What is the significance of Assyria in the Bible?

Assyria was used by God as His rod to punish His guilty people Israel, and then, as in other instances, the rod itself, for its pride and wickedness, had to bear God's judgement. See Isa. 10:5-19; Isa. 14:25; Ezek. 31:3-17; Nahum 3:18-19; Zeph. 2:13. Some of the passages that speak of the kings of Assyria are prophetic, and refer to the still future, when as 'kings of the north' they will again have to do with Israel and will be judged of God. The indignation against Israel ceases in the destruction of the Assyrian: see Isa. 10:12; Isa. 14:25; Isa. 30:27-33. One remarkable passage speaks of Assyria with Egypt and Israel as being brought into blessing, Isa. 19:23-25, "Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance." We thus see that the Assyrians have a large place in scripture both in the past and in the future, doubtless because they have had, and will yet have, to do with Jehovah's earthly people, "the Israel of God." The Assyrian is the over-flowing scourge of God's anger because of Israel's connection with idolatry.

Again, in Hosea 10:6 God foretells of the glory of Israel being removed to Assyria. God brought Israel from Egypt, and though some returned there, the nation, or what remained of it, came under the rule of the king of Assyria, and were led captive there (Hosea 11:5). It was with deep sorrow that God punished His people, and He would not destroy them, and after His judgments had brought them to “tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of Assyria,” He would “place them in their houses” in their own land (Hosea 11:8–11). It was a very solemn departure from God that Ephraim should “make a covenant with the Assyrians” and carry their oil to Egypt (Hosea 12:1). From these Scriptures we see the place occupied by Assyria in God’s dealings with His people, but also the bright prospect that awaits Israel of coming back to the land from Assyria (See also Isa. 11:11).

On Asshur there is the less motive for dilating, as every reader of scriptural history knows how splendid a part their race played in the comparatively early history of the world, when the struggle for predominance seemed to lie between Assyria and Egypt. Of this we find authentic accounts in the O.T. especially when both came into collision, the Assyrian especially, with the chosen people in its decay through idolatry, sweeping away the kingdom of Israel, and menacing that of Judah. But the awful check given to Sennacherib in the height of his scornful pride soon proved no real opportunity to Egypt; for Babylon that joined in destroying Nineveh was destined of God to be the head of power, as all know according to God's word. Here again shall mercy triumph over judgment; and Isa. 19 is express that in the day of Messianic power and glory Israel shall be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth. We need not speak of Israel, but may say that this was never the case with Egypt and with Assyria in the past. Both wrought innumerable evils for man; both sinned shamelessly against God. But what cannot, will not, mercy work on God's part, even for the enemies of His guilty and chastised people? What a monument will not the trio be "in that day"!

The Assyrian then was first used as a rod to chastise Israel. "Ho, Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, the staff in whose hand is mine indignation. I will send him against a hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to seize the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. But he means not so, neither doth his heart think so; but [it is] in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few." But he owned not God, "For he says, [Are] not my princes all kings? [Is] not Calno as Carchemish? [is] not Hamath as Arpad? [is] not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols (and their graven images exceeded those of Jerusalem and of Samaria), shall I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her images?" (vv. 5-11). His own doom is therefore sealed.

"And it shall come to pass [that], when the Lord has performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he says, By the strength of my hand I have done [it], and by my wisdom, for I am prudent; and I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and like a valiant man I have put down them that sit [on thrones]; and my hand has found as a nest the riches of the peoples; and as one gathers forsaken eggs, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or chirped.

Isaiah 10. In verse 5 of this chapter we learn the reason of God allowing this powerful and ravaging nation to assail His people. Although proud of their great victories, they were but the rod of God’s anger, and the power they exercised was but the instrument to manifest God’s indignation. God sent the Assyrian to chasten His people because of their sins, but the Assyrian was quite ignorant of what God was doing. The heart of the Assyrian was full of pride, and he was bent on destroying and subduing nations, altogether unaware that he was but God’s instrument to carry out His will against the nations because of their evil doings.

49 Having brought out this second ground of judgment, I leave it for the moment, in order to consider the former ground, rebellion against Jehovah. Israel ought to have been the witness of the blessedness of being in such a relationship with the Lord. "Happy are the people who are in such a case; yea, blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God." Israel, on the contrary, learnt the ways of the heathen; yea, became more corrupt than they, and the Lord allowed the surrounding nations to attack and distress them. This had its full development in the ten tribes; the house of David, raised up in grace, being for a time a stay to Judah. Though all the surrounding nations had their share in these attacks, the principal in result was Asshur. Accordingly, in the end, this power prevails entirely against Israel and overruns Judah, the Lord only at the close defending Jerusalem, where the son of David was a stay in righteousness. Still, if Israel had deserved all this chastisement, these rods of chastening had in their animosity despised the Lord, His people, and His throne. Asshur especially had exalted himself against Him that hewed therewith. Hence they become the objects of destroying judgment themselves.

It was by the Assyrian that the ten tribes were carried away captive (2 Kings 17), and the Assyrian of the past was a type or foreshadowing of the Assyrian of the future. The overthrow of Sennacherib and his great host, in answer to Hezekiah's prayer of faith, prefigured the final overthrow of the Assyrian of the last days. In the past, Babylon (where the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin were carried captive after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar) arose after the Assyrian monarchy; and, in fact, out of the ruins of that empire, which preceded it. But in the future to which we now refer, the Assyrian will be the last enemy of Israel; this is just the reverse of history.

Now this consideration confirms the application of many prophetic scriptures on this subject to the events of the last days, though they may have had a partial fulfilment or foreshadowing in the past. We find many references to the Assyrian in the prophets — "Ho Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation." God uses this rod for the chastisement of His guilty people Israel. But at length God judges this haughty enemy, and with this judgment, His indignation against Israel comes to a close; "when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will publish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks" (Isa. 10:12). Now clearly the Lord has not yet performed His whole work on mount Zion and Jerusalem; this punishment of the Assyrian is, therefore, unquestionably future. Again, in Isaiah 14 we read, "I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot." He may be proud and powerful, but who can withstand the Lord of Hosts in His purposes, or who can disannul His decrees?

Isaiah has much to say of the Assyrian. The first mention is in chapter 7, "The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria" (Isa. 7:17). God would use the Assyrian as a razor to remove all prosperity from the land of Judah, as also to lead the ten tribes into captivity. Again, in chapter 8, God forewarns of what is about to come (Isa. 8:4, 7, 8); the Assyrian king would take away the spoil of Samaria, and would pass through Judah, reaching even to the neck; to the very gates of Jerusalem; and would fill the land of Immanuel. As we have seen, these prophecies were fulfilled by Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmaneser and Sennacharib; but verses 7 and 8 may yet have their full fulfilment in the end of the days.

Assyria is viewed as an oppressor in Isaiah 52:4. What began in Egypt, with the king who knew not Joseph, was carried on by the Assyrian. It is worthy of note that in nearly all the Scriptures dealing with this subject, it is the king of Assyria or the Assyrian that is spoken of. The ruler of Assyria is viewed as God's instrument of judgment, and it is he that is to be broken and destroyed.

Nineveh reached great importance around 900 BC. Shalmaneser III of Assyria defeated king Ahab of Israel in the battle of Carcar around the year 843 BC. According to an inscription on the “black obelisk” of Shalmaneser king Jehu shall have been tributary to him too. The Scriptures however do not mention this. Jonah was sent to Nineveh around the year 800 BC to turn them off their cruel ways. In 734 BC the two and a half tribes Reuben, Gad and Manasseh who settled on the eastern side of Jordan were deported by Tiglath-pileser and in 722 BC the whole northern kingdom of Israel was brought into Assyrian captivity under Shalmaneser and Sargon (2 Kings 17). Shanherib attacked the kingdom of Judah at king Hezekiah’s time around 701 BC but had to return without having achieved his object. After Assurbanipal’s death (who had conquered Thebes in Egypt in 663 BC) the might of Assyria and Nineveh declined noticeably. Finally the great city was conquered and totally destroyed in 612 BC by the Medes under Cyaxares and the Babylonians under Nabopolassar. It was only in the 19 th century that Nineveh’s ruins were excavated with their mighty buildings, sculptures and Assurbanipal’s library with over 20,000 clay plates.

God used Assyria as rod of his anger to punish His guilty people of Israel but finally this rod had to be punished itself for its haughtiness and its malice (see Is. 10:5-19; Ez. 31:3-17; Zeph. 2:13). Some references over Assyria are surely still to be fulfilled. The king of Assyria will come towards Israel and Egypt again in a day to come and will find his end in Palestine. It is very striking though that according to Is. 19:23-25 Assyria will share in the blessings of the Millennium with Egypt and Israel yet without its destroyed godless capital Nineveh.