JonahChapter 3

March 17, 2002

Assyrian Omens

• Invasion by an enemy• Total solar eclipse• Earthquake• Famine/epidemic

» Wiseman, TynB 30 [1979] 44

Invasion Sometime during the years 760–750, major Assyrian possessions

such as Commagene, Melitene, and even Carchemish were lost to

Urartu.

Stuart, Douglas, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 31: Hosea-Jonah, (Dallas, Texas: Word Books, Publisher) 1998.

Who was the king?

Asûsûur-daµn III (773–756)

Solar Eclipse

Just such an event occurred in the tenth year of the Assyrian King

Asûsûur-daµn III.

Stuart, Douglas, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 31: Hosea-Jonah, (Dallas, Texas: Word Books, Publisher) 1998.

Wiseman points out that solar eclipse omen texts mention not only the king, but animals, and the land

as a whole, in their specifications of those on whom the divine wrath

indicated in the eclipse might fall. This, of course, comports

remarkably with the decree issued by the king (3:7, 8).

Stuart, Douglas, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 31: Hosea-Jonah, (Dallas, Texas: Word Books, Publisher) 1998.

Earthquake

Assyrian kings required reports on earthquakes to be made to the royal court. …(There was) a record of an earthquake in the month of Siwan in

the reign of an Asûsûur-daµn.

Stuart, Douglas, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 31: Hosea-Jonah, (Dallas, Texas: Word Books, Publisher) 1998.

Famine/epidemicThe Assyrian eponym lists for the

years of Asûsûur-daµn III’s reign contain several references to famine either lasting from 765 to 759 b.c. or at least recurring during that seven

year period

Stuart, Douglas, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 31: Hosea-Jonah, (Dallas, Texas: Word Books, Publisher) 1998.

Who was the king?

Asûsûur-daµn III (773–756)

Jeroboam II (793-753)

2 Kings 14:25

He (King Jerobaom II) was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel… in accordance with the

word of the Lord… spoken through his servant Jonah, son of Amittai the

prophet from Gath Hepher.

Language of the decree

A royal Assyrian decree received in Gozan by the governor there, Mannu-kéµ-Asûsûur, who

began his governorship in 793 b.c. and who therefore may have been a

contemporary of III:

Language of the decree

Decree of the King. You and all the people, your land, your meadows

will mourn and pray for three days before the god Adad and repent. You will perform the purification

rites so that there may be rest.Stuart, Douglas, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 31: Hosea-

Jonah, (Dallas, Texas: Word Books, Publisher) 1998.

Jeremiah 18:7-8

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up, break down, and destroy it, and if that nation, about which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the harm I

intended to do it.