The Assyrian Exile
Israel's Legacy in Captivity
Cam Rea
Wordclay
3750 Priority Way South Drive, Suite 114
Indianapolis, IN 46240
www.wordclay.com
© Copyright 2007 Cam Rea. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
First published by Wordclay on 12/20/2007.
uc0uc0uc0
Printed in the United States of America.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
United States Copyright Office
Library of Congress records registration number TXu-367-461
2007
The Assyrian Exile
Israel's Legacy in Captivity
By Cam Rea
Cover design provided by ©Livius.org
Dedication
God
Country
Family
Acknowledgments
I would first like to recognize Yair Davidiy. His works and help have inspired me to write the book you are about to read. Yair Davidiy, thank you. Also, I want to thank Sally Eason for editing my book. If there is anyone who needs a book edited, Sally is the one to do it. Once again, thank you Sally. I also want to thank my family for giving me the support to write such a book, especially my wife and my 9 month old son for giving me a break to think and write from time to time! My Mom and Dad I want to thank for all their support along with the rest of my family and friends who are like family to me as well. In addition, I want to thank Brett Schlotterback for saving my computer and programs when they crashed. In-addition, I want to thank the reader who is about to read this book. I can only hope this book inspires you and that you will enjoy reading it as I did writing it. Thank you.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 6
2. Rebirth of Assyria 7
2.1. Assyrian aggression 8
2.2. PUL? 10
2.3. Assyrian Expansion 12
2.4. Western union the best way to get paid 15
2.5. Damascus 22
2.6. To the Coast! 24
2.7. Quick bit 25
2.8. Event Horizon! 27
2.9. No Battles? 32
3. Hoshea, the last King of Israel 34
4. Deportation and Relocation 45
4.1. Who were the Medes? 49
4.2. Settling in 52
4.3. Slavery 55
4.4. Could the Israelites bare arms? 55
4.5. Could the Israelites master the horse? 57
4.6. Names 60
5. Who are the Cimmerians? 64
5.1. Who were the Ishkuza? 68
5.2. The role of Hosea 70
5.3. Location of the Cimmerians 71
5.4. Invasion of Urartu 78
5.5. Phrygia, Assyria, and the Cimmerian Rebellion 80
6. Sennacherib 85
7. Esarhaddon, Cimmerians, and the New Threat 90
7.1. Kastariti 103
7.2. Esarhaddon'sPalace 118
7.3. Conclusion to Esarhaddon 119
8. Ashurbanipal and the revealing 121
8.1. Dugdammi, King of the World 127
8.2. Madya 144
8.3. Cyaxares and the Scythians 145
9. The Decline of Assyria 149 9.1. Nabopolassar 152 9.2. Josiah and Psammetichus 153 9.3. Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city 160 9.4. The Fall of Nineveh Chronicle 167 9.5. Aftermath 172 10. Final Thoughts 177
Chapter 1
Introduction
O, Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. (Isaiah 10:5)
Not a bad way to start an introduction. The book you are about to read is based mainly on the history of Assyria and Israel, from the mid 8th to the end of the 7th century BCE. What this book provides is a better understanding of the political and spiritual issues that are associated with Assyria and Israel, as well as the social issues concerning the deportation of the Ten Tribes of Israel. It will discuss Assyria's policy towards captives, will also look into where the Ten Tribes were placed and take a walk through the regions they were placed in. We shall look into the lives of the Assyrian kings as well as the Scythian and Cimmerian kings. In addition, we will discuss the various terminologies concerning the tribes, as well as their intentions. I will try to provide the best answers for the topic you are about to read. I also want to point out that there are many facts in this book and just as many speculations. Not everything in this book should be considered factual. Remember, we are dealing with a history that at times appears to be silent. I hope all who read this book enjoys its content. I also hope that those who read it will build from it. This book is not the complete definitive answer on the subject: in fact it’s just a small piece of it.
Chapter 2
Rebirth of Assyria
The year is 745 BCE. The event: the Northern Ten Tribes of Israel and much of the Middle East are about to become disassembled by the powerful Assyrian Empire under King Tiglath-pileser III (also known as Pul [1 Chronicles 5:26]).
Tiglath-pileser III is regarded as the founder of the second Assyrian empire. Though his origins are obscure, Greek tradition claims that he was originally a gardener.1 We do not know for sure what his real name was. Some say that it may have been Pul, which we will discuss later. The name Tiglath-pileser is one that he took once he had ascended to the throne. He must have been a charismatic man with the ability to lead, and because of this, he was able to seize the crown of Assyria and unite the chaotic factions into a single nation. He also provided a network of security and trade. It would extend to those he conquered or made into vassals he attached to the Assyrian empire. What we have here is what the History Channel would call “Man, Moment, and Machine.”
The moment was now for Assyria. All one has to do is look in the Bible and realize that Assyria had no outside threats. The Hittites and Egyptians were a shell of their former glory and imposed no threat to the Assyrian borders. The once United Kingdom of Israel, reigned over by King David and King Solomon, was divided. The great kings of Israel were too busy fighting amongst themselves and worshipping other gods they knew not before. Syria was not even a threat. Phoenicia was unstable on land and had no real standing army other than those they relied on to volunteer. The rest of the smaller tribal groups were mere principalities or city-states similar to Phoenicia. From the view that 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles gives us, one could say the reason the Middle East was so easy to take was because it was so fragmented.
The Machine was the powerful Assyrian army. Tiglath-pileser III rejuvenated the Assyrian army by changing the methods in which it was conducted. In the past, Assyria had relied on its provincial governors to supply the army, which was comprised of provincial militias gained from a typical workforce of the time. The only permanent army was made up of the ‘royal guards’. What Tiglath-pileser actually did, was to reorganize the army into a permanent standing fighting force that over time progressed to become a professional army. In doing so, he had a tighter control on his kingdom because the army was loyal to him. Through these means, he transformed the population into a model military society based on war and expansion made to quench the thirst of their rejuvenated philosophy, which was the worship of war.2
Assyrian aggression
Like a lion on the Serengeti, Assyria represented the lion, and the Serengeti represented the middle east. Tiglath-pileser III’s first footprints outside Assyria stained the desert floor blood red.
“None shall be weary nor stumble among them;
none shall slumber nor sleep;
neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed,
nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:
Whose arrows are sharp,
and all their bows bent,
their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint,
and their wheels like a whirlwind:” (Isaiah 5:27-28).
To secure his holdings, Tiglath-pileser sent his new professional army to secure his empire by attacking the upstart Syrian-Urartu alliance which posed a potential threat as it had done many times in the past. He made a decision to lead his forces towards the Aramaean (Syrian) tribes, with whom Assyria had had many conflicts in the past. The powerful Aramaean tribes had previously invaded the Kingdom of Babylonia from the South. They had taken the cities of Sippar and Dur-Kurigalzu, and posed a threat to the Babylonian way of life. They had also threatened to destabilize Assyria's power, influence, and historical association with the Babylonians. The weakened state of Babylonia had needed a champion. Assyria's hatred for the troublesome Aramaeans gave them the reason to strike and to reestablish their rule over Babylonia. Tiglath-pileser would go on pushing farther south for some time, winning battle after battle with his new army, and gaining ever more confidence after each engagement with the enemy. He then turned East to cross the Tigris River. While on the East side of the Tigris, he began attacking along the mountains of Elam, taking many nomadic tribes captive. He then retraced his steps, crossing back over the Tigris, and began his assault on the Aramaeans until he pushed them out of the cities of Sippar and Dur-Kurigalzu. Tiglath-pileser III continued to push South until he reached Nippur, an ancient city of Babylon before returning home.
The people of Babylon looked to Tiglath-pileser III as the savior of Babylonia. This did not look good for the King of Babylon Nabonassar. Tiglath-pileser would begin by setting up a new government in Babylonia and placing the kingdom under the suzerainty of Assyria. Never before had Babylonia been under the complete rule of Assyria. Thus, Nabonassar became a mere vassal king, a symbol of state and not power, while the real king remained Tiglath-pileser III, the conquerer and savior of Babylonia.
PUL?
I Chronicles 5:26 “And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgathpilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.”
Before we go on, it must be noted that the name Pul or Pulu has significant meaning, and in I Chronicles 5:26, we see the first mention of Pul and Tiglath-pileser together. It seems that even the Bible indicates that Tiglath-pileser invaded Babylon before he conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel and that the name Pul may have possibly been his real name. When God says He stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria and the spirit of Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, what we have here is an anachronism. That is to say, two different things that represent the same thing or, in this case, the same person! Tiglath-pileser had taken the hand of Bel (Marduk the supreme god of Babylonia), and by taking Marduk's hand, he was thus proclaiming himself the son of God in the city of Hammurabi on New Year's, and named himself Pul or Pulu, and thus was proclaimed King of Babylon. We can say that by this very act, Tiglath-pileser had proclaimed himself a priest-king, or a type of Messiah. This shows that he intended to unite the military and spiritual powers together into one nation. Pul represents the spiritual crown, and Tiglath-pileser represents the military crown. He wanted a one-world empire.
Now some may debate this and say he took this title Pul or Pulu the year before he died. This is not true. It is recorded twice that he took the oath; and in Babylonian tradition, a king had to take Marduk's hand every year on New Year's to be the king of Babylonia. We also have to remember that he invaded Babylonia to free them from the Syrian threat, while at the same time making the king of Babylonia a mere vassal (with the real king remaining Tiglath-pileser as previously mentioned). Now I did not want to get off track, but I thought it might help to clarify who Tiglath-pileser was and why the name Pul is mentioned in the same sentence. 3
Assyrian Expansion
After securing Babylon and driving out the Aramaean raiders, Tiglath-pileser would then turn his army loose on the known world.
His first campaign of aggression would be against Northern Syria, which was an ally of Urartu. Urartu was a rival to Assyria, and at the time was gaining much influence over the former vassals, who were becoming an increasing threat to Assyria. Because of the threat they imposed on the weakened state of Assyria, Tiglath-pileser decided it was time to take action, and to restore the right of Assyria's might. He did not want to take the chance of invading Urartu head on.
The Kingdom of Urartu was located on a mountainous plateau of what is today known as Eastern Turkey and Armenia, and led up into the Caucasus Mountains with Lake Van in the middle of the kingdom. This region appeared to be difficult for the Assyrian army to invade. This may indicate that the Assyrian army was not built for mountainous warfare. Tiglath-pileser knew that he had to either conquer them, or beat them so badly that he would not have to come back later and finish the job. The Kingdom of Urartu was to be no joke for Assyria.
He assembled his army, crossed the Euphrates, and headed for Northern Syria, to the city of Arpad. Before he reached the city of Arpad, a coalition was already assembled to counter the Assyrians. King Sardui II led the armies of Urartu and King Matiil led the armies of Arpad, along with many other Syrian tribal kings. The coalition and Assyria were to meet in furious battle. The Assyrians were victorious in the engagement and over 70,000 are said to have been slain or captured.4
Tiglath-pileser then turned his attention to the land of the Medes, conquering them on the Iranian plateau. From this expedition he deported 65,000 Medes and made their remaining chieftains pay homage, while incorporating the newly conquered districts into Assyrian lands. The Assyrian army was to continue to push farther East until they reached the Slopes of Lapis mountains or “Mount Damavand”. In 737 BCE Tiglath-pileser invaded the Median territory again and wiped everything out of these territories except for those Medes who lay further to the east of Mount Damavand. During this campaign, the Assyrians deported another 154,000 people from southern Mesopotamia. In addition, the Syrians would also suffer from deportation, as 30,000 of them were placed in the region of the Zagros Mountains, an area once considered Median territory.5
The time span for the invasion described in the previous paragraph, may have been 5 to 6 years. In this time, the Assyrian army conquered a vast amount of land in a short time. I do not want to get off track but it is important that we look at the speed and structure of the Assyrian army. The author I recommend, for those interested in military history, is a man by the name of Richard A. Gabriel. Richard Gabriel is one of the worlds leading experts in military history. Below are some passages from the book that he and Karen Metz collaborated on. The title of the book is From Sumer to Rome:
“In the 8th century B.C., when the entire Assyrian army included 150,000-200,000 men, a combat field army of 50,000 men would be
equal to 5 modern American heavy divisions, or 8 Soviet field divisions.
When arrayed for battle, a field army occupied an area of 2,500 yards (almost 1.5 miles) across and 100 yards deep. After the fall of Rome, it was not until Napoleon's re-institution of conscription that armies of such a size would be mustered.
The Assyrians were the first to invent large cavalry squadrons.
A special logistics branch, the Musarkisus, was created to keep the army supplied with horses. It was able to obtain 3,000 horses a month for military use. Once again, it was not until Napoleon that such large amounts of horses would be systematically procured for the army.
In a climate such as the Middle East, a soldier would need 3,402 calories a day and 70 grams of protein to sustain him, in addition to 9 quarts of water.
A ration of 3 pounds of wheat daily (or 150,000 pounds daily for a field army) would only provide 2,205 calories daily, insufficient for the needs of a soldier.
The "strategic mobility" of the Assyrian army, or their ability to project their military force over a given area, was 375,000 square miles. After Rome fell, no army exceeded this area until the American Civil War, when the use of railroads made troop movements easier.
In terms of efficiency of organization, no military staff (i.e. administrators, logistic officers and engineers) would reach the proficiency of the Assyrian or Roman military staffs until the German general staff of the 1870's.
The prototype of a modern soldier's equipment (helmet, body armor, boots [a particular Assyrian innovation], and backpack) was invented by ancient armies and disappeared for almost 1,000 years after the fall of the Roman Empire.
The killing power of an ancient composite bow (i.e. the accuracy, force, distance, and speed of deployment) was not matched until the introduction of the Prussian needle gun in 1871.
According to modern tests, the body armor, helmet, and shield of the Assyrians would have provided excellent protection against firearms until Napoleon.
If the dispersion of field formations, inaccuracy of early firearms, and rates of fire are considered, the Assyrian soldier would have been safer on a battlefield in the 18th century than on an Ancient Near Eastern one.”
As you can see from the discription provided, this is what the Near East had to face: an iron lion.6
Western Union the best way to get paid
In 738 Tiglath-pileser made his way West to collect tribute and to expand the ever growing Assyrian Empire. He began his regional tour starting with what was left of the fractured kingdoms of the former Hittite empire. Turning back south to Syria and then heading west to the city-states of Phoenicia, he subdued the citizens without a fight, collecting just about anything and everything the individual kingdoms could offer. This would keep Assyria out of their lands by turning them into Assyria's vassals.
Next on the list for Assyria was the kingdom of Israel.7 Menahem was the king of Israel at the time when Tiglath-pileser III came upon the northern horizon of Israel. For a long time before the Assyrian threat, the Hebrew prophets Hosea, Amos, and Joel foretold the coming destruction of Israel if they did not repent of their sins and come back to Yahweh.
“And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand. And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land”(Kings 15:19-20).
The storm was on the horizon and it was time to pay financially, for King Menahem gave a thousand talents of silver to Tiglath-pileser by extracting 50 shekels from each wealthy man. An enormous 60,000 citizens of wealth gave up their money to the Assyrian coffers. This makes one wonder how many poor people in turn, had to repay those wealthy citizens for their lost monies? After getting his tribute, Tiglath-pileser left the outskirts of Israel leaving the kingdom intact and still in the hands of Menahem. One can only speculate if this was a one-time tribute deal, or multiple times year after year. In either case, Menahem had just made his kingdom look impotent before the king of Assyria. Nevertheless, what could King Menahem have done? All one has to do is read II Kings 15:16, and realize that most of his people would not fight for him anyway. Thus, a prophet named Hosea had this to say:
“Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke:
among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be.
The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound:
therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.
Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment.
Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth,
and to the house of Judah as rottenness” (Hosea 5:9-12).
King Menahem remained on the throne six more years before he died. His son Pekahiah took the throne and reigned for only two years before he was murdered inside the palace by Pekah and 50 Gileadites in Samaria (II Kings 15:23-26). It seems Pekah murdered Pekahiah because Pekahiah continued to let Assyria dominate Israel. This made the people of Israel mad, and the result was a murdered king by a man of the military. The prophet Hosea says:
“They have set up kings,
but not by me:
they have made princes,
and I knew it not:
of their silver and their gold have they made them idols,
that they may be cut off”.
“I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hid from me:
for now,
O Ephraim,
thou committest whoredom,
and Israel is defiled”.
“I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel:
there is the whoredom of Ephraim,
Israel is defiled.”
“Rejoice not,
O Israel,
for joy,
as other people:
for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God,
thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor”.
(Hosea 5:3; 6:10; 8:4; 9:1)
From these three passages, we read that Israel is playing the role of a whore. They whore for guns, gods, and governments that are in a constant state of change. Israel is in a state of revolt both politically and spiritually and there is no way out for them, except the way of the sword:
“They are all hot as an oven,
and have devoured their judges;
all their kings are fallen:
there is none among them that calleth unto me”. (Hosea 7:7)
This King Pekah was one of many who played the role of a harlot by plotting and defiling the House of Israel, in playing this role, he made an alliance with King Rezin of Damascus. This indicated that Pekah was cutting the Assyrian yoke off Israel's neck. Pekah would also go to the Edomites and the Philistines for their support of a joint coalition or alliance to stop the Assyrian war machine from expanding farther west or south. In a way, this alliance was really an attempt to counter-balance the Assyrian power to the east. Pekah may have sent emissaries to King Jotham at the time, asking him to join the alliance against Assyria, but we have no word of it, and we can only speculate.