land of (Ararat or) Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead."1 The death of Sennacherib, added by the sacred writer immediately after the flight from Judea, did not actually take place until some time after that event. Such at least is the inference from a curious relic of antiquity, which, for another reason, demands notice. In the Armenian version of Eusebius, the following fragment of Alexander Polyhistor is preserved :— "After the reign of the brother of Senecherib, Acises reigned over the Babylonians, and when he had governed for the space of thirty days, he was slain by Merodach Baladanus (Baaladon? the sovereign lord), who held the empire by force during six months: and he was slain and succeeded by a person named Elibus. But in the third year of his reign, Senecherib, king of the Assyrians, levied an army against the Babylonians; and, in a battle in which they were engaged, routed, and took him prisoner with his adherents, and commanded them to be carried into the land of the Assyrians. Having taken upon himself the government of the Babylonians, he appointed his son, Asordanius, their king, and he himself retired again into Assyria." This fragment of history explains how there could be in Hezekiah's time a king in Babylon to send him presents and letters, although both before and after Sennacherib that city was the capital of an Assyrian province. Berodach-Baladan was one of those three de facto kings; and it may be that the misfortunes of the Assyrian campaign in Judea had tempted the Babylonian revolt, as it most likely did that of the Medes, which happened about this period. In any case, however, common hostility to Assyria would form a natural basis of alliance and friendship between the successful Hezekiah and the aspiring monarch of Babylon. The flight of Sennacherib's murderers, who were at the same time the natural heirs of his crown, left the path to the throne open to Esarhaddon, his faithful son. Little is recorded of this monarch in the Bible. His great concern seems to have been to restore to his empire its lost military sway, in which he was highly successful. One of his first enterprises was to recover the sovereignty of Syria and Palestine, which seems to have been in the hands of the 1 Isaiah, xxxvii. 37,38. 2 Isaiah, xxxix. 1; 2 Kings, xx. 13. 3 Cory's "Fragments." Egyptians from the time of Hezekiah. His general advanced into Judah, defeated Manasseh, its king, overtook him in flight, and removed him into captivity. "Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon.' After two years' duresse, Manasseh was permitted to return to Jerusalem, and to pass the remainder of his life as an Assyrian vassal. The empire of Assyria now fades away from the page of canonical Scripture, and is only to be traced on the transitional ground of the apocryphal writings. The author of the book of Judith preserves the memory of Nebuchodonosor, who ruled at Nineveh in the forty-eighth year of Manasseh, or B.C. 632. This king, in the seventeenth year of his reign, and fifty-seven years after the loss of Sennacherib's army, determined to attempt the reconquest of Media, then governed by Arphaxad. Previous to his taking the field, he called upon his allies and tributaries, Persia, Cilicia, Samaria, Damascus, &c., to join him with their forces. An unwillingness to increase the power of their mighty neighbour, the remembrance of Sennacherib's reverses, and probably a confidence in the success of Arphaxad, induced every one of them to avoid compliance with the request. Nebuchodonosor advanced with his own unaided army, gave battle to Arphaxad on the plain of Ragau, overthrew his power, secured Ecbatana, his capital, took him prisoner, and put him to death." "Then he marched in battle array with his power against king Arphaxad in the seventeenth year, and he prevailed in his battle for he overthrew all the power of Arphaxad, and all his horsemen, and all his chariots. "And became lord of his cities, and came unto Ecbatane, and took the towers, and spoiled the streets thereof, and turned the beauty thereof into shame. "He took also Arphaxad in the mountains of Ragau, and smote him through with his darts, and destroyed him utterly that day." Returning from Ecbatana, Nebuchodonosor celebrated his victory by a feast at Nineveh, which lasted one hundred and twenty days, and then prepared to chastise the countries which had refused their assistance while his success was doubtful. 1 2 Chron., xxxiii. 11. J. W. Bosanquet. 2 Astronomically fixed to B.c. 614.3 Judith, i. 13, 14, 15. 60 DECLINE OF THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. "And thou shalt go against all the west country, because they disobeyed my commandment. "And thou shalt declare unto them, that they prepare for me earth and water; for I will go forth in my wrath against them, and will cover the whole face of the earth with the feet of mine army, and I will give them for a spoil unto them : "So that their slain shall fill their valleys and brooks, and the river shall be filled with their dead, till it overflow: "And I will lead them captives to the utmost parts of the earth."1 The power of Nineveh was now in its zenith, and to this period the graphic description of the prophet applies : Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. "All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. "Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches; for his root was by great waters. "The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches: nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. "I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches : so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him." 992 From this hour, however, the glory of Assyria began to decline. The invasion of Judea by Holofernes, the Assyrian general, followed immediately upon the subjugation of Media. After long marches and numerous conquests, that commander was disastrously beaten and slain, and his army put to the rout. How long Nebuchodonosor maintained himself on the throne is not known, but the effect of his military misfortunes on the renown of the Assyrian name is not doubtful; for the empire, surrounded by younger and ambitious kingdoms, stood in need of all its ancient influence to secure it against aggression, and its main army being now disorganised and conquered, it no longer possessed the power of resistance. 2 Ezekiel, xxxi. 3, 9. 1 Judith, ii. 6-9. The alliance of Cyaxares, son of Arphaxad, with Nabopolassar, the revolted satrap of Babylon, and their combined attack upon Assyria, will be noticed with the testimony of secular history in the succeeding chapter. The fall of Nineveh, which took place twenty-eight years after the rout of Holofernes' army, was anticipated by the Jewish captive Tobit, long a resident of that capital. Some of his latest instructions to his family are: "Go into Media, my son, for I surely believe those things which the prophet Jonas spake of Nineveh, that it shall be overthrown." "And now, my son, depart out of Nineveh: bury me decently, and thy mother with me, but tarry no longer in Nineveh." While reading the details of the destruction of Nineveh, preserved by the secular historians, the predictions of the Hebrew prophets are forcibly suggested. An inundation of the Tigris swept away twenty furlongs of the city wall: "With an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies. The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved. Nineveh is of old like a pool of water."2 The despairing monarch perished in the conflagration of the imperial residence: "The fire shall devour thy bars. shall the fire devour thee." There The spoil was divided between the conquerors; "Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; for there is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture." Her images shall be destroyed: "And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make thy grave; for thou art vile."5 The ruin of the proud city, long the terror of nations, is celebrated by the prophet Ezekiel in bold and striking language: "Thus saith the Lord God, Because thou hast lifted thyself up in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in its height; I have, therefore, delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen, he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. 1 Tobit, xiv. 4, 10, 15. 3 Nahum, iii. 13, 15. 2 Nahum, i. 8; ii. 6, 8. 5 Nahum, i. 14. 62 FALL OF ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. "And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him : upon the mountains and in the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow and have left him. With the destruction of Nineveh the empire of Assyria fell, pursuant to what had been foretold by the Prophets; henceforward it merged in that of Babylonia, and the charm of power passed finally from the Tigris to the Euphrates. |