Assyria and Its Image in the First Isaiah

Author(s): Peter Machinist

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 103, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1983), pp. 719-
737
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602231
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 ASSYRIA AND ITS IMAGE IN THE FIRST ISAIAH
PETER MACHINIST
UNIVERSITYOF ARIZONA

In the past 150 years, the native Assyrian sources on the Neo-Assyrian empire have become so
voluminous that scholars, quite naturally, have concentrated on them to describe the history and
character of the empire. But how did that empire appear to its contemporaries from their
sources? What contributions can such perspectives make to our understanding of the ways in
which the empire functioned? This study will initiate an answer to these questions by examining
one principal outside source for the Neo-Assyrian empire, the Hebrew Bible. After a brief
overview of all the relevant Biblical texts, the paper will focus on one portion of the corpus, the
First Isaiah, in order to ascertain: (1) the picture of the Assyrian state presented in that prophet,
and (2) the origin of that picture.

THE NEO-ASSYRIAN EMPIRE, WHILE FORMED ON EAR-
for its periodan achievement
LIER MODELS, represented
of unprecedented magnitude and complexity. In the
description of this achievement, much work has been
accomplished based on the Assyrian sources them-
selves, both written and non-written. Indeed, so volu-
minous and varied have these sources become, as a
result of the discoveries of the last 150 years, that they
alone-or almost alone-provide the ground for con-
temporary historical inquiry. The non-Assyrian sources
on the empire like the Hebrew Bible or classical texts,
to which earlier historians were confined, have now
been relegated distinctly to the shadows, not occasion-
ally even disregarded.
And therein, perhaps, lies a problem. For if the
Assyrian sources are now the substance of our inquiry,
the danger is that they may provide the form of it as
well, not only furnishing the "raw" data, but forcing
upon us an interpretative apparatus to deal with those
data. In other words, the danger of writing about the
Neo-Assyrian empire from the Assyrian evidence alone
is that we may finally view it too much in the cate-
gories which the Assyrians-i.e., their ruling elites-
wanted us to, and so fall into a new kind of
Of the various colleagues who have helped me with this
paper, I should like to thank particularly Avigdor Hurowitz,
for his advice about how to view the overall problem, and
Aaron Shaffer, Hayim Tadmor, Moshe Weinfeld, and Nor-
man Yoffee for their individual suggestions. Abbreviations
used follow those in R. Borger, Handbuch der Keilschrift-
literatur 1-111 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1967-1975).
confinement, not unlike what our predecessors faced,
before the Assyrian evidence was discovered.
We need, then, to find some balance in our perspec-
tive, and one means to this is to go back to the non-
Assyrian sources on Neo-Assyria and to examine
them in the light of the now available Assyrian mate-
rials. Two questions are crucial here: What did the
Neo-Assyrian empire look like to others, especially its
contemporaries? How do such views, when measured
against those of the Assyrians themselves, help us to
understand the empire-the ways it functioned, the
ways it related to the outside? In the space available, a
full accounting of these questions is obviously impos-
sible. Rather, we shall focus on one set of outside
sources, the First Isaiah from the Hebrew Bible, and
see what sorts of answers it provides.
It is useful to orient ourselves in a few general ways
about the Bible as a whole, before we begin. First,
even after a century and a half of archaeological
discovery, the fact is that the Biblical corpus is still by
far our major outside written source on Assyria,
comprising genealogical and geographical notices,
chronicle-like accounts and expanded prose narra-
tives, sermons and oracles-some of a narrative
character-and what one might call fable or aggadah.'
The Bible is important, thus, not only because of the
' Genealogical and geographical notices: Genesis 10:8-12,
22; 1 Chronicles 1:10, 17 (genealogical). Genesis 2:14; 25:18
(geographical).

719
720 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
volume of material it supplies, but even more, because
of the variety of that material-a variety which in-
cludes descriptions of actual contacts between Assyria
and Israel/Judah, as well as attempts to understand
these: to reflect on the characters and structures of the
states involved.
Chronicle-like accounts and expanded prose narratives:
2 Kings 13:5; 15-16; 17; 18-20; 21:1-18; 23:29-30; 1 Chron-
icles 5:6, 26; 2 Chronicles 28:16-21; 32; 33:11-13; 35:20-25;
Ezra 4:1-2, 9-10; Isaiah 36-39.
Sermons and oracles: Numbers 24:22-24; Nehemiah 9:32;
Psalm 83:9; Lamentations 5:6; Amos 3:9 (?); 6:2, 14 (?);
Hosea 5:13-14; 7:8-12; 8:8-10; 9:1-4, 5-6 (?); 10:5-6, 13-
15; 11:5, 10-11; 12:1; 13:15; 14:1-3; Micah 1:10-16 (?); 5:4-
5; 7:11-13; Isaiah, passim, especially 1:7-8; 3:18-26; 5:26-30;
7; 8:1-10, 23; 10:5-19, 24-27a, 27b-34; 11:11-16; 14:4b-21
(?; see n. 5 ahead), 24-27, 28-31; 17:1-3; 18; 19:23-24; 20;
23:13; 27:12-13; 28:11-12, 14-22; 29:1-8;30:1-7, 27-33; 31:1-
3, 8-9; 33:1, 19; Nahum; Zephaniah 2:13-15; Jeremiah 2:16-
19; 50:17-20; Ezekiel 16:28; 23:5-10, 11-13, 22-24; 27:23-24;
31:2-3 (?); 32:22-23; Obadiah 20 (reading nTnrn for End);
Zechariah 9:1-8 (?); 10:8-12.
Fable or aggadah: Genesis 10:8-12 (cf. I Chronicles 1:10 and
Micah 5:5); Jonah.
2
The dates of these two kings follow J. A. Brinkman, apud
A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead
Civilization, revised ed. with Erica Reiner (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1977), 345. For Tukulti-Ninurta 1, the
Biblical case was made by E. A. Speiser, Eretz Israel 5
(1958), 32*-36* (= idem, Oriental and Biblical Studies, 41-
52) and Genesis (Anchor Bible 1; Garden City: Doubleday
and Co., Inc., 1964), 67-68, 72-73, who proposed that this
king was the model behind the story of Nimrod in Genesis
10:8-12 (and by extension in I Chronicles 1:10 and Micah
5:5). For critiques and other solutions, see, e.g., E. Lipinski,
RB 73 (1966), 77-93 and S. Abramsky, Beth Miqra 82
(1980), 237-255, 321-340, especially 253-255. A full study of
the problem is impossible here, but two troublesome aspects
of Speiser's proposal should be noted. The first is the descrip-
tion of Nimrod in Genesis 10:9 as gibbcr sayid lipne Yahweh.
As Speiser himself admitted, Eretz Israel 5 (1958), 35* =
Oriental and Biblical Studies, 48, this is difficult to associate
with Tukulti-Ninurta 1. The problem is not that Tukulti-
Ninurta never hunted; he most likely did. It is rather that
hunting is not found at all as a topos among the literary or
artistic sources for that king's reign. It appears only later in
the Middle Assyrian period, and becomes frequent only with
the Neo-Assyrian kings. A second difficulty with Speiser is
the list of Assyrian cities in Genesis 10:11-12, which Nimrod
Moreover, the Biblical sources cover a broad range
of Assyrian history. Apart from two texts which have
been dubiously connected to the Middle Assyrian
kings Tukulti-Ninurta 1 (1243-1207 B.c.) and Tiglath-
pileser I (1114-1076 B.C.),2 these sources all refer to
the Neo-Assyrian period: beginning in the ninth cen-
is said to have built. This includes Nineveh, Kalah, and their
parts (i.e., the public squares or Nineveh [rehobot cir = rebTt
Ninua] and an aqueduct or canal [resen = risnu]: see Speiser,
Genesis, 68; Lipinski, RB 73 [1966], 84-86; and AHw, 964b
s.v. rebTtu(m), 1g. The reading talbTtufor rebTtuis, I think,
correctly rejected by AHw, 1310a.) Significantly, the list does
not mention the city of Assur, for 'aggar in 10:11, despite the
difficulty of its construction, cannot be the city. And yet in
Tukulti-Ninurta l's reign, the central city was Assur; Kalah
and Nineveh were both minor and, in any case, were not
built by that king. Not until the Neo-Assyrian period, begin-
ning with AggurnasirpalII's grandiose revival of Kalah in the
early ninth century B.C., did Kalah and then Nineveh become
dominant, surpassing Assur. And it is in this period as well
that we first hear about rebTt Ninua and a canal in the
vicinity of Kalah, the Patti-hegalli, which correlates nicely
with the resen of Genesis 10:12 (see Lipifiski, RB 73 [1966],
87-89).
The Biblical case for Tiglath-pileser I was first presented
by B. Maisler (Mazar), yedi cot 4 (1936), 47-51 (= yedicot
behaqirat 'Eres- Yisrd'el va- ,atiqotehd, Q5bes B [ed. E. Stern;
Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1965], 289-293). For
a brief summary of his position and various alternatives, see
1. Ephcal, The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the Borders of the
Fertile Crescent, 9th-5th Centuries B. C. (Jerusalem: The
Magnes Press, 1982), 61:n. 194. Maisler argued that Psalm
83 largely reflects the period of the Biblical Judges, i.e., the
twelfth-eleventh centuries B.C., and that vss. 6-9 within it,
which are a list of enemies joined against Israel, make sense
particularly against the background of Tiglath-pileser's cam-
paign to the Mediterranean coast in the same period. Yet
there are difficulties here, which, just as with the Nimrod
story, allow for a later historical context. In the first place,
while the Phoenicians are mentioned in the list of enemies
(vs. 8), they are not called there "Sidonians," after the city
which was dominant in the twelfth-eleventh centuries, but
"inhabitants of Tyre," which supplanted Sidon only later.
Even Maisler acknowledged the problem, Yedi'ct 4 (1936),
50:n 8 yedic5t,
y Qobes B, 292:n. 8. And it is compounded
by the fact that in Tiglath-pileser's own records of his
Mediterranean campaign, it is Sidon, Byblos, and Armada
(Arvad) which bring him tribute; Tyre nowhere appears
(E. F. Weidner, AfO 18 [1957-58], 344:20-21; 350:27). Sec-
ondly, the absence of the Aramaeans from the enemies in the
psalm does not have to indicate a time before the Aramaean
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah
tury B.C., possibly with Salmaneser III3 and then
Adad-nilrari III;4 passing to the latter half of the
eighth, with Tiglath-pileser III, Salmaneser V, Sargon
II, and Sennacherib;5 next to the first part of the
expansion of the tenth-ninth centuries B.C., as Maisler sup-
posed. It could easily come from after the conquest of the
Aramaean city-states by the Neo-Assyrians in the latter
eighth century B.C. and their conversion into Assyrian prov-
inces, thus removing the threat to Judah. Finally, Maisler
emphasized that when the psalm describes the Assyrians, it
says that they "are allied" with the other, Levantine enemies
(vs. 9: nilbdh 'imma-m); and for him this meant a period
before the Neo-Assyrian empire when the proper description
would have been that Assur "ruled" the Levant. Yet the
phrase nilbdh 'immdm is too vague to justify Maisler's
precise political conclusions, for it seems to suggest no more
than that the Assyrians are in some way to be counted with
the other enemies of Israel. And even if one accepted Mais-
ler's sense of the phrase, the result would be unsatisfactory,
for we would then have Assyria in a formal, (semi-)equal
alliance with other Levantine groups against Israel, which is
patently not the impression Tiglath-pileser's own texts give
of his Mediterranean campaign.
3 Hosea 10:14, referring to Sulman. The argument for a
connection with Salmaneser III has been put by M. C.
Astour, JAOS 91 (1971), 383-389.
4 2 Kings 13:5, in which Adad-nirdri III does not appear
explicitly, but under the epithet mi3sica. That this, in fact, is
Adad-nirari has been all but confirmed now by the discovery
of an inscription of the king from Tell al-Rimah, which bears
on the events described in the 2 Kings passage. See S. Page,
Iraq 30 (1968), 139-153 + Pls. XXXIX-XLI and the volumi-
nous discussion that has ensued, as noted and extended by
A. R. Millard and H. Tadmor, Iraq 35 (1973), 57-64, espe-
cially 57:n. 3 and 62:n. 16, and by H. Tadmor, Iraq 35
(1973), 141-150.
5 Among the Biblical sources for this period, it is not
always possible to make precise correlations with the four
Assyrian kings involved. Clearest are:
Tiglath-pileser III-2 Kings 15-16; 1 Chronicles 5:6, 26;
2 Chronicles 28:16-21; Amos 6:2 (cf. N. Na'aman, BASOR
214 [1974], 37 and n. 52); Isaiah 7; 8:1-10, 23; 10:9; 17:1-3.
?almaneser V and Sargon II-2 Kings 17:1-24; 18:1-12.
Sargon II-Isaiah 14:4b-21 (?, but cf. H. L. Ginsberg,
JAOS 88 [1968], 49-53, and H. Barth, Die Jesaja- Worte in
der Josiazeit [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1977],
135-140), 28-31; 20.
Sennacherib-2 Kings 17:24 ff. (or perhaps A99urbanipal?
See for these and other views M. Cogan, Imperialism and
Religion [SBL Monograph Series 19; Missoula: Scholars
721
seventh century, with Esarhaddon and perhaps A99ur-
banipal;' and concluding at the end of the seventh
with the fall of Assyria.7 In addition, there are a
number of general reflections about Assyria which,
while not related to any particular event, appear in
texts largely composed after the fall.8
Of the periods just enumerated, two stand out in
volume and variety of reference: the second half of the
eighth century B.C. and the end of the seventh. This is
no accident. The former represents in Israelite terms
the first period of direct Assyrian domination over
Palestine, which eventually ended the independence of
Press, 1974], 101:n. 23); 18-20; 2 Chronicles 32; Micah 1:10-
16 (cf. K. Elliger, ZDPV 57 [1934], 81-152 = idem, Kleine
Schrifien zum Alten Testament [Theologische Bucherei 32;
Munchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1966], 9-71; Y. Aharoni, The
Land of the Bible [revised ed. with A. F. Rainey; Philadel-
phia: Fortress Press, 1979], 392); Isaiah 1:7-8; 36-39.
Other Biblical sources for the period, whose precise chrono-
logical focus is still unsettled, include: Hosea 5:13-14; 7:8-
12; 8:8-10; 9:1-4, 5-6 (?), 10:5-6; 11:5, 10-11; 12:1; 13:15;
14:1-3 (= Tiglath-pileser III and, uncertainly, galmaneser
111.Cf., e.g., Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea [Hermeneia; Philadel-
phia: Fortress Press, 1977], xxi as against F. 1. Andersen and
D. N. Freedman, Hosea [Anchor Bible 24; Garden City:
Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1980], 33-39); Micah 5:4-5 (?);
7:11-13 (?); Isaiah 3:18-26; 5:26-30; 10:5-8, 10-19, 24-27a,
27b-34; 11:11-16; 14:24-27; 18; 19:23-24; 27:12-13; 28:11-
12, 14-22; 29:1-8; 30:1-7, 27-33; 31:1-3, 8-9; 33:1, 19;
Obadiah 20 (reading ;1Tnrn for iT; Uni; the reference is
most likely to exiles of the period of Tiglath-pileser III [cf.
1 Chronicles 5:26] or of Sargon 11 [cf. 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11]);
Jeremiah 50:17; Ezekiel 16:28; 23:5-10, 11-13, 22-24; Nehe-
miah 9:32 (the Ezekiel and Nehemiah passages, very general
in nature, appear also to be referring to the seventh as
well as the eighth centuries B.C., though in Ezekiel 16:26-27,
0. Eissfeldt has seen a reference to the campaign of Sen-
nacherib in 701 B.C., Palastinajahrbuch 27 [1931], 58-66 =
idem, Kleine Schriften I [Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr/Paul
Siebeck, 1962], 239-246); Zechariah 10:10.
6 Esarhaddon: Ezra 4:1-2.
ACgurbanipal: Ezra 4:9-10 (= Osnappar; see, e.g., B.
Mazar, in 'Ensiqlop&diydh Miqrd'it I (Jerusalem: Mosad
Bialik, 1955), 480-481. 2 Chronicles 33:11-13 is disputed
between Esarhaddon and A99urbanipal(cf. M. Cogan [above
n. 5], 67-69).
7 2 Kings 23:29-30; 2 Chronicles 35:20-25; Nahum; Zepha-
niah 2:13-15; Jeremiah 2:16-19; 50:17-20; Ezekiel 32:22-23.
8 Genesis 2:14; 10:8-12, 22; 25:18; 1 Chronicles 1:10, 17;
Jonah.
722 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
Israel and very nearly so that of Judah. Previously,
Assyria had only tangentially touched the region,
concentrating, rather, on Syria; and, significantly, the
two notices in the Bible of pre-eighth century contact
with Assyria describe the only occasions we know for
that time in which Assyria physically intruded into or
otherwise directly affected Israelite territory.9 In Assy-
rian terms, the second half of the eighth century
was equally important, for it marks, under Tiglath-
pileser III and his successors, the beginnings of an
organized imperial system, involving permanent con-
quest or control particularly over western Syria and
Palestine where only periodic raids to gather "tribute"
had been the pattern.'0 The second period of Assyrian
history highlighted in Biblical sources, the end of the
seventh century, is also instructive. For Assyria, its
meaning is self-evident, since it signifies the collapse
of the state. For Israel, now represented just by
Judah, the period denotes the final liberation from
Assyrian domination," and theologically as we will
see, the moment of divine punishment of Assyria for
its actions in the first period. In the Bible, then, the
very number of range of references to the latter eighth
and seventh centuries B.C. confirm what we otherwise
know of the importance of these two periods for
Israelite and Assyrian history.
That importance can be gauged more closely if we
consider now the earlier of the two periods in terms of
its fullest Biblical source, the First Isaiah. What is the
image of Assyria presented here? Quite clearly, it is
that of an overwhelming military machine, destroying
all resistance in its path, devastating the lands of its
enemies, hauling away huge numbers of spoils and
captives to its capital or elsewhere in its realm, and
rearranging by this devastation and deportation the
political physiognomy of the entire region. Compare
the following verses from the prophet:
9 See nn. 3 and 4 above.
10
A summary analysis is to be found in P. Garelli and
V. Nikiprowetsky, Le Proche-Orient asiatique I1: Les empires
mesopotamiens, Israel (Nouvelle Clio 2 bis; Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1974), 108-116, 229-234, which,
partially, is a reaction against the older view of E. Forrer,
Die Provinzeinteilung des assyrischen Reiches (Leipzig: J. C.
Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1920), especially 57 ff.
" In fact, as recent work has made clear, this "liberation"
was already well under way by the middle of the seventh
century. See. I. Eph'al, in A. Malamat (ed.), The Age of the
Monarchies: Political History (The World History of the
Jewish People IV/ 1; Jerusalem: Massada Press Ltd., 1979),
281-282.
And look now, swiftly and rapidly he (=Assyria)
comes;
There is no one among him who is weary or stumbles,
Or slumbers or sleeps.
(5:26b-27a)
Whose arrows are sharp,
All his bows are taut.
The hoofs of his horses are reckoned like flint,
And his wheels like the whirlwind.
(5:28)
To take spoil and seize plunder,
And to tread him (=Israel) down like the mud of the
streets.
(10:6b)
And I have removed the boundaries of peoples,
And plundered their treasures.
(10:13b)
In such verses, one will note, the invincibility of the
Assyrian army is taken for granted. Hardly any real
thought is given to a plan of military defense. At
most, Isaiah appears to be saying, it is up to the God
of Israel to direct the counterattack; and while the
prophet's faith in this is presented as firm, the specific
means by which it will be accomplished are only
vaguely touched on.'2
Now this picture of Assyria obviously owes some-
thing to Isaiah's-or his circle's-actual observation
of Assyrian activities in Syria-Palestine, made either
directly or through other witnesses. Indeed, the
prophet reveals a specific, often intimate awareness of
what the Assyrians did in the area over a number of
periods: 734-733 B.C., 716 B.C., 712 B.C., and, most
prominently, 701 B.C.'3 Yet it cannot be overlooked
that this same picture of Assyria as the quintessential
military machine is also very much at the center of the
Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions. A good example
comes from a contemporary of Isaiah, Sargon II:
12 See, e.g., Isaiah 10:16 ff.,
29:5 ff., 37:29/2 Kings 19:28.
Isaiah 22:8b-l 1, to be sure, does allude to Hezekiah's prepara-
tions for siege, but it does so only to trivialize and condemn
them.
3 Thus, to cite only the most clearly dated passages:
734-733 B.C. - Isaiah 7-8.
716 B.C. - Isaiah 14:28-31; 19:23-24.
712 B.C. - Isaiah 20:1-6.
701 B.C. Isaiah
- 36-39/2 Kings 18-20.
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah 723

... The immense armies of A99ur I mustered, and the Assyrian texts themselves make clear, the very
(and) went out to conquer those [citie]s. With act of journeying to the western mountains and cutting
powerful battering-rams I [smashed] their forti- down their trees could be seen as a great adventure,
fied walls and reduced them [to] the ground. demonstrating the heroism of the king and the long
[The people] together with their possessions I reach of his might.'8 Compare with our Biblical pas-
took as booty. T[hos]e [cities] . .. [I devastated, sage the following two from Neo-Assyria:
I destroyed, I burned w]ith fire.
a) galmaneser III:
... Because of the sin which they committed I
tore them away from their homes and settled ana ?adj KURHamani eli
them i[n the land of] Hatti [of Amurru].'4 gig iri GigerinT Gigburdasz
akkis salam ?arratiya ina
The connections here can be pursued at a more muhhi KURHamdniuseziz
detailed level as well. (1) The clearest comes in a
quotation in Isaiah of the Assyrian monarch: I went up to the mountains
of the Amanus and cut down
logs of cedar and juniper. My
n"" orin min rry nx
]37n3:. royal image I set up before the
1':3nnn rrixz rnip rnavel
Amanus.'9
ft-I.3 N.Y'1X7ol-nDMiam1
b) Sennacherib:
With my numerous chariotry,
I am the one who ascended
ina imcsuma DAsur u Dfftar
the heights of the mountains,
rd'imi ?angitiya naba ?umiya
the inner recesses of the Lebanon.
gismahhi GIgereni ?a ultu zmc
I cut down its tallest cedars,
ruqate iffl-hima ikbiru danni?
its choicest junipers.'5
ina qereb KURSirara ?adF ina
I came to its uttermost height,
puzri nanzuzu uOaklima'inni
its garden-like forest,
srssun
(37:24/2 Kings 19:23)16

At that time A99ur and Itar,

The boast represented in these lines, true to Isaiah's
who love my priesthood (and)
ascription, directly echoes what the Neo-Assyrian mon-
call my name, showed me cedar
archs say in their own inscriptions. For there too we
beams which since days long
find-and frequently mentioned-descriptions of the
gone had grown exceedingly large
prized woods of the Lebanon and adjacent ranges,
and thick, hidden in the Sirara
including precisely cedar (GlSerinu) and juniper (GI bu-
mountains.20
rdu), which the kings claim to have brought to Assyria
for building.' More, however, than a simple economic
Now it is true that this journey to the west for wood
enterprise was at work in this. As our Isaiah quotation was celebrated in other periods of Mesopotamian
royal literature.2' Correspondingly, echoes of it shall
appear elsewhere in the Bible, in Habakkuk and the
14
A. G. Lie, Sargon Annals, 8-11:62-65, 67-68.
15 On the meaning of ber3swdw,see A. Malamat, in AS 16
( Studies ... Benno Landsberger), 1965, 368-369 and 1 See the previous note, especially the article by A. Mal-
S. M. Paul, JAOS 88 (1968), 183. amat.
16 The Hebrew text used is from Isaiah 37:24. Note '9
the P. Hulin, Iraq 25 (1963), 51-52:21-22.
20
variants from 2 Kings 19:23: MDi3(Qere: Nl1) for NeM;'11?= D. Luckenbill, Senn., 107:47-53 = 120:35-42 = A. Hei-
for l1r- ;l T Xi, 1'f: ; i for 1MYD11- D1flI1. del, Sumer 9 (1953), 160-161:66-71. On the significance of
17 Cf. A. Malamat (above n. 15), 367-369; S. M. Paul Sirara here, see Y. Ikeda (above n. 17), 33-36, who also
(above n. 15), 182-183; Y. Ikeda, Annual of the Japanese notes (p. 35), the connection of our passage in Isaiah 37/
Biblical Institute IV (1978), 33-36; and the entries for burdiu, 2 Kings 19.
21 See n. 17.
daprdnu, ercnu, and ?urmcnu in AHw and CAD B, D, E.
724 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
so-called Third Isaiah.22 But the latter date clearly
after our passage, and do not speak of an heroic
journey as such. Further, they too can be connected
with the larger Mesopotamian tradition.23Isaiah, thus,
offers the earliest and most fully formed example of
this Mesopotamian motif in the Bible; and when one
recalls that he puts it directly in the mouth of the
Assyrian king, it is reasonable to conclude that he
learned of it through Neo-Assyrian channels.
The same point can be made for several other
motifs and expressions occurring in the prophet, but
in these instances, certain features complicate the
relationship to Assyrian tradition. Let us look at each
one specifically, in order to see what is at stake.
(2) Describing the effects of an Assyrian attack on
his people, Isaiah comments to them:
T??w Dee.1K
VK flTn1 DO'1Y
Your country is a desolation;
Your cities burned with fire;
Your land, in your very presence,
Aliens consume it.
(1:7-8)
To this may be compared the very common phrase-
ology in the Assyrian royal inscriptions, current at
least from Tiglath-pileser I through Sargon II:
ala appul aqqur ina idti
a~rup akulAu
The city I devastated, destroyed,
1____n A ._+t. r.__ :+lvJ i 24
22 Habakkuk 2:17;
(III) Isaiah 60:13. Cf. also (11) Isaiah
41:19.
23 On the connection of
Isaiah 60:13 and 41:19 with Meso-
potamian tradition, see S. M. Paul (above n. 15), 182-
183. Habakkuk 2:17, rather directly, condemns the Neo-
Babylonian Chaldean dynasty for its expeditions to the
Lebanon by an ironic threat: "The violence (done) to the
Lebanon [i.e., by you Chaldeans] will overwhelm you." A
similar irony, as we will see later, occurs in Isaiah 14.
24 See, e.g., A99urnasirpal II in E. A. Budge and L. W.
King, AKA, 295:ii 1; 362:iii 54. A collection of other Assyrian
occurrences may be found in AHw, 733b, 743b, 1185a and
It must be noted, however, that the Isaianic expres-
sions 'eres ?emamah, fdrap '&, and 'akal are all well
known in other parts of the Bible for the destruction
of settlements, including passages with non-Assyrian
settings." Indeed, the act of such destruction was
widespread in the Near East as a whole (and, of
course, in other regions!). Yet the particular consecu-
tion of the expressions here, ('eres) ?emamahsa-rap
W- 'akal U5tah, is unique in the Biblical corpus,2
and this so closely follows the wording and order of
the Assyrian formula, napdlu/naqdru-ina isdti ?ardpu-
akdlu+?u-not to mention that Isaiah is applying his
sequence explicitly to the Assyrians-that the two
cannot be dissociated. One may suggest, therefore,
that while Isaiah drew on older phraseology known in
Israel for his description, his selection and arrange-
CAD N/I, 273b-274a, 329b-330a s.v. napdlu, naqdru, and
gardpu. Not all the occurrences, it should be noted, have all
the elements of the formula: either napdlu or naqa-rumay be
present, and dkulgu may drop. Furthermore, ina isdti saraipu
seems to disappear from Assyrian royal inscriptions after
Sennacherib, and to be replaced by ina girri qama, which
had also been used before (A Hw, 896b s.v. qama(m) 11, 2;
1185a s.v. ?aripu(m), 4; CAD N/ I s.v. napdlu A, 2 a I 'a').
It is unclear, however, whether this replacement can be used
to date our Isaiah passage, which has Mfrupot 'eF the cog-
nate of ina irdti ?ardpu.
25 Deres Aemamah: e.g., Exodus
23:29; Leviticus 26:33; Mi-
cah 7:13; Isaiah 62:4; Jeremiah 4:27; Ezekiel 6:14; 12:20;
14:16; 15:8; 29:9, 12; 32:15; Joel 2:20.
sdrap ',F?:e.g., Numbers 31:10; Deuteronomy 13:17;29:22;
Joshua 6:24; 8:28; 11:11; Judges 9:52; 12:1; 18:27; 1 Samuel
30:1, 3, 14; 1 Kings 9:16; 16:18; 2 Kings 25:9; 2 Chronicles
36:19; Psalm 74:8; Isaiah 64:10; Jeremiah 21:10; 32:29; 39:2,
22; 38:17, 18, 23; 39:8; Ezekiel 16:41; 23:47.
'dkal: e.g., Numbers 21:28 (with s?rap 'j); Psalm 79:7;
Hosea 11:6;Jeremiah 12:12;Joel 1:19, 20; 2:3 (as '& 'dkeldh);
Nahum 3:13 (as 'F 'dkeldh).
26 Perhaps the closest
analogue, which is still not the same,
is from a text later than our Isaiah passage, Joel 2:3:
Before him ( the people of Judah) fire has devoured,
And behind him flame has burned.
Like the Garden of Eden is the land before him,
And behind him a desert of desolation.
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah
ment of that phraseology shows the effect of Assyrian
idiom.
(3) Elsewhere, Isaiah quotes the invading Assyrian
monarch to reveal some of the aims of Assyrian
conquest:
Snyri-nna rom"
And I have removed the boundaries
of peoples,
And plundered their treasures.
(10:13)
Significant here is the first line,28 which recalls a
frequent image in the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions
-precedents for which exist already in Middle Assyria
-about the incorporation of a conquered land into
the Assyrian realm, often with a rearrangement of
population.' Consider, for example, a passage from
Tiglath-pileser III:
[URUSarrabd]niKURflt-Sa'alli
ana pdt gimrisunu assu<ha>mma...
matdtiME9 sudti ana miSir KURDA99ur
terra
27
Many commentators, following the testimony of some
versions, prefer to read a waw consecutive here, thus to
correlate with the perfect verbal form in the following clause
(e.g., K. Elliger and W. Rudolph[eds.], Biblia Hebraica
Stuttgartensia [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1967-77]).
But this is probably unnecessary, given that the imperfect
can be used in Biblical Hebrew poetry, especially, but not
exclusively of the earlier period, to indicate past as well as
present and future. Cf. the example of Joel 2:3 quoted in the
preceding note.
28 The image of plundering in the second line is also
common in the Neo-Assyrian inscriptions (see, e.g., AHw,
1142 s.v. A?aldlu(m)I, 1 e), but it is widespread as well in the
rest of Near Eastern literature and practice; and since our
second line describes this image only in a general way, there
is no means of telling what outside influence, if any, might
be involved.
29 Cf. the various Akkadian terms for "boundary,"especially
misru and pat, which appear in expressions of "enlarging"
(ruppuswu,S'urba) the Assyrian "borders" to include foreign
lands, or of "tearing up" (nasahu) the "border" of another
land to "add" it (rudda!) or "restore" it (turru) to the
"border"of Assyria: AHw, 659b s.v. misru(m), B 2; 852a s.v.
pdau(m), c, d; CAD M II1, 115, b 2'.
725
[(The city) Sarraba]ni (and the land)
Bit-Sa'alli I uprooted to their
very limits . .. These lands I
restored to the border of Assyria.30
Now again, to be sure, the Hebrew phrase Isaiah uses
is found in several other places in the Bible, though
with the verb hissfq (Hiphil<sag), not hesir (Htphil
<sur) as here.3' Yet all these other attestations revolve
around the law, made explicit in Deuteronomy 19:14
(cf. 27:17), which prohibits individuals from aggran-
dizing land by removing the landmarks of their neigh-
bors. Only in our line is the phrase extended to the
imperial behavior of a nation,32 and one may legiti-
mately wonder if this extension was not promoted by
and modeled upon the contact with Assyrian literary
idiom as well as actual Assyrian practice.
(4) There is yet another passage in Isaiah where a
connection, however; complex, with Neo-Assyrian
royal idiom seems possible. It occurs in an address to
the Assyrian king, where the prophet reveals Yahweh's
plan for the monarch:
nilxwn7
8nim.
And it was (that you) would make fortified
cities crash(?) into ruined heaps.
(37:26b/2 Kings 19:25)33
Here one may look to the expression with karmu,
tillu, and (til) ababi, which frequent the Neo-Assyrian
30 P. Rost, TigL.HI, PI. XXXIV:12, 14 = D. Luckenbill,
ARAB I, 290 ? 806.
3' Deuteronomy 19:14; 27:17; Hosea 5:10; Proverbs 22:23;
23:10; Job 24:2.
32 To be sure, Hosea 5:10 condemns "the princes of Judah,
(who have become) like those who remove landmark(s)"; but
the reference here is not to imperial behavior such as we
have discussed. It is rather to the aggrandizement of the
princes against individual subjects, for which they will be
punished. Similarly. Joel 4:6 talks about the Phoenicians and
Philistines who "have sold the people of Judah and the
people of Jerusalem to the Greeks, in order to remove them
from their border"; but the expression used here, hirhiq
mecal gebjl, while related to that in our text, does not
convey the same image, since it focuses on the removal of
populations and not territories.
3 The text follows Isaiah 37:26b. Variants from 2 Kings
19:25 are 3Vft'wfor nlKwn7.
726 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
royal inscriptions.34 Sennacherib furnishes one com-
mon type:
GN akfudma uter ana karme
(The place x) I conquered and
turned into a ruin.35
On the other hand, several of the Hebrew words in
Isaiah's line, especially gal and nisah, again occur
elsewhere in the Bible to describe the destruction of
cities.36 And more, the corresponding Assyrian ex-
pressions and underlying practice were not confined
to Neo-Assyria, but were known in varying periods of
Mesopotamia, early and late, as well as in other areas
of the ancient Near East.37 Yet even with this range,
the fact remains that virtually none of the Biblical
examples of our idiom seems to predate the Neo-
Assyrian advance on Palestine in the latter eighth
century B.C.,38 while on the Mesopotamian side, by far
34 Cf. AHw, 8 s.v. ababu(m), 1 c, 4; 267a s.v. ewz2mI, S 3;
449b s.v. karmu(m) II, 1; 1359b s.v. tilu(m) I, tillu II, 4, 5;
CAD A/I, 78a s.v. abzibu, 1 b; K, 218 s.v. karmu, a-c.
3 D. Luckenbill, Senn., 86:19 and passim.
36 gal: Hosea 12:12; Isaiah 25:2; Jeremiah 9:10; 51:37; Job
15:28.
nsh: otherwise appears only in Jeremiah 2:15; 4:7; 9:9-10;
46:19. (The occurrence in Lamentations 4:15 is difficult and
may come from another root.)
hasf'5t (< srh): elsewhere found only in Isaiah, but only in
qal (6:11) or niphal (6:11; 17:12).
It should be noted that the image of a city in ruined heap
can be expressed in the Bible by other terms than those of
our passage:
Cry: I Kings 9:8 (reading jlv2 for T17); Micah 1:6; 3:12
( Jeremiah 26:18, which has 01."Yfor T'."Y); Psalm 79: 1; Job
30:24; cf. the GN hd'ay in Genesis 13:3; Joshua 7-8; etc.
mecry: Isaiah 17:1.
mappc/dldh: Isaiah 17:1; 23:13; 25:2.
tel: Deuteronomy 13:17;Joshua 8:28; Jeremiah 30:18; 49:2.
3 See n. 34.
38 Of the instances cited in n. 36, the principal problems are
with Deuteronomy 13:17, Joshua 8:28, and I Kings 9:8,
which use the idiom of turning a settlement or building into
a te1or 'iyyin in descriptions of events before the Assyrian
period. Yet the passages are all part of the Deuteronomic
corpus, the present form of which is Assyrian and post-
Assyrian in date. It is, thus, highly uncertain whether the
idiom really does go back before the Assyrian advance. All
this is not to say that there was no concept of "ruined heap"
(tel, 'Cy, etc.) earlier: cf. possibly the place name hdcay,
the bulk of the attestations belong to the Neo-Assyrian
royal texts. One may not unreasonably argue, there-
fore, that if the idiom was known in Israel before the
latter eighth century, its prominence from then on-
and specifically, in the text of Isaiah before us, where
it is, after all, directly applied to the Assyrian king-
reflects the impact of a literary and military tradition
brought by Neo-Assyria.
(5)-(6) Our final examples appear in a passage in
which the prophet is again describing the nature of
Assyria's military power:
0D11ft7 -*Yn '35x nrn jp5l
- I _ 1
I. .. . ..
.:- ..
Y'r-mrly-1;Y1new -.1-1fnln-nl
~Xnn,1y53u Dunn nBD 3up r; II
And so, look now, the Lord is bringing
upon them the waters of the River,
mighty and numerous, (namely), the
king of Assyria and all his glory,
and he shall run over all his courses,
and go over all his banks. And he will
push on against Judah, overflow and
sweep over, reaching even the neck.
And his outspread wings will fill the
breadth of your land, 0 Immanuel.
(8:7-8)
Two parallels from the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions
are evident in these lines. The first is the image of the
king advancing into battle like raging water.39 In
Assyrian texts, the waters are called ababu, i.e.,
"flood," recalling the primeval Flood; and the abuhu
can either appear as the weapon of the king or be
directly likened to him.40 Note, for example, the por-
trayal of Esarhaddon;
which may be pre-Assyrian. The generalized concept, how-
ever, must be separated from the idiom "to turn into a
ruined heap/ mound," used as a regular description of military
tactics. This idiom, it seems, is a literary feature predomi-
nantly of the Neo-Assyrian period.
39 The connection was also seen, though downplayed, by
D. R. Hillers, Treaty-Cursesand the Old Testament Prophets
(Biblica et Orientalia 16; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute,
1964), 70-71.
40 AHw, 8 and CAD A/I, 77-79 s.v. ababu, ababani?,
ababik. Also M.-J. Seux, Epithetes, 34 and n. 5.
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah
?a tallaktagu abuibumma Whose gait is the Flood.41
The second parallel concerns the "glory" of the king
which overwhelms all his enemies.42 A number of
Akkadian and Sumerian words are used for this di-
vinely endowed effulgence in its various aspects: me-
lam = melammu especially; but also namrirra; namur-
ratu; ni = pulhu, puluhtu; ragubbatu; and su-zi =
galummatu.43Consider the following illustration from
Sennacherib:
pulhi melamme bJ/iutiva The terrifying radianceof
ishupasuma my majesty overwhelmed
him."
Now both these motifs, once again, are not restricted
either to Isaianic or to Neo-Assyrian texts. They are
found elsewhere in Biblical and Mesopotamian litera-
ture even beyond describing not only humans, but
gods.45 Moreover, the raging water in our Isaiah text
4' R. Borger, Asarh., 97:r. 12.
42
Cf. also, though briefly and tentatively, H. Wildberger,
Jesaja 1-122 (Biblischer Kommentar. Altes Testament X/ 1;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980), 326.
43 AHw, 643b, 728b-729a, 730a, 878a, 879a, 962b-963a,
1152b-1153a; CAD M/II, 11-12a; N/1, 238b, 253b-254a.
For discussions see the fundamental study of A. L. Oppen-
heim, JAOS 63 (1943), 31-34 and E. Cassin, Splendeur,
especially chapter VI on royal usage.
44 D. Luckenbill, Senn., 29:ii 38 and
passim.
45 Raging water: for Mesopotamia, see n. 40. For the Bible,
note Jeremiah 46:7-8: 47:2; Daniel 11:10, 40 (applied to
foreign armies); Exodus 15:8; 2 Samuel 5:20/1 Chronicles
14:11; Nahum 1:8 (applied to God). Of course, considered
more broadly as a symbol of terrifying destruction, water is
well-nigh ubiquitous in Near Eastern literature, as exemplified
by the cosmogonic myths describing battles between the
forces of order and chaos.
Glory: for Mesopotamia, see n. 43. For the Bible, the
principal term remains, as in our Isaiah passage, kdbod; and
this can be applied to God (e.g., Exodus 33:18, 22; Numbers
14:21-22; Ezekiel 1:28; 8-11; Psalm 63:3), to a human ruler
(e.g., Genesis 45:13; 1 Kings 3:13; Psalm 21:6), or to man
generally (Psalm 8:6). See the discussion of M. Weinfeld,
Tarbiz 37/2 (Jan., 1968), 116-117; 131-132 (= Likkutei
Tarbiz 1: A Biblical Studies Reader [ed. M. Weinfeld; Jerusa-
lem: The Magnes Press, 1979], 128-129, 143-144), who notes
other terms as well and their close correlation with the
Mesopotamian vocabulary. Also, G. E. Mendenhall, The
Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973),
727
is not quite the same as in the Neo-Assyrian corpus,
for the prophet portrays the king as the Euphrates or
Tigris (han-ndhdr),46whereas in Assyria, and in Meso-
potamia generally, the comparison is with the abCubu,
not evidently any specific body of water.
Despite this difference and the wide range of attesta-
tions of the two motifs, certain features tie their
presentation in Isaiah and Neo-Assyria more closely
together. Thus, the form in which the "glory" appears
in our Isaiah passage, that of an almost tangible
emanation of a human king's power, overwhelming in
battle all his enemies, is most frequently attested by
far in the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions within Meso-
potamian literature. And within the Bible, this form
likewise is most clearly evident in our passage. Other
Biblical occurrences may describe the king, but not in
a battle setting, or the Israelite god, and thus not a
human king.47 A similar case can be made for the
motif of raging water. As applied to an attacking king
and his forces, which is Isaiah's usage, this occurs,
again, most often in the Neo-Assyrian royal texts
within Mesopotamian literature. And Biblically, it is
first attested in this and perhaps several other Isaianic
passages.48 Occurrences elsewhere in the Bible which
associate it with attacking foreign armies, are all post-
48ff., who argues for a connection between melammu and
the Ugaritic/Biblical Hebrew use of 'nn!'Cndn ("cloud").
46 The designation han-nihdr should refer in our Isaiah
passage, as it does elsewhere in the Bible, to the Euphrates
(cf., e.g., F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, A
Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament [Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1907], 625b s.v. ?n]). Since, however, the
Tigris and not the Euphrates constitutes the heartland of
Assyria, some commentators (e.g., R. E. Clements, Isaiah 1-
39 [The New Century Bible; Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980], 97) have thought that han-
ndhdr here must be the Tigris. That, of course, presumes a
geographical precision which may not have been in our
Biblical author's concern.
47 See n. 45.
48 These other passage include 17:12-13 and perhaps 28:15,
18. But the latter two, while they use the same verbal
sequence as in 1:8 (gatap we-'dbar), apply this to the 5 t,
which may not be the "flood" as thought earlier, but a
"whip": cf. H. Gese in Archaologie und Altes Testament:
Festschrift fur Kurt Galling (ed. A. Kuschke and E. Kutsch;
Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1970), 127-134.
The whip, however, reflects the imagery surrounding the god
Hadad, as Gese demonstrates; and so possibly it may have
been picked up by Isaiah through Aramaean and/or Assyrian
channels.
728 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
Isaianic and seem also to reflect Assyria or the larger
Mesopotamian tradition.49 And Biblical references to
the waters and Yahweh,50of course, bring us back to
deities, not to human kings and their troops. There is
still the problem of Isaiah comparing the Euphrates/
Tigris and not the "Flood" to the Assyrian king, but
this poses no insuperable obstacle to an Assyrian
connection, since han-ndhdr here, while basically a
specific body of water, is used in a much wider sense,
almost as a metaphor for destruction, precisely like
abzibu in Assyrian and Mesopotamian literary tradi-
tion. Indeed, the presence of han-ndhdr could be
argued as an adaptation by the prophet to fit the
contrast he wishes to make with another specific
water body in the preceding verses, the stream of
Siloah, which is also used in an extended metaphorical
way. What we appear to have, thus, is another mixed
situation: Isaiah's use of raging water and glory in our
passage may owe something to preceding Israelite
tradition, but the form in which he uses them and
they are, after all, meant to describe the Assyrian king
seems to be an adaptation of Neo-Assyrian royal
idiom.
The six motifs we have been discussing all reveal
connections between the First Isaiah and the Neo-
Assyrian royal inscriptions. But those connections, as
we have seen, are complicated in various ways by the
49 Thus, Jeremiah 46:7-8; 47:2; Daniel 11:10, 40. The two
Jeremiah passages belong to the so-called "enemy from the
north" tradition (see, e.g., B. Childs, JBL 78 [1959], 187-
198), which originally applied to Assyria, as I Isaiah exem-
plifies, but here seems to refer to Babylonia under Nebu-
chadnezzar II in his conflict with the Egyptian Pharaoh
Necho II. To be sure, in Jeremiah 46:7-8, it is Necho, not
Nebuchadnezzar, who is made to boast that he will rise like
the Nile and destroy. Yet in this, the Biblical author seems to
be playing not only with an Egyptian image, the Nile over-
flowing, but also with the Mesopotamian tradition of the
king as raging flood, since he creates Necho's boastful words
precisely to lampoon them in the light of the Pharaoh's
actual defeat by Nebuchadnezzar "at the river Euphrates"
(46:6, 10).
As for Daniel 1:10, 40, the reference seems again to "the
enemy from the north," who by this time is not Assyria or
Babylonia, but a kind of descendant, the Seleucids under
Antiochus III and perhaps IV. Significantly, the expression
used to describe the Seleucid "flood" is the same as that used
in Isaiah 8:8 (and 28:15, 18; but see n. 48) for Assyria, viz.,
?dtap we- 'abar.
50 See n. 45.
fact that the motifs are not exclusive to our two
sources; they appear also in other parts of Mesopo-
tamian and Biblical literature, and sometimes beyond.
The problem is not so acute with the first motif, the
journey to the west for wood, where a straightforward
dependence of Isaiah upon Neo-Assyria can be sup-
posed. But matters are less clear with the other five,
where the range of outside occurrences includes several
that evidently predate sustained contact between As-
syria and Israel/Judah. For these five, however, form
and/or pattern of attestation appear closest between
Isaiah and the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions; and
so, the logical suggestion is that while the prophet
may have known of the motifs from native tradition,
his selection and shaping of them resulted from the
impact of Neo-Assyrian idiom. Of course, by having
to posit such a complex relationship, we cannot be
sure that it exists. But the likelihood is increased once
we remember that the motifs are all used explicitly in
Isaiah to describe the Assyrian king and army, and
have, all of them, parallels in the Neo-Assyrian inscrip-
tions that are so common there as to deserve the label
cliches.
It is tempting, in fact, to add to our corpus two
other motifs from Isaiah which fill out the picture of
the Assyrian war machine already evident. In these
the prophet compares the Assyrian forces to raging,
devouring "lions" (ldbif and keVprin 5:29) and de-
scribes the Assyrian hold on Judah as a "yoke" (C'l in
10:27 and 14:25).5' Both motifs, the lion and the yoke,
are again cliches for Assyrian power in the Neo-
Assyrian inscriptions; 2 but unfortunately, there is a
wider Biblical, Mesopotamian, and general Near East-
ern background as well,53which makes it very difficult,
5' For the parallel word in both verses, sbel, probably to
be understood in the sense of corvae labor, see the compara-
tively oriented discussion of M. Held, JAOS 88 (1968),
especially 93-96.
52 On the lion, see s.v. labu/labbu in AHw, 526b, 1, 2c;
CAD L, 24b-25a, b, c 2'. On the yoke, see s.v. nlru in AHw,
794a, 5 and CAD N/I, 262b-263, 2.
5 Summarized in E. Jenni and C. Westermann (eds.),
Theologisehes Handworterbuch zum Alten Testament (Miin-
chen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1971), I, 225-228 (a); G. J.
Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theologisches Worter-
buch zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlham-
mer, 1970-1973), I, 404-418 ('1K); G. A. Buttrick (ed.), The
Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1962), IV, 925a (Yoke); and the references in the
preceding note.
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah
in these instances, to isolate any particular Neo-
Assyrian-Isaianic connection. We will come back to
the issue below, from other perspectives.
In any case, what we have found in the way of a
general image and specific motifs is enough to raise
the distinct possibility that Isaiah's knowledge of As-
syria was gained not merely from actual experience of
the Assyrians in Palestine, but from official Assyrian
literature, especially of the court. In so arguing, we
must not lose sight of the complex nature of the
authorship of First Isaiah and the chance that some of
the passages discussed may have come from later
writers in the prophet's tradition, and not from him.
Yet in none of these passages has a serious case been
made for a date after the Assyrian period,54 and
certainly the presence in them of our motifs is consis-
tent with this. Whether, then, for Isaiah himself or for
the circle that followed, it appears to be no accident
that the image of Assyria to which they were respond-
ing was also that defined and promulgated in the
official literature of the Neo-Assyrian kings. In other
words, in Isaiah we are evidently dealing with the
effects of Assyrian propaganda.
To propose this should cause no surprise. For, as
two well-known examples make clear, propaganda
held an important place in the growth and governance
of the Neo-Assyrian empire.55 The one instance, re-
cently re-examined by Reade and Winter, concerns
the narrative reliefs set up in the palace courts of
Assyrian capitals like DMr-Sarrukin= Khorsabad, the
intent of which was to impress upon visitors and
residents alike the awesomeness of the king in battle
56
and worship. The second example brings us back to
Isaiah, specifically to chapters 36-37 with the parallel
54 On the problem of composition and date of the First
Isaiah, see the summary reviews with bibliography in, e.g.,
Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (New
York: Harper & Row, 1965), 303-330; Brevard S. Childs,
Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadel-
phia: Fortress Press, 1979), 311-321, 328-333; and R. E.
Clements (above n. 46), especially xii-xvi, 2-8, 18-19, 277 ff.
55 For some general remarks, see, e.g., A. T. Olmstead,
JA OS 38 (1918), especially 224-225; H. W. F. Saggs, Iraq 25
(1963), 148-150; and M. Liverani, in M. T. Larsen (ed.),
Power and Propaganda(Mesopotamia 7; Copenhagen:Akadem-
isk Forlag, 1979), 297-317.
56 J. E. Reade, in M. T. Larsen (see previous note), 329-
343; and I. J. Winter, Studies in Visual Communication 7/2
(Spring, 1981), 2-38.
729
in 2 Kings 18-19. Here are reported two speeches of
the Assyrian official rabgdqeh to the inhabitants of
Jerusalem during the siege of Sennacherib, seeking to
persuade them to surrender by a cunning manipulation
of Judaean ideology. However one may evaluate the
present form of these speeches,57the historical reality
behind the tactic they represent is confirmed by the
report of similar embassies in Assyrian sources, such
as that during Tiglath-pileser III's siege of Babylon in
729 B.C.
Now these two examples involve what may be
called visual and oral propaganda, but Assyrian influ-
ence was not limited to them. The examples from
Isaiah we have been studying, tied as they seem to be
to motifs and expressions in royal inscriptions, suggest
also the use of an official written propaganda; and it
is just that or in any case, Assyrian literary influence
of some kind-which may be detected in the "adminis-
trative diction" studied by Paul, Talmon, Tadmor,
and others in 2 Kings 17.59
We must be careful, however, not to segregate too
60
sharply these different categories of propaganda.
For if the words of the rabldqjh in Isaiah/2 Kings
were spoken, the description of them shows that they
5 Cf. such recent attempts as John Bright, A History of
Israel3 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), 298-309,
especially 300-301; B. Childs, Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis
(London: SCM Press Ltds., 1967), especially chapter III; and
R. E. Clements (above no. 46), 18-19, 277 ff., expanded in
his Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem (Sheffield: JSOT
Press, 1980). There is also the announced paper of C. Cohen,
"Neo-Assyrian Elements in the First Speech of the Biblical
Rab-gaqd (II Kings, 18: 19-25, 27-35 = Isa. 36:4-10, 12-
20)," which is to be published in Israel Oriental Studies 9
(1983?).
58 First noted by H. W. F. Saggs, Iraq 17 (1955), 23-29, 47;
18 (1956), 55 and later summarized by him in his Cardiff
inaugural lecture, Assyriology and the Study of the Old
Testament (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), 17-19.
59 S. M. Paul, JBL 88 (1969), 73-74; H. Tadmor, in Hd'Tr
ve-Haq-qehTldh(Lectures Delivered at the 12th Convention
of the Historical Society of Israel, December 1966; Jerusalem:
The Historical Society of Israel, 1967), 200-201; M. Cogan
(above n. 5), 106-107, 50-51; I. Eph'al (above n. 11), 283-
284; and S. Talmon, in R. E. Friedman (ed.), The Creation
of Sacred Literature (University of California Publications:
Near Eastern Studies 22; Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1981), 64-66.
60
Cf. M. Liverani, in M. T. Larsen (above n. 55), 302.
730 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
61
were spoken from the texts of written documents.
And if the narrative reliefs of the Assyrian palaces
were meant to be seen, it is a fact that they were
frequently seen in the company of inscriptions,62which,
in turn, while they could be read, were doubtless read
by just a few-a politically important few, to be sure-
and made their wider impression by the simple knowl-
edge of their visual presence.
Something similarly complex should probably be
envisaged for the Isaianic examples we have examined,
and maybe for the "administrative diction" in 2 Kings
17 as well. That is to say, while our examples have
echoes in written Assyrian texts, it is entirely possible
that some of them, like the king as raging water,
which in Isaiah borrows the image, but not the precise
verbal expressions of the Assyrian sources, reached
the prophet and/or his circle through oral or visual
channels. Oral proclamations of official texts might
have provided one such channel, as in the case of the
rabsa?qh.63Reliefs and other art of the king and army
might have yielded another." Still, one ought not to
61 See, as M. Weinfeld reminds me, Isaiah 37:14/2 Kings
19:14. It may also be noted that the speeches begin with
formulae, which, as Mesopotamian and other Near Eastern
examples show, regularly introduce written letters, their pur-
pose being to direct that the message be delivered orally
(Isaiah 36:4/2 Kings 18:19; also Isaiah 36:14, 16; 37:10/2
Kings 18:28, 31; 19:10).
62 Cf., e.g., I. J. Winter (above n. 56), 17-18; and S. M.
Paley, King of the World: Ashur-nasir-pal 11 of Assyria 883-
859 B.C. (New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1976), especially
118-121.
63 Indeed, the speech(es) of the rabftqth has been claimed
as the source for one of the Isaianic examples discussed
above, the Assyrian boast about journeying to the Lebanon:
see H. Tawil, JNES 41 (1982), 196. For another example of
an oral proclamation of an official text, cf. the letter-report
of the eighth campaign of Sargon II, as argued by A. L.
Oppenheim, JNES 19 (1960), 133-147.
64 Cf. e.g., example 2) discussed above, about the desolation
and burning of cities, with reliefs of the Assyrian army
besieging and destroying walled settlements (as in R. D.
Barnett and A. Lorenzini, Assyrian Sculpture in the British
Museum [Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1975], Pls.
27-28, 165); or the example of the Assyrian forces as raging
lions with the ubiquity of lions as guardian figures, the
objects of royal hunts, etc., in Neo-Assyrian reliefs, round
sculpture, and seals (as in Barnett and Lorenzini, loc. cit.,
Pls. 6, 88-134; T. A. Madhloom, The Chronology of Neo-
Assyrian Art [London: The Athlone Press, 1970], 98-99,
minimize the contact with actual written texts, as the
example in Isaiah about desolation, burning, and
consuming suggests, with its rather precise correspon-
dence to written Assyrian idiom. Indeed, what may
have occurred was communication through one chan-
nel being echoed and confirmed through others.
Let us try to be more specific here, and see if we
can lay out the possible settings in which Judaeans
like Isaiah would have been exposed to Assyrian
propaganda, and the kinds of at least written propa-
ganda that might have been involved. Two settings
came immediately to view, given that Judah during
our period became and remained an Assyrian vassal
state. On the one hand, there were the ambassadors
sent by Judah to the Assyrian capitals to deliver
tribute or the like, who in the course of their stay
would surely have come into contact with official
propaganda of all kinds.65 One such embassy, in fact,
is recorded in Sennacherib's accounts of his third
campaign, which included the siege of Jerusalem in
which Isaiah participated.66The prophet and his circle,
100-105; A. J. Sachs, Iraq 15 [1953], 167-170 + Pls. XVIII-
XIX; A. R. Millard, Iraq 27 [1965], 12-16 + P1. I; idem, Iraq
40 [1978], 70 + P1. XI). The comparisons here, it must be
noted, are not close or exact; and this fact, when coupled
with the difficulty of finding artistic analogues to the other
Isaianic motifs we have discussed, suggests that Assyrian
visual art was not a major source for at least these motifs.
Perhaps, then, the importance of visual art in the present
case lay more in the general impression it created of over-
whelming Assyrian power-an impression, as we have seen,
which permeates the book of Isaiah.
65 Several words for "ambassador"are used in Neo-Assyrian
texts, reflecting, perhaps, differences in status and geographi-
cal origin. Among these are the old Babylonian term mar
?ipri (A Hw, 616, 12; CA D M / I, 263b-264a), and two titles
originating apparently in the Neo-Assyrian period: rakba
(AHw, 947b) and sTru(normally in the pluralsTrani[LUMAHME9]
-AHw, 1105b, 9; CAD S. 213; and H. Tadmor, in UnDiv.,
40, 42). The last mentioned, it is worth noting, is reflected as
a loan in Biblical Hebrew, sir, one of whose appearances, not
coincidentally, is in I Isaiah, 18:2.
66 D. Luckenbill, Senn., 33-34:iii 35-49 and duplicates.
The word for "ambassador" here is rakba (34 iii 49).
Another example is recorded in an administrative letter
from Nimrud during the reign of Sargon II, ND 2765 rev 33-
44 (H. W. F. Saggs, Iraq 17 [1955], 134-135; new edition by
M. Cogan [above n. 5], 118), which lists tribute brought by
sirdni from the western states of Judah, Egypt, Gaza, Moab,
Ammon, Edom, Ashdod, and Ekron.
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah
in turn, with their access to the Judaean court, could
have learned of the propaganda through these emis-
saries, unless they experienced it firsthand as emis-
saries themselves.67
Alternatively-and this need not exclude the possi-
bility just discussed-the Assyrians could have brought
their propaganda directly to Judah or the immediate
area, impelled to do so either because of crisis, as the
rabs'a-qh speeches indicate, or out of the demands of
normal administrative supervision. The written means
involved doubtless varied, but one particularly attrac-
tive possibility in the surviving evidence is the royal
stelae and rock reliefs set up by Assyrian kings in all
parts of the realm, including vassal states as well as
provinces.68 While some of these, notably the reliefs,
were in places almost inaccessible to the human eye,
many others were installed deliberately for public
exposure: "for the gaze of all my foes, to the end of
days," as one example has it.69 Customarily, they
consisted of a statue or relief of the king and his
insignia, together with a text invoking a god or gods,
then describing the titulary of the king and several of
his exploits, particularly the military ones,70 and con-
cluding with curses against any who would damage
the text.7' The important point is that these texts were
simply one type of the Assyrian royal inscriptions we
have been referring to throughout our discussion.
Thus it is no accident that in describing the royal
67 See most clearly in Isaiah 7, 37-39/2 Kings 19-20.
68 Cf. the not fully adequate study of H. Genge, Stelen
neuassyrischer Konige Teil I. A list of Neo-Assyrian stelae
and reliefs from the Levant was given by H. Tadmor, 'Atiqot
(English Serjes) IX-X (1971), 193-197. It is updated with
coverage of the whole empire in L. D. Levine, Two Neo-
Assyrian Stelae from Iran (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum,
1972), 51-58; M. Wafler, Archdologiseher Anzeiger 91 (1976),
298-304; and J. E. Reade, IrAnt XII (1977), 33 ff., 43-44. In
the last-named article, the Kenk rock stela of Salmaneser III
mentioned on p. 43 has now been published by 0. A. Tas-
yurek, Iraq 41 (1979), 47-53 + Pls. XV-XVI.
69 ana tabrat kijsat nakirTana sdt ame on the Zinjirli Stela
of Esarhaddon = R. Borger, Asarh., 99:52-53.
70 Or what can be called "my deeds of heroism, my acts of
battle" (ilkaklt qurdiya ep?eFttagnintiya) on the Kurkh Mono-
lith of Salmaneser III = 3R 7 i 50 = D. Luckenbill, ARAB
1, 215 ? 600.
7' This standard format, of course, could have variations.
For discussion, see the works cited in n. 68, especially that by
Genge.
731
titulary and exploits, they should regularly have em-
ployed the expressions and images we have seen echoed
in Isaiah.72It is true that no such stelae or reliefs have
been found to date in Judah. But there is nothing to
rule them out, if we recall the presence of stelae in
adjacent areas, both province and vassal state (i.e.,
Samaria and Ashdod).73 Indeed, it is not impossible
that the texts on some of these other monuments
became known in Judah itself.74
72 Thus, for (1) the journey to the West for wood, e.g.,
galmaneser III, Kurkh Monolith: 3 R 7 ii 9-10 = D. Lucken-
bill, ARAB 1, 216 ? 600; Adad-nTrrli 111, Tell al-Rimah
Stela: S. Page, Iraq 30 (1968), 142-143:9-12.
(2) Devastating, burning, and consuming settlements, e.g.,
Sargon II, Stela from Najafehabad, Iran: L. D. Levine (above
n. 68), 40-41:51; Sennacherib, Bavian Relief, D. Luckenbill,
Senn., 83-84:50-51.
(3) Removal of boundaries, e.g., Sargon II, Stela from
Najafehabad, Iran: L. D. Levine (above n. 68), 38-39:32.
(4) Turning settlements into ruined heaps, e.g., A99ur-
nasirpal II, Kurkh Monolith: Budge-King, A KA, 231:18 and
passim.
(5) The king as raging water, e.g., Salmaneser III, Kurkh
Monolith: 3 R 7 i 12 = D. Luckenbill, ARAB I, 212 ? 596;
Esarhaddon, Zinjirli Stela: R. Borger, Asarh., 97:r. 12.
(6) The "glory" of the king, e.g., A99urnasirpal 11, Kurkh
Monolith: Budge-King, AKA, 235:30; Salmaneser III, Kurkh
Monolith: 3 R 8 ii 68 = D. Luckenbill, ARAB 1, 221 ? 608.
(7) The king/Assyrian army as lions, e.g., Esarhaddon,
Zinjirli Stela: R. Borger, Asarh., 97: r. 12-13.
(8) The yoke on captured enemies, e.g., Sargon II, Stela
from Najafehabad, Iran: L. D. Levine (above n. 68), 36-
37:24; Sennacherib, Bavian Relief: D. Luckenbill, Senn., 78-
79: 4-5.
7 For Samaria, where the stela may belong to Sargon II,
see J. W. Crowfoot, et al., Samaria-Sebaste III: The Objects
(London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1957), 35 + PI. IV:2-
3. For Ashdod, where the stela is clearly from Sargon, see
H. Tadmor, 'Atiqot (English Series) IX-X (1971), 192-197 +
Pls. XCVI-XCVII:I. While Samaria was definitely an As-
syrian province, Ashdod, during and after the period when
its stela was standing, apparently enjoyed something between
provincial and vassal status, since both an Assyrian governor
and a native vassal king seem to have functioned there
contemporaneously: see H. Tadmor, Bib.Ar. 29 (1966), 95.
74 By way of analogy, one may note that Assyrian decrees
directed to the province of Samaria did at some time become
known in Judah, for 2 Kings 17, which reflects those decrees
(above n. 59), was put into its present form and position by
writers living in Judah.
732 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
Whatever the form of the propaganda may have
been, written and otherwise,75 we must ask in what
language Isaiah and/or his circle would have received
it. Was it in Akkadian, particularly of a Standard
Babylonian variety, which provided the dialect of the
Assyrian royal inscriptions including those on the
stelae and the reliefs? Or must we assume that another
language intervened? A priori, we should not exclude
the possibility of Akkadian. In the latter eighth and
seventh centuries B.C., when Isaiah and his circle were
active, a kind of oikumeme developed in the Assyrian
empire, encouraged by the government's policy of
rearranging populations and goods.76 One manifesta-
tion of this was a mixing of languages, including
bilingualism in Akkadian and a native tongue.77 One
7 One other written possibility at least needs mention here:
the treaty texts (adej) executed between the Assyrian mon-
archs and their vassals. While these clearly served Assyrian
propaganda interests, they do not seem to be important as a
source for the motifs we have discussed, if only because very
few of the latter-e.g., the raging waters and lion-occur in
them, and then in a different setting from that in Isaiah and
the Assyrian royal stelae and rock reliefs.
76 Cf., e.g., P. Garelli and V. Nikiprowetsky (above n. 10),
especially 269-281; M. Cogan (above n. 5), 91-95; M. Elat,
Qisrj Kalkalah Bin 'Ars6t Ham-miqrd' Bime Bayi RHTsn
(Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1977), especially chap. 11; B. Oded,
Mass Deportations and Deportees in the Neo-Assyrian Em-
pire (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1979), espe-
cially chapter V; 1. Eph'al (above, n. 11), 276-289; and
H. Tadmor, in Un Div., 36-48.
77 The Akkadian here was
normally, except in Babylonia,
the Assyrian dialect; and the best attested case is that of
Assyrian and Aramaic (see n. 81 ahead). A possible indication
that the Assyrians instructed at least deportees in Assyrian
or some common language, may be found in statements like
the following from Sargon II's cylinder inscription:
ba'uldt arba'i liganu ahTtu atmi la mitharti agibate
?adj u mdti mal irte'fi nior ildni bel gimri ?a ina zikir
DA.sur beliya ina metil fibirriya aslula pa igten uas'-
kinma ugarma qerebsu mdre mat DA?9urmidite ini
kaldma ana sfahuz sibitte paldh iii u CarriaklF Sapire
uma 'irguniti
The people of the four (quarters), of foreign tongue
and divergent speech, inhabitants of mountain and
plain, all whom the Light of the gods, the lord of all,
shepherded, whom I had carried off with my powerful
scepter by the command of A99ur, my lord-I made
may suppose such bilingualism especially for the local
ruling elites, who would have deemed it useful in their
dealings with the Assyrian authority, whether at home
or on embassies to the Assyrian heartland. Even so,
the evidence for it is stronger in the northern part of
the Levant, i.e., in Syria, which was closer to and in
contact over a longer time with Assyria, than in
Palestine in the south.78 In fact, from Judah proper
nothing explicitly testifies to a real knowledge of
Akkadian.79 There is another problem here as well.
Granted that various local officials, Judaeans among
them, had a knowledge of Akkadian for administrative
purposes, how many would have had an ability in a
literary dialect of Standard Babylonian, in which the
official inscriptions were composed, is unclear. Prob-
ably some locals understood bits of the textual and
not simply the iconographic sections of the royal
stelae and reliefs displayed for them, after all, in their
own territories. But the low level of knowledge at
hand may be inferred from the little evidence we have
for any independent regional, i.e., non-Mesopotamian,
composition of Akkadian texts in the Neo-Assyrian
them of one mouth and put them in its (= DMr-
Sarrukin's) midst. Citizens of Assyria, (who were)
over-seers and supervisors versed in all manner of
culture, I ordered to teach them correct behavior,
to fear god and king (D. G. Lyon, Keilschriftlexte
Sargon's, 11-12, 38-39:72-74; for discussion see the
works cited in n. 59).
One should note that bilingualism with Assyrian was not
confined strictly to the Assyrian empire. It is evident, for
example, in the contiguous, but independent state of Urartu
during the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.: see M. Salvini,
Vicino Oriente III (1980), 169-177.
78 This close affiliation of Syria with Assyria is most clearly
exemplified by the prominence attained by Aramaic as vir-
tually the second language-and in the West, probably the
first-of the Assyrian empire: see n. 81 ahead.
79 It is true that various loanwords from Assyrian usage
appear in Biblical sources for the Assyrian period, e.g., sir <
sTru(above n. 64); sar and melek - garru, malku (Isaiah 10:8;
see ahead); pehah < (bel) pTl/hyti (2 Kings 18:24/Isaiah
36:9, etc.); tapsdr < tupgarru (Nahum 3:17; see ahead); and
se'5n < senu (Isaiah 9:4). But these, being mostly technical
borrowings, can hardly prove extensive knowledge of Ak-
kadian, all the more as some of them, at least, may have
reached the Biblical authors through an intermediate lan-
guage like Aramaic.
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah
period, as against their prominence in the preceding
centuries.80
If Akkadian looks problematic, then, we can reckon
that Assyrian propaganda would have been dissem-
inated to Isaiah and his circle through another
language. The best candidate, of course, would be
Aramaic, which already by the period of our prophet
had become a lingua franca of the empire, at least for
the officialdom, rapidly overtaking Akkadian itself.8"
The latter point is nowhere better illustrated than in
the rabgdqdh speeches of Isaiah/2 Kings, for the
question there is of Hebrew or Aramaic, not evidently
Akkadian, as the language of communication. If we
think of written, not only oral propaganda in Aramaic,
then the texts could have been independent composi-
tions based on the complex of royal Assyrian expres-
sions and images we have examined or, perhaps more
likely, translations of royal Assyrian texts from the
Akkadian. A good parallel would be the translations
Darius I ordered of his Behistun inscription, of which
those in Aramaic reached as far as the Elephantine
colony in Egypt.82
Unfortunately, while we have evidence for various
kinds of Aramaic documents in Assyrian administra-
tive practice,83 that specifically for official literary
propaganda has appeared to be lacking. A partial
exception may now be available in the recently dis-
covered statue of one Hadda-yis'i (= Adad-it'i), an
Aramaean ruler of Guzana, Sikani, and Zarani in the
80 This correlates with the virtual absence of evidence for
regional schools of "cuneiform" learning, such as existed
earlier, in the third and second millennia B.C. When we do
encounter Akkadian texts outside of Mesopotamia in the
Neo-Assyrian period, they are invariably connected, directly
or indirectly, with the Assyrian administration.
81 For the impact of Aramaic and the Aramaeans on the
Assyrian empire, see the older synthesis of R. A. Bowman,
JNES 7 (1948), 65-76, now revised by H. Tadmor, Un Div.,
36-48; Idem, "The Aramaization of Assyria: Aspects of
Western Impact," in H. J. Nissen and J. Renger (eds.),
Mesopotamien und seine Nachbarn (CRRA XXV; Berlin:
Dietrich Riemer Verlag, 1982), II, 449-470); and F. M.
Fales, Vicino Oriente III (1980), 243-267. The presence of
Aramaean scribes in the Assyrian administration is discussed
also by J. Lewy, HUCA 25 (1954), 188 ff.
82 See A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923), 248-271.
83 See in n. 81, R. A. Bowman, 73-76; H. Tadmor, Un
Div., 43; idem, "Aramaization...," 451-455; and F. M.
Fales, 245 & n. 8, 246 & n. 13.
733
Habur Valley, perhaps sometime in the early ninth
century B.C.84 This monument is physically like the
Assyrian royal stelae we have been discussing, though
with a few variations that may be called provincial;85
but its text, significantly, is a bilingual in Aramaic
and Akkadian. Admittedly, the text seems to be the
work of a local scribe(s), and deals with the local issue
of the dedication of the statue to Hadad/Adad of
Guzana/ Sikani.86 Yet a connection with the Assyrian
chancellery is probable, since echoes of Assyrian in-
scriptions abound in the content, both of the Aramaic
and especially of the Akkadian;87 and the ruler in
question appears to have been some kind of Assyrian
vassal.88 The statue, thus, with its Assyrian and Ara-
maic "faces," anticipates what we have been arguing
for the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., when the
Assyrians achieved a more thorough control of Syria
and the rest of the Levant.
It may be, thus, that Aramaic copies of royal stelae
or reliefs had some role to play in exposing Isaiah
84
The editio princeps is by Ali Abou-Assaf, P. Bordreuil,
and A. R. Millard, La statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscrip-
tion bilingue assyro-arameene (Etudes assyriologiques; Paris:
Editions Recherche sur les civilisations, 1982). Cf. also idem,
CRAIBL (Nov.-D1c., 1981), 640-655; Ali Abou-Assaf,
MDOG 113 (1981), 3-22; A. R. Millard and P. Bordreuil,
BibAr. 45 (1982), 135-141; Adam Mikaya, Biblical Archae-
ology Review VII (1981), 52-53; and Jonas Greenfield, in
J. A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume Vienna 1980 (Supple-
ments to VT 32; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 112-113.
85 Ali Abou-Assaf, P. Bordreuil, and A. R. Millard, La
statue (see previous note), 5-12, 98.
86 Ibid., 13-16:1, 7, 14-15, 19-26 (Akkadian text); 23-24:
1,5-6, 12-16 (Aramaic text). It will be noted that the Aramaic
describes Hadad/Adad as of Sikani, while in the Akkadian,
the god is said to live in Guzana and to be "the lord of the
Habur." An attempt to unravel what the two texts are saying
about the history of Hadda-yis'i's dedications to Hadad is
given in ibid., 67-68.
87 Ibid., 18-22, 69 (Akkadian); 28-29 ad 2-3, 30-31 ad 5-
6, 74-75 (Aramaic).
88 Note the evidently Assyrian title s?aknuattached to him
and his father in the Akkadian text, ibid., 13-16:8, 9, 19,
which correlates with the title mlk in the Aramaic, ibid., 23-
24:6, 7, 13. mlk, as recognized in ibid., 111- 112, was regularly
used by (western) vassal kings in the Assyrian empire (cf.
also ahead, n. 100). A more precise historical setting may be
discerned if we follow the editio princeps in correlating the
name of Hadda-yis'i's father, Samag-ndrT,with the Assyrian
eponymn of 866 B.C.: see ibid., 103-113.
734 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
and/or his circle to Assyrian propaganda. But regard-
less of the means, Isaiah's response, though shaped by
the image put forward by this propaganda, was not
simply an approving, bland echo of what he had re-
ceived. As he makes very clear, the Assyrian advance
on the Levant was the crucial test of his understanding
of the Israelite covenant tradition.89 So we should not
be surprised that the prophet sought to deflect and
rework the Assyrian propaganda he encountered.
Thus, if the Assyrian kings boast about their expedi-
tions to the west to cut down junipers, cedars, and
other prized woods, Isaiah asserts that this is "a mock-
ing" of the Lord (heraptd )adjnay in Isaiah 37:24/
2 Kings 19:23). Even more, in chapter 14:8-assuming
that it dates to the Assyrian period90 the junipers
and cedars are portrayed rejoicing at the death of the
conquerors' Similarly, if Isaiah's use of the yoke owes
something to Assyrian idiom, then while the Assyrian
rulers talk constantly about putting their "yoke" (nTru)
upon their subject peoples or about a rebel sinfully
throwing off the yoke,92 the prophet turns this sin
inside out, when he has Yahweh predict, in a defiant
pun:
And his yoke shall depart from them ( Israel)
(14:25; cf. 10:27)
Most important, all the actions of the Assyrian
monarch are understood to come not from the com-
mand of his god A99ur, but from the power of the
Israelite god; and the monarch's failure, indeed refusal,
to recognize this constitutes the formal grounds for
his eventual punishment at the hands of Yahweh. Such
thinking emerges most clearly in the remarkable poem
of 10:5-19,93 in which the prophet again makes use of
89 Cf., e.g. Isaiah 7-8, 10, 37-39/2 Kings 18-20 and n. 109
ahead.
90 See the work of H. L. Ginsberg and H. Barth
(above n. 5).
9' This perspective on Isaiah 14:8 I owe to Aaron Shaffer.
Isaiah's fascination with the Lebanon motif is also evident in
2:12-13 and 10:33-34. For the motif in II Isaiah, see above
n. 23.
92 AHw, 794a s.v. nTru(m) I, 5: CAD N/2, 262b-263b s.v.
nTru A, 2.
93 Although this poem seems to have a composite literary
history, most concede that the bulk of vss. 5-15 belong to I
Isaiah. For recent discussions, see H. Wildberger (above
inversion, this time of the standard Assyrian justifica-
tion of war found in practically all the royal inscrip-
tional propaganda.94 In the inscriptions, the king pro-
claims that "with the help of A99ur and/or the other
gods,"95 "I seized with my (own) hands, I rained fiery
arrows, I leveled my weapons," etc.96-the first person
here is ubiquitous-and that all foes, in turn, collapsed
in the onslaught because they foolishly "trusted in their
own strength,"97or in an ally or physical refuge,98and
"did not fear the oath of the gods."99 In Isaiah 10,
however, while much of this same language appears,
its meaning is exactly the reverse. Now the Assyrian's
first person proclamation, "By the strength of my hand
I have done it/and by my wisdom, for I have under-
standing" (10:13)-unqualified as this is by any refer-
ence to a god-appears as hubris of the highest order,
and specifically constitutes rejection of Yahweh. In
short, the Assyrian becomes in Isaiah what the "enemy"
was in his own inscriptions, who "trusted in his own
strength" and "did not fear the oath of the gods." One
further observation may be made about the extent of
Isaiah's accusal in this poem. In 10:8 he quotes the
Assyrian ruler as saying:
Are not my commanders all kings?
In light of the irony otherwise evident, one may wonder
if this further charge of hubris is not based on a con-
n. 42), 390-411; H. Barth (above n. 5), 21-34; and J. Ver-
meylen, Du Prophee IsaTe a l'apocalyptique (Etudes bib-
liques; Paris: Librairie Lecoffre/J. Gabalda, 1977), I, 252-
262.
94 An excellent start on the analysis of this propagandistic
language has been made by M. Liverani, in M. T. Larsen
(above n. 55), 297-317, especially 309-312.
95 E.g., Budge-King, AKA, 232:21, 233:23 (Aggurnasirpal
II); A. G. Lie, Sargon Annals, 22-23:122 (Sargon II);
D. Luckenbill, Senn., 45:78 (Sennacherib).
96 E.g., A. G. Lie, Sargon Annals, 24-25:134 (Sargon II);
3 R 8 ii 68 = D. Luckenbill, ARAB I, 221?608 (galmaneser
III); D. Luckenbill, Senn., 62:5-6 (Sennacherib).
97 E.g., F. Thureau-Dangin, TCL 3 (1912), 12:66 (Sargon
II); M. Streck, Assurb. II, 6-7:57 (Aggurbanipal).
98 E.g., J. Seidmann, MAOG 9/III (1935), 20-21:50-51
(Adad-nTrarTII); A. G. Lie, Sargon Annals, 42-43:264 (Sar-
gon II); R. Borger, Asarh., 47:33 (Esarhaddon).
99 E.g., D. G. Lyon, Keilschrifttexte Sargon's, (13, 40-41:
19 (Sargon II); R. Borger, Asarh., 52:64 (Esarhaddon).
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah 735

scious play on Hebrew gar as "subordinate official" tradition, but present reality-is clear from Nahum's
and the cognate Akkadian ?arru as "king," with meld- further description of Nineveh as flooded out by "the
kim, in turn, echoing the Assyrian use of malku- rivers" (han-nehdrot in 2:7; cf. 2:9), i.e., by the canals
itself influenced by West Semitic-as referring particu- of the river Tigris, an event confirmed in other ac-
larly to foreign rulers.'00 counts. Similarly, as in Isaiah Yahweh had pre-
dicted the eventual departure of the Assyrian "yoke"
It remains to be noted that the Assyrian propa-
from Judah (*Y 071Yyn '1O in 14:25; cf. 10:27), so in
ganda we have been discussing, and the reaction to it
Nahum He now announced that the day for this had
of Isaiah and his circle,'0' did not die with the latter,
come:
but became part of Biblical tradition, shaping responses
to subsequent events even as it was invigorated by
continuing contact with Mesopotamia. The most con-
spicuous example, perhaps, is the prophet Nahum,
whose entire book centers on the last days of Assyria
And now I will break the bar
and the destruction of Nineveh, the main capital. What
of his yoke from upon you,
for Isaiah had been "the waters of the River" in
And your bonds snap.
which Assyria "will overflow and sweep over" Judah
(1:13)
(fl3YI npV ..V.. 1?37 ' in 8:7-8) became for Nahum
an instrument of Yahweh to erase Nineveh and the
And if Isaiah had depicted the Assyrian advance as the
whole empire:
"roaring" of "lions" (MpVt O'1'm3 / Mt3:f
102 , mercilessly seizing prey ('5D' / Alp Tn1il 0;1'1
dean text) (5:29), it was Nahum who, looking on the
destruction of Nineveh, showed elaborately and scof-
With a flood sweeping over, he
fingly what the lions had become:
will make a complete devastation
of her ( Nineveh's) site.
(1:8) nn 5 104?(,,1 ult

That this was not simply literary metaphor-or more

precisely, that the metaphor reflected not only literary nW
xn 717znnn

in K'vx n
'?? Cf. H. Wildberger (above n. 42), 397, and CAD M/I,
167-168a s.v. malku A, b.
101 The examples cited from Isaiah are meant to be repre-
5 I *I *-.
sentative, not exhaustive. For other possibilities, see, e.g., l?" y: l: ..l
M. Weinfeld, in A. Malamat (ed.), The Age of the Mon-
archies: Cultures and Society (The World History of the
Jewish People IV/2; Jerusalem: Massada Press, 1979), 51,
290: n. 94; and C. Cohen (above n. 57). 103 Cf. Diodorus Siculus, Library 11:26-27 and Xenophon,
102 Here Ul1?i7? is retained against such emendations as Anabasis III: iv 12.
TIM7P"against these who arise against him," made on the 104 Here I follow the common emendation from Hirt Yelpni1

basis of the LXX and Vulgate; cf. Biblia Hebraica Stutt-
gartensia [above n. 27]) or l1jMlp7 "from his adversaries"
(K. J. Cathcart, Nahum in the Light of Northwest Semitic
[Biblica et Orientalia 26; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute,
1973], 30- 31, 57-58). The 3 femin. sg. suffix, accordingly,
should refer to Nineveh, which is named earlier in the text in
1:1 and then described fully in 2:12 ff.
of the Masoretic text: cf., e.g., K. J. Cathcart (above n. 102),
105-106. Not only does lYn fit the general sense better
than 71Yln and offer a better parallel to the preceding TlYn;
but the resulting parallelism of JlYn and ;llYn more closely
echoes the parallelism of Tkil and bunion later in these
lines, which it is clearly meant to do.
105 Here for sense it is perhaps better to emend Masoretic

This line, it may be noted, echoes not only Isaiah 8:7-8, rn!1 to the second femin. sg. suffixed form ? as do
but also Isaiah 28:15, 18, though in the latter the use of M3t Targum Jonathan and the Vulgate: cf. Biblia Hebraica Stutt-
appears to vary the image somewhat (see above n. 48). gartensia (above n. 27).
736 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)
Where is the lions' den,
The cave of the young lions,
Where the lion brought (his prey),
And (his) cub was, with none to
make him afraid?
The lion tore enough for his young,
And strangled (enough) for his lionesses.
And he filled his caves with prey,
And his dens with torn flesh.
But look now, I am against you,
Says the Lord of Hosts.
And I will burn up your chariotry in smoke,
And your young lions the sword will devour,
And I will cut off from the land your prey,
And the voice of your messengers will
be heard no more.
(2:12-14)
Of these three connections between Nahum and
Isaiah, it is not clear, one will remember, whether the
second and third, about yokes and lions, ultimately go
back to Assyrian propaganda. But Nahum appears, in
any case, to treat them as part of the Isaianic tradition
on Assyria, just as elsewhere he seems to quote and
play on other Israelite traditional expressions.'07 Our
prophet, however, was not simply dependent on tradi-
tion for his portrait of Assyria. As his use of the
raging water image shows, he also mixed in actual
information on the events involved, and in other ways
reveals a knowledge of the Assyrian landscape: com-
pare his designation of the Assyrian scribes as tapsar
(tapserayik in 3:17), a rare word in Biblical Hebrew-
the regular word for scribe being soper-which occurs
only one other time, from about the same period, and
106
The emendation here is from the strange Masoretic
n which may in fact represent a variant of the same
form, viz., JDR7, with the final hi as dittography of the
following 11- in chapter 3:1: cf. H. Bauer and P. Leander,
Historisehe Grammatik der hebrdisehen Sprache (Hildesheim:
Georg Olms, 1965 [Reprint of 1922 edition]), 253u.
107 E.g., Nahum 1:2-3 with Exodus 34:6-8; 20:5-6/
Deuteronomy 5:9-10; etc.; Nahum 1:4 with Psalm 106:9;
Nahum 2:1 with II Isaiah 52:7 (cf. also II Isaiah 40:9);
Nahum 3:5 with Jeremiah 13:22, 26 (cf. Lamentations 1:9);
Nahum 3:10 with 2 Kings 8:12 and Hosea 14:1; and Nahum
3:18 with Isaiah 5:27.
is obviously a loan from the normal Akkadian term,
(uplarru. 08
The point behind all of this, of course, is the larger
thesis, in which Nahum saw the fall of the Assyrian
empire during the years 614-609 as the final justifi-
cation of the Isaianic hope, uttered a century before,
that the arrogant conqueror would, in turn, be con-
quered.'09 Indeed, the inclusion in the Biblical canon
of Nahum, along with other texts proclaiming the the-
sis, like Zephaniah 2:13-15, Zechariah 10:8-12, and
Jeremiah 50:17-20, must be understood as the intent
to confirm the initial vision of Isaiah and his era: to
see in the period of Assyrian collapse the theological
counterpoint to the earlier period, when Assyria was
ascendant. Significantly, once this thesis had been suc-
cessfully applied to Assyria, it became available to
explain the course of her successor, Neo-Babylonia, as
passages like Habakkuk 2:6 ff., (II) Isaiah 47:6 ff.,
Psalm 137:8, and the whole multi-layered history of
Isaiah 14 illustrate.'1 And in the process, some of the
old Assyrian images were reused,"' while other Meso-
potamian motifs, not previously attested in the Isaianic
tradition, appeared, which may thus have been newly
108 The other occurence is in Jeremiah 51:27, where it is
vocalized as tipsar. See, inter alia, W. Baumgartner, et al.,
Hebraisehes und Aramaisehes Lexikon zum A/ten Testament3
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), II, 362b.
I09I maintain, with a number of older commentators, that
this hope is authentic to Isaiah, even though such a position
has been revised recently by those who suppose that it
developed mostly later, during the Josianic period at the end
of the seventh century B.C., and was then reflected in additions
and revisions to the book of Isaiah: cf. H. Barth (above n. 5);
and R. E. Clements, Isaiah 1-39 (above n. 46), 5-6, 18-19,
and idem., Isaiah and the Deliverance (above n. 57), especially
chapters 4-5. A varied, but related reconstruction may be
found in J. Vermeylen (above n. 93), II, 673-692. Yet even
these "revisionists" acknowledge that the nucleus of the hope
is to be credited to Isaiah himself, for they are willing to
accept the authenticity of certain passages which contain it:
e.g., Clements, Isaiah 1-39, 109 ff. on Isaiah 10:5-15.
110 If the core of Isaiah 14 referred to Assyrian history,
specifically, the death of Sargon II (above n. 5), then vss. 4
and 22-23 make clear that the text eventually came to be
applied to Babylonia as well. On the disputed history of this
chapter, see, e.g., H. Wildberger, Jesaja 13-27 (Biblischer
Kommentar, Altes Testament X/2; Neukirchen-Vluyn Neu-
kirchener Verlag, 1978), 531-564.
" ' E.g., above in nn. 22-23.
 MACHINIST: Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah
appropriated, this time from a Neo-Babylonian mi-
lieu. "2
In the light of our discussion, then, if we return to
the two questions with which we began and ask, what
did the Neo-Assyrian empire look like from the other
side, and how does this help us to understand that
empire, the answers turn out rather unexpected. For,
at least in the First Isaiah, the empire was seen very
much within the frame-though the individual ele-
ments could be reworked-that it itself had set through
its own propaganda. Far from giving us another, dif-
ferently based view of Assyria, as we might have ini-
112 E.g., the journey through impossible terrain like desert
and mountain, which appears in Jeremiah and II Isaiah. On
this, see N. H. Waldman, in A. Katsch and L. Nemoy (eds.),
Essays on the Occasion of the Seventieth Anniversary of the
Dropsie University (Philadelphia: The Dropsie University,
1979), 449-455, though not all of the Biblical passages he
cites are of equal relevance.
737
tially expected, the evidence of Isaiah becomes an
important witness to the official Assyrian perspective,
and to its persuasiveness both generally, and specifi-
cally on the development of Israelite thought. Leo
Oppenheim put the whole matter well in one of his
posthumously published papers:
The terrifying mask [of Assyria] that was deliberately
turned toward the outside world was undeniably ef-
fective. The Old Testament reflects in numerous poig-
nant passages the fear inspired by Assyrian military
might and by the ruthless aggressiveness directed
against all those nations that found themselves in the
path of Assyrian expansion.
"I A. L. Oppenheim, in H. D. Lasswell, D. Lerner, and H.
Speier (eds.), Propaganda and Communication in World
History I: The Symbolic Instrument in Early Times (Hono-
lulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), 133-134.