Nineveh fell in B.C. 607-6, and with it fell also the Assyrian kingdom and empire. According to an inscription of Nabonidos, it was destroyed by the king of the Manda or Scythians, 5 had
settled in Ecbatana and gone to the assistance of Nabopolassar, the Babylonian king.
War had
NISROCH
broken out between the latter and his suzerai the king of Assyria, who was suppo> ted by sever: of the Babylonian cities where the i was still obeyed. According to Abydenos, the last king of Assyria was Sarakos, who appears to be the Sin-sar-iskun of the monuments. tablet dated in the seventh year of the latter king has been found at Erech. But there was another Assyrian king, Sin-sum-lisir, whose name is found on a tablet dated at Nippur in the year of his accession, and it is therefore possible that with him rather than with Sin-sar-iskun Nineveh and Assyria came to an end,
The fall of Nineveh is prophesied by Nahum and Zephaniah (2'-), and in Nahum more especially there are references to the Loe EY of the Assyrian capital (see Billerbeck and Jeremias, ‘ Der Untergang ines und die Wei gschrift des Nahum,’ in the Beitrage zur Assyriologie, iii. 1). In 2 Καὶ 19%=Is 3757, it is described as the residence of Sennacherib, and the temple of ‘ Nisroch his god’ is referred to. The name of Nisroch, how- ever, is corrupt, and it is impossible to say what was the original reading.
For the story of Jonah’s preosing at Nineveh, and our Lord’s application of this, see art. JONAH in vol. ii., especially pp. 746-751.
In Jon 4" it is stated that Nineveh contained ‘more than sixscore thousand’ infants, which would give a population of about 600,000. Cap- tain Jones, who made a trigonometrical survey of the site in 1853, estimates that, allowing 50 square yards to each inhabitant, the population may have amounted to about 174,000 souls. The statement, however, in the Bk. of Jonah, that Nineveh was a city of ‘ three days’ journey,’ can be explained onl, on the supposition that both Calah and Khorsab: (Dur-Sargon) were included in its precincts ;andeven then Konig (see art. JONAH, vol. il. p. 7485) thinks the dimensions impossible. Nineveh is again brought before us in the books of Tobit (11° ete.) and Judith (1. Tobit is said to have lived there like certain Israelites mentioned in the cuneiform con- tract tablets, some of whom even held office under the government.
LITERATURE.—Rich, Narrative of a Residence in Kourdistan and on the Site of Ancient Nineveh (1836); A. H. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains (1848), and Discoveries in the Ruins Nineveh and mio We (1853); F. Jones, ‘ Topography of Nineveh,’ with maps, in JRAS (1855); J. Fergusson, Palaces of Nineve and Persepolis (1851); Botta and Flandin, Monwment de Ninive 1846-50); V. Place, Ninive et ( Assyrie (1866-69); ct. also the iterature cited at the end of art. AssyYRIA. A. H. SAYCE. NINEVITES (Nivev(e)irac).—The inhabitants of Nineveh (which see), Lk 11% (only). In the paral- lel passage, Mt 12", both AV and RV have ‘men of Nineveh’ (ἄνδρες Nivev(e)irac) as well as in Lk 11% (TR ἄνδρες Νινευΐ, Lachm. Treg. WH ἄνδρες
Νινευ(ε)ῖται).
NIPHIS (B Νειφείς, A Φινείς, AV Nephis), 1 Es 57. —‘ The sons of N., 156,’ correspond to ‘ the children of Magbish, 156,’ in Ezr 2°. The corruption may be due to reading e220 as w530 ( from Niphis).
NISAN (jp: Neh 2!, Est 37,1 Es 58, Ad. Est 115. —The first month in the later Jewish calendar. See TIME.
NISROCH (3553; in 2K 197 B has ᾿Εσδράχ, A Ἐσθράχ, in Is 37% B Nacapdx, A ᾿Ασαράχ, Vulg. Nesroch).—The Hebrew form of the name of a deity of the Assyrians, in whose temple Sen- nacherib was worshipping when slain by his sons (see the passages quoted). There has been much speculation as to the identity of this deity, and many wild theories have been put forward con- cerning him. Jarchi, for instance, explains the
NITRE
word as ‘a beam, or plank, of Noah’s ark,’ from an analysis of the word given by Rabbinical exposi- tors, by which 10) would be =xm "ὃ. A far more reasonable eiepretion was that of Gesenius, who considered that Nisroch was a lengthened form of 1¥j, the Arab nisr, ‘an eagle,’ and this etymology was supported by the fact that eagle-headed divine figures actually occur in the Assyrian bas-reliefs, A comparison of the Greek forms, however, shows that the Hebrew writing of the name is corrupt, a 2 mayne been added [as in the case of Nibhaz and Nimr cjaud vocalic changes made so as to bring the word practically into the same form as the two words here cited. There is therefore no doubt that, as suggested by Schrader (COT ii. 13f.), Nisroch is a corruption of Aésur, or of a possible by-form Aéguraku, to which the Greek variant "Esopdy is the nearest approach.* This identifica- tion, it is to be noted, is not only the most probable, but also the most satisfactory, for it is in the temple of the national god of his country that we should expect to find the king of ek slic le especially if by any means he had received information of his sons’ intention ; for to his mind the national god of the land, who had, as he believed, so often helped him to victory, would naturally be the one most likely to save him from his rebellious οβερτίπας With regard to the forin, there are two possible explanations. Nisroch (=Esorach) any be for Asuraku, a lengthened form of Aégur by the addition of aku [the same termination as uae in Amaruduk(u)], the Marduku (a personal name) of the later contract- tablets, in which case the presence of the ending would seem to imply Accadian influence. On the other hand, the name may be really a compound one, #.e. the well-known appellation of the god ASur with the Accadian name of the moon-god Aku (compare Eri-Aku, ‘ servant of the moon-god’ =Arioch) attached to it. In support of this second etymology may be cited the fact that Sennacherib’s name contains the element Sin, the common name of the moon-god in Babylonia and Assyria, and the expression ‘Ais god’ may refer to some such compound deity as Asur-Aku, whom Sennacherib specially worshipped. T. G. PINCHEs.