History of Assyria

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History of Assyria

• 785 Jonah sent to Nineveh
• 745 Assyria begins its rise to power
• 721 Northern Israel falls
• 663 No-Amon (Thebes) falls Na. 38-10
• 630 Nahum prophesies
• 612 Nineveh falls
• 605 Carchemish falls

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Assyrias Cruelty

• The kings of Assyria tormented the miserable
  world. They exult to record how space failed for
  corpses how unsparing a destroyer is their
  goddess Ishtar how they flung away the bodies of
  soldiers like so much clay how they made
  pyramids of human heads ...how they impaled
  heaps of men on stakes, and strewed the
  mountains and choked the rivers with dead bones
  Farrar (the minor prophets)
• Nahum 31-3

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Nineveh

• Walls 100 feet high
• Wide enough for 3 chariots to ride
• Towers 100 feet higher than walls
• Mote 150 feet wide, 60 feet deep
• Bordered by the Tigris River
• Estimated it would take a 20 year siege to
  conquer such a fortress

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Nahum

• Name means consolation (to Judah) 115
• His message is condemnation (to Nineveh)
• Destruction of Nineveh is Decreed (1)
• Destruction of Nineveh is Described (2)
• Destruction of Nineveh is Deserved (3)
• God is their enemy 16-9, 213, 35
• Overflowed Tigris 25-6, 38

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Nahum

• Ninevehs cruelty had touched all the nations
  around her 319
• Her cruelty to others would produce greater fear
  for herself 28-10, 311-15
• No one would weep after she had been destroyed
  37

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Lessons for Today

• God still comforts the faithful and punishes the
  wicked (Rom. 1122, Heb. 1031, 1229)
• We do not have limitless opportunities
• Nineveh spared after the preaching of Jonah
• Nineveh destroyed after the preaching of Nahum
• Once saved. means nothing!!!
• We determine if God will be good or severe