Mentioned in the Bible by name

Asshur

The third river is called Chideqel [meaning: swift; the Greek name is "Tigris"],
which flows east of Assyria (Ashor).
The fourth river is the Euphrates [meaning: fruitful, overflowing, giving in abundance].

From that land came Ashor and built Nineveh and the city of Rechovot and Kalach

They lived from Havilah (Hebr. Chavila) to Shor, which is before Egypt, as you go toward Assyria [the area from northern Sinai to the border of western Mesopotamia]. He [Ishmael, see Gen. 16:11–12] fell (got his lot; settled down; came into conflict; died) against (face, east of) his brothers.

yet Cain [probably referring to the Kenite people, see Gen. 15:19] will be burned down.
How long? Until Ashor [Gen. 25:3] takes you away into captivity."

But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim
and they shall afflict Assyria
and afflict Eber
and he also will come to destruction."

Pol, king of Assyria, came over the land, and Menachem gave Pol 1,000 talents [34 tons] of silver so that his hand would be strong (firm, secure, brave) with him to fortify the kingdom in his hand.

And Menachem taxed the silver over Israel, over all the mighty, warlike men, of every man 50 shekels [0.6 kg] of silver to give to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria returned and did not stay there in the land.

In the days of Pekah, king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, came and took Ijon, Abel-Beth-Maacha, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and he carried them away captive to Assyria.

And Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria [Tiglath-Pileser III], saying, "I am your servant and your son; come and save me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me."

And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was in the house of the Lord (Yahweh) and in the treasury of the king's house and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.

And the king of Assyria listened to him, and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it and carried the people away captive to Kir and killed Rezin [the king of Syria, see verses 5-6].

Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria [and thank him]. When King Ahaz saw the altar that was in Damascus [he was impressed and] sent a sketch of it to Orija, the priest, with a detailed drawing (dimensions), in accordance with its entire craftsmanship.

And he covered (closed) the Sabbath gate that they had built in the house, and he turned the king's outer entrance toward the house of the Lord (Yahweh) from the face of the king of Assyria.

Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against him, and Hosea became his servant and brought him gifts.

And the king of Assyria found (discovered) a conspiracy in Hos, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and did not offer gifts to the king of Assyria as he had done year after year. Therefore, the king of Assyria silenced him and bound him in prison.

And the king of Assyria came up through the whole land and went up to Samaria and besieged it for three years.

In the ninth year of Hosea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

until the Lord (Yahweh) removed Israel from his presence, as he had spoken through the hand of all his servants the prophets. And Israel was carried away from their land to Assyria to this day.

And the king of Assyria brought men
from Babylon
and from Kota [city in Babylon]
and from Avah [unknown city]
and from Hamath [city in central Syria]
and Sepharvaim [Sefarvim (meaning: "the two scribes") – city in northern Syria on the eastern side of the Euphrates that Assyria had captured]
and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the sons of Israel, and they took Samaria and lived in its cities.

Therefore, they spoke to the king of Assyria and said, "The peoples whom you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the ways (how to act) of the God (Elohim) of the land. Therefore, he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the ways (how to act) of the God of the land (Elohim)."

And the king of Assyria commanded and said, "Bring one of the priests who were taken from there and let him go and live there, and let him teach the people the ways (how to do) of the God of the land (Elohim)."

And the Lord (Yahweh) was with him wherever he went, and he prospered, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

And it came to pass in the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea, son of Elah, king of Israel, that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came up against Samaria and besieged it.

And the king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan and in the cities of Media,

And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah [701 BC] of [Judah, the southern kingdom] that Sennacherib (Hebr. Sancheriv), king of Assyria, came up against the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
[The siege of Lachish is illustrated on the walls of Sennacherib's palace in Nineveh.]

Then Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent messengers to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, "I have done wrong (sinned). Turn away from me, and I will bear whatever you impose on me." And the king of Assyria imposed on Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents [25 tons] of silver and 30 talents [1 ton] of gold. [The Assyrian texts recount how Hezekiah was also forced to send his daughters, concubines, male and female musicians, ivory, and other valuable objects.]

At that time, Hezekiah scraped off the gold from the doors of the sanctuary of the Lord (Yahweh) and from the doorposts that [he himself] Hezekiah, king of Judah, had [had] overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria. [Hezekiah also repaired the wall and replenished the water supplies and prepared for a siege, see 2 Chron. 32:1–5, 30.]

And the king of Assyria sent the commander (Hebr. tartan), the commander-in-chief (Hebr. rav-saris), and the court marshal (Hebr. rav-shaqeh) from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a large army to Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they came up, they came and stood by the cistern at the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Field of the Foolishman [place where textiles were washed and dried],

And the commander (Hebr. ravshake) said to them:
"Now tell [your king] Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria [Sennacherib]: On what security do you rely?

Now therefore, I pray, make a wager with my lord, the king of Assyria, and I will give you 2,000 horses if you can do your part to put riders on them.

Then the commander stood and cried out in a loud (strong) voice in the Jewish language, saying:
"Listen to the word of the great king—the king of Assyria!

Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord (Yahweh) and say that the Lord (Yahweh) will surely save us, this city will not be given into the hand of the Assyrian king.

Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make peace with me and come out to me, and each of you shall eat of his own vine and each of his own fig tree, and each of you shall drink the water of his own well,

Unless the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), hears all the words of the commander whom the king of Assyria, his master, has sent to mock the living God (Elohim), and punishes the words that the Lord (Yahweh), your God (Elohim), has heard. Therefore, pray for the remnant that remains."

And Isaiah said to them, "Thus shall you say to your master: Thus says the Lord (Yahweh): Do not be afraid of the word you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

And the commander returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that they had departed from Lachish.

"Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying, 'Do not let your God (Elohim), in whom you trust, deceive you, saying, "Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Behold, you have heard what the king of Assyria has done to all lands, utterly destroying them, and shall you be delivered?

It is true, Lord (Yahweh), that the kings of Assyria have destroyed the peoples and their lands,

Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent word to Hezekiah, saying, "Thus says the Lord (Yahweh), the God (Elohim) of Israel: As you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria, I have heard you.

Therefore, thus says the Lord (Yahweh) concerning the king of Assyria:
He shall not come into this city,
nor shoot an arrow there,
he shall not come before it with a shield
nor cast a siege wall against it.

[This passage is the central part of the passage dealing with the reign of Hezekiah.]
And it came to pass that night that an angel (messenger) of the Lord (Yahweh) went forth and smote in the camp of Assyria 185,000, and when the men arose in the morning, behold, all the bodies were dead.

And Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went and returned and dwelt at Nineveh.

And I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David."
[Hezekiah is granted 15 extra years of life. Sadly, the parallel passage 2 Chron. 32:25 describes how he became arrogant. Hezekiah's sins during the last 15 years begin with him openly displaying the riches of the land to the enemy, see verses 13-17.]

In his [Josiah's] days, Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria to the Euphrates River. Then King Josiah went out against him [Necho], but was killed by him at Megiddo as soon as he saw him. [In 2 Chron. 35:20-27, it is recounted how Josiah disguised himself in battle and was struck by an arrow from an archer in the Pass of Megiddo.]

and his son Beera, whom Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria carried into exile. He was the prince of the Reubenites.

Then the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of the Assyrian king Pul [Tiglath-Pileser III], that is, the spirit of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser. He carried the people away into captivity, both the Reubenites and the Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh. He brought them to Halah, [the river] Habor, Hara, and the stream of Gozan [in present-day northern Iraq], where they are to this day.

At the same time, King Ahaz sent messengers to the kings of Assyria with a request for help,

But King Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria went against him and employed him instead of supporting him.

Although Ahaz plundered the house of the Lord (Yahweh), the royal palace, and the princes and gave it to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.

The messengers set out with the letters from the king and his princes, and they traveled throughout Israel and Judah according to the king's command. They said:
"O children of Israel, return to the Lord (Yahweh), the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Then he will return to the remnant of you who have been saved from the hand of the kings of Assyria.

After Hezekiah had faithfully done this, Sennacherib (Hebr. Sancheriv), king of Assyria, came and invaded Judah and besieged the fortified cities, intending to conquer them for himself.[Sennacherib was king of Assyria from 704 to 681 BC and made Nineveh (Jonah 3:1) the capital of his empire, see Isa. 37:37. One of the cities that Sennacherib captured was Lashish. During excavations in 2020 in the neighboring city of Azeka, a siege ramp from this period was found. It is this ramp that Sennacherib mentions on a clay tablet called the Azeka Inscription. It is one of 30,000 clay tablets found in the Ashurbanipal archives in Nineveh.]

A large crowd gathered, and they blocked all the springs and dammed the brook that flowed through the land, for they said, "Why should the kings of Assyria come and find plenty of water?"

"Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged before the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for with us is one who is greater than with him.

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who was encamped with his army before Lachish, sent his servants to Jerusalem to Hezekiah, king of Judah, and to all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem, saying

"Thus says Sennacherib, king of Assyria: On what are you relying, that you remain in the besieged city of Jerusalem?

Is it not Hezekiah who is deceiving you, so that you will die of hunger and thirst? He says, 'The Lord (Yahweh), our God (Elohim), will save us from the hand of the king of Assyria.

Then the Lord (Yahweh) sent an angel who destroyed the entire army and the princes and commanders in the camp of the Assyrian king, so that he returned to his country in shame. When he entered the house of his god, he was struck down there with a sword by his own offspring.

And the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of the Assyrian king Sennacherib and from the hand of all others, and he protected them on all sides.

Then the Lord (Yahweh) sent the armies of the Assyrian king against them. They bound Manasseh in chains and imprisoned him with copper shackles and took him to Babylon.

they approached Zerubbabel and the leaders [the leading fathers, patriarchs, heads of the returnees] and said to them: Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God (Elohim) and have sacrificed to him since the days of Esarhaddon [681-669 BC], king of Assyria, who brought us here.
[The Assyrian king Sargon had already carried out population transfers when Samaria fell (722 BC). This was continued by subsequent kings, such as Esarhaddon (681-669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC). Non-biblical sources confirm how Esarhaddon relocated groups of people to Sidon after he had conquered those areas.]

celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread [Hebr. chag matsah; see Ex. 12:17–20; 34:18] with joy for seven days, because the Lord (Yahweh) had given them joy and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, to strengthen their hands in the work on the house of God (Elohim), the God (Elohim) of Israel.
[Between chapters 6 and 7, the events in the Book of Esther take place during the reign of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I) (486-465 BC), see Est. 1:1. Esther becomes queen around 479 BC.]

And now, our God (Elohim) – the great, the mighty (the hero, the powerful warrior) and feared God (El),
you who keep the covenant and mercy (faithful love):
Let it not be small in your eyes,
the affliction that has befallen us,
our kings, our princes,
our priests, our prophets,
our fathers, and all your people –
from the days of the Assyrian kings
until today.

Do to them as you did to Midian [enemy, see Judg. 6–7],
as you did to [the commander] Sisera [who led Jabin's army, see Judg. 4:2–3],
as with [King] Jabin [in northern Canaan, see Judg. 4:2, 24]
at the Brook of Kishon [Judg. 4–5],

The Lord (Yahweh) will bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon the house of your fathers, such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, the king from Assyria.

On that day the Lord (Yahweh) will whistle for [call upon, see Isa. 5:26] his fly at the springs of the Nile in Egypt and the bee in the land of Assyria. [The singular forms of fly and bee are used, which shows that it is not an entire army but something that irritates. The metaphors are well chosen, for the Assyrians, symbolized by a bee, were much more powerful and dangerous than the Egyptians, symbolized by a fly.]

On that day, the Lord (Adonai) will shave, with a razor from across the river, with the king of Assyria, the head and hair on the legs and also cut off the beard.

For before the child has the knowledge to cry 'my father' or 'my mother', the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria will be carried away before (in front of) the king of Assyria."

therefore (you shall) see how the Lord (Adonai) comes upon them
with water—mighty and strong—as from the river [Euphrates, when it floods in the spring],
namely the king of Assyria and all his glory [Isa. 7:20],
and he shall overflow all the channels
and go over all the riverbanks.
[The army of the Assyrian king is likened to masses of water. Throughout the Bible, seas and waters are used as symbols of peoples, masses of people, countries, and languages, see Ps. 124:4–5; Rev 17:15.]

Woe to Assyria [Ashur – Syria personified], the rod of my anger,
in whose hand my wrath is like a rod.

Therefore, when the Lord (Adonai) has finished all his work (labor) on Mount Zion [the temple mount in Jerusalem] and over Jerusalem, I [the Lord] will punish the fruit of the king's arrogant heart in Assyria and the glory of his haughty appearance.

Therefore, says the Lord, the Lord of hosts (Adonai Yahweh Sebaot):
"My people who dwell in Zion [Jerusalem],
do not fear Assyria,
even though he strikes you with the rod,
and lifts his staff against you, as Egypt did.

On that day (at that time), the Lord will stretch out his hand a second time to reclaim (restore) the remnant of his people, those who have been saved from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros [southern Egypt], Cush [present-day Ethiopia/Sudan], Elam, Shinar [Babylon], Hamath, and the coastal lands [the countries around the Mediterranean].

There shall be a highway (raised road) [without hindrance]
for the remnant of his people who have been saved from Assyria,
as it was for Israel
when they went up out of the land of Egypt.
[A new and greater exodus shall take place!]

I will break (crush) Assyria in my hand,
and trample him underfoot on my mountain.
Then his yoke will be removed from them,
and his burden will be taken from their shoulders.

On that day there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians shall come to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria, and the Egyptians shall worship with the Assyrians.

On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth,

because the Lord of hosts (Yahweh Sebaot) has blessed him and said, "Blessed is my people Egypt, and the work of my hands Assyria, and my inheritance Israel."

In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him (there), and he fought against Ashdod and took it,

so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush [present-day Ethiopia/Sudan], young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

On that day, the inhabitants of the coastal land will say, "Behold, this is our expectation; we fled there for help and to be delivered by the king of Assyria. How can we now escape?"

Behold, the land of the Chaldeans [Babylon], this people is no more [it no longer exists as a people].
Assyria gave this land to wild animals (Hebr. tsi; desert animals).
They set up their siege towers,
they overthrew its palaces
and made it a ruin.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great shofar (ram's horn) shall be blown, and they shall come who were lost in Assyria, and they who were scattered in Egypt, and they shall worship the Lord (Yahweh) on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

By the voice of the Lord (Yahweh), Assyria shall be dismayed,
the rod with which he struck.

Then Assyria [which you fear so much now] shall fall by the sword, not by the sword of a man,
and the sword, which is not of man, shall devour (destroy) him. [Isa. 37:37]
And he shall flee from the sword [God's sword]
and his young men shall be put to forced labor [taxed heavily, see Deut. 20:11; Josh. 9:21].

[The first part of the book is written in poetic style, shifting to prose in chapters 36-39, and then becoming poetic again in chapters 40-66. This writing style thus forms a stylistic chiasm. It also serves as a marker indicating that this passage is central to the entire book. Chapters 36-39 consist of seven episodes arranged in a chiastic pattern:
A A hostile Assyrian envoy (Isa. 36:1–22)
B Hezekiah's distress and appeal to the Lord (Isa. 37:1–7) C Sennacherib's mocking message to Hezekiah (Isa. 37:8–13)
D Hezekiah's prayer to the Lord (Isa. 37:14–20)
C´ The Lord's response to Sennacherib's taunts (Isa. 37:21–38) B´ Hezekiah's illness and appeal to the Lord (Isa. 38:1–22)
A´ A "friendly" Babylonian envoy (irony) (Isa. 39:1–8)
The thematic symmetry of the chiasm takes precedence over the chronological order; the events in chapters 38-39 occur before the events in 36-37:
725-722 BC Assyria besieges Samaria, the Israelites go into exile
715 BC Hezekiah becomes king of Judah
705 BC Sennacherib becomes king of Assyria
701 BC Sennacherib invades Judah
681 BC Sennacherib is murdered by two of his sons (Isa. 37:36)] Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah of [Judah, the southern kingdom] [701 BC], that Sennacherib (Hebr. Sancheriv), king of Assyria, came up against the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

The king of Assyria sent his commander [Hebr. ravshake – "great cupbearer," probably a title for the leader of the campaign, see also 2 Kings 18:17] from Lachish to Jerusalem [2 Chron. 32:9], to King Hezekiah with a large army. And he stood by the canal of the upper pool on the highway at the Sheep Folds [place where textiles were washed and dried].
[This is exactly the same place where Isaiah met Ahaz, see Isa. 7:3. Probably in the vicinity of the present-day Northern Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. While the Assyrian king Sennacherib was besieging Lachish, he sent his commander (chief cupbearer) to Jerusalem to pressure Hezekiah to surrender without a fight. He was probably chosen for the task because he spoke fluent Hebrew, see verses 11-13. The siege of Lachish is well documented in a series of reliefs on the walls of Sennacherib's banquet hall in Nineveh.]

And the commander (Hebr. ravshake) said to them:
"Now tell [your king] Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria [Sennacherib]: On what confidence do you rely?

Now therefore, I pray, make a wager with my lord, the king of Assyria, and I will give you 2,000 horses if you can do your part to put riders on them.

Then the commander stood and shouted in a loud (strong) voice in the Jewish language, saying:
"Listen to the words of the great king—the king of Assyria!

Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord (Yahweh) and say that the Lord (Yahweh) will surely save us, for this city will not be given into the hand of the Assyrian king.

Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: Make peace with me and come out to me, and each of you shall eat of his own vine and each of his own fig tree, and each of you shall drink the water of his own cistern,

Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, 'The Lord (Yahweh) will deliver us.'
Has the god of any other country delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

Perhaps the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) will hear the words of the commander (Hebr. ravshake), whom his master, the king of Assyria [Sennacherib], has sent to mock the living God (Elohim), and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) has heard, therefore pray for the remnant that remains."

And Isaiah said to them, "This is what you shall say to your master, thus says the Lord (Yahweh): 'Do not be afraid of these words that you have heard, with which the young men (Hebr. naar) of the king of Assyria have reviled me.

And the commander (Hebr. ravshake) returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that he had left Lachish.
[Livna has not been identified with certainty, but findings from excavations at Tell Burna in 2015 and in recent years suggest that it may be the biblical city of Livna.]

"This is what you shall say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Do not let your God, whom you trust, deceive you by saying, 'Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

You have heard what the king of Assyria has done to all the countries, utterly destroying them. How then can you escape?

It is true, Lord (Yahweh), that the king of Assyria has destroyed all the countries and their lands,

Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent word to Hezekiah, saying, "Thus says the Lord (Yahweh), the God (Elohim) of Israel, because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria,

Therefore, the Lord (Yahweh) says concerning the king of Assyria:
He shall not come into this city
nor shoot an arrow there,
nor come before it with a shield,
nor build a ramp against it [and capture Jerusalem].

And the angel (messenger) of the Lord (Yahweh) went forth and struck down 185,000 [soldiers] in the camp of Assyria, and when they rose early in the morning, behold, all the bodies (like carcasses) were dead!

So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and returned and settled in Nineveh.

and save you and this city
from the hand of the Assyrian king.
I will protect this city.' " [Human life span is 120 years
In the 1960s, science confirmed that human life span is biologically limited to 120 years, see Gen. 6:3. In an article in the journal Nature, November 9, 2000, Hayflick (the man behind the discovery in the 1960s) writes that aging is not a disease. He writes that even if cures were found for the most common fatal diseases in old age (cardiovascular disease, stroke, and cancer), it would only extend life expectancy by an estimated 15 years.]
[Three years later, Hezekiah has a son, Manasseh. He is 12 years old when he comes to the throne, see 2 Kings 20:21; 21:1. Sequentially, verses 21-22 come between verses 6-7, cf. 2 Kings 19:7–8, but in the chiastic pattern and structure, the placement is not strange.]

Yes, thus says the Lord God (Adonai Yahweh): First my people went down to Egypt and lived there temporarily as strangers. Then Assyria (Ashor) oppressed them without reason.

And what have you now to do on the way to Egypt,
to drink the waters of Shihor [a branch of the Nile]?
Or what have you to do on the way to Assyria,
to drink the waters of the river [Euphrates]?

How can you not humble yourself [same imagery as in verse 23]
to change your ways!
You shall also be ashamed of Egypt
as you are ashamed of Assyria.

Israel is a scattered flock,
the lions have driven him away.
First the king of Assyria devoured him,
and finally Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, crushed his bones.

Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts (Yahweh Sebaot), the God of Israel (Elohim):
Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land,
as I punished the king of Assyria.

We have stretched out our hands to Egypt
and Assyria (offered our services) to get enough bread.

You have also prostituted yourself with Assyria without getting enough; yes, you have prostituted yourself with them and have not been satisfied.

And Oholah acted like a prostitute when she was mine, and she was fond of her lovers, the warriors of Assyria,

And she offered her whoring services to them, all of them chosen men of Assyria, and whoever she was fond of, she defiled herself with their idols.

Therefore, I have given her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of Assyria, whom she loved.

She was aroused by lust for the sons of Assyria—leaders and princes, perfectly dressed horsemen riding on horses, each of them handsome young men.

The sons of Babylon and all the Chaldeans, the Pekodites, the Shoehites, and the Qoeites, all the sons of Assyria with them, chosen young men, governors and leaders, all of them, renowned captains, all of them riding on horses.

Haran (Hebr. Charan), and Kane, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Assyria, were your apprentices in trade.

Assyria is there and all her company, their graves are around them, all those slain who have fallen by the sword,

And when Ephraim saw his sickness
and Judah his wound,
Ephraim went to Assyria and sent for King Jarev [Jarev means "challenger"; the expression can also be interpreted as a title malki rav – "the great king"],
but he cannot heal you, nor will he cure your injury.

And Ephraim has become like a helpless dove
without understanding,
they call upon Egypt,
they go to Assyria.

For they have gone to Assyria
like a lone wild ass for itself,
Ephraim has bought (paid a prostitute's wages – Hebr. tanah) lovers.

They shall not dwell in the land of the Lord (Yahweh),
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt
and they shall eat unclean food [Lev. 11] in Assyria.

It [the cast idol calf in Bethel] too shall be carried away to Assyria,
as a gift to King Jarev.
Ephraim shall receive shame
and Israel shall be ashamed of its own counsel.

He shall not return to the land of Egypt,
but Assyria shall be his king
because they refused to turn back.

They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt
and like a dove from the land of Assyria
and I will let them dwell in their houses,
declares (says, proclaims) the Lord (Yahweh).

Ephraim pursues the wind and follows the east wind,
all day long he multiplies lies and destruction,
and they make a covenant with Assyria
and oil is carried to Egypt.

[Now comes God's answer to the prayer for salvation in verses 3-4:]
"I will heal their unfaithfulness (apostasy, their hearts that have deliberately strayed from me).
I will love them without limit (of my own free will, pouring out my love upon them, as a voluntary offering),
for my anger has turned away from them [Israel].

And this shall be peace (shalom):
When Ashur comes into our land
and when he tramples into our palaces,
then we shall raise up against him seven shepherds
and eight princes among men.

And they shall destroy the land of Ashur with the sword
and the land of Nimrod with the drawn sword,
and he shall deliver us from Ashur
when he enters our land
and when he tramples within our borders.

There will come a day when they will come to you
from Ashur, also to the cities of Egypt
and from Egypt all the way to the river
and from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.

Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria,
your nobles are resting,
your people are scattered over the mountains
and there is no one to gather them together.

He will stretch out his hand against the north
and destroy Assyria
and make Nineveh a desolate place,
dry as the desert.
[Zephaniah predicts the fall of Nineveh, which occurs in 612 BC]

I will also bring them back from the land of Egypt [in the south; from slavery]
and gather them from Assyria [in the northeast; from exile]
and I will bring them to the land of Gilead [Israel's eastern border, beyond the Jordan] and Lebanon [in the north; by the Mediterranean],
and there will not be enough [space] for them [Isa. 49:20; 54:3; Hos. 1:10].

Over the sea, sorrow shall pass
and the waves shall be beaten into the sea
and all the depths of the Nile shall dry up.
The pride of Assyria shall be broken down
and the scepter of Egypt shall disappear.