TIGLATH PILESER III AND ISRAEL

Wall relief showing Tiglath Pileser III

Tiglath-pileser III, who ascended the throne in 745BC, transformed Assyria into a world empire that ruthlessly and effectively ruled the ancient Middle East for a century. By a series of consecutive conquests, he conquered and annexed land reaching from central Syria to the borders of the Egyptian frontier.

Tiglath-piler's Annals make one thing clear - he demanded heavy tribute from his subjects. The recorded list includes gold, silver, tin, iron, elephant hides, ivory, multi-colored garments, linen garments, wool dyed bluish-purple and reddish-purple, maple wood and boxwood, horses, mules, cattle and sheep, camels, and she-camels with their young.

A heavy blow was inflicted on Judah when Tiglath-pileser advanced with his army from northern Syria and passed along the Mediterranean coast from Phoenicia to Philistia. They advanced as far as Egypt, where Tiglath-pileser set up a stele to commemorate his victory and to mark this limit of his empire.

Among the kings listed on the stele who had to pay tribute was Ahaz, king of Judah. This was bad enough, but worse for ordinary people must have been the havoc wreaked by the passage of the vast Assyrian Army through Syria-Palestine.

Tiglath-pileser III's genius was not only military. He also introduced a number of innovations, among them the process of mass deportation and resettlement. Selected residents, outstanding craftsmen and soldiers were taken from the newly conquered provinces and resettled in regions of Assyria. In place of these deportees, Aramean and Chaldean tribes from Babylonia were brought as colonists to the conquered areas. In this way the power of the conquered people was broken, because they were deprived of their elite, and the new colonists formed a hybrid culture that was predominantly loyal to Assyria.

Tiglath-pileses apparently annexed Galilee (and the city of Dan), which he conquered in 733-732BC. It became known as the province of Magiddu, with the city of Megiddo as its center.