Wednesday, February 23, 2022

The Shishak Redemption

by Damien F. Mackey But it seems that there are problems with every interpretation of the pharaoh’s route. Can pharaoh Thutmose III be saved as “Shishak”? The road to salvation is narrow and difficult to find (Matthew 7:14), and so has been the road to identifying, historically, the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” (2 Kings 14:25). Thutmose III, the mightiest Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, had once opted for a ‘redemption’ type of road, one narrow and most difficult to negotiate. And his military scribe, Tjaneni, marked down this road using the name ‘3-rw-n3 (Aruna). This road’s true identification has been missed by historians, conventional and revisionist alike. I say this because those on both sides who have accepted the typical identification of the Aruna road as the Wãdy ‘Ârah opening out towards Taanach and Megiddo have not been able to explain at all satisfactorily why the Wãdy ‘Ârah’s topography is nothing like that as described in pharaoh Thutmose III’s campaign Annals. Sir Henry Breasted’s prize doctoral student, Harold H. Nelson, had demonstrated beyond all doubt in his thesis, The Battle of Megiddo (1913), that the relatively gentle topography in that northern region did not accord at all with the terrifyingly narrow and steep road described by the Egyptians, that ‘enters into narrowness’ and where ‘horse will have to go after horse’. (References to Harold H. Nelson have been taken from Dr. Eva Danelius’s “Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”, SIS Review, Vol. 2 No. 3, 1977/78). Nor did the name ‘Ârah accord well linguistically with Aruna, as Nelson had rightly observed: “Etymologically, it seems hardly possible to equate (Egyptian) ‘Aruna with (Arab) ‘Ar‘arah”. And, while the young man succeeded in passing his doctorate to the professor’s satisfaction, Nelson later dissociated himself completely from its conclusions. One ought to read Dr. Danelius’s poignant account in her article of Harold H. Nelson and the fate of his doctoral thesis. Dr. Eva Danelius herself was the researcher to have come closest to identifying the Aruna road. According to her, it must have been the narrow Beth-horon pass leading up to the site of Araunah (hence Aruna) the Jebusite, which became the City of David (Zion), Jerusalem. Against the conventional view that Thutmose III’s Mk-t-y was Megiddo, Dr. Danelius would argue, instead, that Mk-t-y was a name for Jerusalem, (Bait-al-) Makdis. and she believed that the Kd-šw of the Egyptian Annals was, not Kadesh in Syria, but the land of “Har Kodsho”, “The Holy Mount”. But it seems that there are problems with every interpretation of the pharaoh’s route. The road chosen by Danelius, for instance, does not go anywhere near Taanach and Megiddo, whose coupling in the Egyptian Annals (with Taanach perfectly transliterated in the Egyptian, T3-‘3-n3-k3) leaves it beyond question that the pharaonic army was bound for the strong fort of Megiddo. Dr. Velikovsky had fully accepted the conventional interpretation here, that pharaoh Thutmose III’s Mk-t-y was Megiddo - but with a twist. Pharaoh, after conquering Megiddo, Velikovsky wrote (Ages in Chaos, I, 1952), had headed southwards in pursuit of Rehoboam, “King of Kd-šw” (Kadesh = ‘the Holy’), that is, Jerusalem. To explain the conventional estimation of the Aruna road to Megiddo, against Dr. Danelius’s very strong topographical argument, Dr. Velikovsky would suggest in his response to her that topography can change markedly over time: “Now as to the approach to Megiddo being a narrow pass – by what it is now, it cannot be judged what it was almost three thousand years ago. There could have been artificial mound-fortifications the length of the pass” (“A Response to Eva Danelius by Immanuel Velikovsky”, SIS Review, Vol. 2 No. 3, 1977/78). That, I find, to be no more compelling a view than was Dr. Danelius’s effort to account for the Egyptian T3-‘3-n3-k3 somewhere in the region of Jerusalem. Velikovsky again (loc. cit.): “Your equation of Taanach with the Tahhunah ridge does not strengthen your thesis”. The conventional view is that the pharaoh, having arrived at Gaza (G3-d3-tw), continued on by a coastal route, ultimately via the Wãdy ‘Ârah, to Megiddo. After that he moved on further northwards, to conquer the troublesome city of Kadesh on the Orontes in Syria. The progression from Megiddo to a northern Kadesh does appear to accord properly with the geography of the Egyptian campaign. On this, see Patrick J. Clarke’s account in his article, “Was Jerusalem the Kadesh of Thutmose III’s 1st Asiatic campaign? – topographic and petrographic evidence” (Journal of Creation, Vol. 23, Issue 3, December 2011, pp. 48-55). The standard identifications of Gaza, Taanach and Megiddo, and Kadesh on the Orontes, seem to me now to be quite secure. Aruna as the Wãdy ‘Ârah, however, does not! And there is another little considered location, a town, or city, Yehem (Egyptian Y-hm), whose identification by convention (e.g., Yemma), and by Dr. Danelius, I find to be not the least bit convincing. “Thutmose marched his troops through the coastal pain as far as Jamnia, then inland to Yehem, a small city near Megiddo …”. The typical view expressed here is just a guess. Dr. Danelius, for her part, thought that Y-hm must be ‘Yamnia (Yabne in Hebrew) – a port about 40 km north of Gaza’. Neither of these two views establishes a convincing linguistic and/or geographical connection. Where, if anywhere, is Jerusalem in all of this? As the disciples on another road, to Emmaus, had lamented: ‘We were hoping …’ (Luke 24:21). And, indeed, those inspired by Dr. Velikovsky’s Ages in Chaos reconstructions have been hopeful that he had been able to pinpoint, in Thutmose III’s First Campaign, his Year 22-23, his immediate march on the glorious City of Jerusalem. Would it not make perfect sense that the mighty pharaoh would firstly head straight for Jerusalem once he had begun his military campaigns into Syro-Palestine? But now we have the Kd-šw (Kadesh) necessarily cancelled out as a candidate for Jerusalem, it surely being Kadesh on the Orontes. As well as this, Mk-t-y is clearly Megiddo, and not Jerusalem. So what is there left to us? As it now seems to me, Dr. Danelius’s Araunah for the Aruna road can be salvaged – though not as to its precise geography, and also her view regarding the road’s most difficult topography can be maintained, but, once again, with geographical modifications. Let us briefly reconstruct anew this part of Thutmose III’s campaign. From Gaza, the pharaoh will do exactly what pharaoh Shoshenq I (conventionally, but wrongly, identified as the biblical “Shishak”) will do in a later period, swing across towards Jerusalem. In the case of Shoshenq I, though, he did not actually go to Jerusalem, but to Gibeon (modern al-Jīb), about six miles NW of Jerusalem. (For a handy map of Shoshenq I’s campaign, see p. 41 of SIS Review, Vol. VIII, 1986). Pharaoh Thutmose III will make his first place of call after Gaza a town not given great consideration by historians, and hopelessly identified by them: namely, Y-hm. This Y-hm was, as I now believe it must be, a shortened version of Jerusalem (Y-erusa-hm), keeping in mind ancient Egyptian’s reluctant use of ‘l’ (actually missing in their alphabet). Y-hm, or as the Annals put it, “Yehem near Aruna”, was obviously an important halting place, where the Egyptian army dallied, organised supplies, and held a conference about how further to proceed. We read an account of it, for instance, as “Yaham”, in The Battle of Megiddo by Jimmy Dunn (aka Troy Fox: www.touregypt.net): [From Gaza the Egyptian army] reached Yaham eleven days later in mid May. Perhaps this [now slower rate of march] indicates fatigue, or simply caution as they travelled through territory that could be considered potentially or actually hostile. In fact, along the way Tuthmosis III detached units commanded by general Djehuty in order to place the stronghold of Jaffa under siege so that his line of communication and possible retreat could be protected, an indication that the Canaanite alliance was significant within southern Canaan. Three possible roads from Yehem to Megiddo lay open to the Egyptians, two of which were relatively easy to negotiate (like the conventionally chosen way through the Wãdy ‘Ârah). One nearby road, however, was a most difficult one, prompting the pharaoh’s officers to question: “Will the vanguard of us be fighting while the rear is waiting here in Aruna unable to fight?” They then provided the alternative suggestions “Now, two other roads are here, one of the roads – behold it is to the east of us, so that it comes out at Taanach. The other – behold, it is to the north side of Djefti, and we will come out to the north of Megiddo”. The Aruna road, the most difficult, but most direct, was the one that the brilliant pharaoh chose, for a surprise assault upon Megiddo. Jimmy Dunn writes regarding pharaoh’s tactic (op. cit.): … the Aruna road was through a narrow and difficult pass over a ridge that was presumed (particularly for the enemy coalition) to be too difficult for any army to use. Taking that route meant that ‘horse must follow horse, and man after man’…. Also, many modern commentators, and perhaps the Canaanite coalition as well, seem to forget the major virtues of the Egyptian Chariots. They were light vehicles, and it was certainly conceivable that many could be carried through the pass, while the horses were led separately …. The pass was named from its beginning at Araunah, near king Rehoboam’s capital, Jerusalem, “Yehem near Aruna”. Dr. Danelius had got the name right, but she had the Egyptian military negotiating it the wrong way around, with Araunah as its destination point, rather than its being their starting point. This road is variously known to us today as the Way of the Patriarchs, the Hill Road, or the Ridge Route, since it included, as we read, “a narrow and difficult pass over a ridge”. It was not a proper road, even as late as the time of Jesus, not one of the international highways then to be found in Palestine. This would have been a most tricky road, indeed, to negotiate, especially for an army that greatly relied upon its chariots. From Gaza (as all agree), pharaoh marched to Jerusalem (Dr. Danelius got the sequence right, but mis-identified Jerusalem), and then by the narrow Aruna road (Dr. Danelius got the name right only, not the direction) on to Megiddo (as per the conventional view and Velikovsky), and then on to Syrian Kadesh (as per the conventional view and Patrick J. Clarke). Friday 1st October 2021

Monday, April 6, 2020

Pharaohs known to Old Testament Israel



Great Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt 


by 
Damien F. Mackey


The use of the term “pharaoh” (פַרְעֹ֔ה) as a title as early as Genesis 12:15
is likely anachronistic – a later editing – as it appears that this term was applied
to the rulers of Egypt only late, during so-called New Kingdom Egyptian history. 

Part One: Naming the ruler by title only

Joshua J. Mark explains that “Pharaoh” was a Greek version of the Egyptian pero or per-a-a, meaning “Great House”: https://www.ancient.eu/pharaoh/ 

The Pharaoh in ancient Egypt was the political and religious leader of the people and held the titles ‘Lord of the Two Lands’ and ‘High Priest of Every Temple’. The word ‘pharaoh’ is the Greek form of the Egyptian pero or per-a-a, which was the designation for the royal residence and means `Great House’. The name of the residence became associated with the ruler and, in time, was used exclusively for the leader of the people.



The early monarchs of Egypt were not known as pharaohs but as kings. The honorific title of `pharaoh’ for a ruler did not appear until the period known as the New Kingdom (c.1570-c.1069 BCE) [sic]. Monarchs of the dynasties before the New Kingdom were addressed as `your majesty’ by foreign dignitaries and members of the court and as `brother’ by foreign rulers; both practices would continue after the king of Egypt came to be known as a pharaoh.

[End of quote]


Here, however, I shall be following the biblical usage by referring even to the early rulers of Egypt as “Pharaoh”.





Pharaoh One: Genesis 12:10-20


The ruler of Egypt who abducted Abram’s wife, Sarai, at the time of the famine, is simply called “Pharaoh”:

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are.

When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.


He seems to be, from this text, a not entirely unreasonable character.

The same may be said about the “Pharaoh” of Joseph also at the time of a famine.

The life of Moses, though, right down to the Exodus (80 years), experienced only persecuting, hard-hearted pharaohs.

Now, it was standard practice amongst the early Egyptian scribes not to name their Pharaoh (see e.g. professor A. S. Yahuda’s The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian, Oxford, 1933), despite the fact that the rulers of Egypt had a multiplicity of names.

Ishmael, whose toledôt history records the abduction of Sarai, was born of an Egyptian mother, Hagar (some traditions say that she was the daughter of Pharaoh), and he later married an Egyptian, and accordingly, perhaps, followed Egyptian practice.

Moses, having been educated in Egypt (Acts 7:22) would have been expected to – and does in fact – do the same.

And before Moses, Joseph must have become thoroughly Egyptianised as to court protocol and Egyptian etiquette.


However, when we come to Isaac’s toledôt history, telling the same story of the abduction of Sarai – but whom Isaac names, Sarah (his actual mother):


Toledôt Explains Abram’s Pharaoh

https://www.academia.edu/26239534/Toled%C3%B4t_Explains_Abrams_Pharaoh


–  the Pharaoh is finally named. He is “Abimelech”.

In my article (above) we even find that the elements, “Pharaoh” and “Abimelech”, connecting in a chiastic structure – although this does not inevitably mean personal identity.

Isaac (or whoever wrote his toledôt) was under no such constraint to follow Egyptian practice.

This may bring us to another point that will be raised in this series. The name given to a biblical pharaoh may not necessarily be an Egyptian name, but simply the name by which that ruler is known to the Hebrews (Israelites, Jews). Still, “Abimelech” may be compatible in meaning with an Egyptian-style name. See my article:

Comparing the Meaning of Names “Abimelech” and Egyptian “Raneb”


https://www.academia.edu/31154538/Comparing_the_Meaning_of_Names_Abimelech_and_Egyptian_Raneb_


“… the majority of scholars believe that Abimelech was not really a personal name but rather a Philistine royal title, not unlike Pharaoh in Egypt, Candace in Cush or Caesar in Rome”.

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Abimelech.html#.XJmhtJgzaU


Egypt at this time, we have found, to have taken possession of southern Canaan (or Philistia), hence we get a “Pharaoh” who is also a “king of the Philistines” (Genesis 26:1).

And this, Abram’s “Pharaoh”, I have determined, having ruled from Abram to the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, must have been an early Pharaoh who reigned for a half century and more.
I thus favour for this biblical “Pharaoh” the very first dynastic ruler, Hor-Aha (Min = Menes).

For more on this, see e.g. my article:

Dr. W.F. Albright’s Game-Changing Chronological Shift

https://www.academia.edu/15313044/Dr._W.F._Albright_s_Game-Changing_Chronological_Shift

If Dr. Albright was correct in his view that the Egyptian Manium (or Mannu), against whom the Akkadian potentate Naram-Sin (c. 2200 BC conventional dating) successfully waged war, was none other than the legendary first pharaoh Menes, himself, then that must lead to the shocking conclusion that the beginning of the Egyptian dynastic history (c. 3100 BC conventional dating) is a millennium out of whack with Akkadian history.

I have even been tempted to try to equate the name “Abimelech” with “Lehabim”, the son of Mizraim (or Egypt). Someone has picked up an old post of mine regarding this:

Genesis 10:6-14
The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan.  The sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan.  Now Cush became the father of Nimrod; he became a mighty one on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.”  The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.  Mizraim became the father of Ludim and Anamim and Lehabim and Naphtuhim and Pathrusim and Casluhim (from which came the Philistines) and Caphtorim.
….
Would not the King Abimelech, contemporary of Abram, be Lehabim (= Abim-lech), son of Mizraim?



Part Two: Who were the nameless Pharaohs of Joseph and Moses?


“Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt”.

Exodus 1:8


Right at the beginning of my article:


Moses – may be staring revisionists right in the face. Part One: Historical Moses has presented quite a challenge

https://www.academia.edu/36803416/Moses_may_be_staring_revisionists_right_in_the_face._Part_One_Historical_Moses_has_presented_quite_a_challenge


I declared this with regard to revisionists who are trying to set the biblical Joseph, historically, in the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty, and who then have to try to find a suitable place for Moses:

If any revisionist historian had placed himself in a good position, chronologically, to identify in the Egyptian records the patriarch Joseph, then it was Dr. Donovan Courville, who had, in The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, I and II (1971), proposed that Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms were contemporaneous. That radical move on his part might have enabled Courville to bring the likeliest candidate for Joseph, the Vizier Imhotep of the Third Dynasty, into close proximity with the Twelfth Dynasty – the dynasty that revisionists most favour for the era of Moses.

Courville, however, chose to set Joseph in the (so-called Middle Kingdom) Twelfth Dynasty, the dynasty of Moses, thereby losing the opportunity historically to identify both Joseph and Moses. And certain revisionists have tended to follow him in that direction.

Some revisionists recently, though, have woken up to the fact that by far the best historical candidate (or so I have long thought) for the “new king” (מֶלֶךְ-חָדָשׁ) of Exodus 1:8 is pharaoh Amenemes (Amenemhat) I, the founder of the Twelfth Dynasty.

See my article on this:


Twelfth Dynasty oppressed Israel



https://www.academia.edu/38553314/Twelfth_Dynasty_oppressed_Israel



Joseph’s “Pharaoh” of the Famine era thus pre-dated the Twelfth Dynasty, and is best found as pharaoh Zoser of the so-called Old Kingdom’s Third Dynasty, with Joseph himself being the genius Vizier, Imhotep.

What Dr. Courville’s revision has enabled us to do, however, is to revise Egypt’s Old Kingdom in relation to the Middle Kingdom, thereby bringing the Third Dynasty (Joseph’s) into far closer proximity to the Twelfth Dynasty (Moses’s).

The “new king” of Exodus 1:8, Amenemes I, can then be linked to his pharaonic mirror-image Sixth Dynasty counterpart, pharaoh Teti:

Moses may help link 6th and 12th dynasties of Egypt

https://www.academia.edu/35653614/Moses_may_help_link_6th_and_12th_dynasties_of_Egypt


which move, in turn, facilitates the identification of Moses historically as the Sixth Dynasty’s Chief Judge and Vizier (another genius), Weni, who served pharaohs Teti, Pepi and Merenre.

Moses can then also be the Chief Judge and Vizier, Mentuhotep, of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty – this Mentuhotep being Dr. Courville’s actual choice for Joseph.


So far in this series we have concluded that:

The “Pharaoh” of Abram (Abraham) and Isaac was also known as “Abimelech” (may possibly be the biblical Lehabim), and may, historically, have been Hor-Aha (Min = Menes) of the First Dynasty;

The “Pharaoh” of the Famine era of Joseph was Zoser of the Third Dynasty;

The “new king” of Moses’s infancy was Teti of the Sixth Dynasty = Amenemes I of the Twelfth Dynasty.



Part Three: During United Kingdom Era

Going by memory, here, I can think of a potential three Pharaohs (biblically mentioned as such) who ruled Egypt during Israel’s era of the United Kingdom of kings Saul, David and Solomon.

The first of these was reigning at the time of King David, according to I Kings 11:15-20:


Earlier when David was fighting with Edom, Joab the commander of the army, who had gone up to bury the dead, had struck down all the men in Edom. Joab and all the Israelites stayed there for six months, until they had destroyed all the men in Edom. But Hadad, still only a boy, fled to Egypt with some Edomite officials who had served his father. They set out from Midian and went to Paran. Then taking people from Paran with them, they went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house and land and provided him with food. Pharaoh was so pleased with Hadad that he gave him a sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes, in marriage. The sister of Tahpenes bore him a son named Genubath, whom Tahpenes brought up in the royal palace. There Genubath lived with Pharaoh’s own children.

The second one was ruler around about the beginning of the reign of Solomon (I Kings 9:16): “Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He then burned it, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife”.

The third one, now towards the end of the reign of king Solomon, is actually named.

He is “Shishak” (I Kings 11:40): “Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon’s death”.

Soon, I shall be adding to these a fourth, though biblically unspecified (that is, as “Pharaoh”).

If it were not for the research of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, in his series Ages in Chaos, we would still be floundering around within the conventional system, trying desperately to find archaeological and documentary evidence for Israel’s United Kingdom amidst the murky – and archaeologically entirely inappropriate – Third Intermediate Period (so-called) of Egyptian history (c. 1069-525 BC, conventional dating).

Velikovsky happily aligned the rise of the United Kingdom of Israel with the beginning of the famous Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty (c. 1540-1295 BC, conventional dating), now to be lowered on the timescale by some 500 years by Velikovsky. With this new scheme set in place, kings Saul and David became contemporaneous with the first Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs Ahmose, Amenhotep I and Thutmose I.

Velikovsky, in Ages in Chaos 1 (p. 99), even claimed to have historically identified the above-mentioned “Queen Tahpenes”, as belonging to first pharaoh, Ahmose:


This was in the days of David. The pharaoh must have been one by the name of
Ahmose. Among his queens must have been one by the name Tahpenes. We open the register of the Egyptian queens to see whether Pharaoh Ahmose had a queen by this name. Her name is actually preserved and read Tanethap, Tenthape, or, possibly, Tahpenes ….

Thutmose I fits nicely into place for Velikovsky as our second Pharaoh, who attacked Gezer. Dr. John Bimson once argued that this identification appears to be supported archaeologically. I had previously written on this:

Velikovsky had identified David’s era as the same as that of the 18th dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose I, as Dr. J. Bimson tells when providing an appropriate stratigraphy (“Can there be a Revised Chronology without a Revised Stratigraphy?”, SIS: Proceedings. Glasgow Conference, April, 1978):

In Velikovsky’s chronology, this pharaoh is identified as Thutmose I [ref. Ages in Chaos, iii, “Two Suzerains”] … In the revised stratigraphy considered here, we would expect to find evidence for this destruction of Gezer at some point during LB [Late Bronze] I, and sure enough we do, including dramatic evidence of burning [ref. Dever et al., Gezer I (1970, pp.54-55 …)].

[End of quote]


Now Thutmose I’s famous (so-called) “daughter”, Hatshepsut, who does figure in the Bible, apparently, but not as a “Pharaoh” (which she would become later, nonetheless), and who was brilliantly identified by Velikovsky as the biblical Queen of Sheba (or Queen of the South), will be that fourth “Pharaoh” to whom I referred above as being “biblically unspecified”.

Though not of royal Egyptian blood, Thutmose I had married pharaoh Amenhotep I’s sister, according to some views. ….

Thutmose I is generally considered to have become the father of Hatshepsut. “Yet”, according to Gay Robins” (“The Enigma of Hatshepsut”), “none of Thutmose I’s monuments even mentions his daughter”: https://www.baslibrary.org/archaeology-odyssey/2/1/11

But what I have suggested is that pharaoh Thutmose I, when crowning Hatshepsut, used a tri-partite coronation ceremony that uncannily followed the tri-partite pattern of David’s coronation of his son, Solomon. See my article:

Thutmose I Crowns Hatshepsut


https://www.academia.edu/26201708/Thutmose_I_Crowns_Hatshepsut



For kings first and second above no actual name is given as we have learned.

Both are called “Pharaoh king of Egypt”.

We have noted in this series that that was an Egyptian trait – “Pharaoh” being un-named by Egyptianised biblical writers, Ishmael (at least in his toledôt history), and Joseph and Moses.

Now there is the possibility that the accounts of our first (I Kings 11) and second (I Kings 9) pharaohs in this article were recorded by the Egyptianised king Solomon (Senenmut), in his “book of the annals of Solomon” according to a verse (I Kings 11:41) following these texts.

The only “Pharaoh” who is actually named in the Bible for this particular period is our third one, “Shishak”. Chronologically speaking – especially in Velikovsky’s context of Hatshepsut as Solomon’s contemporaneous Queen of Sheba – this “Shishak” can only be, as Velikovsky had indeed identified him, pharaoh Thutmose III (the “Napoleon of Egypt”: Breasted), who reigned contemporaneously with Hatshepsut.

See also my article on this:


Solomon and Sheba

https://www.academia.edu/3660164/Solomon_and_Sheba


for my identification of Solomon-in-Egypt as the famous, quasi-royal official, Senenmut (var. Senmut), thought by some to have been ‘the real power behind Hatshepsut’s throne’.


Moreover, the “Genubath” whom Queen Tahpenes bore to Hadad, as we read above, Velikovsky claimed to have identified, now as a people, at the time of “Shishak”/Thutmose III.

I wrote of this in my as follows:

As for “Genubath”, the son of Hadad, Velikovsky had rather strikingly identified his name amongst those giving tribute to Thutmose III, very soon after the latter’s First Campaign. Velikovsky wrote about it (in ch. iv) in “Genubath, King of Edom” (pp. 179-180):

Hadad had returned to Edom in the days of Solomon, after the death of Joab [I Kings 11:21-22]. Since then about forty years had elapsed. Genubath, his son, was now the vassal king of Edom …. Tribute from this land, too, must have been sent to the Egyptian crown; there was no need to send an expedition to subdue Edom. When Thutmose III returned from one of his inspection visits to Palestine he found in Egypt tribute brought by couriers from the land, “Genubatye”, which did not have to be conquered by an expeditionary force.

When his majesty arrived in Egypt the messengers of the Genubatye came bearing their tribute.3 [3. Breasted: Records, Vol. II, Sec. 474].

It consisted of myrrh, “negroes for attendants”, bulls, calves, besides vessels laden with ivory, ebony, and skins of panther.

Who were the people of Genubatye? Hardly a guess has been made with regard to this peculiar name. The people of Genubatye were the people of Genubath, their king, contemporary of Rehoboam.

Velikovsky had, in the course of his historical revision – and despite his obvious mistakes – managed to come up with many such brilliant and helpful identifications as this one pertaining to Genubath – an identification obviously impossible in the conventional system, with Egypt’s 18th dynasty and the biblical Genubath separated in time by some 500 years.

[End of quotes]


While there is still plenty of work to be done by revisionists, especially to modify appropriately certain controversial aspects of the “Shishak” identification, I would now consider Velikovsky’s Hatshepsut-Sheba and Thutmose III-Shishak twin identifications to be firm pillars of the revision. Revisionists who have rejected these twin links have inevitably failed to come up with any plausible alternatives.

Recently a researcher has tried to shift the identification of “Shishak” to Thutmose III’s successor, pharaoh Amenhotep II. For more detail on all of this, see my series beginning with:

Slightly Shifting “Shishak”


https://www.academia.edu/36014694/Slightly_Shifting_Shishak_


This writer, a Creationist believer in a biblical literalism, may perhaps be inconsistent in looking for the name “Shishak” in Amenhotep II’s nebty name, considering that the Bible appears to use only the Egyptian prenomen or nomen whenever it actually names a pharaoh.

We shall find this to be the case in Part Four.

Here is a small, but relevant section of my interchange with this researcher in Part Two: https://www.academia.edu/36157096/Slightly_Shifting_Shishak_._Part_Two_Response_to_my_critique 

The article under review follows a conga-line of revisionists who have tried to find an Egyptian explanation for the biblical name, “Shishak”, in this case taking the Egyptian nebty name of pharaoh Amenhotep II, weser fau, sekha em waset, whilst admitting that:

“At first glance, this name might not look like “Shishak”.”

And with very good reason, I say. It looks nothing like it!

It certainly does look like it. I recognized it at once when I saw it. The “f” seemed to be in the way, until I researched it and discovered that they didn’t have the “f” sound back then.

I found perhaps more plausible K. Birch’s suggestion (“Shishak Mystery?”, C and C Workshop, SIS, No. 2, 1987, p. 35) that “Shishak” may derive from pharaoh Thutmose III’s Golden Horus name, Djeser-khau [“chase a cow”] (dsr h‘w): “… the (Golden) Horus names of Thutmose III comprise variations on: Tcheser-khau, Djeser-khau …”.

[End of quotes]

More than likely, though, I think that the name “Shishak” was the name by which young Thutmose III was known to king Solomon and his court in his close relationship with his relative, Hatshepsut-Sheba.

Solomon had officials, secretaries, whose father was named “Shisha” (I Kings 4:1-3):

So King Solomon ruled over all Israel.

And these were his chief officials:

Azariah son of Zadok—the priest;

Elihoreph and Ahijah, sons of Shisha—secretaries ….



Part Four: During Divided Kingdom Era

Going by memory, here, I can think of a potential four Pharaohs who ruled Egypt during Israel’s era of the Divided Kingdom (c.930–c.586 BC, conventional dating).


The first of these was this enigmatic ruler at the time of Assyria’s Shalmaneser and Israel’s Hoshea (2 Kings 17:4):

But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison.

“So king of Egypt”.

Intriguingly, the Lucianic tradition of the LXX refers instead to “Adrammelech the Ethiopian, living in Egypt” (Duane L. Christensen, “The Identity of “King So” in Egypt”, Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 39, Fasc. 2 April., 1989, p. 141).

The second one was Tirhakah, and happily by now we have far more solid Egypto-Assyrian historical links. Tirhakah is especially famous for this incident (Isaiah 37:9-10):

Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the king of Cush, was marching out to fight against him. When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: ‘Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria’.’

The third one, late in the reign of King Josiah of Judah, is Necho, who actually killed Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:20-24):

After all this, when Josiah had set the Temple in order, Necho king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah marched out to meet him in battle. But Necho sent messengers to him, saying, ‘What quarrel is there, king of Judah, between you and me?

It is not you I am attacking at this time, but the house with which I am at war. God has told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you’.

Josiah, however, would not turn away from him, but disguised himself to engage him in battle. He would not listen to what Necho had said at God’s command but went to fight him on the plain of Megiddo.

Archers shot King Josiah, and he told his officers, ‘Take me away; I am badly wounded.”  So they took him out of his chariot, put him in his other chariot and brought him to Jerusalem, where he died’.


From the Assyrian records we know that Tirhakah and Necho were contemporaneous rulers of Egypt and/or Ethiopia.

And what tightens things even further, at least according to my revised version of chronology, is that King Hezekiah of Judah, a contemporary of King Hoshea of Israel (and hence of So king of Egypt), is to be identified with Josiah of Judah (and hence was also a contemporary of Necho king of Egypt). For this chronological tightening, see e.g. my article:

‘Taking aim on’ king Amon – such a wicked king of Judah

https://www.academia.edu/37575781/Taking_aim_on_king_Amon_-_such_a_wicked_king_of_Judah


The fourth is this one at the time of King Nebuchednezzar II (Jeremiah 44:30):

This is what the LORD says: ‘I am going to deliver Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hands of his enemies who want to kill him, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the enemy who wanted to kill him’.

It needs to be said of these four named pharaohs that some may turn out to be duplicates.
That is unlikely to be the case, though, with Tirhakah and Necho, who appear from the Assyrian records to have been two distinct rulers at the time of Ashurbanipal (or Assur-bani-pal): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Assur-Bani-Pal

ASSUR-BANI-PAL (“Assur creates a son”), the grand monarque of Assyria, was the prototype of the Greek Sardanapalus, and appears probably in the corrupted form of Asnapper in Ezra iv. 10. He had been publicly nominated king of Assyria (on the 12th of Iyyar) by his father Esar-haddon, some time before the latter’s death, Babylonia being assigned to his twin-brother Samas-sum-yukin, in the hope of gratifying the national feeling of the Babylonians.

After Esar-haddon’s death in 668 B.C. the first task of Assur-bani-pal was to finish the Egyptian campaign. Tirhakah, who had reoccupied Egypt, fled to Ethiopia, and the Assyrian army spent forty days in ascending the Nile from Memphis to Thebes. Shortly afterwards Necho, the satrap of Sais, and two others were detected intriguing with Tirhakah; Necho and one of his companions were sent in chains to Nineveh, but were there pardoned and restored to their principalities. Tirhakah died 667 B.C. ….

In my reconstructed history the neo-Assyrian succession from Esarhaddon to Ashurbanipal becomes altered. Esarhaddon, following Sennacherib, is now identified as Ashurbanipal. Whilst Esarhaddon-Ashurbanipal is now further identified as Nebuchednezzar II.

See my series on this most radical revision:


Aligning Neo Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part One: Shortening the Chaldean Dynasty

https://www.academia.edu/38330231/Aligning_Neo_Babylonia_with_Book_of_Daniel._Part_One_Shortening_the_Chaldean_Dynasty

Aligning Neo-Babylonia with Book of Daniel. Part Two: Merging late neo-Assyrians with Chaldeans

https://www.academia.edu/38330399/Aligning_Neo-Babylonia_with_Book_of_Daniel._Part_Two_Merging_late_neo-Assyrians_with_Chaldeans

I have also suggested, in light of this revision, that Necho I and Necho II of conventional history might be condensed into just the one pharaoh Necho.

What we find with our potentially four pharaohs in this article is that all of them are named:
“So”; “Tirhakah”; “Necho” and “Hophra”.
Of these, “So” – just like “Shishak” – may not be an actual Egyptian name, but the name by which the pharaoh was known to the scribes of Israel. Conventional scholars have searched long and hard for him, always destined to arrive at a dead end.
The situation is briefly summed up at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaohs_in_the_Bible

2 Kings 17:4 says that king Hoshea sent letters to “So, King of Egypt”. No pharaoh of this name is known for the time of Hoshea (about 730 BC), during which Egypt had three dynasties ruling contemporaneously: 22nd at Tanis23rd at Leontopolis, and 24th at Sais. Nevertheless, this ruler is commonly identified with Osorkon IV (730–715 BC) who ruled from Tanis,[5][6] though it is possible that the biblical writer has mistaken the king with his city and equated So with Sais, at this time ruled by Tefnakht.

Dr. Courville was far closer to the mark (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971) when he proposed for “So” the great Ramses II himself of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty. Though his suggestion that “So” was derived from the Suten Bat name of Ramses II is far-fetched. Moreover, Courville had the long reign of a now-aged Ramses II concluding with the ‘So’ incident, whereas I think that the ‘So’ era would be far closer to the beginning of the reign of Ramses II. Previously I have written on this:

Courville’s hopeful derivation of the name, ‘So’, from a Suten Bat name of Ramses II is far from convincing. I wrote of this in my university thesis:

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background

AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

(Volume One, p. 266):

Now according to Courville’s system … Ramses II, whose reign would have terminated in 726/725 BC, must have been the biblical “King So of Egypt” with whom Hoshea of Israel conspired against the king of Assyria (2 Kings 17:4).

Courville had plausibly (in his context) suggested that the reason why ‘So’ was unable to help Hoshea of Israel was because the Egyptian king was, as Ramses II, now right at the end of his very long reign, and hence aged and feeble.

Courville had looked to find the name ‘So’ amongst the many names of Ramses II, and had opted for the rather obscure ‘So’ element in that pharaoh’s Suten Bat name, Ra-user-Maat-Sotep-en-Ra.727 (See also pp. 286-287). ….

[End of quotes]

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Conventional Egypt and Bible history

 
 
Damien F. Mackey
 
 
 
 
There are two kings in the Bible referred to as King Jehoram/Joram. The first was the son of King Jehoshaphat, and he ruled in the southern kingdom of Judah from 853 to 841 BC. The other King Jehoram was the son of the wicked King Ahab, and he ruled in the northern kingdom of Israel from 852 to 841 BC. The name Joram is a shortened form of Jehoram. Complicating matters is the fact that both Jehorams were brothers-in-law to each other.
King Jehoram of Judah I have confidently identified with – following Peter James – El Amarna’s Abdi-Hiba of Urusalim. For now, I would accept for Jehoram (as a rough approximation) the date of c. 850 BC. That date, however, will need to be lowered considerably as my revision progresses.
 
Turning to convention, Abdi-Hiba is thought to have lived around 1330 BC, in pre-Israelite Jerusalem. Unfortunately for this theory, Jerusalem (Urusalim) was called Jebus in those days.
By 850 BC, convention has already seen off Egypt’s entire New Kingdom (so-called), comprising dynasties 18, 19 and 20, and it is well into the so-called Third Intermediate Period (TIP), having gone past dynasty 21, and having settled somewhere in dynasty 22.
 
We recall that dynasty 22’s founder pharaoh, Shoshenq I, has been aligned by the French genius, François Champollion, with the biblical Shishak.
And that unfortunate link is still retained today by the conventional scholars.  
 
By 850 BC my revised chronology has not yet even exhausted Egypt’s famous Eighteenth Dynasty (let alone the entire New Kingdom), with the two kings Jehoram being contemporaneous with (following the “Glasgow” School) pharaoh Akhnaton and El Amarna.
Akhnaton’s two sons, Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun, will yet follow him in this dynasty.
 
Obviously this ought to be a great advantage for the conventional system over mine.
I shall have to contend with confining an enormous amount of Egyptian dynastic history into a far diminished period. Such a prospect would eventually frighten away a lot of revisionists, who, reeling after (i) “The Assuruballit Problem” [TAP], would despair of having to squeeze into so tight a chronological space the (ii) almost 70-year reign of Ramses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty, not to mention (iii) the multiple dynasties of TIP.  
 
These (i)-(iii) have long loomed as the biggest obstacles towards a Velikovskian-style revision.
 
David Rohl, Peter James and others would eventually compromise by cutting approximately in half Velikovsky’s 500-year time shift. Whilst all agreed that the biblical Shishak could not have been (as per convention) pharaoh Shoshenq I, Rohl, for instance, would now look to identify this Shishak with the Nineteenth Dynasty great, Ramses II.   
 
The conventional system, although it has the advantage of far more chronological space, has the distinct disadvantage of its proponents not being able to identify, either historically or archaeologically, any of the great biblical events such as the Exodus and Conquest; the Fall of Jericho; and the era of kings David and Solomon.
Pharaoh Thutmose III, the great conqueror, the biblical Shishak, gets lumped into the Exodus era. Others, though, opt for Ramses II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, although his conventionally calculated era of c. 1300 BC does not match biblical time calculations for the Exodus – nor does the reign of Ramses II exhibit any evidence for a large-scale Exodus of its slave population.
Ramses II’s son, Merenptah, has a famous Stele that names “Israel”.
Dated to c. 1205 BC, this document has been a source of great confusion for historians. For example: https://watchjerusalem.co.il/446-merneptah-stele-proving-israels-3200-year-existence
The mention of Israel in this 3,200-year-old document suggests, at the time of its inscription, the nation of Israel was an established power and not a nomadic people who had just recently entered the land of Canaan. Before the discovery of the stele, many dated the Exodus much later, but now they are forced to reconcile with the fact that Israel was already an established power in Canaan in 1207 b.c.e”.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Maacah mother of Abijah, Asa



Image result for queen jezebel 

 by
 

Damien F. Mackey


 

 

Commentators naturally have difficulty with the queen mother, Maacah, who is said to have been the mother of, supposedly, two successive kings of Judah, Abijah (Abijam) and his son, the long-reigning Asa.

 

I Kings 15:1, 2:Abijah became king of Judah…. His mother’s name was Maacah [Maakah] daughter of Abishalom”.

 

I Kings 15:9, 10:Asa began to reign over Judah ….  His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom”.

Some go so far as to translate ‘his mother’ (אִמּוֹ) as ‘his grandmother’ – although the Hebrew word here invariably means “mother”. See e.g.: https://biblehub.com/hebrew/immo_517.htm

 

2 Chronicles provides the same information, but adds the variation that Maacah was the daughter of one “Uriel”.

 

2 Chronicles 13:1, 2:Abijah became king of Judah …. His mother’s name was Maakah, a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah”.

 

Concerning Asa and Maacah in 2 Chronicles we are told that (15:16): “King Asa also deposed his mother Maakah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for the worship of Asherah. Asa cut it down, broke it up and burned it in the Kidron Valley”.

Again, “mother” (אֵם) here is sometimes replaced by “grandmother”.

 

Attempted explanations

 

Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch has, in her article,”Maacah”, offered her own possible solutions to the problem: https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/maacah-bible

 

The regnal formula of Asa, king of Judah from 908 to 867 b.c.e., claims that his mother is Maacah the daughter of Abishalom (1 Kgs 15:10). This is problematic because the same woman is alleged to be the mother of Asa’s father, Abijah/Abijam (1 Kgs 15:2). An alternative tradition, calling Abijah’s mother Micaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah, is most likely an attempted harmonization of this difficulty (2 Chr 13:2). Either Abijah and Asa are brothers, not father and son, or Maacah was Asa’s grandmother, not his mother. Thus, Maacah is the wife of Rehoboam (2 Chr 11:20–23), whose favored status with her husband ensured Abijah’s succession. This tradition also offers the variant spelling “Absalom” for Maacah’s father. If this refers to the half-Geshurite son of David, Maacah and Rehoboam’s marriage would be politically advantageous. After serving as queen mother during Abijah’s short reign, Maacah continues in that position under her son or grandson, Asa. If Asa is her grandson, this atypical retention of Maacah’s title adds support to the contention that the queen mother was an official functionary in the Judean court and not simply the female parent of the king. Maacah’s role appears most clearly to be an office when Asa removes her from her position as gebirah (“great lady”) after she makes a cult object associated with the goddess Asherah. Ackerman suggests that the primary and generally accepted responsibility of the queen mother’s office was to devote herself to the cultic worship of Asherah. Thus, the lack of biblical evidence for this office might be partly explained by the Bible’s reluctance to admit Asherah worship was ever part of the official royal court. ….

 

And, at encyclopedia.com https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/maacah we read, again favouring Maacah as “the grandmother of Asa”:

 

…. The references to the second Maacah pose certain problems, as a literal reading of all the passages related to her indicates that she is the daughter of Absalom, who, according to ii Samuel 14:27, had only one daughter, Tamar. The above references also indicate that Maacah is the mother of Abijah. According to ii Chronicles 13:2 (mt), Abijah's mother is Micaiah, daughter of Uriel. Finally the references show Maacah also to be the mother of Asa.

In order to resolve these contradictions, the Masoretic Text of ii Chronicles 13:2 must be corrected in accordance with the Septuagint, which reads "Maacah daughter of Uriel."

(Everywhere else in the Masoretic Text as well as in the Septuagint Abijah's mother is called Maacah daughter of Absalom.) With this correction the problems are more easily resolved. Maacah is then the granddaughter of Absalom, the daughter of Uriel and Tamar, the mother of Abijah, and the grandmother of Asa. Some of the original confusion results from the fact that the Bible often used the term "children" for "grandchildren" and even descendants who are generations removed (cf. Gen. 31:28; i Kings 15:11, et al.).

 

W. Rudolph (see bibl.) adopts the view of M. Noth (see bibl.) that ii Chronicles 13:2 represents the original text of i Kings 15:2 which is now influenced by i Kings 15:10. Then Abijah would be the son of Rehoboam's wife Micaiah daughter of Uriel, and Asa the son of Abijah's wife Maacah, who would have been the literal daughter of an unknown Absalom, not the granddaughter of David's son Absalom. King Asa deposed Maacah from being queen mother because of an abominable image she had made for Asherah (i Kings 15:13). S. Yeivin maintains that Maacah is Abijah's mother, while Micaiah daughter of Uriel is Asa's mother, and that Asa is Rehoboam's son, and Abijah's half brother. ….

 

My tentative solution

 

Abijah (Abijam) and Asa have the same mother, Maacah, because, as I think, Abijah is Asa.

 

This is obviously a very bold statement, indeed, especially considering that, whereas Abijah is said to have reigned for a very short period of time (I Kings 15:2): “… he reigned in Jerusalem three years”, Asa reigned for almost four decades longer than that (2 Chronicles 16:13): “Then in the forty-first year of his reign Asa died and rested with his ancestors”.

 

What makes even bolder my tentative claim (Abijah is Asa) are the seemingly vastly different reputations of, now Abijah, now Asa.

Abijah receives a very bad press from I Kings (e.g. 15:3): “He committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been”.

By contrast (vv. 11-12): “Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done. He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his ancestors had made”.

 

Apart from the common Maacah factor, though, there is to be considered the quite different account of Abijah in 2 Chronicles, which presents him as a Yahwist along the lines of a David, or a Hezekiah (13:2-12):

 

There was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. Abijah went into battle with an army of four hundred thousand able fighting men, and Jeroboam drew up a battle line against him with eight hundred thousand able troops.

Abijah stood on Mount Zemaraim, in the hill country of Ephraim, and said, ‘Jeroboam and all Israel, listen to me! Don’t you know that the Lord, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt? Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, an official of Solomon son of David, rebelled against his master. Some worthless scoundrels gathered around him and opposed Rehoboam son of Solomon when he was young and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them.

‘And now you plan to resist the kingdom of the Lord, which is in the hands of David’s descendants.

You are indeed a vast army and have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made to be your gods. But didn’t you drive out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and make priests of your own as the peoples of other lands do? Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may become a priest of what are not gods.

‘As for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him. The priests who serve the Lord are sons of Aaron, and the Levites assist them. Every morning and evening they present burnt offerings and fragrant incense to the Lord. They set out the bread on the ceremonially clean table and light the lamps on the gold lampstand every evening. We are observing the requirements of the Lord our God. But you have forsaken him. God is with us; he is our leader. His priests with their trumpets will sound the battle cry against you. People of Israel, do not fight against the Lord, the God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed’.

 

As John Scarsbrook has rightly noted about Abijah, “… in 1 Kings nothing good is recorded of him, while in 2 Chronicles nothing directly bad”.

https://www.preciousseed.org/article_detail.cfm?articleID=2878

 

The same writer continues in his article “Abijah”:

 

The record of Abijah in 1 Kings closes with a brief summary of his reign which was characterized by constant strife. The relentless feud with Jeroboam and the northern tribes was a persistent feature of his life while his father lived, and this continued throughout his own three-year reign until his death. Jeroboam was an Ephraimite, Rehoboam was of Judah, they were of the same kin, yet they were adversaries. It is sad to think that friction between brethren can be perpetuated and even passed on to the next generation without resolution. 

When we turn our attention to 2 Chronicles chapter 13, a rather different picture emerges.

There is no record of Abijah following in ‘the sins of his father’, but rather, almost the whole of the narrative is taken up with just one day in his life, a day when a great victory was won, ‘because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers’, 2 Chr. 13. 18. It has been a feature of battles down the course of history for the army general to address his troops with encouraging words just prior to engaging the enemy. In Abijah’s case this was done not only to strengthen the resolve of his own forces, but from a vantage point and with enough volume to challenge and intimidate the much larger force of Jeroboam. Abijah’s well constructed oration was based (as with all good preachers) around three points. First, he challenged the validity of Jeroboam’s authority by reminding him that the whole kingdom rightfully belonged to David and his descendents. This was confirmed by ‘the Lord God of Israel’, by an unchangeable, incorruptible, ‘covenant of salt’, a perpetual promise, v. 5; Jeroboam was just a usurper.  Secondly, he reminded the ten tribes that the true priesthood of Israel belonged to the line of Aaron and the only acceptable offerings were those associated with the altar and order appointed by the Lord. Jeroboam had surrounded himself with false people, v. 7, false gods, v. 8, and a false priesthood, v. 9. Thirdly, Abijah reveals the main weapon in his armoury, ‘God himself is with us for our captain’, v. 12, and because of this he concludes, ‘ye shall not prosper’. 

Such fine words would have done credit to Hezekiah or Josiah in their day, but coming from a man who ‘walked in all the sins of his father’, they seem strangely hollow. Idolatry was still rife even in Judah and the legacy left to Asa, the son of Abijah, was ‘altars of strange gods . . . high places . . . images and groves’, 2 Chr. 14. 3. If our words are to carry weight, then our life must show evidence of reality. Good practice must always go before, and accompany, good preaching! All that Abijah said was true, but it was totally lost on Jeroboam!  

While Abijah was rallying his troops, Jeroboam was laying plans for the battle! A detachment of soldiers was moved surreptitiously to the rear of Judah’s army. An ambush was laid which doubtless would have won the day, with Abijah needing to fight on two fronts. But Judah, instead of trying to outmanoeuvre their adversary, ‘cried unto the Lord’, and, remembering the promise of Numbers chapter 10 verse 9, ‘the priests sounded with the trumpets’. Surely there are lessons here for us. When the adversary seems to surround us, when ‘the enemy shall come in like a flood’, Isa. 59. 19, we have a sure defence and well proven armour, Eph. 6. 11-18. 

The Lord, ever true to His word, enabled Judah to accomplish a remarkable victory against overwhelming odds. It was a mortal blow to Jeroboam; he never recovered strength again in the days of Abijah. How sad that the nation, and indeed we in our present day, so often fail to appreciate the vast resources at our disposal in times of need. ….

 

My own explanation of the stark contrast between the inveterate sinner, Abijah, and the exemplary Yahwism of his oration to Jeroboam I, ‘As for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him’, backed up by his shattering victory, is to be found in the life of Asa.

Asa’s early reign was characterised by his full-on devotion to Yahweh (2 Kings 15:10-15, 17-18):

 

They assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign. At that time they sacrificed to the Lord seven hundred head of cattle and seven thousand sheep and goats from the plunder they had brought back. They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and soul. All who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman. They took an oath to the Lord with loud acclamation, with shouting and with trumpets and horns. All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side.

…. Although he did not remove the high places from Israel, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life. He brought into the temple of God the silver and gold and the articles that he and his father had dedicated [,]

 

and he had, like Abijah, the greatest of military success (2 Chronicles 14:2-15):

 

Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his laws and commands. He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the Lord gave him rest.

‘Let us build up these towns’, he said to Judah, ‘and put walls around them, with towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God; we sought him and he has given us rest on every side’. So they built and prospered.

Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men from Judah, equipped with large shields and with spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand from Benjamin, armed with small shields and with bows. All these were brave fighting men.

Zerah the Cushite marched out against them with an army of thousands upon thousands and three hundred chariots, and came as far as Mareshah.


 

Asa went out to meet him, and they took up battle positions in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah.

Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said, ‘Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. Lord, you are our God; do not let mere mortals prevail against you’.

The Lord struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah. The Cushites fled, and Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. Such a great number of Cushites fell that they could not recover; they were crushed before the Lord and his forces. The men of Judah carried off a large amount of plunder. They destroyed all the villages around Gerar, for the terror of the Lord had fallen on them. They looted all these villages, since there was much plunder there. They also attacked the camps of the herders and carried off droves of sheep and goats and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.

 

The 2 Chronicles account of Abijah, the good one, reflects this aspect of Asa (his Dr. Jekyll).

 

But, later, there is another side (Mr. Hyde) to Asa, which, I think, in the case of Abijah, I Kings is entirely preoccupied with. It is a case of diametric opposition.

King Asa of Judah, from the 36th year of his reign (2 Chronicles 16:1) - which period covers a relatively small portion of his reign - begins a slide which will gather momentum (vv. 7-12):

 

At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him: ‘Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war’.

Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people.

The events of Asa’s reign, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the Lord, but only from the physicians.

 

That is also the Abijah whom I Kings was intent on portraying.  

 

The size of Asa’s army, “three hundred thousand men from Judah, equipped with large shields and with spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand from Benjamin, armed with small shields and with bows”, compares quite favourably with Abijah’s “four hundred thousand able fighting men” perhaps at an earlier stage.
 

These figures are, of course, quite unrealistic, with the Hebrew word elef (אָלֶף), of various meanings, being translated - exaggeratedly in this case - as “thousand”.
 

Very much in favour of the need to extend the length of Abijah’s reign (into the long reign of Asa, as I see it) is what we read about Abijah’s impressive deeds in 2 Chronicles 13:19-22:  

 

Abijah pursued Jeroboam and took from him the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah and Ephron, with their surrounding villages. Jeroboam did not regain power during the time of Abijah. And the Lord struck him down and he died.

But Abijah grew in strength. He married fourteen wives and had twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

The other events of Abijah’s reign, what he did and what he said, are written in the annotations of the prophet Iddo.
 

Most unlikely all of this for a reign of only “three years”, especially the “twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters”!