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340 of their violence against the sons of Judah and the spilling of innocent blood in their own land." The rise of the Neo-Assyrian empire and its onslaught against its neighbors with unparalleled brutality was _ well- known to the biblical Prophets, sometimes in astounding de- tail that even included Assyrian court intrigues. The Assyrian imperial expansion, at first directed to the north and northeast, targeted the lands of western Asia by the time of Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.c). On one of his commemorative obelisks he recorded the sacking of Damascus, the execution of its king Hazael, and the receipt of tribute from Hazael's neighbor Jehu, the king of Israel (Samaria). Accompanying the inscrip- tion was a depiction showing Jehu bowing to Shalmaneser under the emblem of the Winged Disc of the god Ashur (Fig. 109). A century later, when Menahem the son of Gadi was the king in Israel, "Pul the king of Assyria came against the land, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver that his hand might be with him to retain the kingship." This biblical record in II Kings 15:19 reveals the impressive famil- iarity with politics and royal affairs in distant Mesopotamia. The name of the Assyrian king who again invaded the Medi- terranean lands was Tiglat-Pileser (745-727 B.C.); yet the Bible was right to call him Pul because this king also as- sumed the Babylonian throne and renamed himself there Pulu—a fact confirmed by the discovery of a tablet ("Baby- DIVINE ENCOUNTERS Figure 109