an alliance of the Medes, Babylonians, and Scythians, and the city
was so completely destroyed that even its location was forgotten until British archaeologist Sir Austen
Layard began uncovering it in the nineteenth century. Thus, as the Babylonian Empire ascended, Assyria
dropped off the pages of history.

Fall of Samaria

Israel had broken the statues and commandments of the Lord (2 Kings 17:15, 16). Ultimately it was
Israel’s rejection of God that brought about her all (17:18.20,23).

The identity of the Assyrian king who captured Samaria in 722 B.C. is not clear. Shalmaneser V died
sometime during or after the 3-year siege. His brother and successor, Sargon II (721-705 B.C.) was
probably the king who actually entered the city and led the conquered Israelites into exile.

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In an inscription Sargon claims credit for the deporting of 27,290 captives. The custom of many
Assyrian kings was to replace the deported captives with inhabitants from other conquered areas. The
mixture of faces broke rebellious tendencies and blended religious practices. The ethnic and religious
blending in Samaria is the reason for the Jewish prejudice against the Samaritans that is so evident in
the New Testament. The Samaritans established a temple on top of Mt. Gerizim, located south of
Nablus, near the site of biblical Shechem, about 30 miles north of Jerusalem.

Assyria, a Tool in God’s Hand

The prophet Isaiah had declared that Assyria was unknowingly serving God’s purposes in punishing
Israel. When that punishment was complete, however, Isaiah has a new message: a message of
judgment for Assyria and of possible hope for the remnant of Israel and to Judah.
The Assyrians had made people submit to their yoke (Is. 10:27) and boasted of their own strength
(10:13, 14). God would now punish His arrogant tool, Assyria. He would reveal a ruler, “from the stem
of Jesse,” that is, from the line of David, to rule in peace (11:1-9), and would gather His people from
every place to which they may have been scattered by His judgment (11:10-16). Such deliverance
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prompts a hymn of praise to God (12:1-6).

96 So That’s Why Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, p. 740.
97 Ibid, p. 743-744.

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