Глава 23

1–3. Reading the found book of the law before the people and concluding a covenant between the king and the people with God. 4–14. The destruction of objects of pagan cults, as well as the “high places of Jehovah” in the temple, Jerusalem, its environs and in other cities of the Kingdom of Judah. 15–20. Destruction of the Bethel altar and the remnants of paganism within the former kingdom of Israel. 21–25. Celebrating the Passover according to the book of the law and a general note about Josiah's unconditional faithfulness to the law. 26–30. The inevitability of God's wrath against the kingdom of Judah and the death of Josiah. 31–37. Jehoahaz and Joachim are the 17th and 18th kings of Judah. 2 Kings 23:1. And the king sent, and they gathered to him all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2 Kings 23:2. And the king went to the house of the Lord, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, from the least of them to the greatest, and read aloud to them all the words of the book of the covenant, which was found in the house of the Lord. 2 Kings 23:3. Then the king stood on an elevated place and made a covenant before the Lord - to follow the Lord and keep His commandments and His revelations and His statutes with all his heart and with all his soul, in order to fulfill the words of this covenant written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant. The king’s first task upon returning the deputation from Huldah was to gather to the church, if possible, all classes of the people (“prophets” in verse 2 – perhaps Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Baruch, but more likely, in the general sense: “teachers of the people”; according to 2 Chronicles 34:30 - Levites) to listen to all those who drew the king’s attention to the passages of the found “book of the covenant.” Then, imitating the former theocratic leaders of the people of God, such as: Joshua (Joshua 24:25), the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 6:3-4) and his pious great-grandfather Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29:10), Josiah solemnly concluded, or rather renewed, the theocratic covenant of the Jewish people with God, and himself personally, standing on a special the royal place in the church (gaammud, cf. 2 Kings 12:14, see Prof. Gulyaev, p. 374), pronounced all the essential requirements and obligations of the covenant, and the people confirmed them by an act of consent and acceptance (cf. 2 Chron. 34:31–32). 2 Kings 23:4. And the king of Hilkiah commanded the high priest and the second priests and those standing guard at the threshold to take out of the church of the Lord all the things made for Baal and for Ashtoreth and for all the host of heaven, and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the Kidron Valley, and ordered their ashes to be taken to Bethel. Just as once under Joash, after the conclusion of the covenant, the eradication of the pagan cult immediately followed (2 Kings 11:17-18), so the same thing has happened now: according to Jesus Sirach (Sirach 49:3), Josiah “successfully acted in converting the people and destroyed the abominations of lawlessness,” although, of course, the reform was carried out by violent and purely external measures, without methods of persuasion and spiritual re-education of the masses, could not be deep or strong. The cleansing begins from the church and is entrusted to Hilkiah - the high priest ([gak] kohen - [gag] fortune-telling in 2 Kings 25:18; Jer. 52:24; high priest in Hebrew kohen - [ha] rosh - “chief priest"), “second priests” ( kohanim - [gam] mishne, cf. 2 Kings 25:18), i.e. subordinate to the high priest and “standing on guard at the threshold” (cf. 2 Kings 22:4; 1 Chronicles 23:5) - from the Levites. All the utensils dedicated to Baal, all the power of heaven (see 2 Kings 21:3 and comments) and Asherah-Astarte (cf. 1 Kings 14:23,15:13) were taken out of the church and, according to the order (Deut. 7:25,12:3), all this was burned as unclean outside Jerusalem in the valley (Heb. shadmot - "fields", LXX-t and slav. left without translation: ἐν σαδημωθ, “in sadimoth”) Kidron, where the objects of idolatry were destroyed under Asa (1 Kings 15:13) and Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29:16). But the ashes of the burnt idols should not have remained in the Kidron Valley, close to Jerusalem: it was taken to Bethel - to express decisive contempt and disgust for this center of the illegal cult of calves (1 Kings 12: 29-33), which served as the beginning and source of all subsequent falls of Israel into paganism. 2 Kings 23:5. And he set aside the priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem, and who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven; 2 Kings 23:6. and he carried Ashtoreth out of the house of the Lord beyond Jerusalem to the brook Kidron, and burned her by the brook Kidron, and ground her to dust, and threw her ashes into the public cemetery; 2 Kings 23:7. and he destroyed the houses of fornication that were at the church of the Lord, where the women wove garments for Ashtoreth; Official personnel of illegal cults are eliminated. The king “set aside” (Heb. gishbit, “removed” - not “burned”, as in the LXX and Slavic: κατέκυασε, “burned”; in the Alexandrian Codex: κατέπαυσε, Vulgata not exactly: delevit) priests (Heb. kemarim; in the LXX: Χωμοριμ; codes 19, 82, 93, 108 in Golmes: τοὺς ιερεῖς; Vulg.: amspices, slav.: “homarims” (priests, sorcerers)) - proteges of the kings of Judah and Israel, (cf. Ps.10:5; Zeph.1:4), i.e. non-Levitical priests, such as, for example, the priests of the cult of the calves (1 Kings 12:31,32; 2 Chronicles 11:15) and who differ from the priests of idols, or the priests of Baal, the sun, moon, constellations and all the host of heaven (2 Kings 23:5), on the other hand, from the priests of the high places, who, although they served on the high places, were from the family of Levi ( 2 Kings 23:8 ) (see Prof. Brodovitch, “The Book of Hosea,” p. 350). Constellations (Heb. mazzalot; μαζουρώθ; Slav.: “planets”, Blessed Theodoret (question 54): “stars”) according to the interpretation of the rabbis (Levy, Neuhebraisches und chaldaisches Worterbuch Bd. III, s. 65), “mazzalot”, like the Assyrian. "manzaltu" means the 12 signs of the Zodiac; Vulgata: duodecim signa. Astarte (verse 6; Hebrew Asherah, in the LXX: ἄλσος, slav.: “idol”), means here (in verse 6) the actual idol, and not the goddess herself (v. 4). The ashes of the burnt statue of this goddess are also thrown in the Kidron Valley, but precisely “in the cemetery of the people” (keber-bene-haam, cf. Jer. 26:23), the most open to any trampling (the tombs of the rich were arranged separately, in gardens or caves, and these tombs were not as accessible to wild animals as common people, cf. Prof. Gulyaeva, p. 375, like the Jewish cemetery still preserved in the valley of the Kidron or Jehoshaphat (from the side of the Mount of Olives). The dens and belongings of the cult of the “kedeshim” - the hieroduls, male (Deut. 23:18) and female (cf. 1 Kings 14:24 and comments), among the LXX-ti καδησίμ, famous “Kadishim”, were destroyed. Vulgata: ef feminatorum; according to Blessed Theodoret, question 55), “the writer here called the demons saints (because the word “kadiz” is translated “holy”). Verse 7 says that the servants of Ashtoreth performed weaving and embroidery in her honor (to erect tents for her servants) in the premises of the church itself; The disgusting cult of the goddess was also performed here. 2 Kings 23:8. and he brought out all the priests from the cities of Judah, and desecrated the high places where the priests burned incense, from Geva to Beersheba, and destroyed the high places in front of the gates, the one at the entrance to the gate of Jesus the mayor, and the one on the left side of the city gate. 2 Kings 23:9. However, the priests of the high places did not offer sacrifices on the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread with their brothers. Following the example of his pious great-grandfather - Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4), "Josiah abolishes the anciently revered "high places" of the true God, tolerated by many and pious kings - throughout the entire kingdom of Judah "from Geva (a city probably identical with Geva, fortified by Asa from the stones of Rama (1 Kings 15:22), in Benjamin knee, cf. Onomast, 293; Orthodox Palestine Collection issue 37, p. 204) to Bathsheba" (for its position, see comments to (1 Kings 19:3)), including some famous heights in Jerusalem - at the house of the mayor and at the city gate (maybe mentioned in (Neh. 2:13) "Gate of the Valley" on the western (main entrance) side of Jerusalem, approximately on the site of the current Jaffa Gate). The fate of the priests of these high places - the priests who came from the tribe of Levi - was different from that of the priests of idolatry (verse 5): Josiah forced these Levitical priests to leave the places of their former ministry and move to Jerusalem, but here at the church there was already a certain staff of priests, and for the new ones there could be neither priestly occupations nor priestly contents, and thus, naturally, they were reduced to the position of Levites (v. 9; cf. Eze. 44:10–14): like the latter, they could not independently make sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple, but they were given unleavened bread and, probably, other offerings to the altar on the same basis as members of the priestly class who were excluded from actual priestly service due to certain physical disabilities (Lev. 21:21–23). 2 Kings 23:10. And he desecrated Tophet, which is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, so that no one would cause his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech; 2 Kings 23:11. and he abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had set up for the sun before the entrance to the house of the Lord near the chambers of Nephan-Melech the eunuch, who was in Farurim, and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. “In the valley of the sons of Hinnom”, LXX: λάραγξ ᾿Εννόμ, Vulgata: convailis filii Ennom, glorified: “wild of the sons of Hinnomlich” (cf. Joshua 15:8) - a valley that began in the west of Jerusalem, near the Jaffa Gate and goes first to the south and then to the east until the junction with the valley of the Cedars, now Wadi-er-Rababi (Onomast. 313). From the bloody and fiery sacrifices to Molech that took place here under Ahaz (2 Kings 16:3) and Manasseh (2 Kings 21:6) (cf. Jer. 7:31,19:2), the Valley of Hinnom subsequently became an image of eternal torment under the name γεὲννα τοῦ πυρός, "Gehenna of fire." Tophet, in the LXX: Ταφέθ, Vulg.: Topheth, slav.: “Tafef” is a special name for the place of those sacrifices to Molech in the valley of Hinnom (Onomast 508). Previous interpreters derived the word “Tophet” from Hebrew. tof - “tympanum” (a musical instrument like a tambourine), referring to that characteristic, according to rabbinical legends, feature of the idolatry of Moloch, that the cries of the burning victims were drowned out by the priests playing on the tympanum (Filaret, p. 271; the name Tophet, according to the usual explanation, means “tympanum place”). In modern times, Tophet is derived either from the Assyrian-Persian root with the meaning “to bury” (related to the Greek θάπτειν), in particular, through the burning of corpses, or to the Hebrew verb “tuff” - meaning “to spit”, so that Tophet is an object of disgust (Gesenii, Thesaur. p. 1497), or in the meaning: “to burn” (furst), therefore Tophet is a place of burning. The latter is supported by (Isa. 30:31), where “Tifta” means the place of burning (cf. Prof. Gulyaev, p. 376). Horses, in their running as if reflecting the apparent movement of the sun, were considered by many pagan peoples to be sacred to the sun. In many places there were sculptured horses at the churches, but at the Temple of Jerusalem (v. 11) during the time of the pagan kings, live horses were also kept, which is why Josiah only “abolished” them, while he burned the chariots of the sun (cf. Prof. Gulyaev, p. 376). The eunuch Nephan-Melech was probably the overseer of those sacred horses. Farurim (Heb. Parvarim) rabbis and some previous interpreters (see Prof. Gulyaeva, p. 377) considered the name of a city suburb, but in view of the obvious identity of this name with “parbar” (1 Chronicles 26:16) - the name of the porch on the western wall of the church - one should rather see in “farurim” some extensions-rooms for officials (Jer.41:12 ) from the rear, western side of Solomon's Temple. 2 Kings 23:12. And the altars on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, the king tore down, and cast down from there, and cast their ashes into the brook Kidron. 2 Kings 23:13. And the high places that were before Jerusalem, to the right of the Mount of Olives, which Solomon king of Israel built, the king defiled Ashtoreth, the abomination of Sidon, and Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and Milcom, the abomination of Ammon; 2 Kings 23:14. and he broke the statues, and cut down the oak groves, and filled their place with human bones. Verses 12–14 continue the talk (verses 4, 6) about the cleansing of the Jerusalem Temple, as well as the Mount of Olives, from the abominations of idolatry. The altars on the roof of Ahaz's upper room are on the roof not of the royal palace, but of the church, in the upper tier of its outbuildings (cf. Jer. 35:4); the altars of these upper rooms were dedicated to the heavenly host (Jer.19:13; Zeph.1:5). Josiah also destroyed the ancient heights, erected by Solomon on the Mount of Olives or Mount of Olives (1 Kings 11:7), named here (cf. 13) Heb. mashkhit (a word representing a consonance with miskha - “oil plant”) - “a destructive mountain”, probably in view of the idolatrous churches erected here; Vulg. mons Offensionis; in LXX without translation: Μοσθάθ, glory. "Mosfaf." The name “pernicious,” mons offensionis, was subsequently adopted by the southern spur of the Mount of Olives itself (the northern one is known under the name virigalilaei); the current name of the Mount of Olives is Jebel Ettur (Onomast. 716). The idolatrous high places of Solomon and others, destroyed by Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 31:1), could have been restored by Manasseh and Amun. Josiah defiles them with dead remains: (verse 14, cf. 6, 8, 20). 2 Kings 23:15. Likewise, the altar that is in Bethel, the high place built by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, he also destroyed that altar and the high place, and he burned the high place, ground it to dust, and burned the oak grove. 2 Kings 23:16. And Josiah looked and saw the graves that were there on the mountain, and he sent and took the bones from the graves, and burned them on the altar, and desecrated it, according to the word of the Lord, which the man of God proclaimed, who foretold these events, [when Jeroboam, during the feast, stood before the altar. Then, turning, he saw the grave of the man of God who had predicted these events,] 2 Kings 23:17. and Josiah said, What is this monument which I see? And the inhabitants of the city said to him, “This is the grave of the man of God, who came from Judea and proclaimed what you are doing on the altar of Bethel.” 2 Kings 23:18. And he said: Leave him alone, let no one touch his bones. And they preserved his bones and the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria. 2 Kings 23:19. Also, all the churches of the high places in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had built, angering the Lord, Josiah destroyed and did to them the same thing as he did at Bethel; 2 Kings 23:20. and he killed all the priests of the high places who were there on the altars, and burned human bones on them, and returned to Jerusalem. Having completed the cleansing of the kingdom of Judah from all remnants of illegal cult and pure idolatry, Josiah carries out a similar cleansing within the former Israeli cult, first of all and mainly in the center of the cult of the calves - in Bethel (cf. 1 Kings 12:29 ff), and the prediction of the famous Jewish prophet about the fate of the Bethel cult and his priests (1 Kings 13:1ff.), a prediction uttered more than three centuries ago. The words of verse 16, placed in parentheses in the Russian translation, are the later gloss of LXX; the execution of the priests of Bethel (according to the law: Deut. 13: 5, 17: 2–5), like all the reform activities of Josiah within the former kingdom of Israel, suggests that the power of Assyria over this country at this time almost did not exist at all, and this gave the opportunity to the kings of Judah ( Hezekiah: 2 Chron. 30: 1 and Josiah: 2 Chron. 34: 6) to act on Israel territory, although inhabited, along with the Israelites, and many alien tribes (2 Kings 17:24 ff.), as part of their state. According to the Talmud, the prophet Jeremiah contributed to the return to God of many of the population of the ten-tribe kingdom (Megilla, 146). 2 Kings 23:21. And the king commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.” 2 Kings 23:22. because such a passover was not kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, and in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah; 2 Kings 23:23. and in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem. Having carried out with such merciless severity all the prohibitions and punishments of the book of the law, Josiah just as strictly demanded the most precise celebration of the main holiday specified in the law, the Feast of Passover (cf. 2 Chron. 35: 1-18), and the Ark of the Covenant was first put in its original place ( 2 Chr. 35: 3), perhaps taken from the Holy of Holies to one of the buildings at the church during the persecution of religion Jehovah on the part of Manasseh or Amon. According to (2 Chronicles 35:1), the Passover was celebrated on the 14th of Nissan. 2 Kings 23:24. And Josiah destroyed the callers of the dead, and the magicians, and the teraphim, and idols, and all the abominations that appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, in order to fulfill the words of the law, which were written in the book, which Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. 2 Kings 23:25. There was no king like him before him, who would turn to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, according to all the law of Moses; and after him there arose no one like him. A summary of the entire narrative of Josiah's reform, indicating its full compliance with the requirements of the Law of Moses. About callers of the dead and wizards, see the book by A. Glagolev, “Old Testament Biblical Teaching about Angels,” pp. 600–610. About teraphim - Interpretation. Bible, vol. I, p. 180 (cf. Prof. Gulyaev, p. 378). Under idols - Heb. Gillulim (from the verb galal - “to spin”), perhaps, refers to pebbles of various shapes, which from ancient times, before they began to make artificial images of various imaginary gods, were symbols of deity among peoples at a low level of development, as is now found among the wild inhabitants of the Pacific Islands (Prof. Gulyaev, p. 379). 2 Kings 23:26. However, the Lord did not put aside the great fury of His anger, with which His anger flared up against Judah for all the insults with which Manasseh angered Him. 2 Kings 23:27. And the Lord said: I will also cast away Judah from before Me, just as I cast away Israel, and I will cast away this city Jerusalem, which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, “My name will be there.” “The appeal here to God was not so much internal and permanent as external and temporary, why He did not leave His wrath on them” (Metropolitan Philaret): God’s judgment was close on Judea, which had already befallen the kingdom of Israel over a hundred years earlier (2 Kings 17), - in accordance with the repeated foreshadowings of the prophets of God (for example, chapters 1–10; Zeph. 1:2–6, 3:1–4), repeating the ancient threats of the law (Lev.26; Deut.28 and other places) to the people of God. 2 Kings 23:28. The rest of Josiah and all that he did was written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 2 Kings 23:29. In his days Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went against the king of Assyria on the Euphrates River. And King Josiah came out to meet him, and he killed him in Megiddon when he saw him. 2 Kings 23:30. And his servants carried him dead from Megiddon, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and anointed him, and made him king in the stead of his father. What was said here is repeated in greater detail and more fully in (2 Chronicles 35:20–25). Necho (Heb. Necho, in LXX and I. Flavius: Νεκαώ), according to Herodotus (II, 158), who calls him Νεχώς (according to Egyptian monuments - “Neku”), son of Psammetichus I, 6th king of the XXVIth Sai dynasty in Egypt (reigned 609–594 gg.), famous for the construction of a large fleet in both the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The Assyrian monarchy was then on the eve of the fall of 21 (in 606, Nabopalassal of the Chaldeans and Cyaxares of the Medes, with their combined forces, destroyed Nineveh and put an end to the existence of Assyria), and Necho probably wanted to take advantage of the weakness of the previously formidable neighboring monarchy and annex some part of Assyria, for example, Syria, to the possessions of Egypt, which is why he undertakes a campaign beyond the Euphrates, to the city of Carchemish ( 2 Chronicles 35:20), in the LXX: χερμείς, in I. Flavius: καρχαμησά, Vulg.: Charcamis, on wedge-shaped inscriptions: Gargamis - at the confluence of Havoras with the Euphrates, now Kirkesya Ierable or Jirba (Onomast. 954); here Necho was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer.46:2). When Necho arrived in the fleet to the shores of Palestine and landed at the seaside city of Acre (according to Herodotus II, 16) - Ptolemais (Onomast 64). Josiah, either as a vassal of the Assyrian king, or because of fears for the integrity of his possessions, considered it necessary, despite the reassuring explanations of Necho (2 Chronicles 35:21), to go out with an army to meet him and fight, and in the battle of Megiddo (cf. 3 Kings 4:12 and commentary; in Herodotus Μάγδωλος), on the field or the Gadadrimmon tract (Zechariah 12:11), Egyptian arrows mortally wounded Josiah, and he died in Jerusalem, mourned by all Judea and Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah mourned the piety of his king in his elegy, as well as other singers in lamentable songs - kinot (2 Chronicles 35:24-25). This cry expressed that the days of Judah’s political existence were now numbered: after the death of Josiah, the kingdom of Judah existed for another two decades, but it was a miserable existence as a tributary of Babylon. For some reason, the people anointed Josiah’s successor not his eldest son (cf. verse 36), but the younger one, Joahaz or, according to (Jer. 22:11 ff.) - Shallum (cf. 1 Chron. 3:31), perhaps considering him more worthy, but he did not in the least live up to these hopes ( Jer. 22:11 ff.). 2 Kings 23:31. Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for three months; His mother's name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 2 Kings 23:32. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord in everything, just as his fathers had done. 2 Kings 23:33. And Pharaoh Necho detained him in Riblah, in the land of Hamath, so that he would not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed a penalty on the land of one hundred talents of silver and one hundred talents of gold. 2 Kings 23:34. And Pharaoh made Necho Eliakim the son of Josiah king in place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim; He took Joahaz and took him to Egypt, where he died. 2 Kings 23:35. And Joachim gave silver and gold to Pharaoh; he made an assessment of the land to give silver at the command of Pharaoh; From each of the people of the earth, according to his assessment, he exacted silver and gold in order to give to Pharaoh Necho. About Livna, see note. to (2 Kings 19:8). Ribla (in the LXX: Βῆλα, ᾿Ρεβάαμι, Vulg.: Rebla, slav.: “Revlaam”, “Vila” - Onomasticon, 274) is a city on the north-eastern border of the Promised Land (Num. 34:11), on the Orontes, now Riblah, between Hams (Emesa) and Baalbek. Here Necho imprisons Jehoahaz, who was deprived of his kingdom (after a 3-month reign), and here after Nebuchadnezzar blinded Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:6), then put to death the nobles of Judah (2 Kings 25:21). Apparently, Riblah was the main residence of Necho, and after Nebuchadnezzar. Instead of Joahaz, Necho makes Josiah's eldest son Eliakim king of Judah, changing his name to Joachim as a sign (cf. Gen. 41:45; Dan. 1:7) of his vassal dependence on himself (as Nebuchadnezzar later did in relation to Matthaniah-Zedekiah, 2 Kings 24:17). The tribute imposed by the Egyptian pharaoh on Judea was distributed (as once in the kingdom of Israel under Menaim, 2 Kings 15:19) to the owners of land, even the poor (Heb. am haaretz). 2 Kings 23:36. Joachim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years; His mother's name was Zebudda, daughter of Pedaiah, from Ruma. Ruma (in the LXX: ῾Αρημὰ, Vulg.: Ruma), probably identical with Aruma, near Shechem (Judges 9:41; Josephus, Jude War 3:7, 21), now Khirbet Ruma south of the plain of Asochis (Onomast. 793). Joachim reigned for 11 years, from 609 to 593. (v. 36; 2 Chron. 35:5). His wicked reign, full of betrayal of the true religion and abundant in all kinds of untruths (Jer. 7:9 ff; Jer. 17: 2, 19: 4 ff; Jer. 22: 13–17; Ezek. 8: 9–17; Hab. 2: 9–14), was a true disaster for Judea, fatally leading him to destruction. 2 Kings 23:37. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord in everything, just as his fathers had done. Josephus considers this fall of Assyria already at this time an accomplished fact; Necho moved to the Euphrates with the intention of “entering into war with the Medes and Babylonians, who destroyed the Assyrian kingdom” (Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews” Book 10, chapter 5, paragraph 1), compare Bishop Plato, “The Ancient East in the Light Divine revelation", p. 274–275 You might be interested in: