The followers of Abram, becoming involved in the attempts of Palestinian chieftains to throw off the yoke of Babylonian supremacy, an occasion is found for introducing Mesopotamia again, and so the family history of the Hebrew tribes superinduces at odd times a reference to the old settlements on the Euphrates, but it is not until the political struggles of the two Hebrew kingdoms against the inevitable subjection to the superior force of Assyrian arms, and upon the fall of Assyria, to the Babylonian power, that Assyria and Babylonia engage the frequent attention of the chronicler's pen and of the prophet's word.

Here, too, the political situation is always the chief factor, and it is only incidentally that the religion comes into play,--as when it is said that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, was murdered while worshipping in the temple dedicated to a deity, Nisroch; or when a prophet, to intensify the picture of the degradation to which the proud king of Babylon is to be reduced, introduces Babylonian conceptions of the nether world into his discourse.[5] Little, too, is furnished by the Book of Daniel, despite the fact that Babylon is the center of action, and what little there is bearing on the religious status, such as the significance attached to dreams, and the implied contrast between the religion of Daniel and his companions, and that of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, loses some of its force by the late origin of the book.

The same applies, only in a still stronger degree, to the Book of Judith, in which Nineveh is the center of the incidents described.
The rabbinical literature produced in Palestine and Babylonia is far richer in notices bearing on the religious practices of Mesopotamia, than is the Old Testament.

The large settlements of Jews in Babylonia, which, beginning in the sixth century B.C., were constantly being increased by fresh accessions from Palestine, brought the professors of Judaism face to face with religious conditions abhorrent to their souls.
In the regulations of the Rabbis to guard their followers from the influences surrounding them, there is frequent reference, open or implied, to Babylonish practices, to the festivals of the Babylonians, to the images of their gods, to their forms of incantations, and other things besides; but these notices are rendered obscure by their indirect character, and require a commentary that can only be furnished by that knowledge of the times which they take for granted.

To this difficulty, there must be added the comparatively late date of the notices, which demands an exercise of care before applying them to the very early period to which the religion of the Babylonians may be traced.
Coming to Herodotus, it is a matter of great regret that the history of Assyria, which he declares it was his intention to write,[6] was either never produced, or if produced, lost.