‘One Assyria
Policy’ and the invasions of Israel
Koot van Wyk,
Visiting Professor, KNU Sangju Campus, South Korea
Years ago my
professor, Charles Fensham, said that Saggs indicated in his book on Assyria
that the Assyrian territory was a drier one than the Babylonian one. Therefore,
when they were in power, they use to invade other countries in order to take
their booty to fill the gaps. All kinds of gaps. Migrations were then used to
bring slavery and technical engineers to their territory to solve their
problems in the country. They operated with
a “one Assyria policy” and that meant that Babylonia was considered
historically to belong to Sumer and Akkad and thus in days passed was one
territory, no matter how many millennia in the past. So Babylonia was to act
and work together with Assyria within this unity framework and failure to do so
was met with invasions and war. It was considered rebellion when Merodach-Baladan
wanted to be separate and independent during the days of Sennacherib, when
Hezekiah got sick in 702 BCE. The Assyrians
suffered from the Lucifer Syndrome (Isaiah 14) in that they wanted to excel
their power all over the earth. They wanted to sit in the seat of God as “god”.
In modern times
this attitude is still pervasive by some nations. Godlessness or atheism or
agnosticism is honored or state-manipulated religion, where their god does not
interfere too much with the state is sought for. The Assyrians
in the days of Hezekiah became angry with his attitude of independence. He and
Merodach-Baladan, the rebel from Babylon were friends and he paid a visit to
Hezekiah. Thus, in 701 BCE, Sennacherib came to Israel also, to all rebellious
nations that did not recognize the ‘one Assyria-policy’. Allies of rebels were
also considered independent seekers and thus punishment was the only remedy for
Assyria. Sennacherib came to Jerusalem and kept Hezekiah locked up “like a bird
in a cage” he reported in the original of his Third Campaign text. It is also
the time Lachish was taken by force and all these nations had to pay money as
tax. The event is summarized in Isaiah 36:1. In 689 BCE,
described in detail by the historiographer Isaiah, running between Isaiah
36:2-37:34, Sennacherib came again but did not come to Jerusalem. He sent
generals. They came to make a treaty. Their concept of peace was one-sided.
Follow us and you will be prosperous with peace. Resist us and you will be
pieces. When the enemy
comes to make peace and talk treaties, it reminds me of the anecdote that
Charles Brooks told in his sermon about a frog and a scorpion. A scorpion came
to the frog and asked to be his friend and make peace and asked whether the
frog can help him. The deal is that the frog must take the scorpion across the
dam. The frog said that he is afraid because halfway on the dam, he may throw
him with his missile tail and subsequently is he scared to help. “I promise,”
said the scorpion, “how can I sting a kind friend like you?” The frog then
carried the scorpion across the dam. When they arrived at the other side the
scorpion stung the frog with his missile. “Let me remind you of your promise,”
said the frog. “Sorry,” said the scorpion, “it is my nature to sting”. In the contract
or peace-agreement that Assyria offered, he asked them to come out of Jerusalem
and be taken to a “paradise” where each one will sit under his vine, fig tree
and at a cistern (Isaiah 36:16). What Assyria did, also with their invasions,
is to landgrab from the rich their property and give it to party members or
officials of the state. Ever heard of Engels and his 1893 book with the chapter:
“The housing question”. Engels is just a warm-up of a theft motif that was part
of the Lucifer-syndrome in heaven. “I want to take over the throne of God and
sit in His place” (Isaiah 14:12-14). Lenin in his “The State and Revolution” of
1917 took Engels ideas over. One cannot break the commandments of God and in
the same breath suggest religion is acceptable. Result? Bibles are forbidden
and if used, only under state supervision and watchful eye since morally and
ethically the system is corrupt essentially. They fear religion because they
know they are wrong but they do not want to hear it. Assyria is also against
the God of Hezekiah (Isaiah 36:18). In this scenario of invasion to solve the ‘one
Assyria syndrome’ problems demand an absence of gods or God to tell them what
they should or should not do. They rejected all religions, true and false just
in case (Isaiah 36:20). It is either
the Bible or Engels/Marx/Lenin but not both. Landgrab is categorically
and explicitly forbidden in the Bible, not only in one place, many places like
Proverbs, Amos 1, and Micah 2:1-4. Is it not irony
that in modern times people talk about socialism of a Russian kind, socialism
of a Chinese kind, socialism of a Korean kind, socialism of an Israeli kind,
socialism of a Spanish, socialism of a Zimbawean kind but the core of the
socialism comes from outside these countries from European Jewish philosophers
and has nothing to do with the countries’ heritage themselves. What links them
all is this philosophical core in Europe. In reality, looking at the results of
socialism in all these countries and witnesses explaining about it, “socialism
is the inability to make money and resorting to theft with Engels/Marx/Lenin to
justify and rationalize what is wrong as right and thereby to make-up for the
deficit by taking from the rich and give to the poor with a Robin Hood
mentality”. No wonder the Bible conflict. No wonder Hezekiah was not interested
in Assyria’s proposal. “This is a day
of Trouble” said Hezekiah Isaiah 37:3. God sent then
Tirhaka to come from Egypt as rescue. This western power scared Sennacherib a
bit and he moved from Lachish. Tirhaka could not have come in 701 BCE because
the Kawa IV inscription said that he was with his mother until the age of 20
and was born in 708 BCE. It had to be in 689 BCE (see Isaiah 37:9). To solve this
trouble, Hezekiah did what all of us must do: pray (Isaiah 37:16-20). God came to his
rescue and many soldiers died by a plaque (37:36).
Dear God