Place · Region
Assyria
Also known as Asshur, Nimrod
Named in 116 verses across 14 books, first in Isaiah 7:17.
In these stories
In the Bible
All 35 verses in Isaiah, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Isaiah
- Isaiah 7:17
The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since the day Ephraim separated from Judah—He will bring the king of Assyria.”
- Isaiah 7:18
On that day the LORD will whistle to the flies at the farthest streams of the Nile and to the bees in the land of Assyria.
- Isaiah 7:20
On that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the Euphrates —the king of Assyria—to shave your head and the hair of your legs, and to remove your beard as well.
- Isaiah 8:4
For before the boy knows how to cry ‘Father’ or ‘Mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”
- Isaiah 8:7
the Lord will surely bring against them the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates — the king of Assyria and all his pomp. It will overflow its channels and overrun its banks.
- Isaiah 10:5
Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.
- Isaiah 10:12
So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.
- Isaiah 11:11
On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
- Isaiah 11:16
There will be a highway for the remnant of His people who remain from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.
- Isaiah 19:23
In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.
- Isaiah 19:24
In that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing upon the earth.
- Isaiah 19:25
The LORD of Hosts will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”
- Isaiah 20:1
Before the year that the chief commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it,
- Isaiah 20:4
so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old alike, naked and barefoot, with bared buttocks—to Egypt’s shame.
- Isaiah 20:6
And on that day the dwellers of this coastland will say, ‘See what has happened to our source of hope, those to whom we fled for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’”
- Isaiah 23:13
Look at the land of the Chaldeans — a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin.
- Isaiah 27:13
And in that day a great ram’s horn will sound, and those who were perishing in Assyria will come forth with those who were exiles in Egypt. And they will worship the LORD on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
- Isaiah 36:1
In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.
- Isaiah 36:2
And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.
- Isaiah 36:4
The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is the basis of this confidence of yours?
- Isaiah 36:8
Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!
- Isaiah 36:13
Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out loudly in Hebrew: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!
- Isaiah 36:15
Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’
- Isaiah 36:16
Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and drink water from his own cistern,
- Isaiah 36:18
Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?
- Isaiah 37:4
Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”
- Isaiah 37:6
who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the LORD says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.
- Isaiah 37:8
When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.
- Isaiah 37:10
“Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.
- Isaiah 37:11
Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared?
- Isaiah 37:18
Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands.
- Isaiah 37:21
Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria,
- Isaiah 37:33
So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it.
- Isaiah 37:37
So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.
- Isaiah 38:6
And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.
Events here
Events the dataset sets at Assyria. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. 1822 BCNimrod's kingdom begins
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
The name derived from the city Asshur on the Tigris, the original capital of the country, was originally a colony from Babylonia, and was ruled by viceroys from that kingdom. It was a mountainous region lying to the north of Babylonia, extending along the Tigris as far as to the high mountain range of Armenia, the Gordiaean or Carduchian mountains. It was founded in B.C. 1700 under Bel-kap-kapu, and became an independent and a conquering power, and shook off the yoke of its Babylonian masters. It subdued the whole of Northern Asia. The Assyrians were Semites (Gen. 10:22), but in process of time non-Semite tribes mingled with the inhabitants. They were a military people, the “Romans of the East.”
Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria little is positively known. In B.C. 1120 Tiglath-pileser I., the greatest of the Assyrian kings, “crossed the Euphrates, defeated the kings of the Hittites, captured the city of Carchemish, and advanced as far as the shores of the Mediterranean.” He may be regarded as the founder of the first Assyrian empire. After this the Assyrians gradually extended their power, subjugating the states of Northern Syria. In the reign of Ahab, king of Israel, Shalmaneser II. marched an army against the Syrian states, whose allied army he encountered and vanquished at Karkar. This led to Ahab’s casting off the yoke of Damascus and allying himself with Judah. Some years after this the Assyrian king marched an army against Hazael, king of Damascus. He besieged and took that city. He also brought under tribute Jehu, and the cities of Tyre and Sidon.
About a hundred years after this (B.C. 745) the crown was seized by a military adventurer called Pul, who assumed the name of Tiglath-pileser III. He directed his armies into Syria, which had by this time regained its independence, and took (B.C. 740) Arpad, near Aleppo, after a siege of three years, and reduced Hamath. Azariah (Uzziah) was an ally of the king of Hamath, and thus was compelled by Tiglath-pileser to do him homage and pay a yearly tribute.
In B.C. 738, in the reign of Menahem, king of Israel, Pul invaded Israel, and imposed on it a heavy tribute (2 Kings 15:19). Ahaz, the king of Judah, when engaged in a war against Israel and Syria, appealed for help to this Assyrian king by means of a present of gold and silver (2 Kings 16:8); who accordingly “marched against Damascus, defeated and put Rezin to death, and besieged the city itself.” Leaving a portion of his army to continue the siege, “he advanced through the province east of Jordan, spreading fire and sword,” and became master of Philistia, and took Samaria and Damascus. He died B.C. 727, and was succeeded by Shalmanezer IV., who ruled till B.C. 722. He also invaded Syria (2 Kings 17:5), but was deposed in favour of Sargon (q.v.) the Tartan, or commander-in-chief of the army, who took Samaria (q.v.) after a siege of three years, and so put an end to the kingdom of Israel, carrying the people away into captivity, B.C. 722 (2 Kings 17:1-6, 24; 18:7, 9). He also overran the land of Judah, and took the city of Jerusalem (Isa. 10:6, 12, 22, 24, 34). Mention is next made of Sennacherib (B.C. 705), the son and successor of Sargon (2 Kings 18:13; 19:37; Isa. 7:17, 18); and then of Esar-haddon, his son and successor, who took Manasseh, king of Judah, captive, and kept him for some time a prisoner at Babylon, which he alone of all the Assyrian kings made the seat of his government (2 Kings 19:37; Isa. 37:38).
Assur-bani-pal, the son of Esarhaddon, became king, and in Ezra 4:10 is referred to as Asnapper. From an early period Assyria had entered on a conquering career, and having absorbed Babylon, the kingdoms of Hamath, Damascus, and Samaria, it conquered Phoenicia, and made Judea feudatory, and subjected Philistia and Idumea. At length, however, its power declined. In B.C. 727 the Babylonians threw off the rule of the Assyrians, under the leadership of the powerful Chaldean prince Merodach-baladan (2 Kings 20:12), who, after twelve years, was subdued by Sargon, who now reunited the kingdom, and ruled over a vast empire. But on his death the smouldering flames of rebellion again burst forth, and the Babylonians and Medes successfully asserted their independence (B.C. 625), and Assyria fell according to the prophecies of Isaiah (10:5-19), Nahum (3:19), and Zephaniah (3:13), and the many separate kingdoms of which it was composed ceased to recognize the “great king” (2 Kings 18:19; Isa. 36:4). Ezekiel (31) attests (about B.C. 586) how completely Assyria was overthrown. It ceases to be a nation.