World English Bible · Under Assyria
Nahum 1
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A about . The book of the of the Elkoshite. is and avenges. avenges and is full of . takes on his , and he maintains against his . is , and great in , and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. and languish. The flower of languishes. The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his , yes, the world, and all who in it. Who can stand before his ? Who can the fierceness of his ? His is poured out like , and the rocks are broken apart by him. is good, a in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a full end of her place, and will pursue his into . What do you plot against ? He will make a full end. Affliction won't rise up the second time. For entangled like , and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble. One has gone out of you who devises evil against , who counsels wickedness. says: "Though they are in full strength and likewise many, even so they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. Now I will break his from off you, and will burst your bonds apart." has commanded concerning you: "No more will bear your name. Out of the house of your gods, I will the engraved and the molten . I will make your , for you are vile." Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings , who publishes peace! Keep your feasts, Judah! Perform your , for one will no more pass through you. He is utterly .
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Under Assyria, 745 BC to 612 BC ›
Assyria at full stretch, deporting whole populations as policy. The northern kingdom is destroyed in 722 BC and Judah survives as a tribute-paying vassal.
- Assyria
- The first empire to run mass deportation as ordinary administration: move the leadership somewhere else, settle strangers in their place, and the province stops being a nation. It worked. Samaria fell in 722 BC and the northern tribes did not come back. Assyria also advertised its cruelty deliberately, carving flayings and impalements on palace walls where envoys would see them, because terror is cheaper than garrisons.
- Judah
- Survives by paying. Hezekiah rebels, Sennacherib takes forty-six Judean towns and besieges Jerusalem in 701 BC, and the city holds. The Assyrian account boasts of shutting Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage and pointedly does not claim to have taken the city, which is one of the more interesting silences in ancient records.
- Egypt
- The splintered reed of a staff that Assyria's field commander mocks Judah for leaning on. It promises help and cannot deliver, and Isaiah spends decades saying so. Assyria eventually invades and sacks Thebes.
- Further afield
- Greece is in its archaic period, founding colonies from Spain to the Black Sea. Rome is under kings. Assyria's own libraries are collecting the literature of Mesopotamia, which is how Gilgamesh survived to be read again in the nineteenth century.