Nineveh (ninʹe-ve; from Assyrian Nina or Ninua), one of the oldest and greatest cities of Mesopotamia. It was founded  by Nimrod the great Grandson of Noah! (Gen 10:6-12)!  It is one of the oldest cities in the world, escavations date it at approximately 4500 B.C.  One of the most important discoveries is from its library of Ashurbanipal which contained over 16,000 cuneiform tablets that included topics such as the history of the flood and of creation along with other historical and religious texts.

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria at its height from the time of Sennacherib, who assumed the throne in 705 B.C. to its fall in 612 B.C. and subsequently a symbol of Assyria’s utter collapse. The city was located on the east bank of the Tigris River opposite Mosul. Its ruins consist of a number of small mounds and two large tells in an 1800-acre enclosure surrounded by a brick wall almost eight miles in circumference. The main focus of excavations has been the larger of the tells, Quyunjik (‘little lamb’). The smaller tell, Nebi Yunus (‘the prophet Jonah’), marks the traditional site of the tomb of the prophet Jonah and is occupied by a modern settlement.

At the height of its prosperity Nineveh was enclosed by an inner wall of c. 12 km circuit within which, according to Felix Jones’ survey of 1834, more than 175,000 persons could have lived. The population of ‘this great city’ of Jonah’s history (1:2; 3:2) is given as 120,000, who did not know right from wrong.

Ashurbanipal (669–633 B.C.), made his residence at Nineveh, where he had been educated and trained in sports and military skills. He was somewhat of an antiquarian and mastered the reading of Akkadian and Sumerian. In his palace was housed the famous library of such importance for the study of Assyriology.

The temple of Nabu contained a library dating at least to the time of Sargon II, but the royal library of Ashurbanipal far surpassed it in size and importance. Sargon and his successors had collected many tablets, but Ashurbanipal sent scribes all over Assyria and Babylonia to gather and to copy tablets, so that tens of thousands of tablets accumulated.

Like the library of Nippur, the Nineveh collection covers a great range of materials: business accounts, letters, royal records, historical documents, lexicographical lists and bilingual texts, legends, myths and various other kinds of religious inscriptions, such as hymns, prayers, and lists of deities and temples. Among the tablets were 7 that preserved a Babylonian creation story and 12 which bore the epic of Gilgamesh, with a version of the flood. Other writings which sometimes are cited as parallels to Bible accounts include the story of Adapa, with the lost opportunity to achieve immortality, and the legend of Etana, a shepherd who ascended to heaven.

Ashurbanipal was also well known for his wars and for his cruelty. The palace relief showing a peaceful banquet scene also displays the severed head of an Elamite leader hanging in a tree.

In the later years of the aging king and after his demise, the vassal kingdoms rebelled. Babylon became independent and joined with the Medes to take Ashur and Calah in 614 B.C. Cyaxares the Mede, Nabopolassar of Babylon, and a Scythian force laid siege to Nineveh in 612 B.C.; the city fell and King Sinshariskun (Sardanapalus) perished in its flames.

Time and Place of Jonah:

Prophet of Israel; Amittai’s son (Jon 1:1) of the Zebulunite city of Gathhepher (2 Kgs 14:25). The historian who wrote 2 Kings recorded that Jonah had a major prophetic role in the reign of King Jeroboam II (793–753 b.c.). Jonah had conveyed a message encouraging expansion to the king of Israel, whose reign was marked by prosperity, expansion, and, unfortunately, moral decline.

In the midst of all the political corruption of Israel, Jonah remained a zealous patriot. His reluctance to go to Nineveh doubtless stemmed partially from his knowledge that the Assyrians would be used as God’s instrument for punishing Israel. The prophet, who had been sent to Jeroboam to assure him that his kingdom would prosper, was the same prophet God chose to send to Nineveh to forestall that city’s (and thus that nation’s) destruction until Assyria could be used to punish Israel in 722 b.c. It is no wonder that the prophet reacted emotionally to his commission.

No other prophet was so strongly Jewish (cf. his classic confession, Jon 1:9), yet no other prophet’s ministry was so strongly directed to a non-Jewish nation. Jonah’s writing is also unusual among the prophets. The book is primarily historical narrative. His actual preaching is recorded in only five words in the Hebrew; eight words in most English translations (Jon 3:4b). In the NT, Jonah is called Jonas (kjv).

Jonah’s challenge to us as believers:

Do you know the God of the Bible?  Is His spirit living within your heart?  Are you prepared at all times to be able to give an account of your faith to ANYONE,  in the name of our great God, the one and only creator of the universe.  Even to use ‘eight’ words to glorify His great name?  Read His word.  Do His commandments!

Posted by: -reformed

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