| Nation
in northern Mesopotamia that conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. |
 |
Assyrian relief sculpture
7th cent. B.C. |
Assyria was a powerful
nation in northern Mesopotamia. Its capital was first located at Asshur
and later at Nineveh. The Assyrian empire reached the height of its influence
in the 8th-7th centuries BC.
The northern kingdom
of Israel became a vassal state under the Assyrians
in 841 B.C. In 722 B.C. the Assyrians conquered Samaria
and exiled many of the people of Israel to regions near the Euphrates
and Tigris rivers. As the Assyrians advanced down the coastal plain of
Palestine in the time of King Hezekiah of Judah, they threatened to capture Jerusalem. The prophet Isaiah gave assurance that Jerusalem would
not be taken, and the Assyrian army experienced a plague and departed.
The prophet Nahum announced that Assyria
would be defeated. After the fall of Nineveh in 612 B.C., King Josiah
of Judah allied himself with the Babylonians in an attempt to defeat Assyria.
Josiah was killed, but the Babylonians prevailed and made Assyria part
of the expanding Babylonian empire.
 |
