Shawn Zelig Aster, «Israelite Embassies to Assyria in the First Half of the Eighth Century», Vol. 97 (2016) 175-198
This article shows that the kingdom of Israel sent ambassadors on an annual basis to the Assyrian empire during much of the reign of Jeroboam II, and it explores the implications of these contacts for the interpretation of Isaiah 1–39 and Hosea. These diplomatic contacts are based on points Fales has raised regarding nimrud Wine List 4 (ND 6212), whose importance for biblical studies has hitherto not been recognized. The recipients of the wine rations in this list are to be identified as ambassadors of weaker kingdoms, among them Samaria, who visited Assyria to pay tribute.
178 SHAWn ZeLIG ASTeR
II. Diplomatic contacts and the transmission
of Assyrian imperial ideology
Such documentation would contribute to our understanding of
the political history of the region. Furthermore, documenting contact
between Israel and Assyria between 796 and 745 would contribute
greatly to understanding the intellectual background for Assyrian
relations with Israel between 745-720, and with Judah after 745. When
Tiglath-Pileser III began to threaten both Israel and Judah after 745,
were these states already familiar with Assyrian royal ideology, due to
Israel’s continuous contact with Assyria since 853? or was the threat
of Assyria a new one for Judah or for both Judah and Israel, one which
was not connected with the Assyria to which Joash and Jehu had long
ago submitted?
The extent to which Israel and Judah were familiar with Assyrian
royal ideology in the second half of the eighth century BCe is signi-
ficant for comparative biblical studies, which has taken interest in
examining how biblical writers have reacted to this ideology and its
expression 10. Scholars have identified sections of Isaiah 1–39 which
demonstrate knowledge of Assyrian imperial ideology and the specific
language in which it was communicated. These sections show that
specific motifs and expressions known to us from Assyrian royal in-
scriptions were known in Judah in the late eighth and very early sev-
enth centuries, and they raise the question of the channels through
which it was communicated. As Morrow demonstrates, diplomatic
contacts between emissaries of vassal states and Assyrian officials, in
the Assyrian palaces, were the most important channel for communi-
cating this ideology 11. But biblical scholars have devoted little atten-
tion to the time and manner in which this ideology was communicated
10
P. MACHInIST, “Assyria and its Image in the First Isaiah”, JAOS 103 (1983)
719-737 is the most comprehensive discussion of the issue; an earlier and more
specific discussion is C. CoHen, “neo-Assyrian elements in the First Speech of
the Biblical Rab-Shaqe”, Israel Oriental Studies 9 (1979) 32-48. Some of the
many subsequent studies are discussed in the conclusion.
11
W. MoRRoW, “Tribute from Judah and the Transmission of Assyrian Propa-
ganda”, “My Spirit at Rest in the North Country” (Zechariah 6.8). Collected Com-
munications to the XXth IoSoT Congress, Helsinki 2010 (eds. H.M. nIeMAnn –
M. AUGUSTIn) (Frankfurt a.M. 2011) 183-192, here 186. For earlier studies of the
various channels by which this material was transmitted to Judah, see MACHInIST,
“Assyria and Its Image”, and S.Z. ASTeR, “Transmission of neo-Assyrian Claims
of empire to Judah in the Late eighth Century B.C.e”, HUCA 78 (2007) 1-44.