Prophet Nahum did not live to hear of the fall of Thebes, but only of Memphis

 

by

Damien F. Mackey

  

To sum up: Our Simeonite family was from southern Judah,

but once had to identify as Galilean (Book of Jonah), and, another time,

as resident in the environs of Assyrian Nineveh (Book of Nahum).

 

Extent of Nahum’s prophetic career

 

            His alter egos

 

Nahum we need to multi-identify, before we can provide him with a full chronology and geography.

 

From these variations on Tobit 14:4:

 

‘Go to Media, my son, for I fully believe what Jonah the prophet said about Nineveh, that it will be overthrown’ (RSV).

 

‘My son, take your children and hasten to Media, for I believe the word of God that Nahum spoke about Nineveh. It will all take place’ (NCB),

 

we learn that Nahum was Jonah.

 

Now, according to pseudo-Epiphanius (De Vitis Proph. in Opp. 2:247), Nahum was of the tribe of Simeon.

 

Whereas the Book of Nahum does not provide a patronymic - does not name his father, or ancestor - the Book of Jonah does.

The prophet was a “son of Amittai” (Jonah 1:1; cf. 2 Kings 14:25).

 

The great prophet, Amoz (Amos), father of Isaiah, immediately suggests himself for the Simeonite “Amittai”. For one, Amoz was the patriarch of an enormously influential Simeonite prophetic family: 

 

God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon

 

(3) God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon

 

And, secondly, Amoz, or Amaziah, is a name compatible with the unusual “Amittai”.

 

Amoz I also believe to have been the prophet Micah, his very mirror-image, in fact, known to biblical commentators as “Amos redivivus”.

We find Isaiah and his father, Amos-Micah, in the Simeonite coupling, in Judith 6:15, of “Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon”.

 

There may be just one more addition to make to our composite Simeonite prophet.

If he is also Isaiah, then our prophet may connect with Hosea - Isaiah’s son Immanuel being, according to what I have written, the same boy as Hosea’s son, Lo-ammi:

 

Was Hosea’s boy-child, Lo-Ammi, Isaiah’s famous son, Immanuel?

 

(3) Was Hosea's boy-child, Lo-Ammi, Isaiah's famous son, Immanuel?

 

To sum up: Amoz (Amittai)/Micah was the Simeonite father of Isaiah (Hosea, Uzziah)/Nahum-Jonah.

 

His geography

 

This takes us far and wide, because our prophet, as Uzziah of the Book of Judith, was, according to Judith 8:34; 13:23 (Douay): “… the prince of Juda[h]” and “the prince of the people of Israel”.

 

Added to that, he, as Jonah-Nahum, would travel to Assyrian Nineveh.

 

The Simeonite family was apparently from Moresheth (Mareshah) in southern Judah (Micah 1:1).

 

Awkward complications arise, however, when we learn that Nahum was an “Elkoshite” (Nahum 1:1), and that Jonah was “the prophet from Gath-hepher” (2 Kings 14:25; cf.  Joshua 19:13), a location presumed to be firmly fixed in the land of Galilee.

In my recent article:

 

Were any Old Testament prophets from Galilee?

 

(5) Were any Old Testament prophets from Galilee?

 

I concluded (on the side of the Pharisees, John 7:52) that no Old Testament prophet arose from Galilee. My story was, based on Charles Boutflower, that Isaiah, having to flee the wrath of King Ahaz of Judah, went northwards for a time to Galilee, to what would come to be known as Capernaum, Kfar Naḥum (כְּפַר נַחוּם), literally, ‘Nahum’s village’, due to his presence there, as Nahum:

 

Isaiah took his family north to escape the wrath of king Ahaz

 

(5) Isaiah took his family north to escape the wrath of king Ahaz

 

The ancient name of the place, though, was Gath-hepher. Indeed, it was situated in Galilee, but our Simeonite prophetic family did not originally hail from there.

 

No Old Testament prophet arose from Galilee!

 

The other complication is with Nahum’s Elkosh (or Ali Qosh, or AlQush), thought by some to have been a Simeonite town (of uncertain location) in southern Judah, but, by others, to have been the well-known Alqosh (Al Qūsh, near Nineveh).

 

Now, it would make perfect sense for the prophet, Nahum-Jonah, to have - during his Assyrian mission - spent some time amongst the exiled Israelites in Nineveh, such as Tobit (who references him as we have read), and his family.

There, he may have taken notes for his graphic (“eye-witness”, as some have described it) account of the city and the Assyrians in the Book of Nahum.

 

To sum up: Our Simeonite family was from southern Judah, but once had to identify as Galilean (Book of Jonah), and, another time, as resident in the environs of Assyrian Nineveh (Book of Nahum).

 

That, at last, brings us to the main focus of this article, the chronology, and how this affects what our prophet could have lived to see regarding the fall of Memphis, and that of Thebes, and of Nineveh.

 

The long-lived Tobias (= Job), son of Tobit - who most likely met Nahum-Jonah during the latter’s mission to Nineveh - would live to see and hear of the Fall of Nineveh (Tobit 14:15):

 

“But before he died, [Tobias] saw and heard of the destruction of Nineveh.

He saw the inhabitants of the city being led captive into Media by Cyaxares,

the king of Media. Tobias blessed God for all that he had done against the Ninevites and Assyrians. Before dying he rejoiced over Nineveh,

and he blessed the Lord God forever and ever”.

 

His chronology

 

We can know, from a comparison of Isaiah and Hosea, that our Simeonite prophet likewise lived a very long life, his prophetic floruit extending from King Jeroboam II of Israel (Hosea 1:1) all the way down to King Hezekiah of Judah.

 

However, the necessary (my view) recognition of the reforming king Hezekiah as being the same as the reforming king Josiah, and Hezekiah’s wicked son, Manasseh, as Josiah’s wicked son, Jehoiakim (see e.g.):

 

Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses

 

(6) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses

 

takes our prophet, now as “Asaiah” (2 Kings 22:12), into the reign of king Josiah, and beyond that, to be martyred, as Uriah (Urijah) in the reign of the wicked son-successor, Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 26:20-23).

 

But thanks to this, our folding of the era of King Josiah into the era of King Hezekiah, we can now identify this incident as being the very martyrdom of the prophet Isaiah traditionally occurring at the hands of King Manasseh – an incident that so far (I think) has been unidentifiable in biblical texts.

 

Of course, with our folding, into one, of supposedly two Judean eras, there must come a corresponding folding of the Assyro-Babylonian history that accompanies this Hezekian-Josian period. What this entails, relevant to the destruction of Egypt’s old capital city of Memphis, is that great Assyro-Babylonian conquerors (supposedly) of this city must now all be fused into the one mighty king. I speak of:

 

Esarhaddon

Ashurbanipal

Nebuchednezzar

Cambyses

On this, see e.g. my articles:

 

Esarhaddon, Cambyses, and the Fall of Egypt’s Memphis capital

 

(7) Esarhaddon, Cambyses, and the Fall of Egypt’s Memphis capital

 

Chaldean armies come to Egypt

 

(7) Chaldean armies come to Egypt

 

What all of this boils down to is that, if our Simeonite prophet lived only into the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, very early in the reign of King Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’ (cf. Jeremiah 25:1) – when I believe that Jonah came to Nineveh:

 

The ‘Jonah incident’ historically identified

 

(18) The ‘Jonah incident’ historically identified

 

then he did not live long enough to hear of the Fall of Thebes at the hands of Ashurbanipal-Nebuchedezzar, nor, a fortiori, of the Fall of Nineveh some years after the passing of that mighty Assyro-Chaldean king.

 

So Nahum, when he tells of the Fall of No (Noth), as a preview of what will later befall Nineveh (Nahum 3:8):

 

“Art thou better than populous No [Noth], that was situated among the rivers,

that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea,

and her wall was from the sea?”

 

cannot be referring to Thebes, whose demise was yet in the future, but must have been referring to Memphis, Hebrew Moph (מֹף), which Esarhaddon took early in his reign – possibly while Nahum was yet residing in Assyrian Alqosh.

 

Biblical commentators, who generally have taken Nahum 3:8 to be referring to Thebes, not Memphis, have trouble fitting the prophet’s description to ancient Thebes.

 

John R. Huddlestun, for instance, though aware of the difficulties, will nevertheless argue for Nahum 3:8 intending Thebes:

 

“Nahum, Nineveh, and the Nile: The Description of Thebes in Nahum 3:8–9”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 62, No. 2 (April 2003), pp. 97-110:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/376364

 

He tells of the difficulties associated with this in his Introduction:

 

I.                   INTRODUCTION

 

WELL before the advent of modern biblical criticism, translators and interpreters of the Hebrew text puzzled over the identification of nō^ɔ-^ɔāmōn in Nahum 3:8–9. In the Septuagint, confusion over how to translate the opening words of verse 8 (hatēt´tbī minnō^ɔ-^ɔāmōn) is evident in what appear to be multiple renderings, some of which may have originated as glosses. …. In rabbinic tradition, No-Amon is interpreted as the Delta city Alexandria, a rendering adopted and defended by Jerome in the Vulgate. …. With one or two exceptions, modern scholarship has associated the toponym, and the event referred to in 3:8–9, with the Egyptian Thebes of Upper or southern Egypt and its sack by the Assyrians in ca. 663 B.C.E. …. Yet, as many have noted, this identification is not entirely consistent with the biblical text’s portrait of that city as one encircled by water and protected by the sea. Thebes is far removed from the Mediterranean Sea, and, although situated on the banks of the Nile, one could hardly characterize the city as surrounded by water. The problematic description has occupied both Egyptologists and biblical scholars, who have offered various solutions—geographical, grammatical, and mythological—to reconcile the biblical portrait with the layout of the city.

 

[End of quote]

 

I suggest that the prophet Nahum was referring to Memphis, instead.

 

Though it, too, may not have seemed to fit Nahum’s description of being surrounded by water, new evidence has come to light that might suggest otherwise:

 

Dried-up branch of the Nile ran alongside ancient pyramids and capital of Memphis

 

(20) Dried-up branch of the Nile ran alongside ancient pyramids and capital of Memphis

 

 

Isaiah took his family north to escape the wrath of king Ahaz

 

“… comparing the antitype with the type, even as Herod sought to destroy

the Divine Child whose birth might be supposed to endanger his throne,

so Ahaz, from a different motive indeed, may have sought to destroy

the typical Immanuel, the prediction concerning whose birth foretold

the ruin of Judah at the hands of Assyria”.

Charles Boutflower

  

Charles Boutflower, reading between the lines, came up with the fascinating theory that Isaiah and his family had felt compelled - just like the Holy Family that it typifies - to escape, by flight, from a wrathful king.

 

Here follows Chapter V, “Immanuel”, from Charles Boutflower’s 1930 classic, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters [I-XXXIX] in the light of the Assyrian monuments.

 

“Butter and honey shall he eat, when he knoweth to refuse the evil

and choose the good.”—Isa. vii. 15.

 

In studying the Book of Isaiah, whether for our own benefit or to edify others, the question will often force itself upon us, Who was the typical Immanuel? and Who the maiden who typified the Virgin Mother? To this question the commentators furnish various answers. But not to bewilder my readers with endless discussions, I shall only lay before them that answer which commends itself most to my own judgment. It seems, then, to me that Immanuel was the prophet’s own son, and that the maiden who became his mother was the prophet’s second wife. Isaiah’s first wife was the mother of Shear-jashub. When the prophet at Jehovah’s command took Shear-jashub with him and went to meet Ahaz, his first wife was dead; for he predicts that within a year the nameless maiden, whom he intends to marry, will become the mother of Immanuel.

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: According, though, to my recent article:

 

Was Hosea’s boy-child, Lo-Ammi, Isaiah’s famous son, Immanuel?

 

(2) Was Hosea's boy-child, Lo-Ammi, Isaiah's famous son, Immanuel?

 

the mother of Isaiah’s first son, Shear-jashub, was the self-same woman as was the mother of Immanuel.

 

Charles Boutflower continues:

 

After the birth of Immanuel this young woman, now the prophet’s wife, is very suitably called “the prophetess,” just as Solomon’s wives are called ‘‘queens” … and about a year later bears him a child, who is called Mahershalalhashbaz. The grounds for this opinion are as follows. In chap. viii. 18 the prophet says, “Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs.” He does not say that any other person’s children are for signs: he only mentions his own. ….

In what way Isaiah and Shear-jashub were signs when they appeared before king Ahaz in an acted parable we saw in our last chapter. It now remains to add that all three children, Shear-jashub, Immanuel, and Mahershalalhashbaz, were also signs in virtue of the names given to them. Thus the name Shear-jashub, “a remnant shall return,” finds its explanation in chap. x. 20-22, “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and they that are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the Mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return.” This is a promise that a small fraction of the nation, who have escaped from the Assyrian deluge, shall no longer look for help to the power that smote them, but shall return in all sincerity to their Almighty Deliverer, the Holy One of Israel.

The significance of the name Immanu-El, as we have already seen, lies in this, that God is with us, i.e . with those who put their trust in Him. So then, should the rising flood of Assyrian invasion overwhelm the Northern Kingdom, and sweep onward into Judah, reaching even unto the neck, yet the nation shall not go under, for the land thus submerged is “thy land, O Immanu-El.” O With us-God! “Make an uproar,” then, “O ye peoples,” that go to form Assyria’s mighty host: mobilise your forces, arm yourselves for the conflict. It is all to no purpose: “ye shall be broken in pieces.” Let the wisest of your military strategists take counsel together, and issue their commands to the troops under them: all shall be of no avail, your counsels “shall be brought to nought,” your orders shall never take effect, for—Immanu-El “God is with us!” ….

The name of the prophet’s third child, Maher-shalal-hash-baz “Hasten booty, speed spoil,” is explained by God immediately after the mention of his birth: “Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria.” …. But if these three children were all signs in virtue of the meaning of their names, there was one who was specially so called at the time when his birth was predicted and his name given. For when unbelieving Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, the prophet replied, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” …. The above considerations, then, may very well lead us to look on Immanuel as the prophet’s own son, and to believe that Isaiah like Hosea had three children, all of whose names were prophetic.*

 

Damien Mackey’s comment: According to my article above, Isaiah was Hosea – the prophet and his wife having four children of whom we are informed: three boys and one girl.

 

Charles Boutflower continues:

 

But there is a yet further ground for looking on Immanuel as Isaiah’s own son and as own brother to Mahershalalhashbaz. It lies in this, that notes of time couched in similar language were struck when the births of each of these children were announced: the first note indicating a longer interval, the second a shorter one, before the coming of the same event, viz. the downfall of Syria and Israel. Of Immanuel it was said, ‘‘For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be forsaken.”  …. These words I have explained to mean, Before the child is old enough to know what he may eat and what he must not eat: an explanation which agrees with the previous context, where it is said that he will eat butter and honey when he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. The note of time, therefore, in this instance signifies that within a very few years the land of the two allied kings of Syria and Israel will be desolated. As a matter of fact it was desolated within three years of the time when the sign was given. In the case of Mahershalalhashbaz the note of time begins with the same words, but points to a shorter interval: “For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and, My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be carried away before the king of Assyria.” If the first mention of this child’s name was made in 734 B.C., and his birth took place in the following year, then the above prediction, uttered at the time of his birth, was fulfilled within about a year of that event. Having regard, therefore, to these considerations, it seems most reasonable to look upon Immanuel as the older brother of Mahershalalhashbaz. But this being so, the “virgin,” who became the mother of these two children, must have been Isaiah’s second wife [sic].

If on the above grounds we are led to look upon the typical Immanuel as Isaiah’s own son, a very interesting deduction follows: viz. that within a year or two of Immanuel’s birth Isaiah must have left Jerusalem for a while and gone to live in the now desolated land of Israel. For it is predicted of Immanuel that when he is a young lad two principal articles of his diet will be butter and honey: chap. vi. 15. And then, a little further on in the same chapter, it is explained that this being obliged to depend on butter and honey, will be a consequence of the Assyrian invasion: that owing to the depopulation of the country, the land will go out of cultivation, and what is now vineyards and cornfields will become thickets ; but that there will still be pasturage for cattle, and the wild bees will still lay up their honied stores, so that “butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the midst of the land.” Now since this description of Immanuel’s surroundings in his early boyhood’s years does not apply to Judah and Jerusalem, but does apply to the land of Israel, and especially to northern Israel, the presumption is that Immanuel while still a young lad was taken by his father to live in the northern kingdom, and into that part of the kingdom whose inhabitants had so lately been carried captive.

What was the reason for a prophet, whose heart was so centred in Jerusalem, leaving the Holy City and going to live in the desolated land of the Ten Tribes? In all probability it was the wrath of Ahaz. When Isaiah confronted Ahaz and bade him ask a sign of the LORD his God, the young king’s evasive answer showed that he was afraid of the prophet ; and as he listened to the terrible denunciations from the lips of Isaiah of the woes that were coming on his country because of the line of policy which he had secretly resolved to pursue, fear must have ripened into dislike and hatred. So then, comparing the antitype with the type, even as Herod sought to destroy the Divine Child whose birth might be supposed to endanger his throne, so Ahaz, from a different motive indeed, may have sought to destroy the typical Immanuel, the prediction concerning whose birth foretold the ruin of Judah at the hands of Assyria. …. In this case it would not be long safe for the prophet and his son to remain in Jerusalem. But whither shall he go when he leaves the Sacred City? To Ahaz he has spoken of Syria and Israel as forming one land though under two kings. …. This is because these two powers have for the time being made themselves into one: “Syria is confederate with Ephraim,” literally “resteth on Ephraim.” In the long-ago days “Ephraim departed from Judah’’—to use the prophet’s own words—and now her land is one with the Syrians. But the days of Ephraim’s existence as a separate kingdom are soon to come to an end. Within a few short years Ephraim “will be broken in pieces that it be not a people.” …. And with this disappearance of the kingdom of Ephraim before his mind the prophet seems to have hailed the thought that the land occupied by the two Jewish kingdoms, so long divided politically, was by Divine intention, no less than by nature, one land. Hence, when telling how the flood of Assyrian invasion will sweep over both kingdoms, he speaks of the two countries, thus for a time submerged, as “thy land, O Immanuel,” and Thine in all its “breadth.” …. If, then, our prophet must leave Judah, he need not leave Immanuel’s land: he will go into that part of it which has just been placed under the rule of Hoshea … and for greater safety he will go into that district which lies furthest off from the capital of king Ahaz: he will “withdraw into the parts of Galilee”. …. That Galilee, whose name is so endeared to us Christians, was then a deserted region, its inhabitants having been recently taken captive to Assyria. Their sad fate had fixed itself indelibly on the prophet’s mind. Nevertheless, the Spirit had revealed to him that there, where the first blow had fallen, the bright light of happier days, the days of the Messiah, should first dawn. ‘‘For there shall be no gloom,” he writes, ‘‘to her that was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time hath he made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” …. Many of the inhabitants of Galilee, as the previous context shows, had been “driven away into thick darkness’’; the darkness of a hopeless captivity. The present population was scanty; but in the Messianic age, as the prophet foretells, Jehovah will “multiply the nation’’ and thus “increase the joy”: a joy so great that it can only be compared to the rejoicing before God at the harvest festival, or to the dividing of the spoil after some signal victory. For Assyria’s oppressive “yoke” and heavy “burden” no longer rests on the nation: the taskmaster’s “staff’? no longer descends on its “shoulder.” …. The foe have been put to flight as on that day when the countless hosts of Midian fled before the sword of the LORD and of Gideon. They have vanished from the scene, and soon all the vestiges of hateful war shall vanish likewise. Those long-laced boots, in which the warriors of the enemy strode proudly amid the tumult … their thick, close-fitting tunics, now dyed yet deeper with blood … shall make fuel for the fire. …. And the pledge of all this is before his eyes as he looks at his own Immanuel. Immanuel! the type, surely, of the long-promised Davidic King! “For unto us,” he cries, ‘‘a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder’’—his royal robe fastened at the shoulder marking him as the Divinely constituted Ruler— “and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor,” fount of all political wisdom and sagacity ; ‘‘Mighty God,” his people’s all powerful deliverer; “Everlasting Father,” the father of his subjects, whose reign shall know no end; and then, last and best of all, because most desired in that sad day of domestic troubles and foreign invasion, “Prince of Peace”: peace, internal no less than external: peace, the fruit of righteous rule and good government: peace, ever on the increase with his ever-extending sway. How fondly does the prophet dwell on this closing note! “Of the increase,” he cries, “of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with judgment and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of Jehovah of hosts shall perform this.” The zeal of Jehovah, His jealousy for His people, ensures all. He is pledged to help them by this God-given name, Immanuel.

              It will be seen from the above that we may reasonably suppose that the prophet Isaiah, leaving Judah because of the wrath of Ahaz, went with his son Immanuel into the land of Israel, and to that part of the land which was furthest off from Jerusalem, and to which his sympathies were so strongly drawn when he uttered his lament over the fate of Zebulun and Naphtali, and his glorious song of exultation over the bright future which awaited that now darkened region. Thus it was in Galilee that the early years of Immanuel must have been spent. And this may seem to point forward to our Saviour’s peaceful home at Nazareth, just as His early ministry “by the way of the sea,” i.e. the Sea of Galilee, and the coming of the bright Gospel Day is foretold, as St. Matthew assures us, in this very passage.” The hint of a withdrawal into Galilee contained in the words which form the heading of this chapter, appears to have been lost on king Ahaz, or, if noticed by him, may possibly have been welcomed as giving some hope that he would soon be rid of this troublesome prophet. Fear and dislike were probably the predominating feelings in his breast. There was, therefore, no urgent haste for the prophet to leave Jerusalem at once. Accordingly, he was no doubt there at the time when Immanuel was born, and also a little later, when at Jehovah’s command he wrote on a large metal tablet … “with the pen of a man,” i.e. with an ordinary graving-tool, but according to some translators “in ordinary characters,” FOR MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ. …. This was done in the presence of two witnesses, one of whom was “ Uriah the priest,” presumably the high priest: … the object being, as Cheyne points out, that when the prophecy involved in the name should be fulfilled, two men of rank would be able to testify to its genuineness. But may there not also have been a further object, viz. that the tablet might speak for the prophet in his absence? For though he still remained on at Jerusalem nearly a year longer until the birth of his third son, when the name written on the tablet was explained to mean that before the newborn child should be able to call its parents, the crisis, which began with the invasion of Judah by the armies of Syria and Israel, would end with the carrying off by the king of Assyria of the spoils of those two kingdoms; yet when that event took place he was gone, leaving behind him the tablet and the word of two reliable witnesses to vouch for the genuineness of the inscription and of the prophetic oracle enshrined in that long uncouth name.

Agreeable, then, to this view of Isaiah’s speedy departure from Jerusalem after the birth of Mahershalalhashbaz are the instructions which occur in chap. viii very shortly after the mention of that event: see verses 11 to 20. These instructions have about them the appearance of parting words of advice given by the teacher to his “disciples.” He warns them against being seized with panic fears like the multitude around them. Their only fear must be a holy fear: the fear of Jehovah of hosts. They are to have nothing to do with necromancy. Should the nation leave their God, and resort for council to the dead?

No! the law and the instruction, the teaching which they have received from his lips must be their guide. He also bids them take every care of his written oracles. Let them be bound up and sealed, that they may be preserved for future ages; for he has come to a pause, a break in his prophetic activities. ‘‘I will wait,” he says, “for the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.” He will wait until it shall please Jehovah to make further revelations to him. It may well have been, then, that as in the days of Ahab of Israel the prophet Elijah, acting on his own counsel, sought security by going outside Ahab’s kingdom; so in the days of Ahaz of Judah, the prophet Isaiah, led by better guidance, sought for safety by withdrawing beyond the dominions of Ahaz.

              In conclusion, let it be noted that just as the typical Virgin is merely mentioned afterwards as the “prophetess,” i.e. the prophet’s wife: whilst the typical Immanuel is introduced as inspiring the prophet with hope even when he sees in vision Assyria’s vast hosts mustering for the conflict, and again when he beholds the Assyrian deluge poured out over the land; so, in the Gospel Story, there is a wonderful withdrawing from our view of the Blessed Virgin that our gaze may be fixed on her Son, who is to His people, not only El Gibbor “the Mighty God,” … but also Immanu-El “God with us.”

 

 

 

Esarhaddon, Cambyses, and the Fall of Egypt’s Memphis capital

 

by

Damien F. Mackey

  

This catastrophic (for Egypt and the Ramessides) event

has been repeated again and again in the history books.

  

Abridging the ‘Bridge Too Far’ conventional system

 

The fall of the old Egyptian capital of Memphis, now to Esarhaddon (c. 670 BC), now to Ashurbanipal, now (potentially) to Nebuchednezzar, and now to Cambyses (c. 525 BC), is startlingly, in fact, just the one historical event, though spread out by conventional historians over a period of roughly (670-525 =) 150 years.

 

The connecting factor (indeed, there are many of them), from the point of view of Egypt, is the common presence of the Egyptian commander-son of pharaoh Tirhakah (Taharqa), Nes-Anhuret, for Esarhaddon, Usanahuru for Ashurbanipal, and, again, Udjahorresne[t] for Cambyses (and ‘Darius’) – the designated heir and successor of pharaoh Tirhakah and Commander of the Egyptian Fleet.

 

Esarhaddon and Nes-Anhuret, Ashurbanipal and Usanahuru

 

(DOC) Esarhaddon and Nes-Anhuret, Ashurbanipal and Usanahuru

 

He, as Udjahorresne[t], served - but also mentored - Cambyses in Egypt and gave him his royal Egyptian name, Mesuti-Ra:

Udjahorresnet and the Royal Name of Cambyses: The “Derivative Sacrality” of Achaemenids in Egypt - Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections

 

Ivan Ladynin

 

The article deals with a well-known fragment of Udjahorresnet’s autobiography describing his compiling an Egyptian royal titulary for Cambyses after his appearance in Egypt and Udjahorresnet’s elevation at his court. A comparison of Cambyses’ and Darius’ I solar prenomina (Mswty-RꜤ and Stwt-RꜤ, which can be understood as “the image of Re” and “the likeness of Re”) and an interpretation of the Fayum stela Berlin ÄS 7493 depicting Darius I in the image of the falcon Horus leads one to suspect that the theory finding an excuse to the rule of Achaemenids in Egypt postulated their “deriving” their qualities of sacral ritual rulers from gods incorporated in them. This theory must have been forwarded in Udjahorresnet’s time by his party loyal to the Persian rule.

 

 

 

Cartouche of Cambyses (“Mesuti-Ra Cambyses”)

Stated differently, Udjahorresne helped Cambyses behave

like a true Egyptian king.

 

Then, typically, the Greeks (Plutarch) got hold of Udjahorresne/Usanahuru and turned him into a Spartan admiral, the famous – though quite fictitious – Lysander:

 

Lysander and Usanhuru

 

(6) Lysander and Usanhuru

 

The radical shortening of the conventional Assyro-Babylonian-Medo-Persian history undertaken here must necessitate a similar condensing of Egyptian dynastic history.

 

That is achieved, in part, by recognising pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’ as, all at once, Tirhakah (for Esarhaddon-Ashurbanipal) and Amasis (for Cambyses).

 

See e.g. my article:

 

The Complete Ramses II

 

(6) The Complete Ramses II

 

But there is also an amazing Psammetichus connection, as discussed in my article:

 

Chaldean armies come to Egypt

 

(7) Chaldean armies come to Egypt

 

There I wrote:

 

Psammetichus and other links

 

Psammetichus coincidences

 

We are told that:

 

·       Ashurbanipal invaded Egypt at the time of Psammetichus I (c. 664 BC);

·       Nebuchednezzar invaded Egypt at the time of Psammetichus II (c. 595-589 BC);

·       Cambyses invaded Egypt at the time of Psammetichus III (c. 526-525 BC).

….

 

Memphis taken

 

This catastrophic (for Egypt and the Ramessides) event has been repeated again and again in the history books.

 

Commencing with Esarhaddon, and working our way through to Cambyses, let us take Nebuchednezzar here as our common denominator. 

Esarhaddon, who was Nebuchednezzar in his building of Babylon and in his paranoïc madness, and who failed in his first assault on Egypt and was driven back – just as was the case with Nebuchednezzar:

Esarhaddon | Assyrian King, Neo-Assyrian Empire Ruler | Britannica

“When Egypt inspired a revolt of the Phoenician city of Tyre, Esarhaddon attacked Egypt (675); he had little success until 671, when he seized Memphis and defeated the Egyptian king Taharqa, who fled south, leaving the entire country to Esarhaddon. For the first time a Mesopotamian ruler included “king of Egypt” among his royal titles”. 

 

Likewise, Nebuchednezzar initially had little success with invading Egypt:

Nebuchadnezzar Fails to Conquer Egypt So Jeremiah’s Prophecy Was Updated - TheTorah.com

Nebuchadnezzar attacked Egypt in his fourth regnal year (601/600 B.C.E.). Pharaoh Necho II, in anticipation of this attack, had spent considerable resources massively fortifying the eastern entrances to Egypt at Tell el Qedwa and Tell el-Ghaba on the Pelusiac estuary of the Nile, as well as the gate and fortifications of his capital city, Tanis (biblical Zoan). He thus succeeded in stopping the invasion cold, forcing Nebuchadnezzar’s army to retreat. Even the Babylonian Chronicle—which tends to avoid explicitly mentioning a defeat—has trouble spinning this campaign as a success:

 

In the month Kislev he (Nebuchadnezzar) took his army's lead and marched to Egypt. (When) the king of Egypt heard (the news) he m[ustered] his army. They fought one another in the battlefield and both sides suffered severe losses (lit. they inflicted a major defeat upon one another). The king of Akkad and his army turned and [went back] to Babylon.^[7] ….

[End of quote]

 

Esarhaddon, later, brilliantly conquered Memphis:

Esarhaddon and the Limits of Empire: From Memphis to Arabia and the Question of a Southern Campaign - Nineveh News

 

The Conquest of Egypt: A Turning Point in Near Eastern History

Esarhaddon’s Egyptian campaign marks one of the most extraordinary military achievements of the ancient world. After an initial invasion in 673 BC, he reorganized and launched a second campaign in 671 BC, culminating in the capture of Memphis, the heart of Egyptian political power.

 

This victory had several profound implications:

 

• First Assyrian Conquest of Egypt: No previous Assyrian ruler had successfully subdued Egypt. Esarhaddon accomplished what Tiglath-Pileser III and Sennacherib had not.
• Defeat of Taharqa: The Kushite pharaoh Taharqa was driven south, and his royal family was captured and deported to Nineveh.
• Imperial Integration: Esarhaddon reorganized Egypt into a vassal system, installing local rulers such as Necho I under Assyrian oversight.
• Symbolic Domination: His victory stelae, such as those at Zincirli and Nahr el-Kalb, visually proclaimed Assyria’s supremacy over Egypt, even juxtaposing Assyrian and earlier Egyptian imperial legacies.

[End of quote]

 

Ashurbanipal, who was Nebuchednezzar in his (same) 43-year reign, and having a burning fiery furnace, and in his definitive conquest of Egypt (cf. Jeremiah 43:10-13;  Ezekiel 29:19-20), provides for us the entire account of the conquest of Egypt that we do not have from Nebuchednezzar’s (under that name) records.

 

Ashurbanipal brilliantly conquered Memphis:

Assyrian Army Attacking Memphis - World History Encyclopedia

 

Gypsum panel showing the Assyrian army attacking the Egyptian city of Memphis and commemorating the final victory of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal II over the Egyptian king Taharqa in 667 BCE. Panel 17, Room M of the North Palace at Nineveh, Northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, Neo-Assyrian Period, 645-635 BCE.

 

This wall slab was originally painted for the interior walls of Ashurbanipal's palace at Nineveh. At the top, the overwhelming wave of the Assyrian army storms the Egyptian fortress, tries to set fire to the gate, and undermines the walls. The Nubian soldiers, recognizable by the single upright feathers on their heads, are being marched off as prisoners. Egyptian civilian prisoners are shown as a group with two children on a donkey. Below is the River Nile with fish and crabs.

 

Cambyses, who was Nebuchednezzar in his name,

 

Cambyses also named Nebuchadnezzar

 

(8) Cambyses also named Nebuchadnezzar

 

in his madness, and in his definitive conquest of Egypt, famously conquered Memphis:

How to cite this article: Rickard, J (18 February 2015), Siege of Memphis, early 525 BC , https://www.historyofwar.org/articles/siege_memphis_525.html

 

The siege of Memphis (early 525 BC) was the last recorded resistance to Cambyses II of Persia's invasion of Egypt, and came after the main Egyptian army had been defeated at Pelusium.

Early in 525 Cambyses led his army across the Sinai and defeated the armies of Pharaoh Psamtik III at Pelusium. In the aftermath of the battle the Pharaoh retreated to Memphis, and prepared to defend the city.

Cambyses sent a Persian herald on a Mytilenean ship up the Nile to Memphis to suggest a truce. The defenders of Memphis reacted by attacking the ship, killing the crew and bringing the smashed remains of the ship into the city.

Cambyses reacted by laying siege to Memphis. Herodotus doesn’t say how long the siege lasted, but implies that it was long enough for the Libyans and the Greeks of Cyrene to sent tribute to him.

Eventually the city fell and Psamtik III was captured. Herodotus records a story about Cambyses's attempts to humiliate the former Pharaoh by forcing his daughter to carry out menial tasks and killing his son. As is typical in this sort of story Psamtik impressed Cambyses with his responses, and was taken into honourable captivity instead of being executed. He committed suicide a few years later, after being caught in a plot against the Persians.

Cambyses established a new 27th Dynasty, and appears to have been accepted in Egypt. Herodotus claimed that he was an unpopular ruler, but contemporary Egyptian records suggest otherwise. He remained in Egypt for most of the rest of his reign, only setting off for home when a revolt broke out in the heart of the Persian Empire.