Sometime around 770 BC the Lord came to a man named Jonah. This man was a prophet, and the Lord told him to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrians. Once he was there, he was to tell them they had 40 days to repent or the Lord would destroy them. Now, 40 is a symbolic number in Hebrew literature that signifies a time of transition, so effectively the Lord said he would give them a small amount of time to correct their ways, and if not they would be destroyed. Assyria, by this time was already known for being wicked and there was no reason to think they would repent...but they did!
According to the ultimatum the Lord allowed Nineveh and the Assyrians to keep on going. This simple fact is what brings us to our point. There were all sorts of small insignificant nations in the ancient world and the Old Testament that we know practically nothing about. We don't know about the Edomites or the Aramites, or other tribes mentioned except for names and maybe a few kings, but Assyria is different. It's different because it went on to have many strong kings who built an amazingly advanced empire. A large empire from modern day Iraq all the way to Egypt.
The really interesting part is this; If Nineveh didn't repent in 770 BC, all of the great kings, the empire, the advanced civilization they created would have been destroyed during its infancy. Most likely when someone said Assyria, you would think exclusively of the Bible stories, and maybe one day an archaeologist would have dug up the city, not been very impressed and just jotted it down on a map. The Assyrians were given a choice and they had 2 possible responses: 1) except God 2) be destroyed Their choice of listening to God resulted in the Assyrian Empire lasting for approximately 160 more years and giving us a vastly greater amount of records about them.
-Jason
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