Biblical Geography

Assyria

Empire · Old Testament

Scripture first

2 Kings 17:6 · WEBU

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Assyria captures Samaria and deports Israel, ending the northern kingdom.

From its heartland on the upper Tigris, Assyria built the ancient world's most feared army. It swallowed Syria and Israel, deported whole populations, and pressed Judah to the wall under Sennacherib in 701 BC.

Jerusalem did not fall. Assyria itself fell in 612-609 BC when Babylon and the Medes destroyed Nineveh, an end Nahum and Zephaniah had foretold.

The Mesopotamian empire that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and carried its people away.

Biblical names
Assyria, Asshur
Later names
Aturia

Identification note. The Assyrian heartland lay in northern Mesopotamia; at its height the empire covered territory now divided among Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran.

Assyria lay upstream on the Tigris; its armies came down the Euphrates corridor and along the Mediterranean coast, so the prophets watch for invasion from the north.

Deportation was Assyria's instrument: it broke peoples by moving them, which is why the northern tribes were scattered rather than merely defeated.

  • Assyria captures Samaria and deports Israel, ending the northern kingdom.
  • Sennacherib invades Judah; Jerusalem is delivered
  • Assyria called the rod of God's anger
  • Jonah sent to Nineveh, Assyria's capital
  • Nahum's oracle against Nineveh

What we know

Certain

  • Scripture names Assyria as the destroyer of the northern kingdom, and Assyrian royal inscriptions confirm the campaigns.
  • Nineveh's fall to Babylon and the Medes is documented in the Babylonian chronicles.