Medes and Chaldeans Expand...
Between Mesopotamia and the Caspian Sea, tribes of an Indo-European people called Medes had become united under a single king. A later king of the Medes, Cyaxares, reorganized his army and attempted to expand westward against the Assyrians. He allied his army with the Chaldeans, who were now in control of Babylon and Sumer. The Medes and Chaldeans attacked, and together they defeated the Assyrians, overrunning Assyria's capital, Nineveh, in 612. Nineveh's walls were broken by the siege engines that Assyria had introduced centuries before. A community that had existed for more than two thousand years was obliterated. Those who escaped from Nineveh took refuge in Haran, and they fought on, but they were defeated in 609. Such a terrible revenge was taken on the Assyrians that two hundred years later the area was still sparsely populated.
The Medes conquered as far as the Halys River in Asia Minor. The Chaldeans conquered as far as Cilicia and the Taurus Mountains. Meanwhile, with the demise of Assyria, a revitalized Egypt felt free to move into Palestine. And when King Josiah heard that an Egyptian army was coming, he went south with an army to do battle against them, believing that Yahweh would protect him. Instead, he was promptly killed.
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