The Assyrian Empire and the Israeli Northern Kingdom.

by Alejandro Roque Glez.

“For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within three score and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people… For the people turns not to him that smites them, neither do they seek Yahweh, the Lord of hosts. Therefore Yahweh will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.”

(Isaiah 7:8; 9:13-14)

When King Solomon died in 933 BC, his son Rehoboam did not follow the advice of the elders and instead of smoothing the yoke of his father––who went too far with great authority in his later years––ordered to gather the people, and with much pride he augured them: “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins… My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions” (1 Kgs 12:7-14). Such displays of insolence did ooze a people in discord.

This happened, as mentioned, around the year 933 BC; and then a former military officer of his father Solomon’s army, who had previously rebelled and fled to Egypt by Pharaoh Shishak, called Jeroboam, encouraged the 10 tribes of Israel headed by that of Ephraim, to secede from the nation and create their own kingdom separated from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, mixed these also with some of Simeon’s tribe.

The Northern Kingdom–as it was called then––headed by the leader Jeroboam who ruled for 22 years, and whom the prophet Ahijah (1 Kgs 11:26-35) had already revealed in Solomon’s time about this would happen in the future (product of their idolatry to false gods such as Ashtoreth, Chemosh and Moloch, to which Israel had fallen) when he should become first king in the north of the nation; as a whole lasted kingdom, between the years 933-721 BC, something more than 200 years.

The reader should know that determining the exact dates when millennia have passed, is not an easy task, and often the theologians do not match. For example, it is stated as an established fact in biblical dictionaries that Prophet Isaiah began his public ministry between the years 758 to 745 BC, continuing for 50 years further. I do not agree exactly with it, as the Northern Kingdom––we shall see––was destroyed around 721 BC, and if the prophet predicted about this would occur before 65 years from the time when he is prophesying, then the prophet Isaiah must have pronounced this judgment near the year 786 BC (721+65=786); meaning that his ministry actually should have started at least in that year (28 years ahead of the one academically recognized) living a long life; however, considering that have passed since then almost 2800 years, then twenty-eight years difference is not such an important disagreement.

The prophet Isaiah prophesied from his youth admonishing his nation, foretelling them its messianic character pointing into the future, and in turn––with extraordinary precision––also revealing separate incidents that should occur in its history, including the advent of Christ and crucifixion. Isaiah was a family man, educated, literate, with access to the court of the kings, whom he had to witness in the course of his long life.

Jewish tradition has it––not the Bible––that Isaiah was martyred, being already an old man, under the reign of the wicked king Manasseh, for having compared courageously and fearlessly the city of Jerusalem with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah which were destroyed by God (Gen 19:12-25), due to the amount of abominations experienced there every day, and something similar was happening in Jerusalem, so they would also undoubtedly see at some point, their fatal hour; so infuriating the king with it.

It adds to the story that the prophet fled into hiding in a hollow trunk of a cedar. The king knew it and ordered sawing the trunk with the prophet within, and perhaps that is why the apostle Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11:37, that a prophet was sawn, cut savagely by the authorities of his time. Men of God have always been brave no matter the consequences, condemning the injustices; and not therefore it does mean they should not escape or try to protect their families when needed.

In this passage we are analyzing the prophet––65 years before it happened––prophesies to the ten northern tribes, known as the Northern Kingdom, the fact that they were to be destroyed forever and taken into captivity by the Assyrians.

The suffering has not closed its last page. Israel has not yet found its Messiah, whether the same prophet Isaiah appeared to them in person today. If you are interested you can read about the final events in the study book entitled: 'Revelation of Saint John. Interpretation of the Book,' or recreated in the literary novel 'The Great Peacemaker from Hell.'

[This and other Old Testament prophecies are explicatively compiled in the author's book entitled: 'Major Prophets of the Old Testament;' in print and digital edition]

{ Click here if you wish or need to Contact Us }