jan 1, 632 BC - Destruction of Nineveh

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Picture: Nineveh seemed invincible, yet how did Jehovah’s prophecy turn out?

Its Destruction Fulfills Prophecy. Although repenting at the preaching of Jonah (Mt 12:41; Lu 11:30, 32), the Ninevites relapsed and again took to their wicked ways. It was some years after Assyrian King Sennacherib had been murdered at Nineveh in the house of his god Nisroch (2Ki 19:36, 37; Isa 37:37, 38) that Nahum (1:1; 2:8–3:19) and Zephaniah (2:13-15) foretold the destruction of that wicked city. Their prophecies were fulfilled when the combined forces of Nabopolassar the king of Babylon and of Cyaxares the Mede besieged and captured Nineveh. The city was evidently subjected to burning, for many Assyrian reliefs show damage or stain from fire and accompanying smoke. With reference to Nineveh, a Babylonian chronicle reports: “They carried off the vast booty of the city and the temple (and) [turned] the city into a ruin heap.” (Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, by A. Grayson, 1975, p. 94; PICTURE, Vol. 1, p. 958) To this day Nineveh is a desolate waste, and in the spring, flocks graze near or atop the mound of Kuyunjik.

Date of Nineveh’s Fall. Though effaced from the extant cuneiform tablet that relates the fall of Nineveh, the date for this event, the 14th year of Nabopolassar, can be supplied from the context. It is also possible to place the destruction of Nineveh in the framework of Bible chronology. According to a Babylonian chronicle, the Egyptians were defeated at Carchemish in the 21st year of Nabopolassar’s reign. The Bible shows this to have taken place in the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign or in 625 B.C.E. (Jer 46:2) Therefore, the capture of Nineveh (about seven years earlier) in the 14th year of Nabopolassar’s reign would fall in the year 632 B.C.E.

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