Trustworthy Prophecy

 About a hundred years before the fall of the Assyrian Empire, Isaiah declared that Jehovah God would call those proud conquerors to account for their insolence toward his people. "I shall make and accounting for the fruitage of the insolence of the heart of the king of Assyria and for the self-importance of his loftiness of eyes," Jehovah said: (Isaiah 10:12) Furthermore, God's prophet Nahum foretold that Nineveh would be plundered, its gates would be opened to its enemies, and its guards would flee. (Nahum2:8, 9; 3:7,13, 17, 19) The Bible prophet Zephaniah wrote that the city would become "a desolate waste." - Zephaniah 2:13-15.

Those prophecies of destruction were fulfilled in 632 B.C.E. That is when Nineveh fell to the combined forces of the Babylonians and the Medes, bringing the Assyrian Empire to an inglorious end. A Babylonian chronicle of that event states that the conquerors " carried off the vast booty of the city and the temple" and turned Nineveh "into a ruin heap."  Today the desolate waste that was once Nineveh is marked by mounds of ruins on the east bank of the Tigris River, opposite the city of Mosul, in Iraq. 

Assyria's destruction also contributed to the fulfillment of yet another Bible prophecy. Earlier, in 740 B.C.E., Assyria took the ten-tribe kingdom into exile. About the same time that Assyria did this, God's prophet Isaiah foretold that Jehovah would "break the Assyrian." tread him down," and bring Israel back to its homeland.  Isaiah wrote: "the remnant of his people who will remain over from Assyria . . ., he [God] will collect together." That is exactly what occurred about two hundred years later! - ISAIAH 11:11, 12; 14:25.

Next time: A Promise You Can Trust

From the jw.org publication