The ASSYRIAN(Study Notes): “If we look at several of the prophecies of Assyria we find that they are often mentioned in parallel with prophecies of Israel’s true Messiah. Perhaps the most-quoted is from the fifth chapter of Micah. The passage begins with the prophecy that Bethlehem will bring forth the Messiah...”
“And this man (the Messiah, the “Mighty God”) shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men. And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall He deliver us from the Assyrian, when he comes into our land, and when he treads within our borders.”
“Note, furthermore, while Assyria is oppressing Israel they will be defended by ‘seven shepherds’ and/or ‘eight principal men.’ Historically, the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrian armies (722 B.C.), and later in 701 the southern kingdom of Judah survived an Assyrian invasion under Sennacharib only through divine intervention. Yet this prophecy speaks of Assyria invading the land of Israel at the end-time. It is hard to avoid this prophecy’s end-time context.”
“Both Micah and the prophet Isaiah lived during the time when Assyria was a great threat to Israel yet their prophecies seem to speak on two levels. Firstly, as a warning to Israel at the time but, more importantly for us, they also look forward in time to the final appearance of Assyria as Israel’s deceitful enemy when he will invade and occupy Israel and then finally be destroyed in the end.”
“’The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from of their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who shall turn it back?’”
“So who is Assyria?”
“At a time when the Christians (those of the Northern Kingdom of Israel) were weakening spiritually, as well as physically and militarily, the Assyrians were growing stronger.”
THE LOST TRIBES
The Assyrians introduced a very interesting way of dealing with conquered peoples. It was called exile, the Assyrian policy of deporting conquered peoples to other lands within the empire, to destroy their sense of nationalism, and break any pride or hope of rebellion and replace them with strangers from far away. Assyrians were great warriors. Most nations at that time period were looters, building their state by robbing other nations. Assyria’s was the most ferocious of them all. Their very name became a byword for cruelty and atrocity.
The Assyrian king put out the eyes of enemy kings (blind submission) and led the officials into captivity with hooks in their lips (interweaving the words of the Assyrian). In this manner the several warrior kings wielded Assyria into the best fighting machine of the ancient world.
Meanwhile the Christian people of the north were settled in various locations throughout the Assyrian empire. Total occupation resulted from within and without, only remained the imprisoned and the abandoned.
ASSYRIAN CRUELTY
One of the ancient monuments discovered in the ruins of ancient Assyria has an inscription by the King of Assyria of a conquered city: “Their men, young and old, I took as prisoners. Of some I cut off the feet and hands; of others I cut off the noses, ears, and lips; of the young men’s ears I made a heap; of the old men’s heads I built minaret (tower).
Assyrian Cruelty
(Study Notes): “It is only half the truth when talking about the ancient Assyrian cruelty, perhaps, as some historian have suggested, the Assyrians were open about their cruelty because they hoped to quell rebellion or discourage opposition by publicizing the fate of losers. After all, those terrible punishments were meted out only to those people who resisted the Assyrian armies. Cities that surrendered without a fight were not sacked; they suffered only the indignity of an Assyrian governor and a yearly tribute.”
Assyrian Soldiers
From the tops of the wooden towers, skilled archers would sweep the walls of the defenders, to prevent interference with the work of demolition, while nearby other archers, sheltered by the shields of spear men, would fire arrows-some of them flaming in a high trajectory over the walls, to harass the defenders and to terrify the population. The methods used by the Assyrians did not originate with them, but were apparently borrowed from the Sumerians. But it was the skill and organization of employment which brought success to Assyrian siege craft.
Terror was another factor contributing greatly to Assyrian success. Their exceptional cruelty and ferocity were possibly reflections of callousness developed over centuries of defense of their homeland against savage enemies. But theirs was also a calculated policy of terror-possibly the earliest example of organized psychological warfare. It was not unusual for them to kill every man, woman, and child in captured cities. Sometimes they would carry away entire populations into captivity.
This distorted cruelty assumption is easily debunked by the late Assyriologist Henry Saggs who stated that, "There is no proven case of any atrocities committed by individual Assyrian soldiers as matters of mere sadism. It is true that there are some scenes on base reliefs which do show the mutilation or barbarous killing (as by skinning) of prisoners, but the indications are that these represent what was done to ringleaders by order of the king, not random acts of barbarity by private soldiers. Indeed, there are indications that the king insisted on very strict discipline in the matter of treatment of prisoners-of-war, and one royal letter to an Assyrian administrator dealing with provisions for such prisoners actually warns the official: 'You shall not be negligent. If you are, you shall die.'"
Assyria Sets Up an Underworld Army
(Underworld Army of Assyria)
"The Greeks are our intellectual ancestors, but these Mesopotamians are the true ancestors of modern medicine," said Scurlock, a professor of ancient history at Elmhurst College.
There are two main reasons why the Assyrian Empire became so powerful. First, the power of Assyria was largely dependent on the success of its army. The Assyrian military perfected the art of war with punitive expeditions or campaigns launched against foreign foes, rebellious vassals or other anti-Assyrian groups. Second, the Assyrians developed an efficient and effective administrative system with which to maintain, supply and expand their empire. In Assyria, warfare was a way of life, and its government was run as a military state. Early wars had been like raids; undertaken to obtain booty, settle disputes over land and water rights, or fought for military notoriety. The Assyrian Empire maintained a powerful standing army.
Enemies Make a Tumult
(COALITION OF NATIONS - Psalm 83)
In the Psalms one find a prayer having been lifted for God’s open interposition; since God’s foes tumultuously assail the people of God in a vast confederacy of ten nations, Edom, Ammon and Moab being the center. The prayer is grounded on God’s past deliverances that He will send His fiery anger on the foe, in order that all may know that Jehovah is most high over all the earth- in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.
The object of the invaders was to root the nation Israel out of their inheritance.
Henry Commentary.- God’s people, in an all prevailing plea, rightly remind their Father that the invaders are not merely their enemies, but His; therefore His honor is at stake in delivering them. The foes are a type of the Gentile peoples, the followers of Antichrist, of whom Psalm 2 said, “Why do the nations tumultuously assemble? (marg.)…the kings of the earth…and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed?” They that hate You (God)- the real ground of their haltered is against Your people. They have lifted up the head- proudly and as oppressors. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people- they combine craft with violence and consult against Your hidden ones- Your people, whom God - in the time of trouble hides, in His pavilion, in the secret of His tabernacle.
They (the enemy) have said, “Come, and let us cut them off- let us extirpate (destroy and completely remove) them. They have consulted together with one consent- with the heart unanimously, (implying the hearty zeal with which they entered into the plot). They have cut or formed a covenant against You.
Edom, Moab and Ammon were the ringleaders; and around them respectively are grouped those allies whom they had induced to join in the expedition. Assyria also is joined with them; they give help to the children of Lot.
HISTORY
(Study Notes): The nations called Moab and Ammon are considered together because the men, Moab and Ammon, were brothers, children of incest involving Lot and his two daughters (Gen.19). After Sodom, Gomorrah were destroyed by God, Lot and his two unnamed daughter lived in a cave in the mountain near Sodom. There, on two consecutive nights, his daughter made Lot senselessly drunk and lay with him. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. The son of the older daughter was named Moab, and the younger daughter’s son was named Ben-ammi (Ammon).
(Children of Lot)
Incest – Health Risk
Note: Person’s birthed through an incestuous relationship pose a high risk of being affected with a sex development disorder characterized by both male and female gene tails. The reproductive organs might be fully or partially developed and can be at various developing states.
The wickedness of the Ammonites and Moabites is described in that they (as a conspiratorial nation) provoked other nations to fight against the nation Israel.
Judah is in danger of being invaded and destroyed by an overwhelming coalition of nations.
Throughout history, many nations have conspired to bring about the ruin of Israel and Judah. This dominate nation of Assyria that took captive the ten northern tribes of Israel (by exile and displacement) would now use smaller nations, like Moab and Ammon (the children of Lot) to accomplish its military goals to destroy Judah.
Ancient History
(Study Notes): God had given orders to Moses (at the time of the Exodus) not to oppose the sons of Moab or provoke them to war when making their pilgrimage to the Promised Land.
When the Israelites camped in the territory it had won in battle from the Amorites, the Moabites became fearful that the Israelites would take their land. Apparently, the Moabite king did not know, or did not believe, that God had forbidden Moses to take any land belonging to either of Lot’s children (Deut. 2:9,19). In an effort to weaken Israel, Moab’s king Balak offered an enormous monetary reward and a high position in his government to a world-renowned (pagan) prophet, Balaam, if he would come and curse Israel (Num. 22:24). Balaam came, wanting to curse Israel and receive Balak’s reward, but God would not allow him to curse Israel. Having failed, then, in his first desire, Balaam, with the elders of the Midianites, counseled King Balak not to war with the Israelites, seeing that God was determined to bless them, but- rather- to join the Israelites through marriage. The resulting intermarriage of the Moabites with the Israelites and the concomitant (simultaneous) intermingling of religions enraged the Lord, who then plagued Israel (Num.15:9). So, while Balaam could not curse Israel, by his craftiness he deceived Israel into great sin against God, who then punished His people with a grievous plague. Thus did Balaam, in a way, accomplish his evil mission through the use of Moab’s women to lure many Israelites into making a league with Moab and its gods.
Though this cleverly and maliciously designed precision, Balaam was able to curse Israel. This is the doctrine of Balaam. Balaam prophetically gave four blessing to Israel and finally said to Balak and the Moabites, “though you cannot conquer Israel by force of arms, you can seduce them: and that’s exactly what they did. The Moabite girls entered the Israelite camp (Number 31:16) and seduced the men (Numb. 25:1-9).
Now, Assyria has joined with the collation of nations to help the children of Moab and Ammon, the descendants of Lot.
Barnes Commentary.- (Psalm 83; Conspiracy Against Israel) The sons of Lot were permitted, as it were, to make use of the arm of these powerful nations in accomplishing their purposes. It would appear from this, that the purpose of destroying the Israelite people had been originated by the Moabites and Ammonites, and that they had called in the aid of the surround nations to enable them to carry out their plan. The enumeration of those who had joined in the alliance shows that all the nations adjacent to Palestine, on every side, had entered into the agreement, so that the land was completely encompassed, or hemmed in, by enemies. In these circumstances, the conspirators felt secure; in these circumstances, the people of God had no resource but to call upon God. Thus it often occurs that the people of God are so surrounded by enemies, or are so hemmed in by troubles and trials, that they have no other resource than the: -they are shut up to the necessity of prayer. Often God so orders, or permits things to occur, as to cut off His people from every other dependence, and to make them feel that there is no help for them but in Him.
The Hebrew people were offensive to all the surrounding nations by their religion and the constant rebuke of tyranny and idolatry by their religious and their social institutions. “They (their enemies) had said, ‘Come, and let us cut them (the people of God) off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.’” That the nation as such may be utterly extinct and forgotten; that the former triumphs of that nation over us may be avenged; that we may no longer have in our very midst this painful memorial for the existence of ONE God, and of the demands of His law; that we may pursue our own plans without the silent or the open admonition derived from a religion so pure and holy. For the same reason the world has often endeavored to destroy the church; to cause it to be extinct; to blot out its name.
There is no division in the counsel of the coalition on this subject. They have one desire- one purpose- in regard to the matter. Pilate and Herod were made friends together against Christ; and the world, divided and hostile on other matters, has been habitually united in its opposition of Christ and to a pure and spiritual religion. They are confederate against it.
Spurgeon Commentary.- They (the enemies) are by no means sparing of their words, they are like a hungry pack of dogs, all giving tongue at once. So sure are they of devouring Your people that they already shout over the feast. Confident of conquest, they carry themselves proudly and exalt themselves as if their anticipated victories were already obtained. These enemies of Israel were also God’s enemies, and are here described as such by way of adding intensity to the argument of the intercession.
Whatever we may do, our enemies use their wits and lay their heads together; in united conclave secret meeting) they discourse upon the demands and plans of the campaigns, using much treachery and serpentine cunning in arranging heir schemes. Malice is cold-blooded enough to plot with deliberation; and pride, though it be never wise, is often allied with craft.
“They consulted against thy hidden ones.” Hidden away from all harm (of extinction) are the Lord’s chosen; their enemies think not so, but hope to smite them; they might as well attempt to destroy the angels before the throne of God.
“They have said, ‘Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation.'” Easier said than done. Yet it shows how thorough-going are the foes of the church. Theirs was the policy of extermination. They laid the axe at the root of the matter. Evil is intolerant of good. Men would be glad to cast the church out of the world because it rebukes them, and is thus a standing menace to their sinful peace.
They are hearty and unanimous in their designs. They seem to have but one heart, and that a fierce one, against the chosen people and their God. “They are confederate against thee.” At the Lord Himself they aim through the sides of His saints. They make a covenant, and ratify it with blood, resolutely banding themselves together to war with the Mighty God.
Assyria is also joined with them. It was then a rising power, anxious for growth, and it thus early distinguished itself for evil. What a motley group they were; a league against Israel is always attractive and gathers whole nations within it bonds. Herod and Pilate are friends, if Jesus is to be crucified. All these have come to the aid of Moab and Ammon, which two nations were among the fiercest in the conspiracy. There were ten to one against Israel.
Joseph Francis Thrupp.- The last class of enemies are those of whom Assyria is the type; the worldly potentates, whether ecclesiastical or temporal or imperial, who are unscrupulously ready to employ all mans for the ultimate accomplishment of their one object, that of extending and consolidation their dominion…
Such potentates seem to represent most truly that determined and resolute selfishness, which, to eyes that are not dazzled by the grandeur of its proportions or the gorgeousness in which it is arrayed, much ever appear as one of the most terrible embodiments of the enmity of the world to God. Pride of intellect and unbelief, -unholiness and lawlessness of life, -covetousness, -worldly ambition, -such are the characteristics of four important classes of those by whom God’s church is threatened.
Calvin Commentary.- “For they have consulted with the heart together.” The multiplied hosts which united their powers together to oppose the Church of God and to effect her overthrow, are here enumerated. As so many nations, formed into one powerful confederacy, were bent on the destruction of a kingdom not greatly distinguished by its power, the miraculous aid of God was indispensible necessary for the deliverance of a people who, in such extremity, were altogether unable to defend themselves.
To remove from the minds of the godly all misgivings as to whether help is ready to be imparted to them from heaven, the prophet distinctly affirms that those who molest the Church are chargeable with making war against God, who has taken her under His protection. The principle upon which God declares that He will be our helper is contained in these words, “He that touched you, touches the apple of mine eye” (Zech.2:8). And what is said in another psalm concerning the patriarchs, is equally applicable to all true believers, “Touch not mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm,” (Ps. 105:15).
God having declared that every injury which is done to us is an assault upon Him, we may, as from a watch-tower, behold in the distance by the eye of faith the approach of that destruction of which the votaries (devotees) of Antichrist shall have at length the sad and melancholy experience.
When it is said that Assyria and the rest were an arm to the sons of Lot, this is evidently an additional aggravation of the wickedness of the sons of Lot. It would have been an act of unnatural cruelty for them to have aided foreign nations again their own kindred (Lot was the nephew of Abraham). But when they themselves are the first to sound the trumpet, and when of their own suggestion they invite the aid of the Assyrians and other nations to destroy their own brethren, ought not such barbarous inhumanity to call forth the deepest detestation? Josephus (historian) himself records, that the Israelites had passed through their borders without doing them any harm, sparing their own blood according to the express command of God. When the Moabites and Ammonites then knew that their brethren the Jews spared them, remembering that they were of the same blood, and sprung from on common parentage, ought they not also to have reciprocated so much kindness on their part as not to have embarked in any hostile enterprise against them? But it is, as it were, the destiny of the Church, not only to be assailed by external enemies, but to suffer far greater trouble at the hands of false brethren. At the present day, none are more furiously mad against us than counterfeit Christians.
Henry Commentary.- The nations that entered into this alliance are here mentioned; the Edomites and Ishmaelites, bother descendants fro Abraham, lead the van; for apostates from the church have been its most bitter and spiteful enemies. These were allied to Israel in blood and yet in alliance against Israel. There are no bonds of nature so strong but the spirit of persecution has broken through them. The brother shall betray the brother to death. God’s heritage was as a speckled bird; all the birds round abut were against her, which highly magnifies the power of God in preserving to Himself a church n the world, it spire of the combined force of earth and the underworld.
 |
 |
| Make a Smilebox photobook |
