He will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria, leaving Nineveh utterly desolate and dry as the desert. – Zephaniah 2:13

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 17, 2017): Zephaniah 2

The Battle for Mosul began on October 16, 2016. The Battle is essentially an attempt on behalf of the Iraqi army to take possession of the ancient city of Mosul, located in Northern Iraq along the Tigris River, away from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (commonly referred to as ISIL or Daesh). As I write these words, I am not sure that anyone really knows what is happening in Mosul. It seems as if daily someone declares the battle won, only to see it flare up again. As an outsider, it appears that the Iraqi army is winning the battle and at the same time weakening the Islamic State forces. Optimists hope that this is an indication of a possible fatal weakness in the Islamic State forces, but the state has proven resilient in the past. Probably the only thing we know for sure is that Mosul is being pounded into the ground. An area that was once populated by over a million people is now just an empty shell of what it had once been.

But this is not the first time that the area of Mosul has been decimated. What Westerners often fail to realize is that Mosul was originally a small town named Mepsila. Mepsila was planted along the Tigris River in the late 7^th Century. The town really came into existence because the great city that was located on the on the opposite bank of the Tigris had been weakened by a civil war and then totally destroyed by invading forces. This was the end of the Assyrian Empire. And that city that stood just across the river from Mepsila and modern day Mosul was Nineveh. In fact, the Iraqi army code name for the Battle of Mosul is “We Are Coming, Nineveh.”

There is absolutely no joy that can be found in watching an ancient city be destroyed. For Zephaniah, the fall of Nineveh was welcome because Assyria was the bogeyman of his day – and Nineveh was the bogeyman’s capital city. Depending on which side of the world you are living or identifying with as you read these words, it would be like either Moscow or Washington falling in our contemporary era. As the world seems to prepare itself for war, the fall of one of those empires would seem to make the world a much safer place. But modern day Mosul is not a seat of power. It is a place of history and heritage. And what is being destroyed in the Mosul can never be replaced. And that is truly sad.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Zephaniah 3