power to the myth—the borders beyond which the tribes were thought to have
disappeared became ever receding, just like the borders that the Assyrian kings
always recreated in their minds. With each expansion, first of the Assyrian
Empire and, later, of human geographic knowledge as a whole, the lost tribes
leaped back, forever remaining on the far side of the known horizon.
The Assyrian propaganda machine of the eighth and seventh centuries
bce, with its relentless emphasis on the vastness of empire; the horizon-
expanding, unimaginable grasp of its rulers; and the constant reference to
borders, markers, and boundaries were all part of the initial framing and
reception of the story of Israelite deportation. As it first took shape, the biblical
account of the lost tribes borrowed heavily, if unintentionally, from this same
propagandistic repertoire. Even as Assyrian propaganda marketed the glory of
its army and its kings, it also defined and popularized various notions of space.
The Assyrians imposed upon their region a conceptualization of the world as a
space divided into different polities, even as they proposed that all, ultimately,
would become part of their empire. “King of totality of the [ four] quarters
including all their rulers” ran one particularly ambitious title.^46
These differing notions of space had a great impact on biblical texts.
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who all wrote under the shadow of empire,
were keen observers of imperial activity, either Assyrian or Babylonian.^47
Most famous in this regard are Isaiah’s “Oracles against the Nations” (Isaiah
13 , 14 : 1 – 23 ), a reflection on the “international” context of the period.^48 The book
of Jonah provides a superb expression of how the Assyrianoikoumenewas lived
by peoples on its margins and how empire was perceived and remembered. At
the book’s center is the city of Nineveh, the imperial capital, which, from the
perspective of the book’s Israelite author, is viewed from outside, as a destina-
tion to which Jonah is to travel. As the story has it, Jonah, son of Amittai, was a
prophet who, according to the Bible, lived during the successful reign of
Jeroboam II (r. 788 – 747 ; 2 Kings 14 : 25 ). One day, Jonah receives an order
from God to go to the “great city of Nineveh” and tell its people that the city will
be destroyed “for their wickedness” (Jonah 1 : 1 – 3 ). Jonah resists at first, fleeing
God by hiding on a boat. When a storm threatens to throw its passengers into
the sea, Jonah reveals himself as the target of God’s wrath and tells them to
throw him overboard to save the ship. No sooner do they do so than the waves
calm. Famously, Jonah is swallowed by a great fish and, after three days in its
belly, is spat up onto dry land. From there, he fulfills God’s command, traveling
to Nineveh to warn its wicked inhabitants of God’s impending punishment:
“in forty days Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Embedded in the prophecy is a
dual meaning—while the focus of Jonah’s story is the people of Nineveh, on a
broader level it is a parable about Assyrian might as a whole. The Hebrew word
lu
(lu)
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