Assyrian deportations to Palestine are recounted in the book of Ezra, in which
there are two instances of groups of people claiming to have been brought to
Palestine by Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. In the latter case, the people in
question unequivocally identify themselves as the “Dinaites, the Apharsath-
chites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the
Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the Elamites. And the rest of the nations
whom the great and noble Asnapper [Ashurbanipal] brought over, and set in
the cities of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side [of] the river, and at such
a time” (Ezra 4 : 2 , 10 – 11 ).
A leading biblical historian concludes that the total impact of these depor-
tations and wars was considerable, with “large population groups... trans-
ferred to new homes throughout the empire” and significant “changes in
the composition of the population of Palestine.”^16 But again, even by the
most maximalist of reckonings, these deportations did not leave the northern
kingdom entirely depopulated. Another careful overview of an array of
studies concludes, “most northerners were not deported.”^17 It is likely that
many groups throughout the territory were left in place. Many migrated south
to Jerusalem. The story of Israelite deportation and exile is one subportion
of a broader story of population movements into, out of, and around the
region. Its biblical depiction exaggerates the totality of the deportations
as part of a specifically Israelite narrative of loss and promised redemption,
while the Assyrian sources seek to aggrandize their kings by emphasizing
the sweeping devastation they were able to inflict through both the deportation
and importation of multiple populations. Both sides of the narrative have
clear ideological/theological motivation for inflating the scope of the deporta-
tions.
Obviously, Palestine and the neighboring regions were not the only ones
affected by Assyrian deportations. Mass deportations of conquered peoples
were a frequent occurrence in the Assyrian world since the ninth century
bceand are a relatively well-researched topic. While certainly not a coherent
imperial policy, deportation was an important tool of Assyrian imperial expan-
sion and supremacy, and it was deployed over the centuries in order to serve
the changing interests of an actively expanding empire. Tiglath-pileser is
praised as the king “who exchanges the peoples of the upper land[s] with
those of the lower land[s]”;^18 it is clear that he used deportation as an effective
tool both for punishing conquered peoples, explicitly engineering the demo-
graphics of his territory, and for maintaining peace and stability in newly
occupied territories which were designated as Assyrian. Postcampaign recon-
struction rested in large part on repopulation. As Tiglath-pileser explains
in another Assyrian inscription, “I rebuilt Nikur, together with its environs,
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