Efrayim in Assyrian Exile - a History The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold. (Byron) "Then the King of Assyria came up through- out all the land, and went up to Shomron (Samaria), and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the King of Assyria took Shomron (722BCE) and carried Israel away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and in Habor, on the river of Gozan… And so Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria unto this day… (II Melachim 17:6,23). But the Northern Kingdom's battle against Assyria had begun in the days of King Ach'av, the victor of the Battle of Karkar, some 130 years earlier. Centered in northern Mesopotamia, Assyria played a devastating role in Israelite/Jewish history for centuries. Tiglat Pil'eser I was the first real Assyrian empire builder; he succeeded in conquering extensive areas in Anatolia, Babylon and even reached the Mediterranean coast. But a series of weak kings and civil wars collapsed Assyrian power. In fact, the Assyrians might have been completely destroyed by their Aramean (Syrian) enemies to the south had the Arameans themselves not become entangled with... the United Israelite Kingdom under the leadership of King David! In the process of being defeated by David (990? BCE), the Ammonites summoned help from their Aramean allies. But "when the Arameans saw that they were put to the worse before Israel, they gathered themselves together. And Hadad-ezer (the Aramean king) sent, and brought out the Arameans that were beyond the River (i.e. the trans-Euphrates Arameans who were fighting the Assyrians)… and he (David) gathered all Israel together …and the Arameans set themselves in array …and the Arameans fled before David" (II Shemu'el 10:15-18). The thoroughly thrashed Arameans relaxed their pressure on Assyria and… Assyria was saved! The first people to use cavalry in warfare, Assyrian recovery began only under Adad-Nirari II (911-889BCE) who renewed the drive for conquest. Assyrian wars were marked by exceptional brutality. "Their blood in the valleys and in the high places of the mountains I caused to flow. Their heads I cut off and I piled them up outside their cities like heaps of grain…" The renewed Assyrian threat explains Ach'av's strange clemency to Ben-hadad of Damascus, the Aramean king who had initiated so many vicious wars against Israel (I Melachim 20:34). A politically astute and far-sighted monarch, Ach'av was keenly aware of the rising Assyrian menace. For this reason, Ach'av did not want to weaken Ben-hadad unduly because he understood that it was vital to enlist him and the other local rulers in a joint effort to halt the Assyrians. In pursuit of his program, Ach'av firmly cemented his tie with Judah and had an unusually warm relationship with her king. Perhaps unaware how much this behavior angered his own people, Ach'av also tolerated the Ba'al cult for the same reason. Unlike Queen Izevel who was the daughter of the Tyrian king, Ach'av was not a Ba'al worshipper, but he was not going to offend any potential ally either. Only two years after Ach'av's spectacular victory over Aram,the long anticipated Assyrian threat finally materialized. As the leading ruler between the Nile and the Euphrates, Ach'av assumed responsibly for the defense of the entire region and called on the other local kings to facilitate the war effort. The advancing Assyrians swept through the Upper Orontes Valley but when they turned south, they met the arrayed allied army at Karkar in northern Syria. Though the Tanach does not mention the battle at all, we know from Assyrian accounts, that Ach'av played a commanding role in the battle. (Ben-Hadad certainly could not have been the moving spirit behind such a major enterprise only two years after his disastrous defeat at the hands of Ach'av.) According to Assyrian annals, Aram contributed 20,000 foot soldiers compared to Israel's 10,000. However, Israel's contingent of chariots (2000, which no doubt included Judean units) was greater than that of all the other allies combined. (Ach'av's close ties with wealthy Tyre may explain how he was able to pay for such a pricey force.) At the battle of Karkar the Assyrian armies were stopped cold. A deleterious result of Yeihu's bloody coup d'etat against Ach'av's son Yehoram (II Melachim 8,9,10) was a serious weakening of Israel both politically and militarily. There were other battles between Assyria and the smaller kingdoms to the south, but Yeihu's Israel did not participate in them. Instead the Arameans took the initiative and led the resistance. Lacking the vision of an Ach'av, Yeihu foolishly declared for Assyria! The first extant representation of an Israelite is carved on an Assyrian stele - Yeihu groveling at the feet of Assyrian King Shalmanezer II! When the Assyrian threat temporarily receded, the Aramean king Hazael launched a savage (note Amos 3:4-5) war against traitorous Israel. He felt that it was necessary to secure his rear before the Assyrians regained their strength and attacked again. The triumphant Aramean king sliced off the Golan Heights and Transjordania from Israel. Syrian units penetrated as far south as Eilat, and with the help of the Edomites, detached the Negev from Judah. Israel and Judah had been rendered impotent. But Assyria returned, and under Adad-nirari III, dealt the Arameans a crushing blow which fatally weakened them (806BCE). Before he died, Elisha, long the aide and confidant of the House of Yeihu encouraged the king not to despair. "The Lord's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory against Aram; for you shalt smite the Arameans... until you consume them… (II Melachim 13:17). In three brilliant campaigns Yo'ash restored the borders of Israel, his son Yerav'am (II) occupied Damascus, and for 45 years Israel was the paramount power in the region. Judah also blossomed. But it could not last. After the death of Yerav'am II, Israel's last great king, everything fell apart and the Assyrian blight returned in full fury. During the first Assyrian invasion of Eretz Yisrael, the Mediterranean coast, the Galil, and the lands beyond the Jordan were amputated from Israel. Evidence of ferocious battles between heroic Israelite defenders and the vastly superior Assyrian army (732BCE) is attested to by archeological findings in Chatzor (level V) and in Megido (level IV). "In the days of Pekach King of Israel, Tiglat Pil'eser King of Assyria took Ijon, and Avel - Beit Ma'acha, and Yano'ach, and Kedesh, and Chatzor, and the Gil'ad, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria" (II Melachim 15:29). By its length alone, the reduction of courageous Shomron ten years later, surpasses some of the greatest sieges in the history of warfare. Nineveh, Assyria's capital, withstood King Nabopolassar for less than two years and Tyre fell to Alexander the Great after a siege of seven months. The Romans took Syracuse after two years and Carthage in three. In modern times Sebastopol held out for eleven months (1856), Paris in 1870-187l lasted for 132 days and in 1945, Berlin, two weeks. Mayour Shomron rise again! <to be continued> Catriel's book in progress: The Temple of Jerusalem, A Pilgrims Prospective; A Guided Tour through the Temple and the Divine Service [The
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