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Updated: May 7, 2025
The oracle deals with the Gimirrites, the same people in regard to whom Esarhaddon so often consults the sun-god. It is marked by the more definite character of its announcements when compared with others. The text is in the form of a communication made to the king, and, like other official documents, it begins with a salutation. The gods give Esarhaddon greeting.
His last years were embittered by the fierce rivalry of his sons. One of these he nominated his successor, Esarhaddon, son of a Babylonian wife. During his absence from Nineveh, on the 20th day of Teleth, 681, his father, Sennacherib, when praying before the image of his god, was assassinated by two other sons, Sharezer and Adrammelech.
Thus Esarhaddon, before appointing a person to a responsible position, took the precaution of ascertaining from some deity whether the appointment was a wise one. The name of the individual being written down, the priest asks the deity in a general way: Esarhaddon may have had a special reason for using precautions against his officials, and even his sons.
Probably an epidemic pestilence overtook his army when not far across the frontier, and he returned to Assyria only to be murdered. He bequeathed the venture to the son who, after defeating his parricide brothers, secured his throne and reigned eleven years under a name which it has been agreed to write Esarhaddon.
Several attempts are made to reorganize the cult, but it was left for Nabubaliddin in the tenth century to restore E-Babbara to its former prestige. Esarhaddon and Ashurbanabal, who pay homage to the old Bel at Nippur, also devote themselves to Shamash at Sippar. They restore such portions of it as had suffered from the lapse of time and from other causes.
He had formed an alliance with a certain Sanduarri, king of Kundi and Sizu, a prince of the Lebanon, and had set up as independent monarch, probably during the time of the civil way which was waged between Esarhaddon and two of his brothers who disputed his succession after they had murdered his father. Both of them tried to escape him.
Sennacherib calls him the great mountain or rock, a phrase that recalls a Biblical metaphor applied to the deity, and Esarhaddon speaks of him as the 'king of gods. Frequently Ashur is invoked together with other gods. He is 'the guide of the gods. There is only one instance in which he does not occupy the first place.
No doubt the priests did all in their power to add to the solemnity of such an occasion. The kings on their side showed their lavishness in furnishing victims for the sacrifice. Again and again does Esarhaddon solicit Shamash to reveal the outcome of the military campaigns in which the king was engaged.
Esarhaddon, who is known by many different names, soon after came out and marauded all over the adjacent country; and it is believed that it was about this time that Bethulia was so bravely defended, and the Ninevite general slain by the craft and courage of Judith.
Esarhaddon, hearing of this tragedy, gathered an army, and in a battle defeated Sharezer and established himself on the throne. III. The Crisis of the Assyrian Power
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