TIGLATH-PILESER

SARGON II

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At Nineveh he discovered in 1853, on the northern part of the mound Kouyunjik, the palace of Ashurbanipal, from one chamber of which he removed the famous library of over twenty thousand tablets. GEORGE STEPHEN GOODSPEED, Ph.D., Professor of Ancient History in the University of Chicago, A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians,

D. 19.

31. Did Isaiah prophesy correctly that Damascus would be taken by Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria.

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Isaiah 8:4-For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

The first Syrian war of Tiglath-Pileser..... In the course of it he reduced to subjection Damascus, which had regained its independence, and was under the government of Rezin; ...

RAWLINSON, Five Great Monarchies (2nd ed., London, 1871), Vol. II, p. 130. 32. Did Sargon, King of Assyria, conquer Samaria and take the Ten Tribes of Israel captive, in fulfillment of a prophecy by Hosea?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Hosea 13:16 (B. C. 725)-Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword:...

II Kings 17:6-In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria,...

II Kings 17:23 (B. C. 721)-.... So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

The story of Assyria is in the main a story of the Assyrian kings..... Sargon II was a great conqueror. In 722 B. C. he captured Samaria and carried away the most influential classes of the "Ten Tribes" of Israel into captivity (sec. 77).

Myers, General History, p. 42.

33. Was there ever such a man as Sennacharib, King of Assyria?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

2 Kings 18:13-Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

To Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, we must accord the first place of renown among the Assyrian kings. His name, connected as it is with the history of Jerusalem and with the wonderful discoveries among the ruined palaces of Nineveh, has become as familiar as that of Nebuchadnezzar in the story of Babylon. His reign was filled with military expeditions and marked by great building enterprises at Nineveh. Respecting the decoration of this capital, one of his inscriptions says:

"I raised again all the edifices of Nineveh, my royal city; I reconstructed all its old streets, and widened those that were too narrow. I made the whole town a city shining like the sun.

In 1845-1851 Layard disentombed the palace of Sennacherib and those of other kings at Nineveh and Calah, and enriched the British Museum with the treasures of his search.

Myers, General History, pp. 43, 44. The British Museum is extremely rich in memorials of this great king.

W. ST. CHAD BOSCAWEN on Sennacherib.

Sennacherib's records are full of facts regarding his illustrious campaign of 701 B. C., where we find Hezekiah mentioned by name,... IRA M. PRICE, Ph.D., The Monuments and the Old Testament, p. 294. 34. Did the death of Sennacherib fulfill a Bible prophecy?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

2 Kings 19:5-7. 710 B. C. So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

2 Kings 19:36, 37. 709 B. C. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

His son, Sennacherib, who succeeded him on the 12th of Ab, did not possess the military or administrative abilities of his father, and the success of his reign was not commensurate with the vanity of the ruler. He was never crowned at Babylon, which was in a perpetual state of revolt until, in 691 B. C., he shocked the religious and political conscience of Asia by razing the holy city of Babylon to the ground. His campaign against Hezekiah of Judah was as much a failure as his policy in Babylonia, and in his murder by his sons on the 20th of Tebet 681 B. C. both Babylonians and Jews saw the judgment of heaven. The Encyclopaedia Brittannica, Vol. III, p. 105. 35. Did Nahum and Zephaniah prophesy correctly that Nineveh would be destroyed?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Nahum 3:7, 713 B. C. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste:... Zephaniah 2:13-And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.

FIRE DESTROYS PROUD NINEVEH

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

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All that we know on the subject of the last siege of Nineveh is, that it was conducted by a combined army of Medes and Babylonians, the former commanded by Cyaxares, the latter by Nabopolassar or Nebuchadnezzar, and that it was terminated, when all hope was lost, by the suicide of the Assyrian monarch. This self-immolation of Saracus is related by Abydenus, who almost certainly follows Berosus in this part of his history. We may therefore accept it as a fact about which there ought to be no question.

RAWLINSON, Five Great Monarchies (2nd ed., London, 1871), Vol. II, p. 396. Saracus was the last of the long line of Assyrian kings. For nearly or quite six centuries the Ninevite kings had now lorded it over the East. There was scarcely a state in all Western Asia that during this time had not, in the language of the royal inscriptions, "borne the heavy yoke of their lordship"; scarcely a people that had not suffered their cruel punishments, or tasted the bitterness of enforced exile. But Nineveh was finally taken and sacked by the Medes and Babylonians, and dominion passed away forever from the proud capital (606 B. C.). Myers, General History, p. 43.

The impression made by these ruins has been strikingly described by Layard: [The observer] is now at a loss to give any form to the rude heaps upon which he is gazing. Those of whose works they are the remains, unlike the Roman and the Greek, have left no visible traces of their civilization, or of their arts: their influence has long since passed away. The more he conjectures, the more vague the results

The scene around is worthy of the ruin he is contemplating; desolation meets desolation; a feeling of awe succeeds to wonder; for there is nothing to relieve the mind, to lead to hope, or to tell of what has gone by. These huge mounds of Assyria made a deeper impression upon me, gave rise to more serious thought and more earnest reflection, than the temples of Balbec or the theatres of Ionia (Nineveh and its Remains, I. p. 29).

36.

GEORGE STEPHEN GOODSPEED, Ph.D., Professor of Ancient History in the University of Chicago, A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians, pp. 14, 15.

Was Nineveh destroyed by fire in fulfillment of a prophecy made 107 years before by Nahum?

BIBLE EVIDENCE.

Nahum 1:1; 3:15-The burden of Nineveh.... There shall the fire devour thee;...

SECULAR EVIDENCE.

However, that Nineveh was actually destroyed by fire is proved from the condition of the slabs and statues found in its ruins, which show the action of intense heat.

The International. Cyclopaedia, Vol. I, pp. 829, 830.

A few months ago, when visiting the British Museum with some friends, we found that "spring cleaning" was in full swing..... The