The Assyrian intervention in the Levant initially contributed to the internal conflicts among the Palestinian kingdoms, but then became increasingly more forceful, moving from the north to the south. Already in 853 bc, Ahab of Israel participated in the alliance of Syrian states that successfully defeated Shalmaneser III’s army. This reaction may have been a sporadic event, a simple pause from internal conflicts in order to unite old rivals against a common danger. In reality, it was a symptomatic reaction to a threat whose impact would have soon deeply affected the northernmost states. For Palestine, the Assyrian danger only became a real issue around the eighth century bc, when the choice between paying tributes and seeing one’s territory devastated became a recurrent issue.
Overall, the Assyrian conquest developed in three stages. First, a local kingdom was forced to provide an annual tribute. Then, taking advantage of supposed rebellions, the Assyrians would impose a king chosen by them in place of the rebels. Finally, still after more rebellions or oppositions, the Assyrians would destroy the kingdom, turning it into a mere province. Within 25 years, from Tiglath-pileser III to Sargon II, all the areas surrounding the kingdom of Israel, namely, Megiddo, Dor and Gilead (734 bc), and Qarnaym and Hauran (733 bc) became Assyrian provinces. Then, it was the turn of the heart of Israel, namely, Samaria (722 bc), and Ashdod (711 bc).
Instead of coalescing against the invaders, the Palestinian states went for different political strategies. Some submitted to the Assyrians, while some others opposed them. The Palestinian states therefore tried to take advantage of the invaders in order to solve old disputes. In turn, they were used by the invaders as auxiliaries and fifth columns, possibly in the hope of participating in the division of the booty. In this phase (as well as during the Babylonian intervention), relations among local states and groups worsened. This is attested in numerous prophecies against foreign peoples, in which the destruction of the enemy was seen as a demonstration of their sins, while the enemy’s profit of one’s own ruin was lamented. These prophecies also saw the arrival of imperial invaders as a divine intervention to destroy and punish the Israelite people.
Even within each individual kingdom, there were considerable debates on the best strategy to implement. Some people wanted to resist the invaders, while others, at the risk of being considered pro-Assyrian or, later on, pro-Babylonian, suggested submitting to these powers. Considering the superiority of the Assyrian army over the Levantine fortifications, it has to be said, alas a posteriori, that submission (as in the case of Judah) at least allowed the maintenance of a certain degree of autonomy. Armed resistance (as in the case of Samaria) only led to a quicker defeat. Moreover, it was far easier to resist for the southernmost states (Judah, Edom and Gaza), which were further away from the Assyrian threat and supported by Egypt. Jerusalem, for instance, managed to overcome a difficult siege (701 bc), despite losing a portion of its territories.
The Assyrian conquest of the Southern Levant had a significant impact on the economy and demography of the area. Palestine had already experienced long periods of submission to foreign empires, Egypt in particular (throughout the Late Bronze Age), without dramatic consequences. This was due to the modest levels of damage and exploitation, and the maintenance of political independence on a local level. Now, however, the regular payments of large tributes significantly impoverished states that could count on very limited local resources. Nonetheless, the greatest damage to the economy of the area came from the destruction of fields, cultivations, agricultural villages, irrigation systems and terraces. Moreover, devastations and deportations caused a serious impoverishment of the local demography, its culture and knowledge.
The Assyrians mainly deported citizens, while farmers remained in their devastated lands. Alongside the depopulation of the Levant, the people in the Levant experienced a sense of overall discouragement and a phase of de-culturation. Cities were not dynastic seats of power anymore, with their ostentation and accumulation of wealth that stimulated local craftsmanship as well as trade. This caused a decline in the overall sense of cohesion and nationalism of the people. Now, cities hosted Assyrian governors, administrators, garrisons and cults. They thus became mere ‘terminals’ of a complex mechanism of centralisation of resources in aid of the development of the imperial capitals and the re-population of the Assyrian countryside.
The whole of Palestine therefore experienced the same process, although the transformation ofJudah (as well as Gaza, Moab and Edom) into an Assyrian province happened much later, due to its position and the support of the Egyptians. Its temporary submission to the Assyrians was at times substituted by a braver reaction. The latter was inspired by the international scene (that is, Egyptian support and the Assyrian difficulties in Babylonia) and was aimed at reacquiring an independence that began to be seen in religious terms (as cultic reforms). In other words, the Jewish people and their political representatives began to believe that a more rigorous faith in Yahweh would have led to a better political situation. Therefore, dangers began to be seen by some as a consequence of religious mishaps.
A case in point is the reign of Hezekiah (715—687 bc), who re-organised the state and its cults, and fortified and enlarged Jerusalem. He resisted the siege of Sennacherib (701 bc), avoiding the total destruction of the city, but lost a large portion of his kingdom. Another significant episode took place during the reign ofJosiah (640—609 bc), who took advantage ofthe fall ofthe Assyrian empire to restore his state. This was just a short-lived phase in which the Syro-Levantine territories were relatively free, right before the Babylonians (coming from the north) and the Egyptians (from the south) would contend control over the Levant. Josiah tried to re-conquer the Israelite territories and dreamed of restoring the Davidic kingdom. Through him, the identification of the state with the national god reached its highest levels, with a single god (Yahweh) dwelling in a single temple (that ofJerusalem), and with a drastic elimination of different or foreign cults. However, this political autonomy did not last long, and Josiah died in a battle against the Egyptians. Nonetheless, the religious reforms, which Josiah wanted to support following the discovery in the temple of the ancient divine laws, laid the groundwork for the developments that would take place in the exilic age.
A few years later, the Babylonians achieved what the Assyrians had failed to achieve. Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, making it one of his vassals (597 bc), and then re-conquered it, putting a definite end to its independence (586 bc). Solomon’s temple was destroyed, the city walls dismantled, and the local elite was deported to Babylonia. Gaza, Ammon and Moab had a similar fate. The Babylonian deportations were of a smaller scale compared to the Assyrian ones. In 701 bc, the latter seem to have moved ca. 27,290 people from Samaria and 200,150 from Judaea. On the contrary, the Babylonians deported from Jerusalem 3000 people in 597 bc, and 1500 in 586 bc. However, unlike the Assyrians, the Babylonians did not repopulate the devastated countryside with people deported to the Levant from elsewhere, but brought all the deportees to Babylonia. Therefore, while the northern countryside (Israel and the Aramean states) was re-colonised by a mixture of surviving farmers and new immigrants, the south (Judah) remained empty, but more ethnically compact.
Moreover, while the deportees in Assyria eventually integrated with the local population, the exiles in Babylonia kept their cohesion and individuality. Despite being exiled as well, their king was still considered their ruler. Apart from the different durations of the exiles, differences in the ways the deportees were employed and in the process of de-culturation also had a considerable impact. The Assyrian system was tremendously effective in matching various ethnical groups and cultures, but was also able to colonise new areas and re-organise entire systems of production. The Babylonian system was more moderate and permissive, but also less interested in the conditions of the conquered areas. From the Assyrian conquest in the second half of the eighth century bc to the Babylonian one in the mid-sixth century bc, the Palestinian settlements and their population abruptly declined, reaching the lowest levels in the history of the Ancient Near East.
This demographic and power vacuum led to the movement of peoples. The Edomites moved from their ancient seat, east of Arabah, to the southern part of the former kingdom ofJudah (in the Hebron and Beersheba). The latter would become the Idumaea of the classical period. The entire area east of the Jordan became increasingly affected by the arrival of Arab-speaking populations, former tribes involved in the farming of camels. These groups were now on their way to sedentarisation and occupied those urban and commercial centres abandoned by previous inhabitants. Especially in the north, the Assyrian deportations allowed the penetration of Aramaic-speaking groups from Central and northern Syria, as well as Upper Mesopotamia and Chaldea.
The deportees who came to the Levant also imported their deities and customs. These were initially extraneous, but eventually managed to integrate within the local culture. Therefore, the northern Levant was characterised by a culturally mixed population of local farmers and foreign deportees, but without a ruling elite (with the exception of the Assyrians governing the provinces). This population spoke Aramaic and their religion was a syncretism of a variety of cults that converged in the area. On the contrary, the nucleuses of learned Jewish deportees, former members of the Levantine palace or temple elite, tried to maintain the purity of their language, customs and religion throughout their Babylonian exile. In this way, the Jewish exiles were trying to avoid any assimilation with the surrounding and prevailing population, without realising to what extent this rigour and cultural isolation were in fact innovative.
These nuclei of exiles considered themselves, and not the farmers who stayed in the Levant, to be the authentic survivors of this national disaster. They continued to see Palestine, and in particular Jerusalem, as their homeland, imbuing it with at times quite unrealistic symbolic values. Once these deportees returned from their exile at the beginning of the Persian period, they would try to regain their land, without realising that they had created something entirely new and innovative. Just as the empires were reducing Palestine into a culturally uniform territory, depriving it of its former cultural centres of national identity, the initial conditions for the rise of invisible (but not less drastic) frontiers were starting to appear on a social and ethnical level. These invisible frontiers were centred on theological formulations, convictions and personal behaviour.
World History
