Maintaining Faith

In Chapter 7, Zainab Bahrani discusses the different ways in which the Assyrians utilized religion in justifying their war campaigns or for getting answers to their questions. Bahrani claims that the extreme tediousness and repetitiveness of the queries "reveal a profound anxiety about coming events" and that the Assyrians relied on these omens to give them direction and strength. However, my question is, how was this faith maintained when omens did not come true, such as when the army was destroyed when an omen foretold them that they would be victorious? Did the Assyrians simply accept it as god's will and not waver in their faith?

Another thing I found odd was that the palace reliefs depicting battle scenes did not glorify the king or single him out as the hero. In fact, Bahrani says that it is difficult to locate the king in these war depictions. However, the written accounts that were buried were always in first-person narrative of the king taking credit for everything. This doesn't really make sense to me because these written accounts weren't shown to public, so the propaganda seems unnecessary. Whereas the palace reliefs, which were seen by all members of the court and foreign dignitaries, should glorify the king, in order to subdue anyone who looks upon the reliefs.