V. Prophecies relating to Nineveh, and Illustrations of the 0. T. — These are exclusively contained in the books of Nahum and Zephaniah; for although Isaiah foretells the downfall of the Assyrian empire (ch. x and xiv), he makes no mention of its capital. Nahnm threatens the entire destruction of the city, so that it shall not rise
tating army. An allusion to the overflow of the river may be contained in Nah. ii, 6, " The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved," a prophecy supposed to have been fulfilled when the jNIedo- Babylonian army captured the city. Diodorus (ii, 27) relates of tliat event that " there was an old prophecy that Nineveh should not be taken till the river became an enemy to the city ; and in the third year of the siege the river, being swollen with continued rains, overflowed part of the city, and broke down the wall for twenty stadia; then the king, thinking that the oracle was ful- filled and the river become an enemy to the city, built a large funeral pile in the palace, and collecting together all his wealth and his concubines and eunuchs, burned himself and the palace with them all : and the enemy entered the breach that the waters had made, and took the city." Most of the edifices discovered had been de- stroyed by fire, but no part of the walls of eitlier Nim- rud or Kuyunjik appears to have been washed away by the river. The Tigris is still subject to very high and dangerous floods during the winter and spring rains, and even now frequently reaches the ruins. When it flowed in its ancient bed at the foot of the walls a part of the city might have been overwhelmed by an extraordinary inundation. The likening of Nineveh to " a pool of water" (Nah. ii, 8) has been conjectured to refer to the moats and dams by which a portion of the country around Nineveh could be flooded. The city was to be partly destroyed by fire : '■ The fire shall de- vour thy bars," " then shall the fire devour thee" (Xah, iii, 13, 15). The gateway in the northern wall of the Kuyunjik enclosure had been destroyed by fire as well as the palaces. The population was to be surprised when unprepared, "while they are drunk as drunkards they shall be devoured as stubble full dry" (Nali. i, 10). Diodorus states that the last and fatal assault was made when they were overcome with wine. In the bass-reliefs carousing scenes are represented, in which the king, his courtiers, and even the queen, reclining on couches or seated on thrones, and attended by musicians, ajipear
King Feasting. (From shtbs at Kuyunjik.)
again from its ruins: "With an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof." " He w ill make an utter end ; afliliction shall not rise up the sec- ond time" (i, 8, 9). "Thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no one gathereth them. There is no healing of thy bruise" (iii, 18, 19), The manner in wliich the city should be taken seems to be indicated. " The defence shall be prepared" (ii, 5) is rendered in the marginal reading " the covering or coverer shall be prepared," and by Mr. Vance Smitli {Prophecies on As- syria undthe A ssyrians, p. 242), " the covering machine," the covered battering-ram or tower supposed to be repre- sented in the bass-reliefs as being used in sieges. Some commentators believe that " the overrunning flood" re- fers to the agency of water in the destruction of the walls by an extraordinary overflow of the Tigris, and the consequent exposure of the city to assault through a breach ; others, that it applies to a large and devas-
to be pledging each other in bowls of wine (Botta, Mon. de Nin. pi. 63-G7, 112, 113). The captivity of the inhabitants, and their removal to distant provinces, are predicted (Nah. iii, 18). Their dispersion, which oc- curred when the city fell, was in accordance with the barbarous custom of the age. The palace-temples were to be plundered of their idols, " Out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image" (i, 14), and the city sacked of its wealth : " Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold" (ii, 9). For ages the Assyrian edifices have been despoiled of their sacred images; and enormous amounts of gold and silver were, according to tradition, taken to Ecbatana by the conquering IMedes (Diod. Sic. iii). Only one or two fragments of the precious metals were found in the ruins. Nineveh, after its fall, was to Itc " empty, and void, and waste" (Nah. ii. 10) ; "It shall come to pass that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee,
NINEVEH
125
NINEVEH
and say, Nineveh is laid waste" (iii, 7). These epithets describe tlie present state of the site of the city. But the fullest and most vivid and poetical picture of its ruined and deserted condition is that given by Zeph- aniah, who probably lived to see its fall : '■ He will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations : both the cormorant and the bit- tern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it ; their voice shall sing in the windows ; desolation shall be in the thresholds; for he shall uncover the cedar work . . . how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in ! every one that passeth by her shall hiss and wag his hand" (Zepb. ii, 13, 14, 15). The canals which once fertilized the soil are now dry. Except when the earth is green after the periodical rains the site of the city, as well as the surrounding country, is an arid yel- low waste. Flocks of sheep and herds of camels may be seen seeking scanty pasture among the mounds. From the unwholesome swamp within tlie ruins of Khorsabad, and from the reedy banks of the little streams that flow by Kuyunjik and Nimriid, may be heard the croak of the cormorant and the bittern. The cedar-wood which adorned the ceilings of the palaces has been uncovered by modern explorers (Layard, Niii. and Bab. p. 357), and in the deserted halls the hyena, the wolf, the fox, and the jackal now lie down. Many allusions in the O. T. to the dress, arras, modes of war- fare, and customs of the people of Nineveh, as well as of the Jews, are explained by the Nineveh monuments. Thus (Nah. ii, 3), "The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet:" the shields and the dresses of the warriors are generally painted red in the sculptures. The magnificent description of the assault upon the city (iii, 1, 2, 3) is illustrated in almost every particular (Layard, Xiii. and its Rem. vol. ii, pt. ii, ch. v) : the mounds built up against the walls of a besieged town (Isa. xxxvii, 33 ; 2 Kings xix, 32 ; Jer. xxiii, 2-i, etc.), the battering-ram (Ezek. iv, 2), the various kinds of armor, helmets, shields, spears, and swords, used in battle and during a siege; the chariots and horses (Nah. iii, 3), are all seen in various bass- reliefs (Layard, Nin. and its Rem. vol. ii, pt. ii, ch. iv and v). See Chariot. The custom of cutting off the heads of the slain and placing them in heaps (2 Kings X, 8) is constantly represented (Layard, ii, 184). The allusion in 2 Kings xix, 28, " I will put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips," is illustrated in a bass- relief from Khorsabad (ibid. p. 376).