An early study of Philistine origins

R.A.S. Macalister wrote in 1913: THE PHILISTINES THEIR HISTORY AND CIVILIZATION CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN OF THE PHILISTINES …. Now while some of the earlier periods shade into one another, like the colours of a rainbow, so that it is difficult to tell where the one ends and the next begins, this is not the case of the latest periods, the changes in which have evidently been produced by violence. The chief manifestation is the destruction of Knossos, which took place, apparently as a result of invasion from the mainland, at the very end of the period known as Late Minoan II: that is to say about 1400 B.C. [sic] The inferior style called Late Minoan III—the style which till recent years we had been accustomed to call Mycenaean—succeeded at once and without any intermediate transition to the style of Late Minoan II immediately after this raid. It was evidently the degraded style that had developed in the mainland among the successful invaders, founded upon (or, rather, degenerated from) works of art which had spread by way of trade to the adjacent lands, in the flourishing days of Cretan civilization. We have seen that in Egyptian tombs of about 1500 B.C. [sic] there are to be seen paintings of apparently Cretan messengers and merchants, called by the name of Keftiu, bearing Cretan goods: and in addition we find the actual tangible goods themselves, deposited with the Egyptian dead. Damien Mackey’s comment: “1500 BC” here needs to be revised to c. C10th BC. In Palestine and elsewhere occasional scraps of the 'palace' styles come to light. But the early specimens of Cretan art found in these regions are all exotic, just as (to quote a parallel often cited in illustration) the specimens of Chinese or Japanese porcelain exhibited in London drawing-rooms are exotic; and they affect but little the inferior native arts of the places where they are found. It is not till we reach the beginning of Late Minoan III, after the sack of Knossos, that we find Minoan culture actually taking root in the eastern lands of the Mediterranean, such as Cyprus and the adjacent coasts of Asia Minor and Syria. We can hardly dissociate this phenomenon from the sack of Knossos. The very limitations of the area over which the 'Mycenaean' art has been found are enough to show that its distribution was not a result of peaceful trade. Thus, the Hittite domination of Central and Western Asia Minor was still strong enough to prevent foreign settlers from establishing themselves in those provinces: in consequence Mycenaean civilization is there absent. The spread of the debased Cretan culture over Southern Asia Minor, Cyprus, and North Syria, between 1400 and 1200 B.C. must have been due to the movements of peoples, one incident in which was the sack of Knossos 1: and this is true, whether those who carried the Cretan art were refugees from Crete, or were the conquerors of Crete seeking yet further lands to spoil. In short, the sack of Knossos and the breaking of the Cretan power was an episode—it may be, was the crucial and causative episode—in a general disturbance which the fourteenth to the twelfth centuries B.C. witnessed over the whole Eastern Mediterranean basin. The mutual relations of the different communities were as delicately poised as in modern Europe: any abnormal motion in one part of the system tended to upset the balance of the whole. Egypt was internally in a ferment, thanks to the eccentricities of the crazy dilettante Ikhnaton, and was thus unable to protect her foreign possessions; the nomads of Arabia, the Sutu and Habiru, were pressing from the South and East on the Palestinian and Syrian towns; the dispossessed Cretans were crowding to the neighbouring lands on the north; the might of the Hittites, themselves destined to fall to pieces not long afterwards, blocked progress northward: it is little wonder that disorders of various kinds resulted from the consequent congestion. It is just in this time of confusion that we begin to hear, vaguely at first, of a number of little nationalities—people never definitely assigned to any particular place, but appearing now here, now there, fighting sometimes with, sometimes against, the Egyptians and their allies. And what gives these tribelets their surpassing interest is the greatness of the names they bear. The unsatisfying and contemptuous allusions of the Egyptian scribes record for us the 'day of small things' of people destined to revolutionize the world. We first meet these tribes in the Tell el-Amarna letters. The king of Alašia (Cyprus) complains that his coasts are being raided by the Lukku, who yearly plunder one small town after another. 1 That indefatigable correspondent, Rib-Addi, in two letters, complains that one Biḫura has sent people of the Sutu to his town and slain certain Sherdan men—apparently Egyptian mercenaries in the town guard. 2 In a mutilated passage in another letter Rib-Addi mentions the Sherdan again, in connexion with an attempt on his own life. Then Abi-Milki reports 3 that 'the king of Danuna is dead, and his brother has become king after him, and his land is at peace'. It is almost the only word of peace in the whole dreary Tell el-Amarna record. Next we hear of these tribes in their league with the Hittites against Ramessu [Ramses] II, when he set out to recover the ground lost to Egypt during the futile reign of Ikhnaton. 4 With the Hittites were allied people from Rk[w] Drdnw M[ȝ]św Mȝwnw or irwnw Pdśw Ḳrḳš This was in 1333 B.C. On the side of Ramessu fought mercenaries called Šȝrḍȝhȝ ( ) no doubt the Sherdan of whom we have heard already in the Tell el-Amarna letters. These people were evidently ready to sell their services to whomsoever paid for them, for we find them later operating against their former Egyptian masters. Damien Mackey’s comment: The “1333 BC” here needs to be revised to c. C8th BC., the proper era of Ramses II: The Complete Ramses II (7) The Complete Ramses II About thirty years later, when Merneptah was on the throne, there was a revolt of the Libyans, and with many allies from the 'Peoples of the Sea' they proceeded to attack Egypt. Damien Mackey’s comment: Although Merenptah (Merneptah) is traditionally considered to have succeeded his father, Ramses II, I strongly suspect that Merenptah was, in fact, Seti (Sety) Merenptah, the father of Ramses II. Though the Philistines do not actually appear among the names of the allies, the history of this invasion is one of the most important in the origines of that remarkable people. The details are recorded in four inscriptions set up by the king after his victory over the invaders, one of which inscriptions is the famous 'Israel' stela. The first inscription is that of the temple of Karnak, a translation of which will be found in Breasted's Ancient Records, vol. iii, p. 241. This inscription begins with a list of the allied enemies: ȝkw[ȝ]šw Tršw Rkw Šrdnw Škršw The beginning of the inscription is lost, but the list is probably complete, as in the sequel, where the allied tribes are referred to more than once, no other names are mentioned. Merneptah, after extolling his own valour and the military preparations he had made, tells us how he had received news that (Maraiwi or something similar) 'the miserable chief of Libya', with his allies aforesaid, had come with his family to the western boundary of Egypt. Enraged like a lion, he assembled his officers and to them expressed his opinion of the invaders in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination. 'They spend their time going about and fighting to fill their bellies day by day: they come to Egypt to seek the needs of their mouths: their chief is like a dog, without courage . . . .' Some of the vigorous old king's expressions have been bowdlerised by the hand of Time, which has deprived us of a course of the inscribed masonry of the temple but notwithstanding we have an admirable description of restless sea-rovers, engaged in constant plunder and piracy. Then Merneptah, strengthened by a vision of his patron Ptah which appeared to him in the night, led out his warriors, defeated the Libyans—whose 'vile fallen chief' justified Merneptah's opinion of him by fleeing, and, in the words of the official report of the Egyptian general to his master, 'he passed in safety by favour of the night . . . all the gods overthrew him for the sake of Egypt: his boasting is made void: his curses have come to roost: no one knows if he be alive or dead, and even if he lives he will never rule again. They have put in his place a brother of his who fights him whenever he sees him'. The list of slain and captives is much mutilated, but is of some importance. For the slain were reckoned by cutting off and counting the phalli of circumcised, the hands of uncircumcised victims. 1 From the classification we see that at the time of the victory of Merneptah, the Libyans were circumcised, while the Shardanu and Shekelesh and Ekwesh, as we may provisionally vocalize the names, were not circumcised. The inscription ends with the flamboyant speech of Merneptah to his court, and their reply, over which we need not linger. Nor do the other inscriptions relating to the event add anything of importance for our present purpose. About a hundred years later [sic] we meet some of these tribes again, on the walls of the great fortified temple of Medinet Habu near Thebes, which Ramessu III, the last of the great kings of Egypt, built to celebrate the events of his reign. Damien Mackey’s comment: Regarding Ramses so-called III, see e.g. my article: Ramses II, Ramses III (8) Ramses II, Ramses III Some ‘ramifying’ similarities …. “[Rameses III’s] … children turned out to resemble Rameses II’s not only in their names but also in their early deaths”. N. Grimal Should revisionists perhaps have realised, in their efforts to streamline the later Egyptian history, that the troublesome Ramses II ought to be merged as one with the similarly troublesome Ramses III? …. These events are recorded in sculptured scenes, interpreted and explained by long hieroglyphic inscriptions. It is deplorable that the latter are less informing than they might have been: we grudge bitterly the precious space wasted in grovelling compliments to the majesty of the victorious monarch, and we would have gladly dispensed with the obscure and would-be poetical style which the writer of the inscription affected. 2 Ramessu III came to the throne about 1200 B.C. [sic] 3 Another Libyan invasion menaced the land in his fifth year, but the energetic monarch, who had already been careful to organize the military resources of Egypt, was successful in beating it back. War-galleys from the northern countries, especially the Purasati and the Zakkala, accompanied the invading Libyans; but this latter element in the assault was only a foretaste of the yet more formidable attack which they were destined to make on Egypt three years later—that is to say, roughly about 1192 B.C. The inscription describing this war is engraved on the second pylon of the temple of Medinet Habu. Omitting a dreary encomium of the Pharaoh, with which it opens, and a long hymn of triumph with which it ends, we may confine our attention to the historical events recorded in the hieroglyphs, and pictured in the representations of battles that accompany them. The inscription records how the Northerners were disturbed, and proceeded to move eastward and southward, swamping in turn the land of the Hittites, Carchemish, Arvad, Cyprus, Syria, and other places in the sane region. We are thus to picture a great southward march through Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine. Or, rather, we are to imagine a double advance, by land and by sea: the landward march, which included two-wheeled ox-carts for the women and children, as the accompanying picture indicates; and a sea expedition, in which no doubt the spare stores would be carried more easily than on the rough Syrian roads. Clearly they were tribes accustomed to sea-faring who thus ventured on the stormy Mediterranean; clearly too, it was no mere military expedition, but a migration of wanderers accompanied by their families and seeking a new home. 1 The principal elements in the great coalition are the following: Šrdnw Duynw Prśtw Tȝkrw W[ȝ]ššw of the Sea as well as the Škršȝw, of which we have heard in previous documents. 'With hearts confident and full of plans', as the inscription says, they advanced by land and by sea to Egypt. But Ramessu was ready to 'trap them like wild-fowl'. He strengthened his Syrian frontier, and at the same time fortified the harbours or river mouths 'with warships, galleys, and barges'. The actual battles are not described, though they are pictured in the accompanying cartoons: but the successful issue of these military preparations is graphically recorded. 'Those who reached my boundary,' says the king, 'their seed is not: their heart and their soul are finished for ever and ever. As for those who had assembled before them on the sea . . . they were dragged, overturned, and laid low upon the beach: slain and made heaps from end to end of their galleys, while all their things were cast upon the water.' The scenes in which the land and naval engagements are represented are of great importance, in that they are contemporary records of the general appearance of the invaders and of their equipment. The naval battle, the earliest of which any pictorial record remains, is graphically portrayed. We see the Egyptian archers sweeping the crews of the invading vessels almost out of existence, and then closing in and finishing the work with their swords; one of the northerners’ vessels is capsized and those of its crew who swim to land are taken captive by the Egyptians waiting on the shore. In later scenes we see the prisoners paraded before the king, and the tale of the victims—counted by enumerating the hands chopped off the bodies. The passage in the great Harris Papyrus, which also contains a record of the reign of Ramessu III, 1 adds very little to the information afforded us by the Medinet Habu inscription. The 'Danaiuna' are there spoken of as islanders. We are told that the Purasati and the Zakkala were 'made ashes', while the Shekelesh (called in the Harris Papyrus Shardani, who thus once more appear against Egypt) and the Washasha were settled in strongholds and bound. From all these people the king claims to have levied taxes in clothing and in grain. As we have seen, the march of the coalition had been successful until their arrival in Egypt. The Hittites and North Syrians had been so crippled by them that Ramessu took the opportunity to extend the frontier of Egyptian territory northward. We need not follow this campaign, which does not directly concern us: but it has this indirect bearing on the subject, that the twofold ravaging of Syria, before and after the great victory of Ramessu, left it weakened and opened the door for the colonization of its coast-lands by the beaten remnant of the invading army. Ramessu III died in or about 1167 B.C., and the conquered tribes began to recover their lost ground. For that powerful monarch was succeeded by a series of weak ghost-kings who disgraced the great name of Ramessu which, one and all, they bore. More and more did they become puppets in the hands of the priesthood, who cared for nothing but enriching the treasures of their temples. The frontier of Egypt was neglected. Less than a hundred years after the crushing defeat of the coalition, the situation was strangely reversed, as one of the most remarkable documents that have come down to us from antiquity allows us to see. This document is the famous Golénischeff papyrus, now at St. Petersburg. But before we proceed to an examination of its contents we must review the Egyptian materials, which we have now briefly set forth, a little more closely. The names of the tribes, with some doubtful exceptions, are easily equated to those of peoples living in Asia Minor. We may gather a list of them out of the various authorities which have been set out above, adding to the Egyptian consonant-skeleton a provisional vocalization, and remembering that r and l are interchangeable in Egyptian: Tell el-Amarna Ramessu II Merneptah Ramessu III c. 1400 B.C. 1333 B.C. c. 1300 B.C. c. 1198 B.C. 1. Lukku X X X - 2. Sherdanu X X X X 3. Danunu X - - X 4. Dardanu - X - - 5. Masa - X - - 6. Mawuna or Yaruna (?) - X - - 7. Pidasa - X - - 8. Kelekesh - X - - 9. Ekwesh - - X - 10. Turisha - - X - 11. Shekelesh - - X X 12. Pulasati - - - X 13. Zakkala - - - X 14. Washasha - - - X An X denotes 'present in', a - 'absent from' the lists. The majority of these fourteen names too closely resemble names known from classical sources for the resemblance to be accidental. It will be found that almost every one of these names can be easily identified with the name of the coast dwellers of Asia Minor; and vice versa, with one significant exception, the coast-land regions of Asia Minor are all to be found in recognizable forms in the Egyptian lists. The -sha or -shu termination is to be neglected as an ethnic formative. Thus, beginning with the Hellespont, the Troas is represented in the Turisha, who have been correctly identified with the future Tyrrhenians (Tursci) as are the Pulasati with the future Philistines. Dardanus in the Troad is represented by the Dardanu. They are the carriers of the Trojan traditions to Italy. 1 Mysia is represented by the Masa, Lydia by the Sherdanu from the town of Sardis. These are the future Sardinians. And the more inland region of Maeonia is echoed in the Mawuna, if that be the correct reading. We now come to a gap: the Carians, at the S.V. corner of Asia Minor, do not appear in any recognizable form in the list, except that the North Carian town of Pedasus seems to be echoed by the Pidasa. To this hiatus we shall return presently. The Lycians are conspicuous as the Lukku. The name of the sea-coast region of Pamphylia is clearly a later appellation, expressive of the variety of tribes and nationalities which has always characterized the Levant coast. The inland Pisidian town of Sagalassus finds its echo in the Shekelesh. The Cilicians are represented by the Kelekesh, and this brings us to the corner between Asia Minor and North Syria. The only names not represented in the foregoing analysis are the Danunu, Ekwesh, and the three tribes which first appear in the Ramessu III invasion, the Pulasati, Zakkala, and Washasha. The first two of these, it is generally agreed, are to be equated to the Danaoi and the Achaeans 2—the first appearance in historic record of these historic names. The latter do not appear in the Ramessu III lists: there were no Achaeans in the migration from Asia Minor. The Pulasati are unquestionably to be equated to the future Philistines, north of whom we find later the Zakkala settled on the Palestinian coast. The Washasha remain obscure, both in origin and fate; but a suggestion will be made presently regarding them. They can hardly have been the ancestors of the Indo-European Oscans. The various lines of evidence which have been set forth in the preceding pages indicate Crete or its neighbourhood as the probable land of origin of this group of tribes. They may be recapitulated: (1) The Philistines, or a branch of them, are sometimes called Cherethites or Cretans. (2) They are said to come from Caphtor, a name more like Keftiu than anything else, which certainly denotes a place where the Cretan civilization was dominant. (3) The hieratic school-tablet mentions 'Akašou' as a Keftian name: it is also Philistine [Achish]. To this may be added the important fact that the Phaestos disk, the inscription on which will be considered later in this book, shows us among its signs a head with a plumed head-dress, very similar to that shown on the Philistine captives represented at Medinet Habu. We must not, however, forget the fact at which we paused for a moment, that thrice the Philistine guard of the Hebrew kings are spoken of as the Carians; and that the Carians are not otherwise represented in the lists of Egyptian invaders. We are probably not to confine our search for the origin of the Zakkala-Philistine-Washasha league to Crete alone: the neighbouring strip of mainland coast probably supplied its contingent to the sea-pirates. The connexion of Caria with Crete was traditional to the time of Strabo; 'the most generally received account is that the Carians, then called Leleges, were governed by Minos, and occupied the islands; then removing to the continent, they obtained possession of a large tract of sea-coast and of the interior, by driving out the former occupiers, who were for the greater part Leleges and Pelasgi.' 1 Further, he quotes Alcaeus's expression, 'shaking a Carian crest,' which is suggestive of the plumed head-dress of the Philistines. Again, speaking of the city Caunus, on the shore opposite Rhodes, he tells us that its inhabitants 'speak the same language as the Carians, came from Crete, and retained their own laws and customs' 2—which, however, Herodotus 3 contradicts. Herodotus indeed (loc. cit.) gives us the same tradition as Strabo regarding the origin of the Carians: they 'had come from the islands to the continent. For being subjects of Minos, and anciently called Leleges, they occupied the islands without paying any tribute, so far as I can find by inquiring into the remotest times; but whenever Minos required them, they manned his ships; and as Minos subdued an extensive territory, and was successful in war, the Carians were by far the most famous of all nations in those times. They also introduced three inventions which the Greeks have adopted; of fastening crests on helmets, putting devices on shields, and putting handles on shields. . . . After a long time the Dorians and Ionians drove the Carians out of the islands and so they came to the continent. This is the account that the Cretans give of the Carians, but the Carians do not admit its correctness, considering themselves to be autochthonous inhabitants of the continent . . . and in testimony of this they show an ancient temple of Zeus Carios at Mylasa.' If then by the Pulasati we are to fill in the hiatus in the list of Asia Minor coast-dwellers, the most reasonable explanation of the name is after all the old theory that it is to be equated with Pelasgi. And if the worshippers of Zeus Carios settled in Palestine, they might be expected to bring their god with them and to erect a temple to him. Now we read in 1 Samuel vii, that the Philistines came up against the Israelites who were holding a religious ceremony in Mizpah; that they were beaten back by a thunderstorm, and chased in panic from Mizpah to a place called Beth-Car (v. 11). We may suppose that the chase stopped at Beth-Car because it was within Philistine territory; but unfortunately all the efforts to identify this place, not otherwise known, have proved futile. Very likely it was not an inhabited town or village at all, but a sanctuary: it was raised on a conspicuous height (for the chase stopped under Beth-Car): and the name means House of Car, 1 as Beth-Dagon means House or Temple of Dagon. This obscure incident, therefore, affords one more link to the chain. If the Cretans and the Carians together were represented by Zakkala-Pulasati-Washasha league, we might expect to find some elements from the two important islands of Rhodes and Carpathos, which lie like the piers of a bridge between Crete and the Carian mainland. And I think we may, without comparisons too far-fetched, actually find such elements. Strabo tells us 2 that a former name of Rhodes was Ophiussa: and we can hardly avoid at least seeing the similarity between this name and that of the Washasha. 3 And as for Carpathos, which Homer calls Crapathos, is it too bold to hear in this classical name an echo of the pre-Hellenic word, whatever it may have been, which the Egyptians corrupted to Keftiu, and the Hebrews to Caphtor? 4 What then are we to make of the name of the Zakkala or Zakkara? This has hitherto proved a crux. Petrie identifies it with Zakro in Crete 5; but as has several times been pointed out regarding this identification, we do not know how old the name Zakro may be. As we have seen that all the other tribes take their name from the coasts of Asia Minor, it is probable that the Zakkala are the Cretan contingents to the coalition: and it may be that in their name we are to see the interpretation of the mysterious Casluhim of the Table of Nations 1 (‏כסלחים‎ being a mistake for ‏סכל׳‎). The most frequently suggested identification, with the Teucrians (assigned by Strabo on the authority of Callinus to a Cretan origin), is perhaps the most satisfactory as yet put forward; notwithstanding the just criticism of W. Max Müller 2 that the double k and the vowel of the first syllable are difficulties not to be lightly evaded. Clerinont-Ganneau 3 would equate them to a Nabatean Arab tribe, the Δαχαρηνοί, mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium; but, as Weill 4 points out, it is highly improbable that one of the allied tribes should have been Semitic in origin; if the similarity of names be more than an accident, it is more likely that the Arabs should have borrowed it. The conclusion indicated therefore is that the Philistines were a people composed of several septs, derived from Crete and the southwest corner of Asia Minor. Their civilization, probably, was derived from Crete, and though there was a large Carian element in their composition, they may fairly be said to have been the people who imported with them to Palestine the memories and traditions of the great days of Minos. ….

Ancient clay seal may refer to Asaiah, official of King Josiah

by Damien F. Mackey “When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Akbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king’s attendant: ‘Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us’.” 2 Kings 22:11-13 It appears, now, that the person of “Asaiah, the king’s attendant, as referred to in e.g. 2 Kings 22:12 (עֲשָׂיָה עֶבֶד-הַמֶּלֶךְ), has been archaeologically verified in a most recent find: https://www.timesofisrael.com/tiny-2600-year-old-clay-sealing-inscribed-with-biblical-name-found-in-temple-mount-soil/ Tiny 2,600-year-old clay sealing inscribed with biblical name found in Temple Mount soil Minuscule artifact discovered at the Jerusalem-based Temple Mount Sifting Project may reference an official who worked for King Josiah and who appears in II Kings and II Chronicles By Rossella Tercatin …. 30 July 2025, 5:04 pm Share A clay seal from the First Temple period bearing a Hebrew name that appears in the Bible has been uncovered by archaeologists at the Temple Mount Sifting Project in Jerusalem, the organization announced on Tuesday. The tiny artifact carries an inscription in Paleo-Hebrew reading “Belonging to Yed[a‛]yah (son of) Asayahu.” “This is only the second time since the Temple Mount Sifting Project began over 20 years ago that we’ve uncovered a sealing with such a complete inscription — nearly every letter is clearly legible,” said archaeologist Zachi Dvira, who co-directs the project alongside Dr. Gabriel Barkay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAvYFZmIjhY “We usually do not go public with new finds so quickly,” he told The Times of Israel over the phone of the sealing, which was spotted this month. “However, in this case, the artifact was very recognizable, and Dr. Anat Mendel-Geberovich, who works in our lab, is one of the leading experts in ancient Hebrew script. So we decided to move forward, also because we felt it was very significant that the sealing was found just before Tisha B’Av.” Tisha B’Av, a Jewish day of mourning which this year falls on Sunday, marks the anniversary of the destruction of both the First Temple at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Second Temple at the hands of the Romans in 70 CE. Based on the writing style, the researchers dated the sealing to the 7th or 6th century BCE. The name Asaya appears in the Bible several times in the context of the kingdom of Josiah, the 16th king of Judah who reigned in the second half of the 7th century BCE. “The king gave orders to Hilkiah, and Ahikam son of Shaphan, and Abdon son of Micah, and the scribe Shaphan, and Asaya, servant of the king,” reads II Chronicles 34:20. The same story appears almost exactly in II Kings 22:12, “And the king gave orders to the priest Hilkiah, and to Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Michaiah, the scribe Shaphan, and Asaya the king’s minister.” The version of the name inscribed on the sealing, “Asayahu” contains an extra letter Vav, a type of suffix that was often added to ancient Hebrew names to testify to their connection with God (Y-H-V-H). “The longer and shorter versions of the name were often used interchangeably,” Dvira said. “The name Asayahu also appears on another clay sealing with the words ‘servant to the king,’ that was identified some 20 years ago,” he added. “However, since the artifact came from the antiquity market, and not from an archaeological context, it is more difficult to be sure of its authenticity.” During the First Temple period, clay impressions, also known by their Latin name bullae, were used for the management of storehouses. Dozens of such clay sealings have been unearthed in Jerusalem, at times carrying names that also appear in the Bible. “Obviously, we are not sure that the Asayahu mentioned on the sealing is the same that appears in the Bible,” said Dvira. “However, several such artifacts found in the area of the Temple Mount carry biblical names, and it does make sense, because these were not objects used by common people.” In ancient times, the lumps of clay were pressed over the knot of a cord securing a doorknob or a vessel. The manager of a treasury would then impress his, or his superior’s, seal upon the clay to prevent others from tampering. …. Who was this Asaiah? In my article: (3) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses I identified Asaiah as the great prophet Isaiah himself: …. I. ERA OF JEREMIAH ALSO PART OF IT When professor Ebied had given me that choice back in 2000 of writing a doctoral thesis on either EOH [Era of Hezekiah] or EOJ [Era of Jeremiah], I had been of the firm opinion at that point in time that I could contribute nothing of any real worth about EOJ. However, as hinted back in I, how wrong I was. Because, as I have since come to realise (and hope to show here in II, and in III), EOJ was basically the EOH about which I believed I had much to offer. Searching for Hezekiah Something of which I had become painfully aware, during the course of writing my EOH thesis, was that, whilst various of its major characters were full dimensional (though sometimes only, perhaps, because I had overdone my penchant for alter egos), king Hezekiah himself, upon whom the thesis was supposed to be centred, always continued to remain somewhat ghostly in the background. Part of the reason for this is that the Old Testament itself will restrict its albeit fairly extensive coverage of EOH to just a few major incidents in the life of the great king: namely, his pious reform; his illness; his encounters with Assyria. Even in some of these cases, characters of lesser rank stand in for the king, seeming to overshadow Hezekiah. Thus the king’s three officials, not he, will go out to face the Rabshakeh of the invading Assyrian army; the prophet Isaiah will dominate much of the Hezekian narrative; and no Judaean king at all, only the Assyrian king, will be referred to throughout the entire BOJ. A further reason for Hezekiah’s seeming lack of dimension, I have lately come to realise, is because Hezekiah has also been sold short of a major alter ego: namely, as Josiah king of Judah. Perhaps it was better that I had not realised, in those days, that a part at least of EOJ had needed to be incorporated into EOH. That may, then, have served only the further to complicate the whole cumbersome effort – although it would also most certainly have poured some immense illumination on obscure issues. Today, writing hopefully from a far more solid base, I feel confident that I can begin to add that necessary extra dimension. Here, in II, I shall list some of the extraordinary match-ups between the supposedly two different eras (EOH and EOJ), this alone being sufficient proof for me that – despite some significant difficulties – the two eras need to be brought together as one. For a far more complete list, I urge the reader to check out Charles Pope’s “Chart 37” at: Chart 37: Comparison of Hezekiah and Josiah Narratives (domainofman.com) though I do not accept all of Pope’s comparisons, and would also add some others of my own. In III, I shall briefly assess some of those difficulties. Comparisons between EOH and EOJ - King Hezekiah of Judah is king Josiah of Judah; - King Manasseh of Judah is king Jehoiakim of Judah; - Isaiah, prophet, is Asaiah, king’s minister; - Hilkiah is Hilkiah; - Eliakim son of Hilkiah is (prophet) Jeremiah son of Hilkiah; - Judith is Huldah; - Manasseh, husband of Judith is Shallum, husband of Huldah. II. RESOLVING SOME KEY DIFFICULTIES (a) Hezekiah = Josiah Naturally one would expect to encounter some formidable difficulties when trying to demonstrate that Hezekiah/Josiah – supposedly separated the one from the other by over half a century (e.g., the intervening 55-year reign of king Manasseh) – constitutes just the one biblico-historical era. The biblical difficulties and comparisons Genealogies now have to be explained. And the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) seems to witness against my reconstruction by presenting Hezekiah and Josiah as if two separate entities (Sirach 49:4-5): “Apart from David, Hezekiah and Josiah, they all [kings of Judah] heaped wrong on wrong”. This separation here of Hezekiah from Josiah could perhaps partly be accounted for by proposing a (Hebrew) waw consecutive, causing it to read “Hezekiah, even Josiah”. What this quote from Sirach does at least tell us, though, is that Hezekiah and Josiah were uniquely pious kings, the only ones to be so regarded alongside David himself. The liturgical and socio-political reforms of Hezekiah, of Josiah, may be shown to be wonderfully compatible by astute commentators, as some have already done. Reign lengths (allowing for co-regency) are very compatible as well (Hezekiah: 29; Josiah: 31). And, when we re-organise, and halve, the genealogical sequence: Hezekiah/Manasseh/Amon/Josiah/Jehoiakim/Jehoiachin (6 kings) to the streamlined Hezekiah = Josiah/ Manasseh = Jehoiakim/ Amon = Jehoiachin (3 kings) then we can really begin to make some biblico-historical progress and resolve conundrums (see next). The historical difficulties and comparisons Of similar great challenge, to that of resolving the biblical difficulties that arise from a fusion of EOH and EOJ, is the historical ‘aftershock’ that such a revised upheaval must needs generate. Hezekiah and Josiah are conventionally thought to have aligned with different Mesopotamian and Egypto-Ethiopian monarchs. Recall that in my Note in I. I had estimated that it was “not until the approximate era of king Hezekiah” that the chronological and historical ‘planets’ began properly to align. The emphasis here, though, must be on that word, “approximate”, for there is yet a searching revision required even for the reign of king Hezekiah over and above what I had undertaken in my EOH thesis – a further depth of revision of which I was then quite unaware. I refer to the effect of incorporating wholesale therein the reign of king Josiah (or EOJ). My early post-graduate research, with the era of Moses very much in mind, had been focussed upon the problem of Egyptian chronology, well explored by revisionists like Drs. Donovan Courville (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971) and Immanuel Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos, 1952; Oedipus and Ikhnaton, 1960). It was generally assumed in their day that, whilst Egyptian chronology must be radically shortened in order to be able to accommodate itself to that of the other nations, Mesopotamian history was in far better shape. The chronology of Assyria, in particular, is considered to be highly accurate. With the passing of the years subsequent, however, it has become apparent to me, and to others, that this is far from being the case, and that Mesopotamia, too, must undergo a massive chronological renovation. Someone needs to write a thesis on it. I have tackled this problem now in many articles. Perhaps the key date in the entire Old Testament – at least in terms of specific historical worth – is the one given by the prophet Jeremiah in 25:1, 3: “… in the 4th year of Jehoiakim … 1st year of Nebuchadnezzar …. For 23 years, from the 13th year of Josiah …”. This ties precise biblical dates, and two Judaean kings, to a known Mesopotamian monarch. And, while Egypt-Ethiopia are not included, we known from 2 Kings 23:34 that pharaoh Necho was contemporaneous with Jehoiakim’s early reign. Thus: 23rd year. Prophet Jeremiah (counting from Year 13 of king Josiah) tells that this was the 4th year of king Jehoiakim of Judah and the 1st year of king Nebuchednezzar of Babylon (during the reign of pharaoh Necho of Egypt). This is most valuable chronological information. Jeremiah’s rock-solid data here is even more helpful than is the important chronological fusion in 2 Kings 18:1-10, tying king Hoshea of Israel and king Hezekiah of Judah (specific years given) to Shalmaneser the king of Assyria at the time of the siege and destruction of Samaria, because the contemporary pharaoh “So” (17:4) has proven most difficult to identify. Unfortunately, biblical chronologists and historians (most notably, in this case, Dr. Edwin Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings) have largely abandoned this set of multiple syncretisms, with them now dating the beginning of king Hezekiah’s reign some half a dozen years after the Fall of Samaria. This is totally unacceptable, and I felt that I had to devote a large portion of my EOH thesis towards reclaiming all of those precious syncretisms. With EOH and EOJ now merged, the un-named “northern” foe of Jeremiah 1:14-19 – whose identification is hotly debated amongst commentators – is simply to be recognised as the pugnacious Assyria of king Hezekiah’s time. Hezekiah’s/Josiah’s Assyrian contemporary was Sennacherib. Sennacherib’s so-called ‘son’, Esarhaddon – actually a new dynasty – is the same as the great Nebuchednezzar himself of Jeremiah 25:1. Nebuchednezzar is also the same as the mighty king, Ashurbanipal, of identical 43-year reign. For a fuller account of this albeit radical departure from tradition, see my relevant articles. This, my reconstruction, accounts for how the era of - Manasseh king of Judah, taken into Babylonian captivity by Esarhaddon (Ashurbanipal), and the era of - Jehoiakim king of Judah, taken into Babylonian captivity by Nebuchednezzar, may be paralleled and its history resolved. (b) Manasseh = Jehoiakim Recognising Manasseh as Jehoiakim will serve to explain why the prophet Jeremiah would attribute the Babylonian captivity to the presumably long dead Manasseh (Jeremiah 15:4), rather than to the prophet’s wickedly idolatrous contemporary, Jehoiakim. It enables for a wonderful reconstruction of the formerly somewhat empty, long phase of king Manasseh, his conversion, and later building works. And it throws much light on the New Testament genealogies of Jesus the Messiah and of the Davidic dynasty: JESUS CHRIST THE LORD AND KING OF HISTORY. It may also solve the problem of the martyrdom of the prophet Isaiah, said to have occurred during the reign of king Manasseh. Only this re-arrangement, I believe, enables for a full recovery of the life of the prophet Jonah and of the associated Nineveh incident. For more on all of these topics, see my relevant articles. Moreover, though this takes us into an era just beyond EOH and EOJ, my having king Amon in parallel with Jehoiachin (var. Coniah) finally enables for a comprehensive identification of the “Haman son of Hammedatha” of the Book of Esther, whilst, further, providing a proper explanation for the origin of the foreign name, “Haman”. See, again, my relevant articles. That my revision – albeit shocking from a mainstream point of view – has, despite its flaws, been able to yield such a golden harvest of interconnections right across the board, is further encouragement to me and proof (when coupled with my parallel list at the end of II), that the whole heavily laden train is basically travelling along the right track. (c) Judith = Huldah My reconstruction of the history of BOJ in my thesis – virtually a thesis within a thesis – was warmly received for the most part, one examiner describing it as “a page turner”. BOJ is such an epic that it ought to be made the subject of countless movies. Due to the unfortunate confusion of names in our present translations of the book, though, its history and geography have proven extremely difficult to recapture. The story commences with a Year 12 campaign against the east by an Assyrian king, “Nebuchadnezzar”. This is actually Year 12 of Sargon II of Assyria against the eastern coalition of the troublesome Merodach-baladan (the “Arphaxad” of BOJ). A combination of BOJ and the Book of Tobit [BOT] could enable one to identify Sargon II with his supposed son, Sennacherib. Though my initial clue to this connection arose from a colleague pointing out the massive overlap between the reigns of Sargon II and Sennacherib, the overlap finally to be understood as being completely embracing. It was in this manner that I came to identify Sargon II as Sennacherib. That identification was only reinforced by a combination of the BOJ-BOT material. Without this fusion, which one examiner at least found to be quite convincing (it occupies an entire chapter {Chapter 6} in Volume One of my thesis), the overall history of BOJ is unobtainable. The main focus of the BOJ drama is Sennacherib’s campaign subsequent to his Year 12 victory, this time to the west, sending there a force of over 180,000 under the command of “Holofernes”, who is to be identified as Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi, the “Nadin” (“Nadab”) of BOT (14:), who betrayed Ahikar (the Achior of BOJ). In my EOH thesis, though, I would wrongly identify this “Holofernes” as Esarhaddon. The massive Assyrian army was stopped in its tracks at “Bethulia”, which, again, I wrongly identified in my thesis as the fairly insignificant Mithilia (Mesilieh), following C. R. Conder. Judith’s “Bethulia” (the northern Bethel) has been meticulously identified as the city of Shechem by C. C. Torrey. Against all other opinions as to what happened to Sennacherib’s army (e.g., Herodotus), it was a case of Judith’s slaying of the Assyrian commander-in-chief. The soldiery panicked and fled. It was a complete rout. The next in command to “Holofernes”, “Bagoas”, unidentified in my thesis, can now plausibly be equated with Nebuchednezzar (= Esarhaddon); Nebuchednezzar, according to Jewish tradition, having been involved in this ill-fated campaign. Such a view is shocking by conventional standards, quite chronologically impossible. It would have appeared such to me as well at the time of my writing of the thesis. Now, though, with Nebuchednezzar succeeding Sennacherib, the Jewish legend can be retained. Also untouched in my thesis – considering my failure then to collapse EOH into EOJ – is my more recent identification of the Judith who became ever more famous during her long life, as the wise and wonderful Huldah, that extraordinary prophetess during the reign of king Josiah whom the king would consult even over the great Asaiah (i.e., Isaiah). She was a female teacher-prophetess like the wise Deborah before her, in Huldah’s case, even an interpreter (exegete) of the Torah.

Joah the recorder for Hezekiah, Joah the recorder for king Josiah

by Damien F. Mackey “They called for the king; and Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to them”. 2 Kings 18:18 “In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, to purify the land and the Temple, he sent Shaphan son of Azaliah and Maaseiah the ruler of the city, with Joah son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the Temple of the LORD his God”. 2 Chronicles 34:8 Merging, as one, “Joah” of Hezekiah and “Joah” of Josiah There is an apparent repetition of names between the above two texts, in Shebna-Shaphan and Joah-Joah, which is perfectly understandable in my revised context, according to which Hezekiah, “the king” of 2 Kings 18:18, was the very same person as king Josiah in 2 Chronicles 34:8. On this, see e. g. my article: Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses (8) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses But such a coinciding of names is apparently worrisome to the text book commentators - who would conventionally estimate that the two incidents occurred about 90 years apart - who may be inclined, like Thenis, to ‘pronounce these personages fictitious’, and say that “Joah the recorder [of king Josiah] seems to have been borrowed from [the Joah of king Hezekiah] 2Kings 18:18 ...”: https://biblehub.com/2_kings/22-3.htm It is an indication of the correctness of my revision of the later kings of Judah, however, that king Hezekiah, king Josiah, could have officials of (near to) identical names, holding identical positions. Thus Joah is “the recorder”, ha mazkir (הַמַּזְכִּיר) in both cases, Hezekiah and Josiah. Shebna is “the secretary” ha sopher (הַסֹּפֵר) as his counterpart, Shaphan (סֵפֶר), is found to have been upon further scrutiny (cf. 2 Kings 22:8). And, elsewhere, I have identified another parallel character in Isaiah (for Hezekiah) and Asaiah (for Josiah): thus, Isaiah = Asaiah. The “Hilkiah” referred to in 2 Kings 18:18 as the father of “Eliakim” is met again in the era of Josiah as the identically named “Hilkiah” (3 Chronicles 34:9): “They went to Hilkiah the high priest ...”. Eliakim himself, whom I have identified as high priest in my article: Hezekiah’s Chief Official Eliakim was High Priest https://www.academia.edu/31701765/Hezekiahs_Chief_Official_Eliakim_was_High_Priest does not (I think) appear in any of the accounts of king Josiah. There may be a good reason for this. He may have replaced Shebna as commandant of the fort of Lachish (= “Ashdod”). In the Book of Judith, in which Eliakim (Douay), var. Joakim, is the high priest, we are specifically told that: (Judith 4:6): “The High Priest Joakim, who was in Jerusalem at that time, wrote to the people in the towns of Bethulia and Betomesthaim, which face Jezreel Valley near Dothan”. This geographical information, “who was in Jerusalem at that time”, could well indicate that Eliakim was sometimes stationed outside Jerusalem, say, for military and defensive purposes. But Eliakim had by no means died out by the time of king Josiah, for we find him as “the high priest” even as late as Baruch (1:2): “... in the fifth year, on the seventh day of the month, at the time when the Chaldeans took Jerusalem and burned it with fire”. Eliakim, or Joakim, is there called by the related name of “Jehoiakim”. On “related names” see e.g., https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Jehoiakim.html#.Xsxq8e0vPnE and commentators (following an enlarged chronology) do not know who he was (this being especially complicated by the fact that they have failed to realise that the Eliakim of Hezekiah was a high priest). The Baruch text, which identifies Jehoiakim as “son of Hilkiah”, as we know him (as Eliakim/Joakim) to have been, reads thus (vv. 5-7): “Then they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord; they collected as much money as each could give, and sent it to Jerusalem to the high priest Jehoiakim son of Hilkiah son of Shallum, and to the priests, and to all the people who were present with him in Jerusalem”. The office of “recorder” was apparently a highly significant one, some placing it as high as vizier to the king. Thus we read in Bible study tools: https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/recorder/ “Recorder ... (Heb. mazkir, i.e., "the mentioner," "rememberancer"), the office first held by Jehoshaphat in the court of David ( 2 Samuel 8:16 ), also in the court of Solomon ( 1 Kings 4:3 ). The next recorder mentioned is Joah, in the reign of Hezekiah ( 2 Kings 18:18 2 Kings 18:37 ; Isaiah 36:3 Isaiah 36:22 ). In the reign of Josiah another [sic] of the name of Joah filled this office (2 Chronicles 34:8 ). The "recorder" was the chancellor or vizier of the kingdom. He brought all weighty matters under the notice of the king, "such as complaints, petitions, and wishes of subjects or foreigners. He also drew up papers for the king's guidance, and prepared drafts of the royal will for the scribes. All treaties came under his oversight; and he had the care of the national archives or records, to which, as royal historiographer, like the same state officer in Assyria and Egypt, he added the current annals of the kingdom”. [End of quote] Note that only three supposed individuals are specifically designated as “recorder” in the OT, Jehoshaphat, at the time of kings David and Solomon, and the supposedly two Joah’s - who, though, I think, need to be trimmed down to just one. One would expect, however, that there must have been a continuation of those holding the office of recorder from Joah all the way back to Jehoshaphat, who will soon become of significance with regard to the ancestry of Joah. The office of recorder may have involved, also, “herald”, or trumpet-blower, shofar (שׁוֹפָר), in the case of an emergency. Joah may have, for instance, overseen or commanded the trumpet-blowing Levites. John Strazicich has written on trumpet-blowing in the Bible, especially with reference to the Book of Joel (to be considered further on), in his book Joel’s Use of Scripture and the Scripture’s Use of Joel (1960, p. 116): The primary theological OT text for the blowing of trumpets is Num 1:1-10. The trumpets function for gathering the cultic community, for use at time of war, and at the time of sacrifice. According to Milgrom, the blowing of trumpets, whether for religious purposes or for war, serves as instruments of prayer in Num 10:9-10. .... Whether for sacrifice or deliverance at times of war, the use of trumpets for prayer has theological significance in Joel's liturgical context of the [Day of the Lord], as well as for the cultic gathering of the nation. The priestly trumpet blast noted above is an alarm which functions militarily, so that the community is be [sic] remembered before Yahweh. The cultic connection to Joel's use of the trumpets acts in concert with the prayers of all the community to plead for Yahweh's mercy (2:15-17). [End of quote] Other “instruments of prayer”, such as cymbals, may also have been part of the recorder's repertoire. Psalm 150:1-6 lists various such instruments: “Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!” Joah as the prophet Joel The Book of Joel opens with the raising of the alarm about a devastating invasion of “locusts” (Joel 1:2-4): “The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Phatuel. ‘Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten’.” This, I had argued in my post-graduate university thesis (2007) is a symbolical reference - under the form of “locusts” - to the invasion of Israel and Judah by the armies of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. It is a brilliant image of the utter destruction to the land caused by the marauding Assyrians. These were described as “locusts”, both in history, and in the Bible. For example, “Assyrian documents link armies and locusts ...”. (Pablo R. Andiñach, “The Locusts in the Message of Joel”, Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 42, Fasc. 4, Oct., 1992). And Judith 2:20 describes the massive invading host of “Holofernes” as: “A huge, irregular force, too many to count, like locusts, like the dust of the earth ...". “ (Cf. Amos 7:1). Joel then becomes more specific (and less symbolical) when he describes this host as both a “nation” and an “army” (1:6): “A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number ...”. The Douay version of Joel 2:20, referring to "the northern enemy", includes this footnote: “The northern enemy”: Some understand this of Holofernes and his army: others, of the locusts”. The correct view is, I believe, “Holofernes and his army”. The name of Joel’s “father”, or ancestor, is given as “Phatuel” (or “Pethuel”), which I now take to be a long-ranging reference back to that earlier recorder, Jehoshaphat, the two names sharing the common element “phat” as well as each having a theophoric. Joah of Hezekiah's father, ancestor, “Asaph”, may perhaps be seen, then, as part of that name, Jehoshaphat - both names sharing the “shap[h]” element. Joah of Josiah's ancestor, “Joahaz”, is not so apparent. If, as I am saying, he is to be merged with the Joah of Hezekiah, then, possibly, “Joahaz” is another reference to Jehoshaphat.

Sorting amongst the Old Testament prophets to find Jonah

by Damien F. Mackey “If we add to this list the fact that the phrase in Jonah 1:1 (“now the word of Yahweh came”) also introduces Elijah in 1 Kings 17:2, 8; 21:17, 28 then we are subtly led to this conclusion; one of the goals of the Jonah narrative is to compare the prophet from Gath-hepher with Elijah”. Community ConneXions Church A: Elijah to Amos My search for the prophet Jonah has led me 'all around the mulberry bush'. Or perhaps, to be more contextual, all around the 'kikayon' (קִיקָיוֹן) bush (cf. Jonah 4:6). With 2 Kings 14:25 in mind: “He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher”, I did what other commentators tend to do, and that was to search for the Jonah incident during the time of an Assyrian ruler contemporaneous with king Jeroboam II of Israel, say, an Adad-nirari III, or a Tiglath-pileser III. Elijah But I also went even further back than that, to a possible connection of Jonah with Elijah, based on the following sorts of similarities between this pair of prophets, taken from Community ConneXions Church: http://seminary.csl.edu/facultypubs/TheologyandPractice/tabid/87/ctl/Details/mid/494/ItemID/40 “If we add to this list the fact that the phrase in Jonah 1:1 (“now the word of Yahweh came”) also introduces Elijah in 1 Kings 17:2, 8; 21:17, 28 then we are subtly led to this conclusion; one of the goals of the Jonah narrative is to compare the prophet from Gath-hepher with Elijah. More specific – and indeed more satirical – connections between Jonah and Elijah begin in Jonah 1:2 where Yahweh calls Jonah to, “arise, go” to Nineveh. This call to go to a foreign land is paralleled only in 1 Kings 17:9 where Yahweh commands Elijah also to “arise, go to Zarephath which is in Sidon”. Usually Yahweh’s word is the perfect performative, where to speak is to create. The God who says “Let there be light” and “it was so” (Gen. 1:3), commands Elijah to “Arise go to Zarephath” (1 Kings 17:9) and Elijah “arises and goes,” (1 Kings 17:10). Following this normal biblical pattern we expect the Jonah narrative to continue, “So Jonah got up and went ... to Nineveh.” But, instead, Jonah says nothing to Yahweh and rises to flee. It’s as though outside his door Jonah hangs a large sign with the words, “Do Not Disturb!” Jonah is certainly no Elijah!” [End of quotes] Perhaps I should have taken notice of that last hint: “Jonah is certainly no Elijah!” The prophet Elijah disappears from the scene, at least qua Elijah, during the reign of Jehoram of Judah (2 Chronicles 21:12). That was well before the time of Jeroboam II. But there is always, for me, that possibility of an extension of a biblical floruit through an alter ego. Elisha The extraordinary prophet Elisha, 'miracles on tap', also loomed for me as a possible Jonah. He, like Jonah in the case of Jeroboam II, had advised a king of Israel, Jehoash, about the extent of his military conquests (2 Kings 13:14-19). Even though Elisha died shortly after this (v. 20), I shall be having more to say about the Jehoash-Jeroboam II connection, about a shortening of Israelite history, and about the identification of the "saviour" of 2 Kings 13:5. See, for example, my article: King Jeroboam II a ‘saviour’ of Israel https://www.academia.edu/41064679/King_Jeroboam_II_a_saviour_of_Israel It needs to be said, at this stage, that I eventually came to the conclusion that the repentant “King of Nineveh” of the Book of Jonah: Putting together the pieces for Jonah 3:6’s “King of Nineveh” (8) Putting together the pieces for Jonah 3:6's "King of Nineveh" was - much later than as is generally thought - the powerful ruler, ESARHADDON (including his various guises). This most un-anticipated identification rigorously defines the parameters for this present article. Obviously, now, Elisha could not qualify for my prophet Jonah at the time of Esarhaddon. My termini a quo and ad quem for Jonah had so far been determined as, respectively, Jeroboam II and early Esarhaddon. One would think, however, that there must have been more to the ministering of the prophet Jonah than just these two, chronologically far apart, occasions. Amos A far more promising candidate for Jonah, however, began to loom in the person of Amos, whose prophetic witness commenced "when ... Jeroboam ... was king of Israel" (Amos 1:1). Amos, too, as with Elijah, can be likened to Jonah. Thus I have previously quoted from the book by Hadi Ghantous, Elisha-Hazael Paradigm and the Kingdom of Israel (p. 180): ... Jonah and Amos The connections between Jonah and Amos are not as clear as those with Elijah although it is more clear that the fate of nations surrounding Israel is a major concern in both Amos and Jonah (Andersen and Freedman 1989: 236). The superscription in the book of Amos (Amos 1:1) sets Amos in the days of Jeroboam II and makes Amos a contemporary of Jonah. In 2 Kings 14:23-29, Jeroboam II recovers territories from the Entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, and restore [sic] Damascus and Hamath to Judea in Israel. Similarly, Amos 1:3-5 is an oracle against Damascus; Amos 5:27 threatens Israel with an exile beyond Damascus. In Amos 6:2, Zion and Samaria are called to compare themselves with Hamath. Amos 6:14 refers to oppression from the Entrance of Hamath to the Valley of the Arabah (Pyper 2007: 351-3). In other words, both prophets deal with Damascus, Hamath, and the region from the Entrance of Hamath to the Sea/Valley of the Arabah. Amos refutes the prophetic title (Amos 7:14); Jonah is never said to be a prophet in Jonah. Amaziah warns Jonah to flee ... for his life (Amos 7:12), while Jonah almost loses his life while fleeing (Jon, 1). "Other topical similarities can be found; singing (Amos 8:3// Jon. 2), sackcloths (Amos 8:10// Jon 3:6), wandering from sea to sea (Amos 8:12// Jon. 1:3-2:10), thirst (Amos 8:13// Jon. 4:8), and sheol (Amos 9:2// Jon. 2) (Edelman 2009: 162). These similarities pose the question whether they go beyond a mere imitation of details and indicate a fundamental similarity and connection between Amos and Jonah. ...". [End of quote] Jonah is well-known as 'the reluctant prophet', and this, too, may have been a trait of Amos (7:14): 'I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet ...'. There is also a very Jonah-like note in Amos 9:3: "Even if they tried to hide from me at the bottom of the sea, from there I would command the Sea Serpent [הַנָּחָשׁ] to bite them". Don E. Jones has made this very same connection: "There is something ominous in Amos's prophecy, the first part of which [9:3] certainly applies to Jonah ...". [I no longer have the precise reference, but presume this quote came from his book, Searching for Jonah: Clues in Hebrew and Assyrian History, 19 September 2018]. While Amos qualifies chronologically as being a contemporary of Jonah's at the time of Jeroboam II, he will fall just short of early Esarhaddon (the ‘moment’ of Jonah's intervention at Nineveh). See next. Micah Amos is, according to my revision of Israel and Judah, the same as the prophet Micah, known as "Amos redivivus": Prophet Micah as Amos (8) Prophet Micah as Amos Micah (Amos) is also the Micaiah who prophesied the death of king Ahab of Israel (I Kings 22:8-28): Micaiah and Micah (2) Micaiah and Micah This highly controversial (chronology-wise) connection (Micaiah = Micah), which has the support of some Jewish tradition (see e.g., Ginzberg, Legends, 6:355, n. 20), pitches Micah back well before king Jeroboam II. Amos is also generally considered to have been the father of Isaiah, "son of Amoz" (Isaiah 1:1). I have also identified Isaiah son of Amos with the "Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon" of Judith 6:15. See e.g. m y article: A Shepherd-prophet of Israel foretells great Shepherd King (2) A Shepherd-prophet of Israel foretells great Shepherd King Uzziah must have followed his father Amos northwards to Bethel (the "Bethulia" of the Book of Judith), which is the strategically vital city of Shechem, where Uzziah later became the chief magistrate. He is also described as “the prince of Juda[h]” and “the prince of the people of Israel” (Judith 8:34; 13:23. Douay version), perhaps due to his father Amos's apparently royal connection with king Amaziah of Judah. "The rabbis of the Talmud declared, based upon a rabbinic tradition, that Amoz was the brother of Amaziah (אמציה), the king of Judah at that time (and, as a result, that Isaiah himself was a member of the royal family)" (article, "Amoz"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoz The prophet Micah must not have lived to have witnessed the Judith incident. He is not mentioned there (Book of Judith) as still being alive. The Book of Jeremiah tells that Micah was yet prophesying during the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah (26:18): "Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, 'Thus said the LORD of hosts; Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest'." This prediction pertained to Sennacherib king of Assyria's earlier successful invasion of Judah and Jerusalem. Micah apparently was no longer alive, though, when Ashur-nadin-shumi (= "Holofernes"), son of Sennacherib, came to the region of "Bethulia" (Bethel-Shechem) with an army of 185,000 men. Thus, the prophet Micah cannot qualify for my Jonah early in the reign of Esarhaddon, who succeeded Sennacherib. Micah just misses out time wise. He must have been extremely old when he died. B: Hosea, Isaiah The prophet Hosea is, in fact, the only one of the prophets who - at least according to his superscription (Hosea 1:1) - spanned my requisite era from Jeroboam II unto Hezekiah. His prophetic floruit is closely matched by Isaiah's, but without (in the case of Isaiah) the inclusion of Jeroboam II (Isaiah 1:1): "The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah". The names of Hosea and Isaiah, as well, are very close in meaning, both pertaining to "Salvation". Abarim Publications lists Isaiah as a name "related" to Hosea (article, "Isaiah meaning"): https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Hosea.html#.Xp5Y6u0vPnF Previously I have written regarding the striking similarities between Isaiah and Hosea: "The names Isaiah and Hosea are indeed of very similar meaning, being basically derived from the same Hebrew root for ‘salvation’, יֵ֫שַׁע - “Isaiah” (Hebrew יְשַׁעְיָהוּ , Yeshâ‘yâhû) signifies: “Yahweh (the Lord) is salvation”. - “Hosea” (Hebrew הוֹשֵׁעַ) means practically the same: “Yahweh (the Lord) is saviour”. …. "Hosea’s/Isaiah’s Family Though no doubt young, the prophet was given the strange command by God to marry an ‘unfaithful’ woman: “‘Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord’. So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim …” (Hosea 1:2-3). Biblical scholars have agonised over the type of woman this Gomer might have been: adulteress? harlot? temple-prostitute? But essentially the clue is to be found in the statement above that she was a citizen of the ‘land of great harlotry’: namely, the northern kingdom of Israel. .... "A further likeness between Isaiah and Hosea was the fact that ‘their names’ and those of ‘their’ children were meant to be, in their meanings, prophetic signs. …. - The prophet Isaiah tells us: “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are for signs and portents ...” (Isaiah 8:18). - Similarly, the names of the children of the prophet Hosea were meant to be prophetic (Hosea 1:4, 6, 9). "Charles Boutflower (The Book of Isaiah Chapters I-XXXIX, 1930), who has written perceptively on Isaiah’s children, has rightly noted the prophetic significance of their names and those of Hosea’s children, without however connecting Isaiah and Hosea as one: …. “Isaiah like Hosea had three known children, all of whose names were prophetic”. [End of quotes] It is most unlikely, one would have to think, to have two great prophets contemporaneously operating over such a substantial period of time, and each having three children whose names were prophetic. The fact is, I believe, that it was just the one prophet, who may possibly have had six children in all. For these, and for other reasons, I have identified Hosea and Isaiah as "just the one prophet", ministering to both Israel and Judah. That to go with my already mentioned identification of the prophet Isaiah with the princely "Uzziah" of the Book of Judith. Hosea-Isaiah is the only possible prophetic candidate, in my revised context, for Jonah son of Amittai. Jonah's otherwise unknown father, "Amittai", must then be Amaziah, that is, Amos. Jonah's (or probably his father's) home of "Gath-hepher", which cannot possibly have been the place of that name in Galilee - since, as the learned Pharisees well knew (John 7:52): '.... Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee' - must then be the southern Gath of Moresheth, the home of Micah-(Amos) (1:1): "The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth ...". "Micah is called the Morasthite, probably because he was a native of Moresheth-gath, a small town of Judea, which, according to Eusebius and Jerome, lay in a southwesterly direction from Jerusalem, not far from Eleutheropolis on the plain, near the border of the Philistine territory" ("The Twelve Minor Prophets"): https://biblehub.com/library/barrows/companion_to_the_bible/chapter_xxiii_the_twelve_minor.htm Although "the vision ... concerning Israel" as seen by Amos will occur at "Tekoa" (Amos 1:1), I have previously written on this: "There are reasons, though, why I think that Tekoa would not have been the actual home of the prophet Amos. When confronted by Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, Amos retorted (7:14-15): ‘I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’.’ "Now, commentators such as Eugene Merrill have been quick to point out “that sycamores were abundant in the Shephelah but not around Tekoa” (The World and the Word: An Introduction to the Old Testament, 2011, p. 431, n. 4). "So, my first point would be that Amos’s cultivating of sycamore-fig trees would be most appropriate in Moresheth, but highly unlikely in Tekoa. Moresheth, we read, “is the opposite exposure from the wilderness of Tekoa, some seventeen miles away across the watershed. As the home of Amos is bare and desert, so the home of Micah is fair and fertile” ("Micah 1", Expositor's Bible Commentary). "My second point is that Amos, apparently a herdsman (בַנֹּקְדִים) - some think a wealthy “sheepmaster”, whilst others say that he must have been poor - was, as we read above, “following the flock” מֵאַחֲרֵי הַצֹּאן), meaning that, seasonally, he was a man on the move. Stationed at his home town of Moresheth in the Shephelah, I suggest, where he tended the sycamore trees, the prophet also had to move with the flock from time to time. And this is apparently where Tekoa (about 6 miles SE of Bethlehem) comes into the picture". [End of quotes] The reason why such striking similarities can be found between Amos and Jonah (as we read above in A.) is because this was a father-son prophetic combination ranging from Israel to Judah. It is the very same reason why we find some almost identical statements and actions emanating from Micah (= Amos) and from Isaiah (= Jonah). Read, for example, Micah 4:1-3 and Isaiah 2:2-4. "But who quoted whom?", it is asked: https://abramkj.com/2012/12/11/which-came-first-isaiah-or-micah-comparing-isaiah-22-4-with-micah-41-3/ Well, Micah was the father, and Isaiah was the son. Compare also Micah 1:8: "Because of this I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl", and Isaiah 20:3: "Then the LORD said, 'Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush ...'." No doubt Jonah's prediction regarding Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:25): "[Jeroboam] was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher", was uttered with all due awareness of his father Amos's own considerations (cf. 6:14): "For the Lord God Almighty declares, 'I will stir up a nation against you, Israel, that will oppress you all the way from Lebo Hamath to the valley of the Arabah'.” More tellingly, from my point of view, commentators have suggested that some parts of the Book of Isaiah (my Jonah) may actually have originated with Jonah. Don E. Jones, again, writes of it: "Spurred by the reference in II Kings 14:25, scholars over the years have searched diligently in the Scriptures for the "Lost Book of Jonah". Hitzig and Renan have attributed the prophecies of Isaiah 15-23 to Jonah as being inconsistent with other parts of the book. Allusions to Moab, Egypt and Ethiopia, would certainly give Jonah a wider scope of action. He would know conditions in Tyre, Sidon and Damacus from the Assyrian venture. Sargon's reign in Assyria (Isaiah 20:1) began in 721. It was by no means impossible that Jonah could still have been alive at the time of Isaiah". [End of quote] The view of Hitzig and Renan enables us to fill out the prophet Jonah all the more. His prophetic mission beyond Israel was not just limited to Nineveh. Isaiah, like Jonah (1:3), appears to have been very familiar, too, with the "ships of Tarshish" (e.g., Isaiah 2:16; 23:1; 60:9). As to why the name of Hosea's father would be given as "Beeri", whereas Isaiah's father is given as "Amoz", the Book of Judith may provide something of a clue. Judith was, like Uzziah (my Isaiah-Hosea) of Bethulia, a Simeonite (cf. Judith 8:1; 9:2). The Bethulians were a closely knit bunch, with Judith's husband, Manasseh, belonging "to the same tribe and clan" as she (8:2). Uzziah, also a Simeonite, may well have been a relative of both Judith and her husband. Judith seems to have been immensely proud of her 'father', Merari, she singing, after her great victory over "Holofernes": 'For their mighty one did not fall by the hands of the young men, nor did the sons of the Titans strike him down, nor did tall giants set upon him; but Judith daughter of Merari with the beauty of her countenance undid him'. Hosea's father, "Beeri", could possibly be that Merari, given what C. R. Conder will refer to (I noted this in my postgraduate university thesis, A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background: https://www.academia.edu/3822220/Thesis_2_A_Revised_History_of_the_Era_of_King_Hezekiah_of_Judah_and_its_Background) as the "occasional instances in Syrian nomenclature" of the substitution of M for B. Conder was hoping by this means to establish the fairly unimportant site of "Mithilia" (or Mesilieh) as Judith's "Bethulia". Somewhat coincidentally, we read in Genesis (26:34): "When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite ...". Obviously no relation, though. Consulting Abarim Publications, I find that the name "Merari" does not have Amoz (Amos) listed as a "related" name: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Merari.html#.XqER-O0vPnE Perhaps Merari could have been an ancestor, rather than a direct father, of both Hosea and Judith. A special mention is made in I Chronicles 4:33 to the Simeonites keeping "a genealogical record".

The self-confessed “dog”, who became the King of Syria and a great Pharaoh of Egypt

by Damien F. Mackey “Hazael said, ‘How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?’” 2 Kings 8:13 Introduction This, one of the more incredible stories of (ancient) history - yet to be fully told - has become possible due only to Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s felicitous recognition, in his Ages in Chaos (I, 1952), that the El Amarna (EA) age must be re-located down the timescale from the C14th to the C9th BC. Arguably the most convincing thesis to be read within this context was Dr. Velikovsky’s identification of two EA strong men of Amurru, the succession of Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, with the Syrian (biblical) succession of, respectively, Ben-Hadad and Hazael. This Amurru-Syrian pairing was well received amongst readers of Dr. Velikovsky’s revised historical series - even by some who would later abandon Dr. Velikovsky’s entire corpus to pursue so-called ‘new’ chronologies. Two of these former enthusiasts were Peter James (RIP) and Dr. John Bimson, the latter even going so far as to add a “third generation” as I noted in my postgraduate thesis (2007, Volume One, p. 52): …. The same writer, using the Hittite records for the late to post-EA period, would in fact take Velikovsky’s Syrian identification into even a third generation, his “slightly later period”, when suggesting that Aziru’s son, Du-Teshub, fitted well as Hazael’s son, Ben-Hadad II (c. 806- ? BC, conventional dates), thus further consolidating Velikovsky’s Syrian sequence for both Amarna and the mid-C9th BC. [‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, p. 21]. 1. Hazael and Aziru Dr. Velikovsky had picked up what he would call “three turns of speech” from Hazael in the Bible common to what we read about his proposed alter ego, Aziru, in the EA letters. I referred to this in my thesis (ibid., pp. 96-97): This chapter [4] will be built largely around the terms of the Sinai commission to the prophet Elijah … (1 Kings 19:15-17): Then the Lord said to [Elijah], ‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael … as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu … son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha … son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill …’. Thus Hazael, Jehu and Elisha were to form a triumvirate to wipe out the House of Ahab and to eradicate the worship of Baal in the region. …. Velikovsky had already ‘enlarged’ Hazael by his identifying of him with EA’s Aziru, son of Abdi-ashirta. …. Velikovsky had also, in his discussion of idioms that he thought were common to EA and the Old Testament, referred to certain texts culminating in the prophet Elisha’s weeping at the prospect of the mighty deeds – but terrible to Israel – that Hazael would accomplish. He had observed that certain idiomatic phrases in the EA correspondence occurred again in the Old Testament for the C9th BC. For instance, the use of the term ‘brother’, or ‘my [thy] brother’, was, as we have seen, very common amongst the more powerful of the EA kings. Another recurring EA idiom was the use of the term/phrase: ‘[a] [the] dog[s]’. Velikovsky had noted for instance in regard to Hazael of Syria’s reply to the prophet Elisha, ‘… is thy servant a dog [כִּי מָה עַבְדְּךָ הַכֶּלֶב], that he should do this great thing?’, when Elisha had foretold that Hazael would set on fire Israel’s strongholds (2 Kings 8:13), that: [Hazael’s] expression, ‘is thy servant a dog ...?’ which incidentally escaped oblivion, was a typical figure of speech at the time of the el-Amarna letters. Many chieftains and governors concluded their letters with the sentence: ‘Is thy servant a dog that he shall not hear the words of the king, the lord?’ Velikovsky found the idiom used again by Rib-Addi of Gubla with reference to Aziru and his father Abdi-Ashirta: Letter 125: Aziru has again oppressed me …. My cities belong to Aziru, and he seeks after me … What are the dogs, the sons of Abdi-Ashirta, that they act according to their heart’s wish, and cause the cities of the king to go up in smoke? Whilst that was an encouraging find, some of these idioms - including the two just mentioned (‘am I a dog’ and ‘[my] brother’) - were also used at the time of kings David and Solomon (cf. 1 Samuel 17:43 and 1 Kings 9:13), and the second at least is found again in the C6th BC Lachish letters, a fair spread of time of about half a millennium; so these idioms apparently were not peculiar to EA. I had also pointed out that ‘brother’ was a term used by Iarim-Lim of Iamkhad to the prince of Dêr in Mesopotamia; though not in a fraternal, but in a threatening, business-like context. Velikovsky, as we saw earlier, had quoted another EA letter, too, in connection with the Old Testament, in which Rib-Addi had reported that Abdi-Ashirta had fallen seriously ill: Letter 95: Abdi-Ashirta is very sick, who knows but that he will die? About which Velikovsky commented: “He died on his sickbed, but not from his disease; he was killed”. Then, connecting all this with Elisha’s statement, Velikovsky was able to make this most striking observation: In the only dialogue preserved in the Scriptures in which Hazael participates, there are three turns of speech that also appear in his [EA] letters. The context of the dialogue - the question of whether the king of Damascus would survive, and the statement that he, Hazael, the new king, would cause the cities of Israel to go up in smoke - is also preserved in the el-Amarna letters. It is therefore a precious example of the authenticity of the scriptural orations and dialogues. While Dr. Velikovsky here had used the typical translation of 2 Kings 8:13, ‘… is thy servant a dog? …’, it more likely means that Hazael was a mere low-born commoner, not expecting to be elevated to the throne - what the ancients called “son of a nobody” (Akkadian: mār lā mamman), or “a dog”. Thus Nabonidus, who became King of Babylon, had proclaimed himself in like terms: ‘I am Nabonidus, the only son, who has nobody. In my mind there was no thought of kingship’ (Beaulieu, Paul-Alain, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon. 556-539 B.C., 1989, p. 67). First conclusion: Hazael, king of Syria, is EA’s Aziru, king of Amurru, as Dr. Velikovsky had discovered. So far so good. But did Dr. Velikovsky also miss a trick here by not taking further his Aziru identification, to include the Irsu, or Arsa, of the Great Papyrus Harris (GPH) - whom Dr. David Rohl calls Aziru - enabling for Aziru (Hazael) to penetrate right into Egypt and overthrow the Egyptian gods, “… plundered their (the Egyptians’) possessions. They made gods like men and no offerings were presented in the temple”. I think that he well may have. 2. Aziru (Hazael) and Irsu In my thesis (2007, p. 226), I referred to: …. the ‘Great Papyrus Harris’ which tells of an ‘Aziru’ (var. Irsu, Arsa), thought to have been a Syrian, or perhaps a Hurrian. …. I have already followed Velikovsky in identifying Hazael with EA’s Aziru; though Velikovsky, owing to the quirks of his revision, could not himself make the somewhat obvious (to my mind) connection between EA’s Aziru and Aziru of the Great Papyrus Harris. …. And further, thesis pp. 227-228: This document was perhaps inspired by Horemheb (e.g. Doherty calls it ‘Horemheb’s Manifesto’); Horemheb having carved his name on it over Tutankhamun’s name. • The Papyrus Harris narrative continues on to the next phase, though closely connected to the first I believe, with the introduction of one ‘Aziru [the] Syrian’, or Hurrian, during those “empty years” (when the throne was considered effectively to have been vacant, or usurped). This Aziru I am convinced can only be EA’s Aziru (biblical Hazael). (I have taken the liberty here of changing Rohl’s version of this person’s name, Arsa, to the equally acceptable variation of it, Aziru): This was then followed by the empty years when [Aziru] – a certain Syrian – was with them as leader. He set the whole land tributary before him. He united his companions and plundered their (the Egyptians’) possessions. They made gods like men and no offerings were presented in the temple. LeFlem, borrowing a phrase from Gardiner, has asked this question with reference to Aziru: …. “Who was this so-called ‘Syrian condottiere’?” LeFlem’s question by now I think emphatically answers itself: he was EA’s Aziru! This was the foreign takeover of Egypt, an action of the Sinai commission, to depose the irresponsible Akhnaton and his régime and to re-establish ma'at (order, status quo). Though Aziru’s involvement was not necessarily so highly regarded by later Ramessides. [LeFlem, K. A., ‘Amenophis, Osarsiph and Arzu. More on the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt, SIS Workshop, vol. 5, no.1 (1982), p. 15. Cf. footnote 61 above]. Except Aziru and his army did not come to Egypt to, as I wrote above, “depose the irresponsible Akhnaton and his regime” (see, below, section: Aziru and Akhnaton). Second conclusion: Aziru (Hazael), king of Syria, is GPH’s Syrian, Irsu. 3. Hazael’s Syrian origins Why did the Lord choose Hazael, a Syrian, to assist the prophet Elijah and his coalition in the extermination of the House of Ahab and the pagan Baal worship? Presumably this Hazael was, prior to his rise to the throne, a typical Syrian official of the time, himself a worshipper of pagan gods. Well, yes and no. Hazael, also known as Na’aman, had been a typical Syrian of the time, the right-hand man of the mighty king, Ben-Hadad, who rested on his official’s arm when bowing down before the god Rimmon in the temple (2 Kings 5:18): ‘But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this’. Now, ironically, the god Rimmon was basically the same as Baal, whose religion Hazael would be commissioned at Sinai to help exterminate: https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Rimmon “Rimmon …. A Syrian deity, a local representation of Hadad the god of storm, rain and thunder. In Syria this god is called “Baal,” ie the lord par excellence”. The leprous Na’aman, as a pagan Syrian, would have considered the rivers of Syria to have been a gift of his gods, meaning that there is much more to his proud rejection of the prophet Elisha’s offer for a cure than simply bathing in the Jordan River. What Elisha was asking of the Syrian was nothing less than to embrace the sacred river of Yahweh (once the river of Eden: Genesis 2:10) in preference to the rivers of his own gods. He was asking Na’aman to convert to the religion of Israel, to place his full trust in Yahweh. This, Na’aman was not initially prepared to do (2 Kings 5:11-12): But Naaman went away angry and said, ‘I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?’ So he turned and went off in a rage. Thanks to the intervention of his servants, Na’aman calmed down and did what the prophet Elisha had asked of him – no small ask, despite the simplicity of the action (vv. 13-14): Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. More than half a millennium later, Jesus Christ, preaching in Nazareth, will recall this wondrous moment (Luke 4:27): ‘And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian’. These words so enraged those in the synagogue that they attempted to throw him over a cliff (vv. 28-29). A vital connection between the converted Na’aman and King Hazael, chosen as a leader of the Sinai triumvirate (I Kings 19:15-16): “The Lord said to [Elijah], ‘Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet’”, perfectly answers my earlier question: Why did the Lord choose Hazael, a Syrian, to assist the prophet Elijah and his coalition in the extermination of the House of Ahab and the pagan Baal worship? No longer was Hazael (Na’aman) the typical pagan Syrian worshipper of Baal. He was now a thoroughgoing Yahwist (Kings 5:17): “… said Naaman, ‘please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord’.” As we are going to learn, the Syrian stuck to his promise, even to the extent of enforcing his newly-acquired religion upon idolatrous Egypt, whose supreme god (state deity) was the Baal-like Amun(-Ra). No wonder that the Lord had chosen him! Third conclusion: Aziru (Hazael) is the Syrian convert, Na’aman. In 2 Kings 5:1, we learn that Na’aman was “a great in the sight of” his king, having delivered Ben-Hadad an important military victory: “Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram [Syria]. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier …”. Ben-Hadad, EA’s Abdi-ashirta (Dr. Velikovsky), is generally considered to have been amongst the vassal kings of the EA era, who appeared to grovel before the Pharaohs and before several other Great Kings. Nothing, I think, could be further from the truth, at least in the case of Abdi-ashirta. As Ben-Hadad, he was what I have called ‘a master-king’, having 32 other kings in tow (I Kings 20:1). Now who in antiquity, to that stage, was like this? The great Yarim-Lim of Yamkhad had had an impressive 20 kings in tow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarim-Lim_I “By the time of his death, Yarim-Lim, had more than twenty kings as vassals and allies. According to Historian William J. Hamblin he was at the time the "mightiest ruler in the Near East outside of Egypt” …. Ben-Hadad would have more than half of that again. On this basis, I have concluded that Ben-Hadad/Abdi-ashirta, the master-king of his era, could not have been confined just to Syria (Damascus), but that he was the same as the famous EA correspondent, Pharaoh of Egypt, Nimmuria, better known as Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’. In other words, before the forceful incursion of Aziru into Egypt, his predecessor’s kingdom had already spilled over into that country, not to mention his control of much of the Levantine coast, threatening Byblos. In various articles, I have merged this great Pharaoh into Amenhotep II, making him even greater (but reducing his III to a II). We have briefly considered the good relationship between Ben-Hadad and his chief official, Hazael (Na’aman). It was so good that Ben-Hadad had no problems with his official going to Israel for a potential cure for his leprosy (2 Kings 5:5): “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel”. Now, can we find an official with the same sort of very good relationship with pharaoh Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’, an alter ego of mine for Ben-Hadad/Abdi-ashirta? All our attention now turns to Egypt. 4. Hazael as Amenhotep son of Hapu Yes, he is the enigmatic Amenhotep son of Hapu, fittingly a commoner, who rose to the highest honours in Egypt: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amenhotep-son-of-Hapu Amenhotep, son of Hapu, was a high official of the reign of Amenhotep III of ancient Egypt (reigned 1390–53 bce) [sic], who was greatly honoured by the king within his lifetime and was deified more than 1,000 years later during the Ptolemaic era. Amenhotep rose through the ranks of government service, becoming scribe of the recruits, a military office, under Amenhotep III. While in the Nile River delta, Amenhotep was charged with positioning troops at checkpoints on the branches of the Nile to regulate entry into Egypt by sea; he also checked on the infiltration of Bedouin tribesmen by land. On one of his statues, he is called a general of the army. Some time later, when he was placed in charge of all royal works, he probably supervised the construction of Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple at Thebes near modern Luxor, the building of the temple of Soleb in Nubia (modern Sudan), and the transport of building material and erection of other works. Two statues from Thebes indicate that he was also an intercessor in Amon’s temple and that he supervised the celebration of one of Amenhotep III’s Heb-Sed festivals (a renewal rite celebrated by the pharaoh after the first 30 years of his reign and periodically thereafter). The king honoured him by embellishing Athribis, his native city. Amenhotep III even ordered the building of a small funerary temple for him next to his own temple, a unique honour for a nonroyal person in Egypt. Amenhotep was greatly revered by posterity, as indicated by the reinscription of the donation decree for his mortuary establishment in the 21st dynasty (1075–c. 950 bce) and his divine association with Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, during the Ptolemaic period. [End of quote] Though essentially based in Syrian Damascus, the mobile Ben-Hadad could have, during his decades-long reign, had a significant impact upon Egypt as well, he being well served in both significant locations by Hazael. But how to explain why the now Yahwistic Hazael would murder his king and patron, Ben-Hadad? That is not an easy question to answer. Maybe he was prompted by Elisha’s telling him the shock news that he was going to be the King of Syria (Aram) - and/or realizing that he, being a commoner, was never going to be elected king, but would have to force the issue himself. Moreover, Ben-Hadad would now represent for Hazael the idolatrous world that he had been divinely commissioned to eradicate. Our account of the Syrian “dog” made good, which received an enormous boost with the hero’s dramatic conversion to Yahwism, after experiencing a miracle, now goes into overdrive with the recognition that the brilliant Amenhotep son of Hapu, was to become the pharaoh known as Amenhotep IV (now my III), or Akhnaton (Akhenaten). All of a sudden, the completely mysterious shroud that surrounds Akhnaton prior to his ascension to the throne of Egypt - for instance, did he spend his early years amongst the Mitannians? - has been lifted right away in the new knowledge that Akhnaton was indeed Amenhotep, but the one who had long served Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’, who, as Ben-Hadad, had been well served by Hazael (Na’aman). Fourth conclusion: Aziru (Hazael) was Amenhotep son of Hapu. 5. Hazael as the semi-legendary Osarseph As now inimical towards his idolatrous master, Ben-Hadad, Hazael perhaps emerges in a garbled tradition from Josephus as the renegade Osarseph/Osarsiph, especially given the latter’s association with lepers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osarseph According to Josephus, the story depicts Osarseph as a renegade Egyptian priest who leads an army of lepers and other "unclean" people against a pharaoh named Amenophis, who was the son of Ramses and the father of another Ramses, and whose original name was Sethos (Seti).[1] The pharaoh is driven out of the country and the leper-army, in alliance with the Hyksos (whose story is also told by Manetho) ravage Egypt, committing many sacrileges against the gods, before Amenophis returns and expels them. Towards the end of the story Osarseph changes his name to Moses.[2] Fifth conclusion: Aziru (Hazael) could just possibly have been the model for Josephus’s garbled Osarseph. There appears to be evidence that Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’ showed some favouritism towards Atonism (Atenism): https://media.australian.museum/media/dd/documents/New_Kingdom_Egypt_Amenhotep_III_to_the_Death_of_Ramesses_II_-_Activity_two.bc57759.pdf “Amenhotep III’ would put an increasing emphasis on the worship of Aten elevating them from a minor god to a solar disc that provided life-giving energy to the world. He would give Aten royal patronage through temples such as Maru Aten and his own epithet Aten-tjehen, which means ‘the Dazling Sun Disk”. Whilst he did not promote Aten as an exclusive god, his successor Akhenaten would. Akhenaten made radical changes to the religious landscape of Egypt, imposing the status of the sun god Aten as an exclusive deity, replacing Egypt’s polytheistic belief system, and displacing the state-deity Amun-Re. This period became known as the Amarna period after Akhenaten’s relocation of the capital from Thebes to modern day Tell el-Amarna …”. 6. Hazael as pharaoh Akhnaton By now I have written various articles connecting the Syrian convert Na’aman (Hazael) to the extraordinary pharaoh Akhnaton. The following one covers much of it: Akhnaton one of the most influential men who ever lived https://www.academia.edu/103257906/Akhnaton_one_of_the_most_influential_men_who_ever_lived “Novelists and historians, essayists, cultists, cranks, theologians, archaeologists, documentary makers and Hollywood film makers all give very different interpretations to his life, his beliefs, his personality, his motivations, what he intended to do and what he did”. Mohamed Hawass What to make of pharaoh Akhnaton, his lovely wife, Nefertiti, and the city of Akhetaton? Mohamed Hawass tells of the vast range of opinions expressed about Akhnaton, in his article: Akhenaten and Nefertiti: The Controversy and the Evidence (3) Free PDF Download - Akhenaten and Nefertiti: The Controversy and the Evidence | Mohamed Hawass - Academia.edu (pp. 3-5): …. Akhenaten has often been acclaimed not only as the founder of monotheism and the first man to worship a benevolent God, but as the first individual in history: he also emerges as one of the most controversial. Despite massive amounts being written about both him and Nefertiti, despite being amongst the few figures from Ancient Egypt to achieve lasting fame, few writers can give a shared overall opinion. They do not even agree on how to spell Akhenaten’s name, giving at least four choices! Some writers may agree on what some points mean, but even there wide disagreement seems more common. Novelists and historians, essayists, cultists, cranks, theologians, archaeologists, documentary makers and Hollywood film makers all give very different interpretations to his life, his beliefs, his personality, his motivations, what he intended to do and what he did. Fascination with Akhenaten has long ago reached the stage where that fascination itself has become the subject of a book, Dominic Montserrat’s interesting Akhenaten: History Fantasy and Ancient Egypt. (2003). Montserrat asks the very good question why are people fascinated by an Egyptian pharaoh who died over three thousand years ago? First he remains an enigma and they always fascinate. This enigma takes a form, being also a mystery that essentially divides between resolving him to be either a hero or a villain, which was he? Many people still see personalities in this simple, divisive way. A third point is that his intensely dramatic story attracts creators of fiction, historians and their readers. The final reason concerns what may well be his great importance on influencing human history. His attempt to establish monotheism, and a seemingly benevolent monotheism for all humanity, may have been an isolated attempt that was several hundred years ahead of its time and died out unremembered and unknown – or it may have heavily influenced the development of Mosaic Judaism, which of course went on to influence Christianity and then Islam. Did the religion of the Aten stop without further influence? Or was there a now untraceable and developing path from Atenism into Judaism? The answer remains unknown; thin evidence exists for this, but that evidence offers no proof, only grounds for speculation. Even so, most of the world remains dominated by laws and religions which now express concept’s [sic] first expressed in Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Aten, inscribed on the wall of the Amarna tomb of Ay, a leading Atenist. …. If the links are ever found this would make Akhenaten one of the most influential men who ever lived. It would also change our perceptions of the origins of the world’s dominant religions. Much of this theological development may have come from Nefertiti. While some consensus on Nefertiti exists, the listing below gives some idea of how numerous, divergent and oppositional views of Akhenaten are. This is of course simplified as many writers are cautious in expressing opinions. Others allow for mixtures of the views listed below. Akhenaten was a visionary and a religious genius aiming to unite all the peoples of his empire in a rule of peace. He was an internationalist and a pacifist. Akhenaten was a short sighted political leader who probably could not see that his empire was disintegrating. If he could see he did not care. Akhenaten was a great man, hundreds of years ahead of his time, brought down by small minded people. Akhenaten was a naïve fool and perhaps a lunatic, who devastated Egypt and had to be stopped. Akhenaten was a liberator, aiming to establish a humane religion based in one benevolent God who would overcome the darkness and fear that came from superstition. Akhenaten was a tyrant and a megalomaniac, enforcing a cruel religion with a god he created as a reflection of himself. Akhenaten was a uxorious husband and a devoted family man to his children. Akhenaten was a bisexual, a womaniser and an incestuous paedophile who exiled Nefertiti. Akhenaten was a true and original revolutionary, rapidly changing Egyptian religion, society and culture. Akhenaten was only developing ideas and trends that had emerged in his father’s reign. Akhenaten was the first monotheist. Akhenaten was not a monotheist. He allowed other religions and never denied the existence of other gods. Fiction writers give us many such views and all of these views have some basis in evidence. In Mika Waltari’s Sinuhe The Egyptian (1949) Akhenaten talks like a 1930s peace pledge parson, making naïve sentiments about peace, the brotherhood of man and the love of God. While he dreams of such a world his undefended kingdom experiences invasion and near civil war rips Egypt apart. The same idea emerges in the 1954 film version of that book, The Egyptian. Both these works show a mentality influenced by the 1930s failure of those European leaders who wanting peace, and in striving for that, failed to contain Hitler. These 1950s depictions also reflect the naivety of those in the west who hoped for peace during the Cold War. Coming from the opposite direction, seeing humanist calls for peace and equality as desirable, something of this mentality seems evident in historian F. Gladstone Bratton’s admiring 1961 work The Heretic Pharaoh. Here Akhenaten’s humanity and genius is emphasised and he seems to be a figure striving for peace and international goodwill. In Allen Drury’s A God Against the Gods (1976) and the sequel Return to Thebes (1977) this novelist strives to create an epic explaining the conflicting evidence. Here Akhenaten emerges as a well-intentioned religious genius, but a disastrously inept politician unable to make judgements on realities. He is naïve and his homosexual relationship with Smenkhkare alienates Nefertiti, the mainstay of his religion. Something of the mid 1970s disillusionment with the idealism of the Vietnam War era comes through in Drury’s two books. By 1984 when Pauline Gedge’s The Twelfth Transforming was published, the world was very disillusioned with alternative religions, utopias, and radical messiahs of assorted kinds. This attitude comes through in her portrayal of Akhenaten, a simpering, egocentric, hideously deformed megalomaniac with a taste for incest. He has to be stopped before his wild schemes to transform Egypt destroys that civilisation. By the time this novel was written Akhenaten had been the subject of over a hundred novels. …. Clearly writers perceive Akhenaten not only through interpreting primary source evidence, but through the developments of their own eras and the influence of the dominant or striking personalities of their times. [End of quote] I myself had once, in a university thesis (2007), simply dismissed Akhnaton as “the oddest of pharaohs” (Volume One, p. 210), without having been able - {nor even really being concerned about it} - to penetrate the mystery. What I did fully realise back then, though, and am still convinced of to this day (13th June, 2023), was that any mystery surrounding Akhnaton and his city of Akhetaton would be more easily solved were one to embrace Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s downward revision of this era (as argued in Ages in Chaos and Oedipus and Ikhnaton) to the C9th BC (conventional dating). This massive alteration brings with it a radical new perspective. Akhnaton’s Hymn to the Aten, so like in many ways King David’s Psalm 104 - as many have recognised - far from having influenced the Hebrew version, would have post-dated the latter by over a century. So, if anyone was doing the influencing here, then it was King David. And that chronological fact alone would require a modification of the suggestion in the article of Mohamed Hawass above - based upon a conventional dating of Akhnaton to the C14th BC - that Akhnaton’s “… attempt to establish monotheism … may have heavily influenced the development of Mosaic Judaism …”. Apart from the fact that Moses preceded Akhnaton by a good half a millennium, the best one could say is that Akhnaton had been influenced by (and had not influenced) a “Mosaic Judaism” filtered through an updated Davidic Judaism. What one might be able to say, and some indeed have said it, is that the religious monotheism of pharaoh Akhnaton is akin to that one reads about in the Pentateuch, and which kings David and Solomon had inherited. The latter brought some of this to Egypt where he, as Senenmut, famously officiated as ‘the power behind the throne’ of the woman pharaoh, Hatshepsut. On this, see e.g. my article: Solomon and Sheba (4) Solomon and Sheba | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu So who, then, was this, the most unusual character in ancient Egyptian history, Akhnaton? And from whence did he come? To answer the last question first, as King Hezekiah had done in the instance of Isaiah’s uncomfortable interrogation of him regarding the Babylonian envoys of King Merodach-baladan (Isaiah 39:3), Akhnaton was a Syrian, not a native Egyptian. Hence he was geographically closer, than were the Egyptians, to the Israelites, and to their prophets and teachings - during the era of the Divided Kingdom of kings Ahab (with Jezebel) and the godly Jehoshaphat. Not entirely surprising, then, that we find it likely that: Akhnaton’s Chief Minister [was] an Israelite? (4) Akhnaton’s Chief Minister an Israelite? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu The one who came to be called Akhnaton (meaning “Effective for the Aten”) in Egypt - {and whose prenomen would be Neferkheperure (Waenre) (meaning “Beautiful are the Forms of Re, the Unique one of Re”), which name (Neferkheperure) is the occasionally-met variant, Naphuria, or Napkhuria, of the El Amarna correspondence} - was, in fact, a Syrian military man and foreigner with regard to Egypt. That would explain also why his new city of Akhetaton (meaning “Horizon of the Aten”) was like a military camp, and why many of its inhabitants were ‘Asiatic’ (read Syro-Palestinian): Akhetaton was ‘an armed camp’ (4) Akhetaton was 'an armed camp' | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu So, any naïve suggestion that pharaoh Akhnaton was like some ancient version of New Age “pacificist” (a word we encountered above) is always going to be very wide of the mark – for any ruler in ancient times, let alone for one like Akhnaton, who obviously flaunted his military. Like the prophet Jonah, before he could minister to the Assyrians, the Syrian Na’aman must needs be ‘baptismally’ immersed in the water before he was deemed “clean” (2 Kings 5:14) enough to spread his monotheism (to the Egyptians). Verse 17: ‘… please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the LORD’. This: Akhnaton’s Theophany (8) Akhnaton's Theophany | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu is, I believe, the key to understanding pharaoh Akhnaton and his monotheistic Atenism. Sixth conclusion: Aziru (Hazael) was Pharaoh Akhnaton (Akhenaten).