by
Damien F. Mackey
I. His
Pre-Official Years
“That day there was joy for all the Jews who lived in
Nineveh.
Ahiqar and … Nadin were also on hand to rejoice with
Tobit. Tobias’s wedding feast was celebrated with joy for seven days, and many
gifts were given to him”.
Tobit 11:17-18
Introduction
Thankfully the Book of Tobit is able to provide us with
much biographical information for Job (= Tobias):
Job’s Life and Times
because such information about the famed holy man of great
righteousness is almost completely lacking in the Book of Job.
The Book of Tobit spans the lengthy neo-Assyrian period
from king “Shalmaneser” until the destruction of Nineveh (cf. Tobit 1:2 and
14:15), thus anchoring Tobias/Job chronologically.
For an expanded view of this “Shalmaneser”, see my:
The Assyrian Kings
The Book of Tobit also gives what I consider to be the
correct succession of neo-Assyrian kings, Shalmaneser, to Sennacherib, to
Esarhaddon. No king Sargon mentioned between Shalmaneser and Sennacherib. I
give what I think to be the reason for this in:
Assyrian King Sargon II,
Otherwise Known As Sennacherib
Whilst in this present set our focus will be on the official
status of Tobias/Job in the neo-Assyrian kingdom, we learned in the previous,
related series:
‘… Tobit of
… the tribe of Naphtali, who in the days of Shalmaneser, king of the Assyrians,
was taken into captivity …. The Most High gave me favor and good appearance in
the sight of Shalmaneser, and I was his buyer of provisions’. Tobit 1:1, 2, 13
that this Naphtalian family was one of no little importance.
For, as I noted in Part Two:
Tobit,
an exile, must have been a person of exceptional competence to have so risen in
the kingdom of Assyria to become purveyor, or quartermaster, of the Assyrian
king, Shalmaneser.
That
particular rank in Assyria, termed rab[i] ekalli or rab ša muḫḫi ekalli (“… in Middle Assyrian times the ša muḫḫi ekalli is used synonymously to
rab ekalli”: https://www.academia.edu/7640201/2015_Food_and_drink_for_the_palace_the_manageme), may
have been a very high one indeed. For, according to this following estimation
of the rank http://ancientpeoples.tumblr.com/post/30101734778/assyrian-rule-of-conque
Directly under the king were three officers. The turtannu,
or field marshal; the ummânu, vice-chancellor; and the rab ša muḫḫi
ekalli, the major-domo. The latter was the most important and the only one
with direct access to the king (though the king could of course require the
audience of lower ranked men himself); even the field marshal and the
vice-chancellor had to go through the major-domo to request a meeting.
[End of quote]
But Tobit was not the only person of high rank in this most talented
family of his (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=d5PXD5saod4C&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=tobit+was+king's+quartermaster):
The family of Tobit, as we meet them in the Book of Tobit, are
exceptional people. Tobit himself becomes procurator general,
quartermaster for King Shalmaneser, and is sent on important purchasing
expeditions to Media (Persia). His nephew Ahiqar becomes royal cupbearer, in
effect the administrator of the entire empire. Their kinsman Gabiel in Media
also has an important post there.
[End of quote]
One might think it inevitable therefore, too, that
Tobias/Job - being able to boast of so high-ranking a father (Tobit) and a
cousin (Ahiqar), in the kingdom of Assyria - would also have attained
ultimately to a position of greatest prominence.
His arrival at manhood, when Tobias/Job married Sarah and
then returned safely to his parents in Nineveh, was, as we read above, an
occasion of “joy for all the Jews [preferably Israelites?] who lived in
Nineveh”. Even the great man, Ahiqar, attended the celebration, along with Nadin.
For my identification of this sinister character, Nadin, see:
“Nadin went into
everlasting darkness”
Tobias/Job, having
now arrived at a most meaningful phase of his early adult life, was soon to be
catapulted into such public prominence as would see him, as I wrote previously:
… rise to highest judicial office. One has only to read e.g. Job
29:7-10:
‘When I went to the gate of the
city
and took my seat in the public
square,
the young men saw me and stepped
aside
and the old men rose to their
feet;
the chief men refrained from
speaking
and covered their mouths with
their hands;
the voices of the nobles were
hushed,
and their tongues stuck to the
roof of their mouths’.
Chronology,
Tobias and
Shalmaneser
“At the ripe old age
of 117 Tobias died, having lived long enough to hear about
the destruction of Nineveh and to see King Cyaxares of Media take the people
away as captives. Tobias praised God for the way that he had punished the
people of Nineveh and Assyria.
As long as he lived
he gave thanks for what God had done to Nineveh”.
Tobit 14:14-15
Biblical numbers
A slight problem for my identification of Tobias, son of Tobit,
with the prophet Job:
Job’s Life and Times
is that, whereas Job is said to have “lived a hundred and forty years” (Job 42:16), Tobias appears to have
fallen somewhat short of 140. The numbers given for his age at death vary: 99
years (Douay), 117 years, or 127 years.
As biblical scholars are very much aware, however, numbers
can be somewhat unreliable – a classic case being 1 Samuel 13:1:
“Saul was … years old when he became king; and he reigned two years over
Israel” (בֶּן-שָׁנָה,
שָׁאוּל בְּמָלְכוֹ; וּשְׁתֵּי שָׁנִים, מָלַךְ עַל-יִשְׂרָאֵל).
Looking at those four figures for Tobias/Job: 99, 117, 127,
140, totalling 483, we get an average figure of approximately 120 years.
As the Book of Tobit describes it, the death of Tobias
occurred at “ripe old age”. Compare the Septuagint version of the Book of Job:
“And Job died, an old man and
full of days …”. His was a life long enough
for him to have witnessed the rise and fall of many great people. As I wrote about
this in my article:
Prophet Nahum as Tobias-Job Comforted
The prophet Job
too, man of vast experience as he was, had witnessed such things (Job 13:1):
“My eyes have seen all this …”. All what things? “All this” (Job 12:17-25):
[God] leads rulers
away stripped and makes fools of judges. He takes off the shackles put on by
kings and ties a loincloth around their waist. He leads priests away stripped
and overthrows officials long established. He silences the lips of trusted
advisers and takes away the discernment of elders. He pours contempt on nobles
and disarms the mighty. He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings utter
darkness into the light. He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges
nations, and disperses them. He deprives the leaders of the earth of their
reason; he makes them wander in a trackless waste. They grope in darkness with
no light; he makes them stagger like drunkards.
[End of quote]
Again, as I wrote previously: “The Book of Tobit spans the
lengthy neo-Assyrian period from king “Shalmaneser” until the destruction of
Nineveh (cf. Tobit 1:2 and 14:15), thereby anchoring Job chronologically”.
According to the conventional listing of neo-Assyrian
kings, the life of Tobias/Job would have been contemporaneous with all of the
following kings (though, by the terms of my revision, several of these are
actually duplicates, e.g. Tiglath-pileser III = Shalmaneser V; Sargon II =
Sennacherib):
745–727
BC
|
"son
of Ashur-nirari (V)"
| ||||||||
727–722
BC
|
"son
of Tiglath-Pileser (III)"
| ||||||||
End of
the document known as Assyrian King List; the following kings reigned
after the list had been composed.
| |||||||||
722–705
BC
| |||||||||
705–681
BC
| |||||||||
681–669
BC
| |||||||||
The
dates of the last kings are not certain.
| |||||||||
669–between
631 and 627 BC
| |||||||||
ca.
631–627 BC
| |||||||||
626 BC
| |||||||||
ca.
627–612 BC
| |||||||||
612
BC–ca. 608 BC
| |||||||||
Apart from these Assyrian kings, Tobias/Job would have
lived during the reigns of - and all of the dramatic events associated with -
various of the kings of Judah, such as Hezekiah, Manasseh and Josiah.
He was born during the reign of “Shalmaneser” (this king
greatly expanded in my revision).
King Shalmaneser
Tobit tells us (Tobit 1:9): “When I
grew up, I married Anna, a member of my own tribe”. That was the tribe of
Naphtali (1:1).
As we learned in the series on Tobit as a high official of
the Assyrians, it was Shalmaneser who had taken into captivity Tobit and his
tribe of Naphtali and who had then so exalted Tobit as to allow him almost a
free hand as the king’s quartermaster (Tobit 1:2, 12-13).
It appears from the following verses that Tobias, son of
Tobit and Anna, was born before the deportation by king Shalmaneser (vv. 9-10):
“We had a son and named him Tobias. Later, I was taken captive and deported to Assyria, and that is how I
came to live in Nineveh”.
During the next reign, however, that of Sennacherib (my
Sargon II), the fortunes of the family fluctuated considerably.
Chronology,
Tobias and
Sennacherib
“When Shalmaneser died, his son Sennacherib
succeeded him as emperor. It soon became so dangerous to travel on the roads in
Media that I could no longer go there”.
Tobit 1:15
Introduction
As we have found in this series, the Book of Tobit gives a
neo-Assyrian succession, from Shalmaneser to Sennacherib, that - whilst it does
not accord with the view of modern Assyriology, that Shalmaneser (V) was
succeeded by Sargon II - is the one that I have accepted.
However, although I consider the Book of Tobit to be an
accurate historical record of events, it does contain - in those various
versions of it that have come down to us - some contradictions and
inaccuracies. We saw this clearly earlier, with three different figures being given for the age of Tobias at death:
namely, 99 years, 117 years, and 127 years.
The geography of the book, too, which - as it presently
stands - has Tobias and the angel Raphael travelling in the wrong direction, eastwards instead of westwards, needs to be restored back to
its original which then makes perfect sense:
A Common Sense Geography of
the Book of Tobit
Different age numbers are also given in the case of Tobit,
the father of Tobias. According to the Douay account, Tobit lost his sight at
the age of 56, recovered it at the age of 60 (14:3), and lived after that for
42 years (14:1), dying at the age of 102 (14:2). The NRSV version, though, has
Tobit losing his sight at 62 (14:2, with the note: “Other ancient authorities
read fifty-eight”), and: “For four years I remained unable to see …” (2:10).
And he died at the age of 112 (14:2).
Tobit 1 Overview
Tobit 1 gives a summary of events in the life of Tobit and
his family from the early days of Tobit: ‘When I was young … I was the only one in my family who regularly went to Jerusalem to
celebrate the religious festivals, as the Law of Moses commands everyone to do’
(1:4, 6), to his return to Nineveh, thanks to
the intervention of his nephew, Ahikar, after persecution from king Sennacherib
(v. 22). Tobit was by then a married man with a son, Tobias.
Indeed, life would become far bumpier for the family during
the reign of Sennacherib. The Douay version of Tobit 1:18 adds the extra piece
of information that “Sennacherib … had a hatred for the
children of Israel”.
That same verse
also adds another note that is most interesting from a chronological point of
view: “...
after a long time, Salmanasar [Shalmaneser] the king being dead ... Sennacherib
his son ... reigned in his place ...”. Shalmaneser V is supposed to have reigned
for only the short period of 726/7-722 BC. Tobit’s version, “after a long
time”, would better accord with my expanded king Shalmaneser of Assyria, which
includes various alter egos, such as
the potent Tiglath-pileser III. For Tobit’s “Shalmaneser” does as did
Tiglath-pileser III. He takes the tribe of Naphtali into captivity (1:2): “During the time that Shalmaneser was emperor of Assyria, I was taken
captive in my hometown of Thisbe, located in northern Galilee …”.
Commentators immediately jump in here. For example R. Littman (Tobit: The Book of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus)
writes, p. 47:
The information
is inaccurate here and probably represents a confusion of the historical details by the
book of Tobit, written 500 years after the events.
According to 2 Kgs 15:29 it was Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 BCE), the father of
Shalmaneser V (727-722 BCE), who conquered the Galilee and the land of Naphtali
and deported the people around 732 BCE.
Sennacherib
Tobit 1:15-22 recalls the dramatic events that occurred
during the reign of Sennacherib, which I give here with the addition of some comments
(v. 15):
When
Shalmaneser died, his son Sennacherib succeeded him as emperor. It soon became
so dangerous to travel on the roads in Media that I could no longer go there.
Comment:
Tobit’s “Media” needs to be understood as “Midian”, to the west, not east, of
Nineveh. (Refer back to my “A Common Sense Geography …”).
From
Sennacherib’s Years 9-11, it would have become most dangerous for anyone to
have travelled the western road. For, according to the chronological
estimations of my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
Sennacherib’s
Year 9 was the year when his military might really began to be felt in
Palestine. It was “the year”, I believe, to which the prophet Isaiah had
referred (Isaiah 20:1): “In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon
[= Sennacherib] king of Assyria, came to Ashdod [= Lachish] and attacked and
captured it …”. On “Ashdod” as Lachish, see my:
Sargon II’s “Ashdod” - the Strong Fort of Lachish
Sennacherib’s
Year 10 saw a revolt against Assyria by one Yatna of Ashdod (= Lachish).
Sennacherib’s
Year 11 was a most triumphant one for the king of Assyria, with his great
western campaign and conquest of king Hezekiah of Judah and his city of
Jerusalem.
Tobit continues
his narrative, harking back to Shalmaneser for a moment (vv. 16-17), before
continuing on with Sennacherib (v. 18):
Tobit Buries the Dead
While
Shalmaneser was still emperor, I took good care of my own people whenever they
were in need. If they were hungry, I shared my food
with them; if they needed clothes, I gave them some of my own. Whenever I saw
that the dead body of one of my people had been thrown outside the city wall, I
gave it a decent burial.
One day
Sennacherib cursed God, the King of Heaven; God punished him, and Sennacherib
had to retreat from Judah. On his way back to Media he was so furious that he
killed many Israelites. But I secretly removed the bodies and buried them; and
when Sennacherib later searched for the bodies, he could not find them.
Comment:
This verse actually condenses two separate campaigns of Sennacherib, the one
referred to above, when he was totally victorious over king Hezekiah of Judah -
during the course of which the Assyrian king had blasphemed God - and another,
about a decade later, when his massive army of 185,000 was famously routed
(“had to retreat”). This last corresponds to the victory of Israel over Assyria
as set in motion by the heroic intervention of the pious Simeonite woman,
Judith.
One can easily
imagine that Sennacherib would have been “furious”.
Meanwhile, back
in Nineveh, the ageing Tobit had continued on with his corporal works of mercy.
An informer notified the angry Sennacherib, and Tobit was forced to flee for
his life with his family (vv. 19-20):
Then someone
from Nineveh told the emperor that I was the one who had been burying his
victims. As soon as I realized that the emperor knew all about me and that my
life was in danger, I became frightened. So I ran away and hid. Everything I owned was seized and put in the royal treasury. My wife
Anna and my son Tobias were all I had left.
Chronology,
Sennacherib
and Esarhaddon
“Then someone from Nineveh told the emperor that I was
the one who had been burying his victims. As soon as I realized that the
emperor knew all about me and that my life was in danger, I became frightened.
So I ran away and hid. Everything
I owned was seized and put in the royal treasury. My wife Anna and my son
Tobias were all I had left”.
Tobit 1:19-20
Sennacherib
or Esarhaddon?
There is no mention at all of the famed Assyrian king,
Esarhaddon, in the Douay version of the Book of Tobit. The Septuagint, telling
of the assassination of Sennacherib whilst Tobit was in hiding, explicitly
refers to a king successor of Sennacherib’s, though it does not name him as
Esarhaddon, but, instead, as “Sarchedonus”.
This name is generally taken to mean Esarhaddon:
sar-ked'-o-nus (Codex Vaticanus
Sacherdonos; Codex Alexandrinus Sacherdan, but Sacherdonosos in Tobit 1:22): An
incorrect spelling, both in the King James Version and the Revised Version
(British and American), for Sacherdonus in Tobit 1:21, another form of
Esar-haddon.
Here are the relevant verses (Tobit 1:21-22):
And there passed not five and fifty days, before
two of his sons killed [Sennacherib], and they fled into the mountains of
Ararath [Urartu]; and Sarchedonus his son reigned in his stead; who appointed
over his father’s accounts, and over all his affairs, Achiacharus [Ahikar] my
brother Anael’s son. And Achiacharus intreating for me, I returned to Nineve.
Now Achiacharus was cupbearer, and keeper of the signet, and steward, and
overseer of the accounts: and Sarchedonus appointed him next to him: and he was
my brother’s son.
That discrepancy in numbers that
we considered earlier amongst the various versions of the Book of Tobit raises
its ugly head here again - for, regarding the 55 (“five and fifty”) days
referred to in the above text, other ancient authorities read 40, 45, or 50.
The Douay, whilst never actually
mentioning Esarhaddon, seems to make it quite clear, nonetheless, that the next
important set of events in the life of Tobit and his family, commencing with
Tobit’s becoming blind, all occurred after
the death of Sennacherib, “killed by his own sons. And Tobias returned to his
house, and all his substance” (1:24-25). For, at the beginning of the very next
chapter we read (2:1): “Now when I was come home again, and my wife Anna was restored to me, with
my son Tobias, in the feast of Pentecost, which is the holy feast of the seven
weeks, there was a good dinner prepared me, in the which I sat down to eat”.
This chapter 2 is the very one that recounts Tobit’s
becoming afflicted with blindness.
The NRSV is even more explicit (2:1): “Then during the reign of Esarhaddon I
returned home”.
If this be the case, then the incident of Tobit’s
blindness as narrated in Tobit 2, leading to the westwards journey of Tobias
and the angel Raphael (Tobit 6), and the marriage of Tobias to Sarah (Tobit
7-8), the return journey to Nineveh and the recovery of Tobit’s sight (Tobit
11), all belong chronologically after the death of Sennacherib.
And that may well be the case.
However, I have reasons for suspecting that it may not
have been the case, and that all of Tobit 2-11, as well, had occurred during
the reign of Sennacherib, and not in the time of Esarhaddon. In the next
section, I shall give my reasons
for thinking this.
Chronology,
mostly in
Sennacherib’s reign
Some errors chronological, numerical, and
geographical, can be found in our current versions of the Book of Tobit. These,
I think, can easily be corrected. But there may also be a more tricky situation
whereby the main body of material in the Book of Tobit (chapters 2-14) has
confused the reigns of two neo-Assyrian kings, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon.
Preamble
A surface reading of the various versions of the Book of
Tobit would suggest, as we have found, a chronological sequence according to
which there occurred - almost immediately following the assassination death of
Sennacherib who had been seeking the life of Tobit - now during the reign of
Esarhaddon, Tobit’s return to his home thanks to the intervention of his
nephew, Ahikar; Tobit’s subsequent blindness; and then all of the other
marvellous events that are narrated as having occurred after this (Tobit 2-14).
That is how the different texts would appear to read. And, as noted earlier,
that may indeed be the way that the Book of Tobit is meant to be interpreted.
However, as I have already suggested, Tobit chapter 1
provides a kind of overview of at least the earlier events narrated. Hence it
may need to be read as a summary. This, then, would allow for the possibility
that some, or all, of what follows it is meant to be folded within the
chronology of Tobit 1. And that is what I think is actually the case, that the
remainder of the narrative following the account of Sennacherib’s assassination
- with the exception of the death and burial of Tobit and his wife, Anna; the
account of Tobias’s flight from Nineveh, over whose destruction he will greatly
rejoice; and his subsequent death (14:14-17 Douay) - belongs entirely within
the reign of Sennacherib, and not Esarhaddon (who is never even mentioned in
the Douay version).
My reasons for saying this are very much influenced by
previous reconstructions of mine in relation to the Book of Judith, as set out
in my university thesis:
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
Whilst a full discussion of this will be reserved for the
next section (below), I would like here to make a relevant preliminary point.
As we came to consider king Sennacherib earlier, we read this text (Tobit
1:18):
One day Sennacherib
cursed God, the King of Heaven; God punished him, and Sennacherib had to
retreat from Judah. On his way back to Media he was so furious that he killed
many Israelites. But I secretly removed the bodies and buried them; and when
Sennacherib later searched for the bodies, he could not find them.
About which I
wrote:
Comment:
This verse actually condenses two separate campaigns of Sennacherib, the one
referred to above, when he was totally victorious over king Hezekiah of Judah -
during the course of which the Assyrian king had blasphemed God - and another,
about a decade later, when his massive army of 185,000 was famously routed
(“had to retreat”). This last corresponds to the victory of Israel over Assyria
as set in motion by the heroic intervention of the pious Simeonite woman,
Judith.
[End
of quote]
Biblical telescoping of events, such as the campaigns of
king Sennacherib of Assyria, can be a source of many headaches for modern
biblicists and historians alike – very difficult to untangle. And I think that
a mis-reading of Sennacherib’s campaigns may indeed be the source of a
confusion of chronology in relation to the Book of Tobit.
My Reasons for Rejecting Esarhaddon
These are largely chronologically-based.
(i) Age of Tobias
Tobias, at the time of his wedding, is referred to as
being a “young man” (Greek: νεανίσκος) (e.g.
Tobit 7:2). That would work far better, I would suggest, if Tobias had married
Sarah at some point of time between Sennacherib’s two invasions, these being
dated in my thesis to, respectively, Sennacherib’s Years 10-11 and 19-20.
Sennacherib’s first major invasion of the west was a
massive success, and he went on from there, in his Year 12, to punish the
troublesome Merodach-baladan of Babylon (cf. Judith 1:5, where the latter is
called “Arphaxad”): “In the twelfth year of his reign King
Nebuchadnezzar [= Sennacherib] went to war against King Arphaxad …”. So when
Tobit 1:21 (Douay) speaks of the Assyrian armies “fleeing … by reason of the
slaughter that God had made”, this cannot refer to the successful first
invasion, but only to the second invasion, led by the “Holofernes” of the Book
of Judith. The phrase “fleeing from Judea” as given in this verse only serves
to add to the confusion, I believe. For, whereas the successful Assyrian
invasion conquered Judah, the second one failed to reach there thanks to the
intervention of Judith situated in the north (Bethulia near Dothan).
The rout that
followed that disastrous campaign for Assyria around Year 20 of Sennacherib
must be what is referred to in connection with Tobit 1:24 (Douay): “But after forty-five days, the king
was killed by his own sons”. Tobit chapter 1 appears to be a summary of events
that occurred during the reigns of Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, culminating in
the assassination of Sennacherib.
Reconsidering the life of young Tobias, he was born - we have learned - during the reign
of Shalmaneser, but before the family
was taken into captivity. My expanded Shalmaneser (beyond the conventionally
short-reigning Shalmaneser V) has enabled for Tobit to have officiated on
behalf of Shlamaneser for a substantial period of time (Tobit 1:18, Douay): “But after a long
time, [Shalmaneser] the king being dead, when Sennacherib his
son, who reigned in his place ...”. Tobit’s “Shalmaneser” included, in my
revision, the mighty Shalmaneser III, who reigned for more than 30 years, and
who campaigned in Tobit’s home region of the Hauran as early as his 18th year (http://www.bible-history.com/black-obelisk/shalmaneser-assyria.html): “In the 18th year of my reign I
crossed the Euphrates for the sixteenth time. …. As far as the mountains of Hauran
I marched”.
We
do not know how old Tobias was when the family was taken into Assyrian
captivity by this Shalmaneser. But let us take a small figure, 2-5. A “long
time” during the reign of Shalmaneser had followed that, say 10-20 years.
Tobias, when still a “young man” (νεανίσκος
can also men “youth”), married Sarah. I have located that after
Sennacherib’s return from Judah in about his Year 11. An estimated minimum
figure for the age of Tobias when he, as a young man, married Sarah, would be
(2+10+11=) 23 years, whilst an estimated maximum figure would be (5+20+11=) 36
years.
To
either of these figures we would need (for Esarhaddon to be the reigning king)
to add an extra, say, 10 years until the death of Sennacherib, plus at least
the 2 years during the reign of Esarhaddon when Ahikar had tended to Tobit’s
blindness before Ahikar himself went to Elymaïs (Tobit 2:10, NRSV). That would
lift our estimated minimum figure for the age of Tobias at marriage to
(23+10+2=) 35 years, whilst our estimated maximum figure would now become an impossible
(36+10+2=) 48 years.
Tobit
1:15: “But when Shalmaneser died, and his son
Sennacherib reigned in his place, the highways into Media [read Midian] became
unsafe and I could no longer go there”, presumably applied to the period when
Sennacherib’s armies were campaigning westwards (Years 9-11), making it unsafe
to travel there. By the time of Tobit’s blindness, these major western
campaigns had recently ceased, but Tobit could still not travel because he
could no longer see.
(ii) Ahikar in Elymaïs
As, noted, the Douay version of the
Book of Tobit never once refers to Esarhaddon. However, there are several
references to Esarhaddon, presumably, as “Sarchedonus”,
in the Septuagint – these being rendered in modern versions as “Esarhaddon”.
The references to Esarhaddon in the Tobit 1 overview, when read as a summary,
are not at all problematical to my theory that the events narrated in Tobit
chapters 2-14 belong to the reign of Sennacherib.
Tobit 1:21-22 (NSRV) reads:
But
not forty days passed before two of Sennacherib’s sons killed him, and they
fled to the mountains of Ararat, and his son Esar-haddon reigned after him. He
appointed Ahikar, the son of my brother Hanael over all the accounts
of his kingdom, and he had authority over the entire administration. Ahikar
interceded for me, and I returned to Nineveh. Now Ahikar was chief cupbearer,
keeper of the signet, and in charge of administration of the accounts under
King Sennacherib of Assyria; so Esar-haddon reappointed him. He was
my nephew and so a close relative.
This overview provides some further information about
Ahikar admittedly beyond the reign of Sennacherib. However, Ahikar would
presumably have been in very good standing with Sennacherib for his so
skilfully having served as the king’s mouthpiece, being able to speak Hebrew,
before the people of Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:28) during Assyria’s successful
invasion of Judah. Hence it is quite plausible that Ahikar was able to
“intercede” with Sennacherib on behalf of Tobit, thereby allowing Tobit to
return home.
What is definitely problematical for my reconstruction,
though, is Tobit 2:1 (NRSV): “Then during the reign of Esarhaddon I [Tobit]
returned home”.
The Book of Judith, verse 1:6, may come to my aid here,
at least as I have interpreted it in my thesis. For, during the reign of
Sennacherib (= “Nebuchadnezzar”), one “Arioch” (or “Erioch”) is found to be
ruling “the Elymeans”, and he, I believe, was the same Ahikar.
Thus I wrote (Volume Two, pp. 46-47):
Verses 1:6:
“Arioch, king of the Elymeans”
In [the Book of Judith] 1:6,
which gives a description of the geographical locations from which Arphaxad’s allies came,
we learn that some of these had hailed from the region of the “Hydaspes, and,
on the plain, Arioch, king of the Elymeans”. I disagree with Charles
that: …. “The name Arioch is
borrowed from Gen. xiv. i, in accordance with the author’s
love of archaism”. This piece of
information, I am going to argue here, is actually a later
gloss to the original text. And I
hope to give a specific identification to this king, since, according to Leahy:
…. “The identity of Arioch (Vg Erioch) has not been established …”.
What I am going to propose is
that Arioch
was
not actually one of those who had rallied
to the cause of Arphaxad in Year 12 of Nebuchadnezzar,
as
a superficial reading of [the Book of Judith] though might suggest, but that
this was a later addition to the text for the purpose of making more precise
for the reader the geographical region from whence came Arphaxad’s allies,
specifically the Elamite troops. In other words, this was the very same region
as that which Arioch had ruled ….
But commentators express
puzzlement about him. Who was this Arioch? And if he were
such an unknown, then what was
the value of this gloss for the early readers?
Arioch, I believe, was
the very Achior who figures so prominently in the story of
Judith.
He was also the legendary Ahikar, a most famous
character as we read in Chapter 7. Therefore he
was entirely familiar to the Jews, who would have known that he had eventually
governed the Assyrian province of Elam. I shall tell about this in a moment.
Some later editor/translator
presumably, apparently failing to realise that the person named in this gloss
was the very same as the Achior who figures so prominently throughout
the main story of [the Book of Judith], has confused matters by calling him by
the different name of Arioch. He should have written: “Achior ruled the Elymeans”.
[The Book of Tobit] tells us
more. …. he who had been Sennacherib’s Rabshakeh was appointed governor (or
‘king’) of Elymaïs (Elam) (cf. 1:18, 21: 2:10). This was Tobit’s very nephew, Ahikar/Achior.
…. From
there it is an easy matter to make this comparison:
“Achior ...
Elymeans” [Book of Judith]; “Ahikar (var. Achior) ... Elymaïs” [Book of Tobit].
[End of quote]
Tobit
had apparently again - even after his persecution and having to flee for his
life from king Sennacherib for burying the dead, and then being restored thanks
to Ahikar - risen up from his festival of Pentecost meal to bury a murdered
compatriot (2:1-4), thereby eliciting this response from his neighbours (v. 8):
“And my neighbors laughed and said, ‘Is he still not afraid? He has already
been hunted down to be put to death for doing this, and he ran away; yet here
he is again burying the dead!’ This reaction of Tobit’s neighbours would, I
think, make more sense had it occurred still during the reign of Sennacherib,
rather than of Esarhaddon about whom we know of no such animosity towards Tobit
or any of his relatives.
(iii) Ahikar and Nadin
Late in the Book of Tobit, after Tobias had returned home
to Nineveh with his wife, Sarah, and old Tobit had been cured of his blindness,
we read (11:17-18): “That day
brought joy to the Jews of Nineveh, and his cousins Ahikar and
Nadin [Nadab] came to share in Tobit’s happiness”. (“Cousins” appears to be
used in a very loose sense here). If this event really occurred during the
reign of Esarhaddon, then it would be devastating to my reconstruction in:
“Nadin went into
everlasting darkness”
that has equated
this “Nadin” with the “Holofernes” of the Book of Judith, who should be well
and truly dead by the time that Esarhaddon had come to the throne. A mere three
chapters after we are told that Nadin had shared in Tobit’s happiness, we read
these Tobit’s horrifying words about Nadin’s betrayal of Ahikar (14:10):
‘Remember what
Nadin did to Ahikar his own uncle who had brought him up. He tried to kill
Ahikar and forced him to go into hiding in a tomb. Ahikar came back into the
light of day, but God sent Nadin down into everlasting darkness for what he had
done. Ahikar escaped the deadly trap which Nadin had set for him, because
Ahikar had given generously to the poor. But Nadin fell into that fatal trap
and it destroyed him’.
I, being confident that this can only refer to the Achior
and Holofernes incident of the Judith drama, must definitely favour Sennacherib
over Esarhaddon as the Assyrian ruler at this time.
2. Officiating
in Egypt
Introduction
We left Tobias (= Job) as a young married man, and with the
family and friends rejoicing over the ageing Tobit now cured of his blindness.
All of this in the reign of Sennacherib.
With the assassination death of Sennacherib, and his
perhaps more favourably-disposed son Esarhaddon’s rise to the throne of
Assyria,
http://www.geocities.ws/robertp6165/saitetimeline.html
Esarhaddon,
in contrast to usual Assyrian practice, is moderate in the implementation of
the occupation of Egypt compared to past policies in other provinces,
respecting local traditions as far as possible.
the way now lies open for a new phase of career for Tobit -
who had so faithfully served king Shalmaneser, father of Sennacherib, and with
yet some 40 years of health to look forward to - and for the long-lived
Tobias/Job.
The illustrious career of Tobias/Job, not covered in the
Book of Tobit, is glimpsed through Job’s recollections in various places, most
notably in, as we have read, Job 29.
For any further information, we need to go outside the
books of Tobit and Job, to writings such as The
Testament of Job and, perhaps (for Catholic readers), the visions of the
holy mystic, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich.
According to The
Testament of Job, the prophet Job was a king in Egypt. David deSilva tells
of this (http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329001.001.1/):
Scholars
generally agree that the work was composed in Egypt, especially since the
author situates Job himself in Egypt as a king (T. Job 28:7) in contrast
with the biblical setting in “Uz” (Job 1:1). Attempts to link the work more
closely with the Therapeutae, a Jewish sect in Egypt with some resemblances to
the Essenes, are interesting but inconclusive.20
But that is not all, for it seems that strong Egyptian
influences can also be detected throughout the Book of Job, at least according
to the Rev. G. Knight, in Nile
and Jordan (1921).
This would make
perfect sense if Job - and/or the author[s] of the book - had spent a
substantial period of time in that country.
What I would be looking for at this stage in my historical
search for an illustrious career for Tobias/Job - and perhaps also for his
father, Tobit - would be an appointment during the reign of king Esarhaddon of
Assyria (continuing on with Ashurbanipal in the case of Tobias/Job), and one
that included serving in Egypt, presumably at a very high level.
And I think that, in Montuemhat [Mantimanhe] and his father
Nesptah, at Thebes in Egypt, I may have found just the sort of pattern that I
am looking for. We read about these two most significant characters at: http://www.newchronology.org/fullt/53.txt
Mayor
Montuemhat is perhaps the most interesting Theban figure known to Egyptologists
from the complex period of transition between the Kushite 25th and Saite 26th
Dynasties. This was also, of course, the time of the invasions of Egypt by the Assyrian
kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal which included the sacking of Thebes in 664
BC. His standing in the Theban community during this turbulent period of
Egyptian history cannot
simply
be measured by the great number of titles and offices which he held. Montuemhat
was certainly more influential than a mere ‘mayor’ or ‘Fourth Prophet of Amun’.
Indeed, Ashurbanipal records him as ‘king of Thebes’ on the ‘Rassam Cylinder
where his name appears in the Akkadian writing as ‘Mantimanhe’.
Comment:
This is the precise chronological era in neo-Assyrian history that I would
expect to find Tobias/Job serving as an official, from the reign of Esarhaddon
through to Ashurbanipal. “Esarhaddon appoints various native [sic?] noblemen as
governors, functionaries and scribes in the provinces of Egypt” (http://www.geocities.ws/robertp6165/saitetimeline.html)
Note,
too, that Montuemhat was a “Prophet”, and also that he was a servant of the
god, Amun, like Senenmut (Solomon in Egypt). See my:
Solomon
and Sheba
according
to which (Amun) Amon-Ra was the King of All Gods.
Thomas
C. Hamilton has written along similar lines in his “Amunism and Atenism” (http://kabane52.tumblr.com/post/132812715270/amunism-and-atenism):
I have pointed out in the
past that the descriptions of Amun in Egyptian literature converge in
fascinating ways with the biblical description of God. Amun-Re is a sun-god.
The sun, of course, is one of the Lord’s chief symbols in Scripture, and the
nations worshiped God as the “God of Heaven.” This is why the phenomenon
of original monotheism is called the “sky-god” phenomenon. That a god was
associated with the sun does not mean that he had always been identified with
the sun. Indeed, I think the “fusion” of Amun and Re was the recovery of a
pristine monotheistic religion. Just as Yahweh and El were two titles for one
God, so also Amun and Re. Imhotep, whom I have identified with Joseph, served
as High Priest of Re at Heliopolis.
[End of quote]
Above
all, Montuemhat was - as tradition has recorded of the prophet Job - a “king”.
The
great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, graces him with the title, “king of Thebes”.
Further
on, we shall read that Montuemhat had ruled over a massive portion of Egypt.
This would have become possible as the neo-Assyrian kings managed to push far
southwards the Kushite rulers of 25th dynasty of Egypt.
Finally,
Ashurbanipal even conquered the great city of Thebes (664 BC, conventional
dating). This would likely mean that Montuemhat, who lived beyond this
cataclysmic event, would have been an actual witness to it. No wonder then that
he - if as Job, as Nahum:
Prophet Nahum as Tobias-Job Comforted
could
write of Nineveh (Nahum 3:8): “… are you better than No Amon [Thebes] …?”
The
article continues:
Montuemhat’s
noble descent was certainly of help in his acquisition of the various offices
of state, positions which had been handed down for generations from father to
son. Already before him his great grandfather, Harsiese, and grand-father,
Khaemhor, had been mayors of Thebes, viziers and prophets of Amun during the
late 22nd Dynasty and also under the hegemony of the early Kushite
pharaohs Shabaka and Shabataka.
From
his father, Nesptah, he directly inherited the title of ‘Mayor of Thebes’ and,
in addition, he was holder of the office of ‘Governor of Upper Egypt’. Besides
these significant civil and administrative posts, Montuemhat also acted as a religious
functionary for the cult of Amun. However, in spite of his dominant position as
mayor of the great religious centre of Egypt, he only reached the rank of ‘Fourth
Prophet of Amun’
within
the great temple of Amun at Karnak itself. He did record the title of ‘Second
Prophet’ on certain monuments, but unfortunately without mentioning the deity
to whom the post obtained. The position of ‘Prophet of Montu’, which also had
been within the inheritance of this powerful Theban family, was transferred to
his brother, Harsiese, who then handed the title down to his own son.
Nevertheless, a son of Montuemhat named Paherienmut later rose to the rank of a
‘Third Prophet of Montu’.
Comment:
Who were these illustrious forbears of Montuemhat from whom he could apparently
boast “noble descent”? Surely not, though (in my context), “native” Egyptians,
as historians naturally think. In this series we have observed that Tobit and
other of his relatives, especially Ahikar - and later Tobias/Job himself - were
extremely significant public figures, some attaining to the very highest
official positions in the kingdom of Assyria. The legendary ‘Story of Ahikar’
tells of Ahikar’s involvement with Egypt and its Pharaoh on behalf of king
Sennacherib.
As
we deepen our knowledge of the presumed Theban mayors, Khaemhor and Harsiese,
“during the late 22nd Dynasty”, we may be able to get a better
handle on the tortuous Third Intermediate Period [TIP] of Egyptian history (21st-25th
dynasties).
The
article continues, turning now to more of a consideration of Montuemhat’s
father, Nesptah (Nesiptah):
While
we possess a significant amount of information concerning Montuemhat’s father,
Nesptah, very little is known about his mother, Istemkheb, a very common name
of the time. Montuemhat seems to have had three wives. His principal spouse was
apparently the lady Neskhons, for her son, Nesptah, became Montuemhat’s heir
and successor. In his father’s tomb in Asasif (Western Thebes) Nesptah is
depicted performing the funeral rites and making offerings to his deceased
father (for the discovery of the burial of Nesptah see JACF 2, p. 82). His
other wives were the lady Shepenmut and a Nubian princess named Udjarenes. The
latter appears in the tomb of Montuemhat in statue groups and reliefs accompanying
her husband. It seems likely that the marriage of Montuemhat to this Nubian princess
was undertaken as a gesture of loyalty towards the Kushite kings under whose
rule he began his career.
Comment:
All of the names here are Egyptian: Montuemhat, his father, Nesptah, his
mother, Istemkheb, his wife, Neskhons. The Hebrew versions, I suggest, were,
respectively, Tobias/Job, (his father) Tobit, (his mother) Anna, (his wife)
Sarah.
The
name Montuemhat itself may have great significance following on from my
argument, albeit most controversial, that Tobias/Job was the matrix for the Prophet Mohammed:
Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously
Mangles History. Part Two: From Birth to Marriage
In
that article, I wrote this about the name similarities, or even equivalents:
Birth of Mohammed
Given as c. 570 … the “Year of the Elephant”. But revised here to the
reign of Sennacherib. Mohammed’s parents are traditionally given as ‘Abdullah
and Aminah, or Amna. Now, this information is what really confirms me in my
view that Tobias is a major influence in the biography of Mohammed, because the
names of Tobias’s parents boil down to very much the same as those of Mohammed.
Tobit is a Greek version of the name ‘Obad-iah, the Hebrew yod having
been replaced by a ‘T’.
And ‘Obadiah, or ‘Abdiel, is, in Arabic ‘Abdullah, the name of
Mohammed’s father.
And Amna is as close a name as one could get to Anna, the wife of Tobit ….
Tobias (my Job) is the biblico-historical foundation for the young
Mohammed!
[End of quote]
May we now include, alongside
Tobit = ‘Abdullah and Anna = Amna, our alter
ego for Tobias/Job, Montuemhat = Mohammad?
Whilst I have thought to
identify Job’s wife as Sarah of the Book of Tobit:
Did Job’s Wife really
say to the Prophet: ‘Curse God and die’? Part Two. Job’s Wife as Sarah of Book
of Tobit.
and now potentially, in an Egyptian context: “His
principal spouse … lady Neskhons”, it is quite credible, given the progeny of
Job, that he had other, lesser, wives as well.
“Montuemhat seems to have had three wives”, we read above.
And, according to Bl. Catherine
Emmerich (The Life of the
Blessed Virgin Mary: http://www.ecatholic2000.com/anne/lom163.shtml), who has located
Job to pre-Abrahamic times, the holy man had a total of four wives: “Job’s
first wife was of the tribe of Peleg: after many adventures, when he was living
in his third home, he married three more wives of the same tribe”. Compare
Tobit 6:15: “The angel replied, ‘Have you already forgotten
your father's instructions? He told you to marry a woman from your own tribe. So, listen carefully to what I say. Don’t
worry about the demon. Marry Sarah!’.”
Anne Catherine Emmerich also has Job for a time in Egypt:
The spring
which appeared at Matarea in answer to the Blessed Virgin's prayers was not a
new one, but an old one which gushed forth afresh. It had been choked but was
still lined with masonry. I saw that Job had been in Egypt … and had dwelt on
this spot in this place. [172] It was he who found the spring, and he made
sacrifices on the great stone lying here. Job was the youngest of thirteen
brothers. His father was a great chieftain ….
[Job] made a
great expedition to Egypt, a land which at that time was ruled by foreign
kings …. They ruled over only a part of Egypt, and were later driven out by
an Egyptian king. [174]
….
The king of these shepherds from Job’s country desired a wife for his son … and Job brought this royal bride (who was related to him) to Egypt with a great following. He had thirty camels with him, and many menservants and rich presents. He was still young--a tall man of a pleasing yellow-brown color, with reddish hair. The people in Egypt were dirty brown in color. At that time Egypt was not thickly populated; only here and there were large masses of people. ….
The king
showed Job great honor, and was unwilling to let him go away again. He was
very anxious for him to emigrate to Egypt with his whole tribe ….
Job was to be
sure a heathen [sic], but he was an upright man who acknowledged the true God
and worshipped Him as the Creator of all that he saw in nature, the stars,
and the ever-changing light. He was never tired of speaking with God of His
wonderful creations. He worshipped none of the horrible figures of beasts adored
by the other races of mankind in his time ….
Job found a
terrible form of idolatry here in this city, descending from the heathen
magical rites practiced at the building of the Tower of Babel. They had an
idol with a broad ox’s head, rising to a point at the top. Its mouth was
open, and behind its head were twisted horns. Its body was hollow, fire was
made in it, and live children were thrust into its glowing arms. …
There were
intervals of calm between the great misfortunes that befell Job: the first interval
lasted nine years, the second seven, and the third twelve. The words in the
Book of Job: “And while he (the messenger of evil) was yet speaking” mean
“This misfortune of his was still the talk of the people when the following
befell him”. ….
[End
of quote]
|
Also
of relevance is mention of Montuemhat’s “making offerings to his deceased
father” in light of Tobit 14:11: “Then they laid
Tobit on his bed. He died and was given an honorable burial”.
According
to the Montuemhat article, he was a man of “undoubted political skills”:
The
first time we come across Montuemhat in the texts is during the reign of
pharaoh Taharka (690-664BC). He continues in office, no doubt as a result of
his undoubted political skills, throughout the trauma of the Assyrian sack of
Thebes and is still attending to his duties when the Saite pharaoh, Psamtek I,
sends his daughter, Nitocris, to Thebes to become the ‘God’s Wife of Amun at a
special adoption ceremony in 655 BC. As was the tradition of the period, the
incumbent God’s Wife, Shepenupet (daughter of the last Nubian king Tanutamun)
formerly accepted the young Nitocris as her successor, thus handing over to the
Saite princess much of the power and authority of the Amun cult and its
estates. Since Montuemhat was the effective ruler of Thebes following the
departure of the Assyrian forces in around 662, he was undoubtedly directly
involved in the political manoeuvres which brought Nitocris to Upper Egypt and
his long term experience of the machinations of Theban political life may have presented
him with the opportunity to act as mediator in the negotiations between the
Kushite faction still at Thebes and the new dynastic power of the western Delta
which was based at the new capital of Sais.
Comment:
Was this situation involving Montuemhat and Nitocris, the ‘God’s Wife of Amun’,
what Catherine Emmerich had recollected: “Job brought this royal bride (who was
related to him) to Egypt with a great following”?
Montuemhat’s
territory of rule was extremely vast and he officiated there for
a long period of time, “a full 30 years” according to the following:
With
the Thebaid as his residence, Montuemhat ruled a region stretching as far south
as Elepha[n]tine at the First Cataract and up to Hermopolis in the north. At
Abydos he was responsible for restoration work in the Osireion and at Karnak he
constructed, or at least decorated, some of the chambers of the Temple of Mut,
just to the south of the Amun temple complex at Karnak. The political ups and downs
of the time are also reflected in the contemporary art. By chance, numerous
statues of Montuemhat have come down to us in remarkable condition - more than
a dozen cut from dark hardstone. The early pieces, made during the 25th
Dynasty, show the typical style of the Kushite rulers, in spite of the fact
that Montuemhat was himself a native Egyptian [sic]. It is likely, therefore,
that Kushite craftsmen were commissioned to undertake the work for the Theban mayor,
or at least their influence was predominant at the local court. His later
representations, on the
other
hand, are characteristic of early Saite art, with the typical archaising canon
which was such a feature of the 26th Dynasty ‘renaissance’. Even in his old age
Montuemhat was responsible for an expedition to the quarries of the Wadi Gasus
in the Eastern Desert. The rock-carved inscription left there by him is
actually the last dated record of Montuemhat known to us. He died sometime
around 648 BC. Thus his career continued on through the first 16 years of
Psamtek 1’s reign and in total spanned a full 30 years.
His tomb (Asasif no. TT. 34) is
the most significant monument in the eastern area of the
giant cliff bay of Deir el-Bahri.
The impressive mudbrick pylon even today dominates the land-scape of this part
of the necropolis, marking the location of the largest private tomb in Western Thebes.
….
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