“In Judah is God known:
His name is great in Israel.
In Salem also is His tabernacle,
And His dwelling place in Zion.
There brake He the arrows of the bow,
The shield, and the sword, and the battle.”Psalm 76:1~3.
(PK 362.1)
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“Thou art more glorious and excellent
Than the mountains of prey.
The stouthearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep:
And none of the men of might have found their hands.
At Thy rebuke, O God of Jacob,
Both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.”Psalm 76:4~6.
(PK 362.2)
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“Thou, even Thou, art to be feared:
And who may stand in Thy sight when once Thou art angry?
Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven;
The earth feared, and was still,
When God arose to judgment,
To save all the meek of the earth.”Psalm 76:7~9.
(PK 362.3)
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“Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee:
The remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain.
Vow, and pay unto the Lord your God:
Let all that be round about Him bring presents unto Him
that ought to be feared.
He shall cut off the spirit of princes:
He is terrible to the kings of the earth.”Psalm 76:10~12.
(PK 362.4)
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The rise and fall of the Assyrian Empire is rich in lessons for the nations of earth today. Inspiration has likened the glory of Assyria at the height of her prosperity to a noble tree in the garden of God, towering above the surrounding trees.
(PK 362.5)
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“The Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.... Under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.... All the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.”Ezekiel 31:3-9.
(PK 363.1)
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But the rulers of Assyria, instead of using their unusual blessings for the benefit of mankind, became the scourge of many lands. Merciless, with no thought of God or their fellow men, they pursued the fixed policy of causing all nations to acknowledge the supremacy of the gods of Nineveh, whom they exalted above the Most High. God had sent Jonah to them with a message of warning, and for a season they humbled themselves before the Lord of hosts and sought forgiveness. But soon they turned again to idol worship and to the conquest of the world.
(PK 363.2)
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The prophet Nahum, in his arraignment of the evildoers in Nineveh, exclaimed:
(PK 363.3)
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“Woe to the bloody city!
It is all full of lies and robbery;
The prey departeth not;”Nahum 3:1.
(PK 363.4)
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“The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels,
And of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots.”Nahum 3:2.
(PK 363.5)
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Looking forward to the time when the pride of Assyria should be brought low, Zephaniah prophesied of Nineveh: “Flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for He shall uncover the cedar work.”Zephaniah 2:14.
(PK 365.1)
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Great was the glory of the Assyrian realm; great was its downfall. The prophet Ezekiel, carrying farther the figure of a noble cedar tree, plainly foretold the fall of Assyria because of its pride and cruelty. He declared:
(PK 365.2)
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“Thus saith the Lord God; ... He hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him. Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches: to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height....”Ezekiel 31:10~14.
(PK 365.3)
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“Thus saith the Lord God; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: ... and all the trees of the field fainted for him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall.”Ezekiel 31:10-16.
(PK 365.4)
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