Nin·e·veh /ˈnɪnəvə/



 Nineveh
      n : an ancient Assyrian city on the Tigris across from the
          modern city of Mosul in the northern part of what is now
          known as Iraq


 Nineveh
    First mentioned in Gen. 10:11, which is rendered in the Revised
    Version, "He [i.e., Nimrod] went forth into Assyria and builded
    Nineveh." It is not again noticed till the days of Jonah, when
    it is described (Jonah 3:3; 4:11) as a great and populous city,
    the flourishing capital of the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 19:36;
    Isa. 37:37). The book of the prophet Nahum is almost exclusively
    taken up with prophetic denunciations against this city. Its
    ruin and utter desolation are foretold (Nah.1:14; 3:19, etc.).
    Zephaniah also (2:13-15) predicts its destruction along with the
    fall of the empire of which it was the capital. From this time
    there is no mention of it in Scripture till it is named in
    gospel history (Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32).

      This "exceeding great city" lay on the eastern or left bank of
    the river Tigris, along which it stretched for some 30 miles,
    having an average breadth of 10 miles or more from the river
    back toward the eastern hills. This whole extensive space is now
    one immense area of ruins. Occupying a central position on the
    great highway between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean,
    thus uniting the East and the West, wealth flowed into it from
    many sources, so that it became the greatest of all ancient
    cities.

      About B.C. 633 the Assyrian empire began to show signs of
    weakness, and Nineveh was attacked by the Medes, who
    subsequently, about B.C. 625, being joined by the Babylonians
    and Susianians, again attacked it, when it fell, and was razed
    to the ground. The Assyrian empire then came to an end, the
    Medes and Babylonians dividing its provinces between them.
    "After having ruled for more than six hundred years with hideous
    tyranny and violence, from the Caucasus and the Caspian to the
    Persian Gulf, and from beyond the Tigris to Asia Minor and
    Egypt, it vanished like a dream" (Nah. 2:6-11). Its end was
    strange, sudden, tragic. It was God's doing, his judgement on
    Assyria's pride (Isa. 10:5-19).

      Forty years ago our knowledge of the great Assyrian empire and
    of its magnificent capital was almost wholly a blank. Vague
    memories had indeed survived of its power and greatness, but
    very little was definitely known about it. Other cities which
    had perished, as Palmyra, Persepolis, and Thebes, had left ruins
    to mark their sites and tell of their former greatness; but of
    this city, imperial Nineveh, not a single vestige seemed to
    remain, and the very place on which it had stood was only matter
    of conjecture. In fulfilment of prophecy, God made "an utter end
    of the place." It became a "desolation."

      In the days of the Greek historian Herodotus, B.C. 400, it had
    become a thing of the past; and when Xenophon the historian
    passed the place in the "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," the very
    memory of its name had been lost. It was buried out of sight,
    and no one knew its grave. It is never again to rise from its
    ruins.

      At length, after being lost for more than two thousand years,
    the city was disentombed. A little more than forty years ago the
    French consul at Mosul began to search the vast mounds that lay
    along the opposite bank of the river. The Arabs whom he employed
    in these excavations, to their great surprise, came upon the
    ruins of a building at the mound of Khorsabad, which, on further
    exploration, turned out to be the royal palace of Sargon, one of
    the Assyrian kings. They found their way into its extensive
    courts and chambers, and brought forth form its hidded depths
    many wonderful sculptures and other relics of those ancient
    times.

      The work of exploration has been carried on almost
    continuously by M. Botta, Sir Henry Layard, George Smith, and
    others, in the mounds of Nebi-Yunus, Nimrud, Koyunjik, and
    Khorsabad, and a vast treasury of specimens of old Assyrian art
    has been exhumed. Palace after palace has been discovered, with
    their decorations and their sculptured slabs, revealing the life
    and manners of this ancient people, their arts of war and peace,
    the forms of their religion, the style of their architecture,
    and the magnificence of their monarchs. The streets of the city
    have been explored, the inscriptions on the bricks and tablets
    and sculptured figures have been read, and now the secrets of
    their history have been brought to light.

      One of the most remarkable of recent discoveries is that of
    the library of King Assur-bani-pal, or, as the Greek historians
    call him, Sardanapalos, the grandson of Sennacherib (q.v.). (See ASNAPPER.) This library consists of about ten thousand
    flat bricks or tablets, all written over with Assyrian
    characters. They contain a record of the history, the laws, and
    the religion of Assyria, of the greatest value. These strange
    clay leaves found in the royal library form the most valuable of
    all the treasuries of the literature of the old world. The
    library contains also old Accadian documents, which are the
    oldest extant documents in the world, dating as far back as
    probably about the time of Abraham. (See SARGON.)

      "The Assyrian royalty is, perhaps, the most luxurious of our
    century [reign of Assur-bani-pa]...Its victories and conquests,
    uninterrupted for one hundred years, have enriched it with the
    spoil of twenty peoples. Sargon has taken what remained to the
    Hittites; Sennacherib overcame Chaldea, and the treasures of
    Babylon were transferred to his coffers; Esarhaddon and
    Assur-bani-pal himself have pillaged Egypt and her great cities,
    Sais, Memphis, and Thebes of the hundred gates...Now foreign
    merchants flock into Nineveh, bringing with them the most
    valuable productions from all countries, gold and perfume from
    South Arabia and the Chaldean Sea, Egyptian linen and
    glass-work, carved enamels, goldsmiths' work, tin, silver,
    Phoenician purple; cedar wood from Lebanon, unassailable by
    worms; furs and iron from Asia Minor and Armenia" (Ancient Egypt
    and Assyria, by G. Maspero, page 271).

      The bas-reliefs, alabaster slabs, and sculptured monuments
    found in these recovered palaces serve in a remarkable manner to
    confirm the Old Testament history of the kings of Israel. The
    appearance of the ruins shows that the destruction of the city
    was due not only to the assailing foe but also to the flood and
    the fire, thus confirming the ancient prophecies concerning it.
    "The recent excavations," says Rawlinson, "have shown that fire
    was a great instrument in the destruction of the Nineveh
    palaces. Calcined alabaster, charred wood, and charcoal,
    colossal statues split through with heat, are met with in parts
    of the Nineveh mounds, and attest the veracity of prophecy."

      Nineveh in its glory was (Jonah 3:4) an "exceeding great city
    of three days' journey", i.e., probably in circuit. This would
    give a circumference of about 60 miles. At the four corners of
    an irregular quadrangle are the ruins of Kouyunjik, Nimrud,
    Karamless and Khorsabad. These four great masses of ruins, with
    the whole area included within the parallelogram they form by
    lines drawn from the one to the other, are generally regarded as
    composing the whole ruins of Nineveh.



 Nineveh, handsome; agreeable