Constitutional Law
Part 2: “What Were They Thinking?”
Digression: “A History of Government in 6 Revolutions: From the Paleolithic to Philadelphia”
111. Inventing God and Law: Israel Destroyed. Now What?
Title: Part E: Assyria Destroys Israel. Now What?
Panel 1: A map of the fertile crescent. The Neo-Assyrian Empire is colored bluish-green, with its provinces Israel and Yehudah colored pink and orange, respectively. The empire’s capital of Nineveh is marked with a red star. Jerusalem is marked with a small brown dot.
NARRATION (pointing towards Nineveh):
By this time, Yahweh’s part of the world was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Both Israel and Yehudah had sworn covenants of mutual alliance with the empire, as its vassal provinces.
NARRATION (pointing to Israel):
But then Israel allied itself with Egypt against Assyria.
Assyria felt betrayed…
NINEVEH VOICE:
You’re supposed to be my buffer against Egypt, not its buddy!
NARRATION:
…and responded as you might expect.
-=-
Panel 2: A pair of well-armed Assyrian charioteers patrol beside a long road along which clustered groups of people are walking. A road side points to the left saying “Samaria 162,” and to the right saying “Nineveh 836.”
NARRATION:
So in a series of sieges and deportations that continued through 722 B.C., Assyria wiped Israel off the map.
FOREVER.
CHARIOTEER:
It’s the civilized way!
-=-
Panel 3: A photograph of a pencil drawing of a map of Judah and Israel. Jerusalem is marked by a star. The entirety of Israel has been scrubbed off the paper by an eraser. An artist’s pencil and a white rubber eraser are also in the picture.
NARRATION:
The south was shocked.
JERUSALEM VOICE 1:
Holy shit.
JERUSALEM VOICE 2:
How?
-=-
Panel 4: Three Yehudan men react to the erasure of Israel. One is preachy, one is unnerved, one is dismayed.
NARRATION:
The answer was obvious.
PREACHY MAN:
The answer is obvious.
The Israelites clearly hadn’t done right by their gods.
So their gods stopped protecting them.
DISMAYED MAN:
But that would mean-
Holy shit!
UNNERVED MAN:
What?
DISMAYED MAN:
If the Israelites’ rites were wrong, what about ours?
What if we’re no longer doing right by our gods?
I don’t wanna get erased.
Those Israelites. What’s WITH that place? (Later asked by the Romans in your terrorism comic too.)
What is the unit of measure on the direction sign?
I honestly forget if I was measuring in miles or kilometers, and I’m not going to go back and do it again. But knowing me, I probably went with miles, because metric units are a modern invention that aren’t based on anything human, while older measures are less precise but more intuitive and thus closer to something they’d have used. “Mile” comes from the Latin mille passus, or “1,000 paces.” (A pace is two steps. So if your drill sergeant had called “left” a thousand times you’d have gone a mile.) It’s like how an inch is a thumb’s width, a cubit is your forearm from elbow to fingertip, a yard is an arm’s reach, etc. etc.