Bob Boyd
King Jehu of the Northern Kingdom, paying tribute to Shalmanezer—on the Black Obelisk. This is the only representation of a Hebrew king ever discovered.
The Assyrian Kingdom became one of Israel’ s mightiest, most brutal foes. It was a nation with the highest culture, a highly formal religion, and skilled in the crafts and arts of mankind, but was unmercifully cruel in its punishment of its enemies. Their acts were atrocious. King Ashurnasirpal (883–859 BC) was its great leader of expansion. His armies of bowmen, spearmen, slingers, cavalry and charioteers made up one of the most feared and dreaded units of military might of that day. Such was what the prophet Nahum had in mind (Nah 2:3, 4; 3:2, 3). Ashurnasirpal described his dealings with a certain city he had conquered as follows: “Six hundred of their warriors I put to the sword; 3000 captives I burned with fire; I left not a single one among them alive to serve as a hostage. Kholai, their governor, I captured alive. Their corpses I piled into heaps; their men and maidens I burned in the tire; Khulai, their governor, I flayed and his skin I spread upon the wall of the city of Damdamusa; the city I destroyed, I ravaged, I burned with fire.”1
Ashurnasirpal set the pace of cruelty for his successors, although some were content to take prisoners and make the defeated king (nation)pay tribute. Jehu, king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, had a confrontation with king Shalmaneser III ca. 841 BC. Discovered in the ruins of his palace at Calah (Nimrud) was what is called “The Black Obelisk.” This monument shows five officials of different nations paying tribute to this king, one of whom is Jehu. The record mentions “Tribute of Jehu, son [or descendant] of Omri, gold silver, golden goblets and pitchers, golden v uses and vessels, scepters from the hand of the king, javelins I received from him.” This obelisk, six and one-half feet tall, bears the only contemporary likeness that had ever been found of an Israelite king.2
In spite of Shalmaneser’ kindness in accepting tribute, one of his records, carved on the side of the old Assyrian Pass in Lebanon, states that he is “The legitimate King, King of the Universe, the King without rival, the ‘great Dragon,’ the only power with the four rims of the whole world who smashed all his foes like pots.”
Another king is worthy of mention, a “follower” of Ashurnasirpal named Sargon. This king is mentioned only once in the Bible and that in parenthesis (Isaiah 20:1). This was a Biblical error, so said the critics, because no other record from secular history contained his name. Isaiah stated that Sargon
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sent his officer, Tartan, to capture Ashdod. Did Sargon actually exist? Archaeological discoveries answer in the affirmative. His palace at Khorsabad (northern Iraq) w as unearthed in the mid- 1800’s. Numerous inscribed clay tablets, monuments, statues, and wall carvings were discovered. Bricks with inscriptions identified the palace as Sargon’s: “I Sargon have built this palace to the praise of mine own glory.” One record confirms Isaiah’s statement: “Ashdod’s king, Azuri, plotted to avoid paying me. In anger I marched against Ashdod with my captain, conquering.” In the 1960’s the “Ashdod Excavation Project” found an inscription of Sargon which actually confirmed his conquest there?3
According to 2 Kings 17:3; 18:19, king Shalmanezer V started the final siege of Samaria to bring down the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Although Sargon is not mentioned in relation to this event in the Bible, an inscription found in his library stated that Shalmaneser died while fighting in Samaria and that he, Sargon, succeeded him. He even mentioned the number of Israelites he deported—something the Bible omits—27,290 prisoners of war. These Israelites were forced to intermarry with Assyrians, later becoming known as the “Samaritans,” often mentioned in the New Testament.
Sargon delighted in torturing defeated soldiers. Huge pits were dug, raging fires were started in each, and the captives were forced to march, falling into the flames to be burned alive. Some were skinned alive. Monuments were erected with human bodies after limbs and heads were severed. Heads
Image of Sargon, king of Assyria. Although mentioned only once in the Bible and thought by many never to have lived, he now is one of the best-known monarchs.
A brick from Sargon’s palace inscribed with his own name. It was unearthed from Khorsabad in the mid-18OO’s.
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were hung on tree limbs to “dry out.” Pointed poles were rammed into prisoners’ abdomens and, as the poles were erected upright, the impaled victims died in agony.
God prophesied that a disobedient Israel would have hooks put in their jaws and noses (Ez 38:4; 1 Kgs 19:28). Reliefs carved on Sargon’s palace wall gives in gory detail how this was done. The scene shows prisoners with their feet shackled by rope, forcing them to take short steps, and hooks and/or rings in their jaws and tongues. If some could not keep pace while being marched from their city of defeat to the conquering city, sometimes distances of hundreds of miles, the conqueror would give a yank of the leash, and “from their hostile mouths tongues were torn out by their roots or jaws were ripped open.” When king Manasseh was taken captive to Babylon, he had a hook put in his nose (2 Chr 33:11 NIV). The kneeling dignitary has his hands bound and upraised, begging for mercy. Told to lift his head and look at king Sargon, he was then blinded as the spear pierced his eyes. This is what Nebuchadnezzar also did to king Zedekiah when the Southern Kingdom of Judah fell (2 Kgs 25:7).
It is said of Sargon that his atrocious acts of brutality were for “propaganda purposes,” and that he brought Assyria to a pinnacle of savage grandeur. Is it any wonder that God’s prophets warned Israel to repent and return to the Lord, lest they be defeated, taken captive, and suffer such brutality?
Scribes counting heads. Sometimes heads were hung on trees to dry out.
Impaling prisoners. The pole was rammed into the abdomen and, as it was raised, the impaled prisoner died in agony. This was an early form of crucifixion.
Relief of prisoners with hooks in nose
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