Page "Yahweh" Paragraph 26

The second major factor was the rise of the neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian empires.

As long as Israel was, from its own perspective, part of a community of similar small nations, it made sense to see the Israelite pantheon on par with the other nations, each one with its own patron god – the picture described with Deuteronomy 32: 8 – 9.

The assumption behind this worldview was that each nation was as powerful as its patron god.

However, the neo-Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom in ca.

722 challenged this, for if the neo-Assyrian empire were so powerful, so must be its god ; and conversely, if Israel could be conquered ( and later Judah, c. 586 ), it implied that Yahweh in turn was a minor divinity.

The crisis was met by separating the heavenly power and earthly kingdoms.

Even though Assyria and Babylon were so powerful, the new monotheistic thinking in Israel reasoned, this did not mean that the god of Israel and Judah was weak.

Assyria had not succeeded because of the power of its god Marduk ; it was Yahweh who was using Assyria to punish and purify the one nation which Yahweh had chosen.