2011年3月17日星期四

there came a point in history where God said, “Enough is enough,” and He removed the offending party (Na 2:13; 3:4).Nineveh fell in 612 BC

had decreed its demise. He asked rhetorically,Are you better than No-Amon that was situated by the River, that had the waters around her, whose rampart was the sea, whose wall was the sea? (3:8).No-Amon is the Egyptian word for “city of (the deity) Amon” commonly known today by its Greek name, Thebes.Esarhaddon had taken Egypt on his second invasion in 671 BC. When he died, the Egyptians revolted and Ashurbanipal went to Egypt to put down this revolt. He cleared the Delta of the Cushites (Ethiopians) in 667/666 BC and the Cushite ruler, Taharqa, fled to No-Amon. On Ashurbanipal’s first campaign against Egypt he took 22 kings from the seacoast, with their armies, to help fight the Egyptians. Ashurbanipal claims that he “made those kings with their forces (and) their ships accompany me by sea and by land” (Rainey 1993:157). One of those kings was Manasseh, king of Judah, with his army.On his second campaign in 663 BC, Ashurbanipal went to No-Amon and defeated the city and razed it. There were Judeans in the Assyrian army that saw this event. When they heard or read the words of Nahum they would have been encouraged. The Assyrians were able to defeat a strong and impregnable Thebes, and God would now fulfill His Word and Nineveh would fall.Ashurbanipal commissioned a relief depicting the fall of No-Amon. It is labeled “an Egyptian fortress” in the British Museum. Yadin cautiously states,The crowing achievement of Ashurbanipal’s expeditionary force to Egypt was the capture and destruction of Thebes “of the hundred gates” (the Egyptian capital during the XXVth Dynasty) in the year 663 BC. It is most probable that this is the event which the Assyrian artist depicted in such detail here in his portrayal of an attack on an Egyptian city (1963:462).If this is the case, we have a very graphic illustration of the Biblical text. The top of the relief has the Assyrians besieging the city the ladders, soldiers undermining the walls and a soldier torching the gate. A close examination of the defenders reveals that there are two ethnic groups defending the city. One group with the Negroid features is from Ethiopia (Cush) and the other are the Egyptians. Nahum said, “Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength. And it was boundless.” (3:9a).Relief of the fall of Thebes. From the palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, now in the British Museum. On the left of the relief, above the Nile River, are Ethiopian captives being taken out of No-Amon. A careful examination of these captives reveals chains on their ankles. Nahum recounts the event.Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity...They cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains (3:10).Another remarkable illustration of the Biblical text is the group of 12 Egyptians to the right side of the relief awaiting their fate on the banks of the Nile River. As I stared at the group I noticed three children. Two were seated on the donkey and one was on the shoulder of his father. I could not help but wonder if these children knew the fate that awaited them.



The words of the prophet were,
Her young children also were dashed to pieces at the head of every street” (3:10). Thankfully, the Assyrian artist did not carve this scene on the relief!Children being led away from Thebes, two on the back of a donkey and one carried on his father’s back. From the palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, now in the British Museum.An interesting side note should be mentioned. Manasseh was with Ashurbanipal II when he conquered No-Amon, the city of the deity Amun, in 663 BC. That was the year that a son was born to him, the future king of Judah, Amon. Apparently Manasseh named his son after the Egyptian deity Amun. This is consistent with Manasseh’s character of following after other gods. But why an Egyptian god and not an Assyrian one, I do not know.The Fig Trees and the Forts (Na 3:12)After asking Nineveh, “Are you better than No-Amon?” Nahum proceeds to describe the rapid fall of the cities and fortresses surrounding Nineveh. He says,All your strongholds are fig trees with ripened fruit; if they are shaken, they will fall into the mouth of the eater” (3:12).When the figs are ripe, they drop easily from the tree when shaken. This is a word-picture that the Ninevites knew from personal experience. Figs were common in Nineveh, as attested to by their appearance on reliefs.A Locust at the Banquet (Na 3:15b–17)One of the most sordid reliefs in Ashurbanipal’s palace is one of a royal banquet that commemorated the defeat of the king’s most hated foe, Teumman, the king of Elam. On this relief, Ashurbanipal is reclining on a couch under a grape vine in his garden sipping wine with his consort. There are servants around them with fans, while other servants are bringing food and playing musical instruments. From Ashurbanipal’s vantage point on the couch he could gaze on the trophy head of the Elamite king hanging from a ring in the fir tree.Ashurbanipal's garden banquet. Abird swooping down on a lone locust sitting on the branch of a palm tree: the head of an Elamite king hangs in an adjacent fir tree (right). From the palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, now in the British Museum.In a warped perversion of a Biblical description of peace, that of every man sitting under his vine and fig tree (Mi 4:1–4), this relief commemorated the cessation of war with the Elamites after nine years of hostilities. Ashurbanipal attributes his victory to,the Assyrian pantheon, and in particular, the deities Ashur and Ishtar of Arbela. Thus the human head may be viewed as more than a memorial to a successful battle; it is symbolic of a major threat to the Assyrian throne, a threat that was decisively eliminated through divine might (Albenda. 1977:35).Yet Micah says that real peace will come when the nations go to the LORD’S House in Jerusalem and worship Him. Then,They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nations, neither shall they learn war anymore (Mi 4:3).There is one detail in this relief that should not be missed. In the upper left corner is a locust sitting on top of a palm tree. To its right is a bird swooping down as if to catch it. One art historian described the scene this way:Related to this is the image of a locust alight upon an upper branch of a tree, a short distance from the severed head of Teumman. A bird sweeps down toward the insect as if to devour it. This apparently minor detail may have special meaning, for in the annals, Ashurbanipal described the Elamites as a “dense swarm of grasshoppers” (Luckenbill 1989, 2:329, ¶ 855). Within this context, the locust may signify the last vestige of a once dreadful enemy, now virtually eliminated (Albenda 1977:31–32).At the end of the book of Nahum we have another reversal of fortune. Instead of the Elamites being the locusts, the Assyrians are, and they are about to be eliminated! But Nahum does not describe the destructive aspects of the locust plague, but rather, the flight of the locusts after they have done their damaRosetta Stone Greek

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