It was the city of blood. And death. And mindless killing. Nineveh was pure evil. How bad were they? This is the boasts (Boice) we have on inscriptions we have:
· “I cut off their heads and formed them into pillars.”
· “Bubo, son of Buba, I flayed in the city of Arbela and I spread his skin upon the city wall.”
· “I flayed all the chief men who had revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skins.”
· “Many within the border of my own land I flayed, and spread their skins upon the walls.”
· “I cut off the limbs of the officers, the royal officers who had rebelled.”
· “3,000 captives I burned with fire.”
· “Their corpses I formed into pillars.”
· “From some I cut off their hands and their fingers, and from others I cut off their noses, their ears, and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes.”
· “I made one pillar of the living, and another of heads, I bound their heads to posts round about the city.”
Their brutality was common place. They felt somehow like they were gods impervious to judgment or suffering. No compassion. No mercy. Pillars made of severed heads and skins stretched upon the walls. And yes, people were mostly skinned alive. And if people within the armed forced protested? It says their arms and legs were cut off.
The Lord’s words to them were strong in return.
“I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty.
“I will lift your skirts over your face.
I will show the nations your nakedness
and the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will pelt you with filth,
I will treat you with contempt
and make you a spectacle.
The imagery here is that he will pelt them with filth (excrement)? And lift up their skirts to expose themselves? This is hard to read until you know of their boasts and their bloodlines and how they were treacherous with people.
Their cruelty was famous (v. 19).
No one would mourn when God brought judgment against them. In fact, the world would celebrate.
Assyria thought it was secure. But just like the people they conquered thought they were secure, Assyria too wold fall. There is no nation so powerful that it cannot fall.
But when God said it would fall, it fell. It was so utterly defeated the empire would never rise again. The city that was 60 miles in circumference with walls a 100 feet high would fall. The blood would run like a river.
Around 613-617 BC it was destroyed by fight from the nations and the flooding by the Tigris river. Perhaps it was the flooding that preserved their history. In 1840 Nineveh was found outside of current day Mosul, Iraq and with the discovery were lots of clay tablets. It revealed the depths of their sorcery the boasting of their treachery.
There were some lessons for Nineveh.
- Don’t mess with God’s people.
- Your evil will be judged
- No nation is above God
Nations rise and nations fall. Only Israel is secure as a people and nation because they are in covenant with God.