Prophet Nahum and resistance to Assyria

by Damien F. Mackey “The LORD has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: ‘You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the images and idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave, for you are vile’.” Nahum 1:14 The writings of the prophet Nahum so resemble those of Isaiah that I concluded in my postgraduate university thesis (2007) that this was one and the same mighty prophet. Nahum as Isaiah In my section, Books of Isaiah and Nahum (Volume Two, pp. 98-102), I painstakingly compared most of the Nahum text with Isaiah, including in the Hebrew, and found example after example of either identical, or like, passages. My conclusion that Nahum was the Simeonite Isaiah: God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon (4) God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu may be supported by the tradition (e.g. Pseudo-Epiphanius, De Vitis Prophetarum) that the prophet Nahum was a Simeonite. Moreover the Hebrew name, Nahum (נַחוּם), from the verb to comfort, could have been applied to the prophet at a later stage of his life, for the latter part of the Book of Isaiah (beginning with Chapter 40) is all about Israel being comforted: Prophet Nahum as Isaiah Comforted (8) Prophet Nahum as Isaiah Comforted | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Assyrian Names Isaiah, who will write abundantly on Assyria – but usually never favourably – will tend to refer to its leaders impersonally, such as “the Assyrian” (Isaiah 10:5-19): “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath! or allegorically (14:12-27): How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! In my thesis (Volume Two, p. 77), I wrote on this famous Oracle: In regard to this poem’s historical basis, Boutflower is helpful when favourably recalling Sir Edward Strachey’s “belief that the king of Babylon, against whom the “parable” of Isa. xiv was hurled, was a king of Assyria” … a king of Assyria, that is, who ruled over Babylon. … Boutflower was convinced that this was Tiglath-pileser III …. Others have not been able to unravel so skillfully as did Strachey the intertwining of Babylon and Assyria in this Oracle. Thus Moriarty: … “Some think this oracle … of ch. 14, was originally applied to Assyria and only later referred to Babylon”. Strachey’s view is, I believe, the correct one. …. The first notable exception in Isaiah will be the famous verse, Isaiah 20:1: “In the year that the Turtan, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it …”. Until the advent of modern archaeology in the C19th AD, this was the only known reference to Sargon (II), so no one knew who he actually was. By Chapter 36, though, Isaiah - probably by now copying from historical records (cf. 2 Kings 18:13) - begins to name the Assyrian king by his personal name, “Sennacherib” (36:1): “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them”. Chapters 36-38 are pre-occupied with this phase of crisis for the kingdom of Judah. Nahum’s Father With biographical and patronymical details being almost entirely absent from the Book of Nahum, we need to turn to the Book of Isaiah to find out who the father was: namely, Amos (Amoz) (1:1). He, too, has multi-identifications, most notably as Micah (also the Simeonite prophet, Zephaniah/Sophonias). Micah and his son, Isaiah, are a prophetical combination, going “barefoot and naked”, when Samaria is threatened (Micah 1:8), and when Sargon II sent his general against Ashdod (Isaiah 20:2). The combination is found named again in Judith 4:14-15: “… the magistrates of their town [“Bethulia], who in those days were Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon …”. Micah (= Amos), a Simeonite, now deceased, was the father of Uzziah (Isaiah). But what were these southern Judeans doing now in the north, in “Bethulia” (Bethel), which is Shechem? Nahum as Hosea (Uzziah) Simeonites had gone north as early as the days of King Asa of Judah: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/asas-religious-reforms “Note that Simeon’s territory originally lay in the south, surrounded by Judah’s tribal allotment (Josh. 19:1–9), but for reasons not entirely known to us, many Simeonites moved north”. This would presumably have made it more companionable for the Simeonite, Amos, to go northwards at the Lord’s command (Amos 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 tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’.” He is actually found, as Micaiah, prophesying during the reign of King Ahab of Israel. At some stage, Amos’s son, Isaiah (Nahum) must have followed his father to Bethel, for we find him, too, in the north, now as the prophet Hosea: Did Isaiah and Hosea ever meet? (9) Did Isaiah and Hosea ever meet? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu There he married, Gomer, a typically ‘adulterous’ product of the northern kingdom (Hosea 1:2-3). Never a dull moment in the life of our composite Nahum! Hosea is found as Uzziah in the Book of Judith, a man of great standing. For this Uzziah was entitled both ‘the prince of Judah’ and ‘the prince of the people of Israel’ (Douay version of Book of Judith). The rabbis of the Talmud tell that his father, Amos, was the brother of King Amaziah of Judah. The Book of Judith, probably written by the High Priest, Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, the great prophet, “the high priest Joakim” of the book (Judith 4:6) - rather than by Isaiah - is, of course, all about the conflict with the Assyrians. It, in fact, provides the key to what happened to Sennacherib’s army of 185,000. And Uzziah was there front and centre (right in the front row seat) to witness it. But he is overshadowed by that extraordinary heroine, probably a relative, Judith. Judith the “daughter of Merari” (Judith 8:1; 16:6) may well connect patronymically with Isaiah as Hosea “son of Beeri” (Hosea 1:1), whether this ancestor be another name for Amos, or a maternal ancestor, or a connection through marriage. I have never been able to be sure about this. Since M and B are frequently interchanged in W. Semitic, the name Beeri, I think, could easily merge into Merari. The Book of Hosea, likewise, is full of references to Assyria, as to its hostile advances in both the northern and the southern kingdoms. Assyrian Names The prophet Hosea actually names the two successive kings of his early time, in hypocoristicon form, as “Shalman” (Shalmaneser) and “Yareb” (Sennacherib): While Tobit and Hosea name Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, both of them fail to name Sargon (9) While Tobit and Hosea name Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, both of them fail to name Sargon | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Due, though, to the present state of the Book of Judith: The Book of Judith: confusion of names (8) Book of Judith: confusion of names | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu we have a mix of Chaldeo-Persian names for the King of Assyria, “Nebuchadnezzar”, who is Sargon II/Sennacherib; his Commander-in-chief, “Holofernes”, who, thanks to input from Tobit (14:10), we can ascertain was Nadin/Nadab, hence Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi: “Nadin” (Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes” of Judith (4) "Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Finally, the Commander-in-chief’s first officer, “Bagoas”, may even have been a young Nebuchednezzar: An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar? (4) An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Nahum as Jonah Once again we gain benefit from the Book of Tobit (14:4), which variously gives “Jonah” or “Nahum” (NRSV), thus enabling for another unexpected connection: Nahum was Jonah. Assyrian Names The Book of Jonah will give us nothing personal in this regard, merely referring in 3:6 to “the king of Nineveh”. I have determined him to be Esarhaddon, in his many guises, including as Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’: De-coding Jonah (4) De-coding Jonah | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu The Book of Nahum is similarly impersonal in this regard, giving only phrases such as “a wicked counseller” (1:11) – explained as “literally, a councilor of Belial; i.e. of worthlessness”; and “King of Assyria” (3:18).

While Tobit and Hosea name Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, both of them fail to name Sargon

by Damien F. Mackey “Now the terrors of war will rise among your people. All your fortifications will fall, just as when Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel. Even mothers and children were dashed to death there”. Hosea 10:14 The prophet Hosea names two Assyrian kings, “Yareb” (5:13) and “Shalman” (10:14), whose identities Heath D. Dewrell has completely nailed, so I believe, in the Abstract to his article, “Yareb, Shalman, and the Date of the Book of Hosea” (2016): https://www.jstor.org/stable/43900899 …. This article examines two enigmatic figures mentioned in the Book of Hosea – King Yareb and Shalman. I suggest that the former is to be identified as the Assyrian king Sennacherib and the latter as Shalmaneser V. This has significant implications for the date of the core of the Book of Hoshea; it requires a date at least two decades later than the current scholarly consensus. …. For conventional minded scholars the whole thing is a bit of a puzzle. Thus F. C. Eiselen writes, in “Shalman”: https://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/isbe/shalman.html A name of uncertain meaning, found only once in the Old Testament (Hosea 10:14), in connection with a place-name, equally obscure, "as Shalman destroyed Betharbel." Shalman is most commonly interpreted as a contracted form of Shalmaneser, the name of several Assyrian kings. If this explanation is correct, the king referred to cannot be identified. Some have thought of Shalmaneser IV, who is said to have undertaken expeditions against the West in 775 and in 773-772. Others have proposed Shalmaneser V, who attacked Samaria in 725. This, however, is improbable, because the activity of Hosea ceased before Shalmaneser V became king. Shalman has also been identified with Salamanu, a king of Moab in the days of Hosea, who paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser V of Assyria; and with Shalmah, a North Arabian tribe that invaded the Negeb. The identification of BETH-ARBEL (which see) is equally uncertain. From the reference it would seem that the event in question was well known and, therefore, probably one of recent date and considerable importance, but our present historical knowledge does not enable us to connect any of the persons named with the destruction of any of the localities suggested for Beth-arbel. The ancient translations offer no solution; they too seem to have been in the dark. [End of quote] Less “in the dark” may we be if we, like Heath D. Dewrell has considered necessary, re-date the core of the Book of Hosea. But we also need a revised Assyria, according to which the reign of Sennacherib, Yareb (erib), immediately follows that of Shalmaneser, with no extra Sargon in between, because Sargon II was Sennacherib: Sargon II and Sennacherib: More than just an overlap (5) Sargon II and Sennacherib: More than just an overlap | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu This conventionally shocking conclusion is reinforced, however, by the Book of Tobit, a man who actually served the great Assyrian king, Shalmaneser - so he knew what he was writing about - whose immediate successor was Sennacherib (Tobit 1:15): “When Shalmaneser died, his son Sennacherib succeeded him as emperor”. No Sargon mentioned there either - because Sargon was Sennacherib. We also need to multi-identify Shalmaneser, for example as the highly important Tiglath-pileser so-called III. By so doing, it may facilitate our understanding of Hosea 10:14, connecting Shalman(eser) with the destruction of Beth-arbel, “a place-name, equally obscure”, “uncertain”. My tentative suggestion for the “obscure” town would be Tiglath-pileser’s taking of Abel-Beth Maacah (2 Kings 15:29), with Beth-arbel as Abel-Beth (Maacah?).

Ahikar once a mouthpiece for the Assyrian king Sennacherib

by Damien F. Mackey Whatever the exact circumstances of Ahikar’s worldly success, the young man seems to have enjoyed a rise to power quite as speedy as that later on experienced by the prophet Daniel in Babylon; the latter trusting wholeheartedly in his God, whereas Ahikar may possibly have, at first, depended upon his own powers. Ahikar’s Importance Biblical scholars could well benefit from knowing more about AHIKAR (or Ahiqar/ Akhikar), the Rabshakeh of Sennacherib, Great King of Assyria (c. 700 BC, conventional dating), and who was retained in power by Esarhaddon (Gk. Sacherdonos) (Tobit 1:22, see below). This Ahikar, it will be found, was a vitally important eye-witness to some of the most extraordinary events of Old Testament history. Ahikar was, at the very least, as we shall find: 1. a key link between the Book of Judith and those other books, Kings, Chronicles and Isaiah [KCI], that describe Sennacherib’s rise to prominence and highly successful first major invasion of Israel (historically his 3rd campaign), and then 2. Sennacherib’s second major invasion of Israel and subsequent disastrous defeat there; and he was 3. an eyewitness to neo-Assyrian events as narrated in the Book of Tobit. May I, then (based on my research into historical revision), sketch Ahikar’s astounding life by knitting together the various threads about him that one may glean from KCI, Tobit, Judith, secular history and legends. I shall be using for him the better known name of Ahikar, even though I find him named in the Book of Judith (and also in the Vulgate version of Tobit) as Achior, presumably, “son of light” (and as Achiacharus in the Septuagint). Here is Ahikar: His Israelite Beginnings Tobit tells us that this Ahikar was the son of his brother Anael (Tobit 1:21, 22, CEB): Within forty days Sennacherib was killed by two of his sons, who escaped to the mountains of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon became king in his place. He hired Ahikar, my brother Hanael’s son, to be in charge of all the financial accounts of his kingdom and all the king’s treasury records. Ahikar petitioned the king on my behalf, and I returned to Nineveh. Ahikar had been the chief officer, the keeper of the ring with the royal seal, the auditor of accounts, and the keeper of financial records under Assyria’s King Sennacherib. And Esarhaddon promoted him to be second in charge after himself. Ahikar was my nephew and one of my family. Ahikar, nephew of Tobit, was therefore the cousin of the latter’s son, Tobias, whom I have identified, in his mature age, as the holy Job. See e.g. my article: Job’s Life and Times http://www.academia.edu/3787850/Jobs_Life_and_Times Presumably then Ahikar had, just like Tobit and his son, Tobias, belonged to the tribe of Naphthali (cf. Tobit 1:1); though he was possibly, unlike the Tobiads, amongst the majority of his clan who had gone over to Baal worship. Ahikar may thus initially have been a scoffer (1:4) and a blasphemer. Tobit tells us about his tribe’s apostasy (1:4-5): When I was young, I lived in northern Israel. All the tribes in Israel were supposed to offer sacrifices in Jerusalem. It was the one city that God had chosen from among all the Israelite cities as the place where his Temple was to be built for his holy and eternal home. But my entire tribe of Naphtali rejected the city of Jerusalem and the kings descended from David. Like everyone else in this tribe, my own family used to go to the city of Dan in the mountains of northern Galilee to offer sacrifices to the gold bull-calf which King Jeroboam of Israel had set up there. This was still the unfortunate situation during the early reign of the great king Hezekiah of Judah (2 Chronicles 30: 1, 10): “And Hezekiah sent letters to all Israel and Judah … to come to Jerusalem … and keep the Passover …. So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim … but they laughed them to scorn …”. Whilst Tobit and his family, and Ahikar’s presumably also, were taken into captivity during the reign of “King Shalmaneser” [V] (Tobit 1:2), the northern kingdom of Samaria went later. Samaria, due to her apostasy, was taken captive in 722 BC (conventional dating) by Sargon II of Assyria, whom I have actually equated with Sennacherib: Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib https://www.academia.edu/6708474/Assyrian_King_Sargon_II_Otherwise_Known_As_Sennacherib As Sennacherib’s Rabshakeh Ahikar’s rapid rise to high office in the kingdom of Assyria may have been due in part to the prestige that his uncle had enjoyed there; because Tobit tells us that he himself was, for the duration of the reign of “Shalmaneser … the king’s purveyor”, even entrusted with large sums of money (1:14): “And I [Tobit] went into Media, and left in trust with Gabael, the brother of Gabrias, at Rages a city of Media ten talents of silver”. This is apparently something like $1.2 million dollars! http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/1205.htm Sennacherib’s description of his official, Bel-ibni, who he said had “grown up in my palace like a young puppy” [as quoted by G. Roux, Iraq, p. 321], may have been equally applicable to Ahikar. The highly talented Ahikar, rising quickly through the ranks, attained to Rabshakeh (Chief of the Officers). Whatever the exact circumstances of Ahikar’s worldly success, the young man seems to have enjoyed a rise to power quite as speedy as that later on experienced by the prophet Daniel in Babylon; the latter trusting wholeheartedly in his God, whereas Ahikar may possibly have, at first, depended upon his own powers. {Though Tobit put in a good word for his nephew when he recalled that “Ahikar gave alms” (14:10), that being his salvation}. A Possible Babylonian Connection It may even be that the youthful Ahikar was appointed for a time as the governor of Babylon whilst Merodach-baladan II was ruling there contemporaneously with Sennacherib at Nineveh. For indeed a governor there at the time had a name that may, as it seems to me, incorporate the name Achior. Thus I wrote in a post-graduate thesis (2007) on this period: A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5973 (Vol. I, p. 187): Perhaps even the name Achior – whether or not the very same person – can be found in Bel-akhi-erba (i.e. Bel-AKHI-ERba = AKHIOR), the governor of Babylon during the reign of Merodach-baladan II. A relief on the Merodach-baladan Stone depicts the latter making a grant of land to this Bel-akhi-erba, governor of Babylon. Whatever about that, according to the historical reconstruction of this post-graduate thesis, the very same Merodach-baladan, the wily survivor during the first half of Sennacherib’s reign, was the latter’s foe, Arphaxad, of the Book of Judith, defeated by Sennacherib (there called Nebuchadnezzar) - this incident occurring next, as I have argued, after Sennacherib’s successful 3rdcampaign, the one involving king Hezekiah of Judah. Thus we read in Judith 1:1, 5-6: While King Nebuchadnezzar was ruling over the Assyrians from his capital city of Nineveh, King Arphaxad ruled over the Medes [sic] …. In the twelfth year of his reign King Nebuchadnezzar went to war against King Arphaxad in the large plain around the city of Rages. Many nations joined forces with King Arphaxad—all the people who lived in the mountains, those who lived along the Tigris, Euphrates, and Hydaspes rivers, as well as those who lived in the plain ruled by King Arioch of Elam. Many nations joined this Chelodite [Chaldean] alliance. Whilst “King Arioch” mentioned here will be discussed later, I have explained the use of the name ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ for Sennacherib in the Book of Judith in my article: Book of Judith: confusion of names (3) Book of Judith: confusion of names | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Sennacherib’s Third campaign Biblically, we get our first glimpse of Ahikar in action, I believe, as the very vocal Rabshakeh of KCI, the mouthpiece of Sennacherib himself when the Assyrian army mounted its first major assault upon the kingdom of Judah (2 Kings 18:13): “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them”. Now, it would make perfect sense that the king of Assyria would have chosen from amongst his elite officials, to address the Jews, one of Israelite tongue (vv. 17-18): And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder. And these are the bold words that Rabshakeh had apparently been ordered to say to the Jews (vv. 19-25): And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? Behold, you are trusting now in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it’.” King Hezekiah’s officials, however, who did not want the people on the walls to hear these disheartening words, pleaded with Rabshakeh as follows (v. 26): “Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, ‘Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall’.” Could the fact that the Jewish officials knew that Sennacherib’s officer was conversant with the Aramaïc language indicate that Ahikar, of whom they must have known, was of northern – and perhaps Transjordanian (like Tobit and Tobias) – origin? Now Ahikar, who as said above is named ‘Achior’ in the Vulgate version of Tobit, I have identified as the important Achior of the Book of Judith in Volume Two of my post-graduate thesis. So it was rather intriguing to discover, in regard to the Rabshakeh’s famous speech, that B. Childs (Isaiah and the Assyrian Crisis) had discerned some similarity between it and the speech of Achior in the Book of Judith. I wrote on this in my thesis (Vol. 2, p. 8): … Childs - who has subjected the Rabshakeh’s speech to a searching form-critical analysis, also identifying its true Near Eastern genre - has considered it as well in relation to an aspect of the speech of … Achior [to be identified with] this Rabshakeh in Chapter 2, e.g. pp. 46-47) to Holofernes (Judith 5:20f.). …. A legend had been born, Ahikar the Rabshakeh! The Israelite captive had proven himself to have been a most loyal servant of Sennacherib’s during the latter’s highly successful 3rd campaign, playing his assigned rôle to perfection. Sennacherib, following on from his victory over Judah, quickly turned his sights upon the troublesome Merodach-baladan. And it is at this point in history that the Book of Judith opens. After the defeat of Merodach-baladan, the aforementioned ‘young puppy’, Bel-ibni, was made sub-king of Babylon in his stead. Now, in Chapter 7 of my thesis (Volume I) I had introduced what I considered to be a necessary folding of Middle Assyro-Babylonian history, leading to my conclusion that Sennacherib was the same as Nebuchednezzar I. And that, then, had been my explanation for why the Assyrian Great King in the Book of Judith had the name, “Nebuchadnezzar”. My preference now, though, would be the explanation that I have given in my article, “Book of Judith: confusion of names”. Nebuchednezzar I, I had argued, was Sennacherib as a mighty ruler of Babylon, a scenario that also enabled me to merge Merodach-Baladan I and II additionally with Adad-apla-iddina. Now, I had believed that this restructuring may also have provided further possible ramifications for Ahikar the sage: The Vizier (Ummânu) One indication that I may be on the right track in attempting to merge the C12th BC king of Babylon, Nebuchednezzar I, with the C8th BC king of Assyria, Sennacherib, is that one finds during the reign of ‘each’ a vizier of such fame that he was to be remembered for centuries to come. It is now reasonable to assume that this is one and the same vizier. I refer, in the case of Nebuchednezzar I, to the following celebrated vizier [the following taken from J. Brinkman’s A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia. 1158-722 B.C. Roma (Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1968, pp. 114-115]: … during these years in Babylonia a notable literary revival took place …. It is likely that this burst of creative activity sprang from the desire to glorify fittingly the spectacular achievements of Nebuchednezzar I and to enshrine his memorable deeds in lasting words. These same deeds were also to provide inspiration for later poets who sang the glories of the era …. The scribes of Nebuchednezzar’s day, reasonably competent in both Akkadian and Sumerian…, produced works of an astonishing vigor, even though these may have lacked the polish of a more sophisticated society. The name Esagil-kini-ubba, ummânu or “royal secretary” during the reign of Nebuchednezzar I, was preserved in Babylonian memory for almost one thousand years – as late as the year 147 of the Seleucid Era (= 165 B.C.)…. To which Brinkman adds the footnote [n. 641]: “Note … that Esagil-kini-ubba served as ummânu also under Adad-apla-iddina and, therefore, his career extended over at least thirty-five years”. So perhaps we can consider that this high official was, for a time, shared by both Assyria and Babylon. Whilst I have proposed a variety of possible names for Ahikar, not all being entirely harmonious, the names Merodach-baladan and Adad-apla-iddina merge most satisfactorily; whilst Nebuchednezzar (my earlier view) can be regarded as Sennacherib’s Babylonian name. But, most stunningly of all I find, as laid out in Table I of my thesis (Vol. I, p. 180), “the names of three of [the Elamite Shutrukid] kings [of the C12th BC contemporaneous with Merodach-baldan I] are identical to those of Sargon II’s/Sennacherib’s Elamite foes, supposedly about four centuries later”. Those seeking the historical Ahikar tend to come up with one Aba-enlil-dari, this description of him taken from: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000639.php: The story of Ahiqar is set into the court of seventh century Assyrian kings Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. The hero has the Akkadian name Ahī-(w)aqar “My brother is dear”, but it is not clear if the story has any historical foundation. The latest entry in a Seleucid list of Seven Sages says: “In the days of Esarhaddon the sage was Aba-enlil-dari, whom the Aramaeans call Ahu-uqar” which at least indicates that the story of Ahiqar was well known in the Seleucid Babylonia. Seleucid Babylonia is, of course, much later removed in time from our sources for Ahikar. And, as famous as may have been the scribe Esagil-kini-ubba – whether or not he were also Ahikar – even better known is this Ahikar (at least by that name), a character of both legend and of (as I believe) real history. Regarding Ahikar’s tremendous popularity even down through the centuries, we read [The Jerome Biblical Commentary, New Jersey (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968), 28:28]: The story of Ahikar is one of the most phenomenal in the ancient world in that it has become part of many different literatures and has been preserved in several different languages: Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Slavonic, and Old Turkish. The most ancient recension is the Aramaic, found amongst the famous 5th-cent. BC papyri that were discovered at the beginning of the 20th cent. on Elephantine Island in the Nile. The story worked its way into the Arabian nights and the Koran; it influenced Aesop, the Church Fathers as well as Greek philosophers, and the Old Testament itself. Whilst Ahikar’s wisdom and fame has spread far and wide, the orginal Ahikar, whom I am trying to uncover in this article, has been elusive for some. Thus J. Greenfield has written: http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511520662&cid=CBO9780511520662A012 The figure of Ahiqar has remained a source of interest to scholars in a variety of fields. The search for the real Ahiqar, the acclaimed wise scribe who served as chief counsellor to Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, was a scholarly preoccupation for many years. He had a sort of independent existence since he was known from a series of texts – the earliest being the Aramaic text from Elephantine, followed by the book of Tobit, known from the Apocrypha, and the later Syriac, Armenian and Arabic texts of Ahiqar. An actual royal counsellor and high court official who had been removed from his position and later returned to it remains unknown. E. Reiner found the theme of the ‘disgrace and rehabilitation of a minister’ combined with that of the ‘ungrateful nephew’ in the ‘Bilingual Proverbs’, and saw this as a sort of parallel to the Ahiqar story. She also emphasized that in Mesopotamia the ummânu was not only a learned man or craftsman but was also a high official. At the time that Reiner noted the existence of this theme in Babylonian wisdom literature, Ahiqar achieved a degree of reality with the discovery in Uruk, in the excavations of winter 1959/60, of a Late Babylonian tablet (W20030,7) dated to the 147th year of the Seleucid era (= 165 BCE). This tablet contains a list of antediluvian kings and their sages (apkallû) and postdiluvian kings and their scholars (ummânu). The postdiluvian kings run from Gilgamesh to Esarhaddon. As a Ruling ‘King’ (or Governor) The Elamite Connection Chapter 1 of the Book of Tobit appears to be a general summary of Tobit’s experiences during the reigns of a succession of Assyrian kings: Shalmaneser, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. I, in my thesis and subsequent writings, may have misread some of the chronology of the life of Tobit, whose blindness, as recorded in Chapter 2, I had presumed to have occurred after the murder of Sennacherib. I now think that it occurred well before that. Ahikar will assist Tobit in his miserable state (“Ahikar gave alms”, 14:10), for two years, before his appointment as ruler of Elam. Here is Tobit’s account of it (2:10-11): For four years I could see nothing. My relatives were deeply concerned about my condition, and Ahikar supported me for two years before he went to the land of Elam. After Ahikar left, my wife Anna had to go to work, so she took up weaving, like many other women. Another thing that probably needs to be re-considered now, in light of my revised view of the chronology of Tobit, concerns the previously mentioned “King Arioch” as referred to in Judith 1:6: “Many nations joined forces with King Arphaxad … as well as those who lived in the plain ruled by King Arioch of Elam”. Arioch in Elam I had (rightly I think) identified in my thesis, again, as Achior (Ahikar) who went to Elam. But, due to my then mis-reading of Tobit, I had had to consider the mention of Arioch in Judith 1:6 as a post-Sennacherib gloss, added later as a geographical pointer, thinking that our hero had gone to Elam only after Sennacherib’s death. And so I wrote in my thesis (Vol. II, pp. 46-47): I disagree with Charles [The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament] 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 [‘Judith’]: “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 [Book of Judith] 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; though at a later time, as I am going to explain. For a revised re-locating of the land of Elam, see Royce (Richard) Erickson’s brilliant article (2020): A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY (5) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY | Richard Erickson - Academia.edu 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 was, I believe, the very Achior who figures so prominently in the story of Judith. He was also the legendary Ahikar, a most famous character as we have already read. Therefore he was entirely familiar to the Jews, who would have known that he had eventually governed the Assyrian province of Elam. 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 [Judith], has confused matters by calling him by the different name of Arioch. He should have written: “Achior ruled the Elymeans”. From there it is an easy matter to make this comparison: “Achior … Elymeans” [Judith]; “Ahikar (var. Achior) … Elymaïs” [Tobit]. Suffice it to say here that this ubiquitous personage, Ahikar/Achior, would have been the eyewitness extraordinaire to the detailed plans and preparations regarding the war between the Assyrians and the Chaldean coalition as described in Judith 1. As a convert to Yahwism “When Achior heard all that the God of Israel had done, he became a firm believer. He was circumcised and made a member of the Israelite community, as his descendants are to the present day”. Judith 14:10 Recalling from above The young and highly talented Ahikar, or Achior, a product of the northern Israelite tribe of Naphtali that had largely apostatised from Yahwism (but also a nephew of holy Tobit who had not followed his tribe in this regard), had risen rapidly – perhaps from being a young favourite in king Sennacherib’s palace – to the high office in Assyria of Rabshakeh. As such, Ahikar had become a key player in Sennacherib’s 3rd campaign, to the west, having been the very mouthpiece for the king of Assyria before the officials of king Hezekiah of Judah – a natural choice in that situation because of the young man’s ability to speak the Hebrew language. Now, still during the reign of Sennacherib, Ahikar (whom Tobit would later praise as an almsgiver) had assisted his uncle Tobit for two years whilst the latter was suffering from blindness, after which time Ahikar was assigned to the rulership of Elam (Elymaïs). This, I believed, has been taken up in Judith 1:6 (but presumably with the name later mis-copied) where we read of “King Arioch of Elam”. All of this led us to the following key connection between the books of Judith and Tobit: “Achior … Elymeans” [Judith]; “Ahikar (var. Achior) … Elymaïs” [Tobit] thereby anchoring the highly problematical history of the Book of Judith to the reign of king Sennacherib of Assyria! And that very location for the Judith drama, historically, became the subject matter of Volume Two of my post-graduate thesis. Under the influence of uncle Tobit Undoubtedly the highly zealous and prayerful holy man, Tobit, would have – in his miserable state of blindness – utilised the two years of his nephew Ahikar’s attendance upon him to instruct the young, presumably Baal-worshipping (and whatever Assyrian gods as well), king’s official (to whatever extent he could) in the history of Israel and in pure Yahwism. Soon, Ahikar was also to be a witness to the phenomenon of Tobit’s being cured from his condition of blindness. For, apparently after Ahikar had gone to Elam, with Tobit still blind, Tobit’s son, Tobias (that is, the prophet Job) had journeyed to Ecbatana (= Bashan) and had, under the most unusual circumstances, gained himself a wife, Sarah, and some substantial wealth (Tobit 6-9). Subsequently, old Tobit was miraculously cured of his blindness (11:11-14), and afterwards he and his wife Anna held an impressive wedding feast for the young couple. It is at this point that we hear about Ahikar again, who, with his nephew, Nadin (Nadab), came along “to share in Tobit’s happiness” (11:18). Scholars have in fact commented upon the apparent dependence of the Maxims of Ahikar upon those of Tobit. J. Marshall, for instance (‘Tobit, Book of’, A Dictionary of the Bible, ed. J. Hastings, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1902, pp. 789, 2): “There are many features of resemblance between Ahikar’s moral teaching to Nadan, and Tobit’s to Tobias”. (Cf. J. Miller and J. Hayes have listed “Parallels Between Esarhaddon’s Vassal Treaty and Deuteronomy”, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, pp. 395-397). The influence of Tobit and his family, and the amazing events of their lives of which Ahikar was so well aware, must have conspired to prepare the way for Ahikar’s ultimate conversion to Yahwism as Achior in the Book of Judith, upon learning of Judith’s triumph over Holofernes, and due to Achior’s own personal viewing of the decapitated head. Judith had called for Achior specifically for him to identify the head as belonging to Holofernes, whom he well knew, the heroine demanding (Judith 14:5-10): … send Achior the Ammonite to me. I want to see if he recognizes Holofernes, the man who spoke of Israel with contempt and sent Achior to us, thinking he would be killed along with the rest of us. So they called Achior from Uzziah’s house. But when he came and saw the head of Holofernes in the hands of one of the men, Achior fainted and fell to the floor. When they had helped him up, Achior bowed at Judith’s feet in respect. ‘May every family in the land of Judah praise you’, he said, ‘and may every nation tremble with terror when they hear your name’. Please tell me how you managed to do this. While all the people were gathered around, Judith told him everything that she had done from the day she left the town until that moment. When she had finished her story, the people cheered so loudly that the whole town echoed with sounds of joy. When Achior heard all that the God of Israel had done, he became a firm believer. He was circumcised and made a member of the Israelite community, as his descendants are to the present day. Whoops, did Judith just call Achior an “Ammonite”? If that is what was his actual nationality, and indeed he is called that in various places in the Book of Judith as we now have it, then that would put paid to my claim that Achior was Ahikar, the nephew of Tobit, and it would also raise a nasty theological problem for the Book of Judith. I discussed this situation as follows in my thesis (Volume Two, pp. 57-58): … there now arises that problem with my actual reconstruction of Achior as an Israelite in the Assyrian army, and it is this verse: “Then Achior, the leader of all the Ammonites, said to [Holofernes] …” (5:5). Achior is said in this verse to have been an ‘Ammonite’; a matter we discussed in some detail (beginning on p. 23), when considering why [the Book of Judith] was not accepted into the Hebrew canon. Whilst this does immediately loom as a major problem, there is one factor – apart from what has already been said about Achior – that makes his being an Ammonite highly unlikely, and this is that Achior will later, in [Judith] 14, be converted to Judaïsm and will be circumcised. The author of [Judith], who is an absolute stickler for the Mosaïc Law, and who writes in fact like a priest or Levite … would hardly have countenanced so flagrant a breach of the Law as having an Ammonite received by pious Jews into the assembly of faith, when this was clearly disallowed by Moses (Deuteronomy 23:3, 4). Judith herself, who would so scrupulously observe all of the religious ordinances of the Law even whilst in the camp of the Assyrians [Judith] (… 12), would hardly (if she were real) have been a party to this forbidden situation. The final word that we hear about Ahikar in some versions of the Book of Tobit is that Nadin had set a trap for his mentor, but had himself fallen into the trap and was subsequently slain (14:13). For a fuller explanation of this, see my: “Nadin” (Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes” of Judith https://www.academia.edu/36576110/_Nadin_Nadab_of_Tobit_is_the_Holofernes_of_Judith We have found that Ahikar was an important eye-witness to so many significant events that occurred during this most fascinating of historical eras. He, as king Sennacherib’s Rabshakeh during the Assyrian king’s 3rd campaign, knew also all about the war of Judith chapter 1, against Arphaxad (= Merodach-baladan, I believe). Assyria eventually won this hard-fought war, and then determined to vent her revenge upon the subject nations that had failed to assist her against Merodach-baladan. The war in Judith 1 is but the prelude to the main incident of the book, the second Assyrian invasion of the West. Possibly, Ahikar may also have been a privileged one present at the victorious Assyrian king’s “secret council” in which “Nebuchadnezzar” (= Sennacherib) planned his revenge on the west. “So he called unto him all his officers, and all his nobles, and communicated with them his secret counsel, and concluded the afflicting of the whole earth out of his own mouth”. [Judith 2:2; SEPT] Although, if he were then in Elam, he could have learned all about it from fellow officers. Either way, Ahikar is already the key witness for many such events recorded in the Book of Judith that could not have been known first-hand either by Judith or by her fellow Israelites, and the Jews, then living in the west. Ahikar as ‘Achior’ of Book of Judith Chapter 2 of the Book of Judith first introduces us to the historically problematical (like many characters in the book) “Holofernes”. He, who will serve as the commander-in-chief, may not have been at Sennacherib’s “secret council” because, as the story is narrated, the king calls him immediately after it (v. 4): “When the council was over, Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians sent for Holofernes, general-in-chief of his armies and subordinate only to himself”. The Great King of Assyria now gives his subordinate this terrifying (from the perspective of those who will be the suffering recipients of it) commission: He said to him, ‘Thus speaks the Great King, lord of the whole world, “Go; take men of proven valour, about a hundred and twenty thousand foot soldiers and a strong company of horse with twelve thousand cavalrymen; then advance against all the western lands, since these people have disregarded my call. Bid them have earth and water ready, because in my rage I am about to march on them; the feet of my soldiers will cover the whole face of the earth, and I shall plunder it. Their wounded will fill the valleys and the torrents, and rivers, blocked with their dead, will overflow. I shall lead them captive to the ends of the earth”. Now go! Begin by conquering this whole region for me. If they surrender to you, hold them for me until the time comes to punish them. But if they resist, look on no one with clemency, hand them over to slaughter and plunder throughout the territory entrusted to you. For by my life and by the living power of my kingdom I have spoken. All this I shall do by my power. And you, neglect none of your master’s commands, act strictly according to my orders without further delay’. Typical Assyrian war-speak, but it was no mere bravado as the Assyrian Wehrmacht had the werewithal to carry out all of the Great King’s dreadful threats. And Holofernes will be, for a time, totally effective. Who was he? Who really was the “Holofernes” of the Book of Judith? I, in my thesis, in which I radically revised neo-Assyrian history (Volume One, Chapter 6), even to identifying Sargon II – supposed father of Sennacherib – with Sennacherib himself (more recently in): Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib http://www.academia.edu/6708474/Assyrian_King_Sargon_II_Otherwise_Known_As_Sennacherib had multi-identified Holofernes from several sources. I have since changed some of this, see my “Nadin” article (above). Thus I had written a bit tortuously (Volume Two, pp. 79-80): In this verse we learn that a certain Nadab had set a trap for Ahikar, to kill him, but had fallen into that trap himself with fatal consequences. The description of this intriguing bouleversement fits exactly the story of Holofernes and Achior at Bethulia, thus I think providing a further confirmation of my reconstruction. In the legends of Ahikar, the betrayer can be called Nadan … instead of Nadab, and this is important; for commentators can presume that Ahikar’s betrayer is the same as Ahikar’s very nephew, Nadab. In [Tobit] we are told that “Ahikar and his nephew Nadab were also present …” at the celebration of the wedding of the young Tobias and Sarah in Nineveh (11:18). And, because Tobit will, three chapters later, when recalling Ahikar’s betrayal, name the betrayer, ‘Nadab’ (14:10), then it is not unreasonably assumed that Ahikar was betrayed by his very own nephew. The next part of my thesis can be amended to read as follows: Here, then, is my reconstructed version of verse 14:10, with my name substitutions added in square brackets: ‘See, my son [Tobias], what Nadab [Nadin] did to Ahikar [Achior] who had reared him. Was he not, while still alive, brought down into the earth? For God repaid him to his face for his shameful treatment. Ahikar came out into the light, but Nadab went into the eternal darkness, because he tried to kill Ahikar. Because he gave alms, Ahikar escaped the fatal trap [at Bethulia] that Nadab had set for him, but Nadab fell into it himself, and was destroyed’. This verse is quite mystifying in the context of [the Book of Tobit] alone, which had, until this, told us nothing whatsoever about any misdeed on the part of Ahikar’s nephew, but only that he, with his uncle, had been “present [at the celebration] to share Tobit’s joy” (11:18). Whilst the name Nadab itself, as the betrayer, does not appear to add any relevance to my reconstruction, the variant form of it, Nadin, surely does. Nadin can be connected with the Assyrian name, Ashur-nadin-shumi, the eldest son of Sennacherib. The name connection can be deduced from the following passage [Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ‘Ahikar, Book of’, p. 69]. Some of the persons mentioned [in the Aramaic book of Ahikar] may even be historical. A high official named Nabu-sum-iskun is known to have served under Sennacherib. While the person of Ahikar has not been found as yet [sic], his name is Assyrian (Ahi-yaqar, “the brother is precious”). The name Nadan (better, Nadin) is a short form of some name like Adad-nadin-shum. Chronologically Ashur-nadin-shumi, ruling Babylon for six years, from the 12th to the 18th year of Sennacherib, and then mysteriously disappearing, fits perfectly for Holofernes, for it was in the Great King’s 18th year that he was said to have summoned his officials to commence the war of revenge (Judith 2:1-2, 4): In the eighteenth year, on the twenty-second day of the first month, a rumour ran through the palace that Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians was to have his revenge on all the countries, as he had threatened. Summoning his general staff and senior officers, he held a secret conference with them, and with his own lips pronounced utter destruction on the entire area. …. When the council was over, Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians sent for Holofernes, general-in-chief of his armies and subordinate only to himself. …. If Nadin (my Ashur-nadin-shumi/Holofernes) were a son of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, then in what sense could he have been called a “nephew” of the Israelite Ahikar? I am not entirely sure at this stage. According to legend, Nadin was the son of Ahikar’s sister. Now, the mother of Ashur-nadin-shumi was apparently Tashmetum-Sharrat, the daughter of Merodach-baladan. Or was Nadin his “nephew” in a different sense, as being under the tutelage of Ahikar? I had followed this line in my thesis (ibid.): We also learn from the legends that Ahikar had been Nadan’s actual tutor, taking many pains with the latter’s instruction (hence having “reared him”, according to Tobit 14:10 above). It is quite possible that the wise Ahikar, whose moral maxims seem to have been lifted straight from the sayings of Tobit … – the latter being well-known to a succession of Assyrian kings (1:13-19, 21-22) – had been appointed as steward, or tutor, of Sennacherib’s son, just as the wise Senenmut had been ‘tutor’ or ‘steward’ of Egypt’s Thutmose [III], as a child, and of Hatshepsut’s daughter, Neferure. …. [See my “Solomon and Sheba”: http://www.academia.edu/3660164/Solomon_and_Sheba]. In that sense, could Tobit say that Ahikar “had reared him [Nadin]”. Holofernes storms into Israel Judith 2 narrates the formidable march of Holofernes and his massive army through northern Syria, then (2:17-18): “… down into the plains of Damascus in the days of the harvest, [where] … he set all the corn on fire, and he caused all the trees and vineyards to be cut down. And the fear of them fell upon all the inhabitants of the land”. Finally, with just Samarian cities like Judith’s Bethulia (= Shechem) facing Dothan, as well as Jerusalem, left for the Assyrians to conquer, we encounter Ahikar as the Achior of the Book of Judith, subordinate to Holofernes, the commander-in-chief of the Assyrian army that had cut off the water supplies of Bethulia. Here Achior is called “leader of all the Ammonites” (Judith 5:5). But this, as suggested above, cannot be correct. It must be a copyist’s mistake for Ephraïmites (northern Israelites), or perhaps Elamites (over whom Ahikar had ruled) because in 6:2 Holofernes contemptuously refers to Achior as “you hireling of Ephraïm”. It is at this crucial stage, with the Bethulians languishing from lack of water, that Ahikar makes his incredible apologia on behalf of the Israelites. This came as a total shock to all present. So insignificant were these mountain people in the eyes of Holofernes that he had even had to ask the locals who they were. Achior had volunteered the information, giving the commander a run-down of Israel’s history from Abraham, through the Exodus, to the present time. (Would an Ammonite have been likely to have known Israel’s history in detail?). Moreover he added that, whenever their God favoured this people, they always proved to be unbeatable. Tobit’s teachings were now setting in. This speech absolutely stunned the soldiery who were by now all for tearing Achior “limb from limb” (5:22). Holofernes, for his part, was absolutely furious with Achior. Having recently succeeded in conquering the entire west, he was hardly about to suffer hearing that some obscure mountain folk – “this brood of fugitives from Egypt” as he contemptuously called them in response to Achior’s speech (cf. 6:6)- might be able to offer him any meaningful resistance. Holofernes thereupon commanded his orderlies to take the insolent Achior and bind him beneath the walls of Bethulia, so that he could suffer, with the people he had just verbally defended, their inevitable fate when the city fell to the Assyrians. When the Assyrian brigade had managed to secure Achior at Bethulia, and had then retreated from the walls under sling-fire from the townsfolk, the Bethulians went out to fetch him. As I wrote in my thesis (ibid.): Aspects of the legendary story of Ahikar’s condemnation and release can perhaps be seen as distortions of the original Bethulia incident. For instance, the tale of the executioner’s sparing Ahikar’s life, and imprisoning him in a cellar under his house, after which he was eventually released, might be a distortion of [Holofernes’] deferring the execution of Achior until the defeat of the Bethulians, and having him bound below (under) the hill of Bethulia, from which he was liberated. For in [Judith] 6:13 we read: “So [Holofernes’ slaves] having taken shelter below the hill …”. Once safely inside the city of Bethulia, Achior told the citizens his story, and no doubt Judith was there to hear it. Later she would use bits and pieces of information supplied by Achior for her own confrontation with Holofernes, to deceive him. The subsequent defeat and rout of the Assyrian army of 185,000 – so enigmatically treated in Kings, Chronicles and Isaiah – is narrated in detail in the Book of Judith. It was not simply an instant blast by God – or a sudden bubonic plague – that consumed the entire Assyrian army on the spot, as some like to suggest: Ignis de Caelo, Velikovsky, and Sennacherib's 185,000 (5) Ignis de Caelo, Velikovsky, and Sennacherib's 185,000 | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu It was rather a complete rout, set in motion by the ruse of Judith. As Isaiah had predicted, the Assyrian would fall “by the sword, not of a man” (31:8); for it was actually “by the hand of a woman” that the victory was achieved (Judith 16:7). Achior’s Conversion When Judith returned to her city after having deceived the Assyrians, her maid carrying in her bag the gory trophy of the head of Holofernes, the heroine told her fellow-citizens the whole story of what had taken place in the Assyrian camp. Judith then asked the townspeople to fetch Achior, who, upon seeing the head of the world-famous Assyrian general, defeated by this woman, fainted on the spot. Upon recovering, Achior greatly praised Judith: ‘May you be blessed in all the tents of Judah and in every nation; at the sound of your name men will be seized with dread’ (14:31). Afterwards, Achior submitted to the circumcision that he had apparently neglected as a young Naphtalian, and converted fully to Yahwism (14:8-10). Is not the story of Judith, including Holofernes and Achior, one of the most thrilling stories of the entire Old Testament era! Reality (true history) can often be more dramatic than fiction.

H. Tadmor and Y. Levin come close to identifying Sennacherib’s Rabshakeh

by Damien F. Mackey “Both Tadmor and Cogan mention Ahiqar, the Aramean adviser who served in the court of Esarhaddon, Sennacherib’s son. …. Machinist, in his article on Rabshakeh, writes of “Hayim Tadmor’s now celebrated view,” … and they all cite the Babylonian Talmud tractate b. Sanh. 60a, which suggests that “Rabshakeh was an apostate Israelite”.” Yigal Levin Sennacherib’s Rabshakeh, who verbally taunted king Hezekiah’s chief officials and those Jews manning the walls of Jerusalem during Assyria’s invasion of Judah, was indeed the historical and biblical Ahiqar (Ahikar). And, at that particular point in time, Ahiqar was apparently also, as according to the Babylonian Talmud, “an apostate Israelite”: Achior the Ephraïmite (DOC) Achior the Ephraïmite | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu For this Ahiqar was the nephew of a northern Israelite, the pious Tobit, who, unlike his Naphtalian brethren, had remained faithful to Yahwism. Sennacherib may well have chosen Ahiqar for his western (Judah) campaign because of the fact that the latter, as an Israelite, spoke, not only Aramaïc, but also Yehudit, which was akin to Hebrew, the spoken language of the Jews in Jerusalem. The high officials, led by Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who had now replaced Shebna as high priest (“over the Tabernacle”), also - unlike the mass of people - spoke Aramaïc, which Ahiqar, as an exile in Nineveh, obviously knew. King Hezekiah’s officials almost certainly knew of the Rabshakeh and knew that he spoke a form of Hebrew. Yigal Levin has discussed the various view about Rabshakeh in his useful article (2015): How Did Rabshakeh Know the Language of Judah? (PDF) How did Rabshakeh Know the Language of Judah? | Yigal Levin - Academia.edu

Mighty Assyro-Chaldean kings mistaken for Hittite emperors

by Damien F. Mackey And this brings in the possibility, now, that Dr. I. Velikovsky was almost right in identifying Hattusilis with Nebuchednezzar. But I think that, instead, Hattusilis was Sennacherib. Responding to a Brazilian researcher concerning a series of letters of Sennacherib that are generally thought to constitute his correspondence, as Crown Prince, with the Assyrian king, Sargon II, I concluded that Sennacherib (who actually is my Sargon II) must instead have been writing, as King of Assyria, to a contemporary foreign brother-king of equal power with whom he shared a treaty: Some Letters from Sennacherib (3) Some Letters from Sennacherib | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu I then followed up this article with one on: Ramses II’s confrontations with Assyria’s Sargon II and Chaldea’s Nebuchednezzar (3) Ramses II’s confrontations with Assyria’s Sargon II and Chaldea’s Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu which enabled me to establish, for Sargon II/Sennacherib of Assyria, a “contemporary foreign brother-king of equal power with whom he shared a treaty”, namely pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’. He, the great pharaoh, would be, I believe, the only contemporary of Sennacherib (Sargon II) to whom the Assyrian king would deign to have shown such deference as to write (Letter # 029): [To] the king, my lord: [your servant] Sin-ahhe-riba [Sennacherib]. Good health to the king, my lord! [Assyri]a is well,[the temp]les are well, all [the king's forts] are well. The king, my lord, can be glad indeed …. in such a way as could suggest a treaty had been established between the mighty pair. Now, with the mention of Ramses II and a treaty with another Great King, one must think only of the famous treaty made between Ramses II and Hattusilis so-called III. And this brings in the possibility, now, that Dr. I. Velikovsky was almost right in identifying Hattusilis with Nebuchednezzar. But I think that, instead, Hattusilis was Sennacherib. Obviously there is a lot that must be worked out to solidify this identification. But there appears to be a parallel scenario between (a) Hattusilis, his formidable wife, (b) Pudu-hepa and (c) Tudhaliya so-called IV, on the one hand, and – {in my revision, according to which Sennacherib was succeeded by his (non-biological) son, Esarhaddon, a Chaldean, who is my Nebuchednezzar} - (a) Sennacherib, his formidable wife, (b) Naqī’a (Zakūtu) and (c) Esarhaddon (Nebuchednezzar). I need to note here that I have multi-identified each (a-c) of this second set. Thus: Sargon II/Sennacherib is, all at once, Tukulti-ninurta; Shamsi-Adad [not I]; Esarhaddon is, all at once, Ashur-bel-kala; Ashurnasirpal; Ashurbanipal; Nebuchednezzar [I and II]; Nabonidus; Artaxerxes of Nehemiah; Cambyses’; Naqia/Zakutu is, all at once, Semiramis (of Tukulti-ninurta’s era); Sammu-ramat; Adad-Guppi. But how can an Assyrian king, or a Chaldean king, become confused as a Hittite? Well, perhaps we may consider a few things here. For example: No such people as the Indo-European Hittites (3) No such people as the Indo-European Hittites | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu In this article I referenced Brock Heathcotte as follows: Brock Heathcotte has written on this in his article “Tugdamme the Hittite” (January 28, 2017): The theory espoused here is that Mursili II and Tugdamme were the same person. This does not mean that his subjects, euphemistically called the “Hittite” people in modern times were ethnic Cimmerians. They almost certainly were a people of many ethnicities including prominently Luwian, based on language. The cold hard fact that has been distorted by decades of talking about the Hittites is that there is no such people as the Hittites. The tablet people we spoke of never called themselves Hittites, and nobody else called them Hittites either at the time. This is actually not controversial. It is just obscured by convention. Academics could argue all day and night about the ethnic composition of the people who lived in Anatolia, and which of them were the rulers we know as the Hittite kings. The argument is not susceptible to resolution, especially not in the current mistaken historical context the Hittites are placed. The rulers called themselves the Great Kings of Hatti. They could be any ethnicity. We should think of “Hittite” as the same sort of location-based moniker for a people as “American.” It doesn’t make sense to say there is an American ethnicity, and it doesn’t make sense to say there is a “Hittite” ethnicity. Americans come in many different ethnicities, as did the Hittites. …. [End of quote] Moreover, some time before I wrote any of this, I had already penned this article about Ashurnasirpal, who is my Esarhaddon (Nebuchednezzar), a Chaldean: Hittite elements in art and warfare of Ashurnasirpal (3) Hittite elements in art and warfare of Ashurnasirpal | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu These Assyro-Chaldean kings, who conquered the lands of the Hittites, could easily have assumed titles akin to King of the Hittites. Tudhaliya’s accession like that of Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, Tudhaliya, had no real prospect of succeeding to the throne. The ancient term for someone in that position, not of the royal line, was “son of nobody”. And I found this characteristic in Esarhaddon’s alter egos, having written: …. Another common key-word (buzz word), or phrase, for various of these king-names would be ‘son of a nobody’, pertaining to a prince who was not expecting to be elevated to kingship. Thus I previously introduced Ashurbanipal-as-Nebuchednezzar/Nabonidus with the statement: “Nabonidus is not singular either in not expecting to become king. Ashurbanipal had felt the same”. …. And we read in the following Abstract that that was also the former status of Tudhaliya: https://academic.oup.com/book/36172/chapter-abstract/314550786?redirectedFrom=fulltext Abstract In his early years, the prince Tudhaliya could have had little thought that he would one day become king. But he was installed by Hattusili ‘in kingship’, that is, Tudhaliya probably now assumed the role of crown prince. This chapter examines the career path which Hattusili had mapped out for Tudhaliya in preparation for his becoming king of the Hittites, Puduhepa's effort to arrange her daughter's marriage to Tudhaliya, problems and potential crises inherited by Tudhaliya from Muwattalli as Hittite ruler, political developments in western Anatolia during Tudhaliya's reign, the impact of establishment of a pro-Hittite regime in Milawata on Ahhiyawan enterprise in western Anatolia, political problems that arose from the marriage alliance contracted between the royal families of Ugarit and Amurru, Tudhaliya's war with Assyria, possible coup instigated by Kurunta to wrest the throne from his cousin Tudhaliya, Tudhaliya's conquest of Alasiya, and the achievements of Tudhaliya IV as ruler of the Hittite kingdom. The whole thing seems to have been arranged by the formidable Queen, as was the case again with Esarhaddon and his mother Naqī’a/Zakūtu: Naqia of Assyria and Semiramis (3) Naqia of Assyria and Semiramis | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu https://www.britannica.com/biography/Naqia “[Esarhaddon’s] energetic and designing mother, Zakutu (Naqia), who came from Syria or Judah [sic?], used all her influence on his behalf to override the national party of Assyria”. I would expect now to begin finding many parallels between Esarhaddon/ Nebuchednezzar, in his various guises (alter egos), and the so-called Hittite emperor, Tudhaliya.

Woman near Shechem crushes enemy’s head

by Damien F. Mackey “Next Abimelek went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it. Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women—all the people of the city—had fled. They had locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof. Abimelek went to the tower and attacked it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire, a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull”. Judges 9:50-53 Account of Abimelech Gideon’s illegitimate son, Abimelech (Abimelek), in killing the seventy sons of Gideon as his potential rivals to the rulership (see text below), was setting a precedent that the bloody Jehu of Israel would later follow, when he arranged for king Ahab’s seventy sons to be beheaded (2 Kings 10:1-11). Judges 9:1-57 Abimelek son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan, “Ask all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember, I am your flesh and blood’.” When the brothers repeated all this to the citizens of Shechem, they were inclined to follow Abimelek, for they said, ‘He is related to us’. They gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, and Abimelek used it to hire reckless scoundrels, who became his followers. He went to his father’s home in Ophrah and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-Baal, escaped by hiding. Then all the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered beside the great tree at the pillar in Shechem to crown Abimelek king. When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, “Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that God may listen to you. One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king’. But the olive tree answered, ‘Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and humans are honored, to hold sway over the trees?’ “Next, the trees said to the fig tree, ‘Come and be our king.’ “But the fig tree replied, ‘Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?’ “Then the trees said to the vine, ‘Come and be our king.’ “But the vine answered, ‘Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?’ “Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘Come and be our king.’ “The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’ “Have you acted honorably and in good faith by making Abimelek king? Have you been fair to Jerub-Baal and his family? Have you treated him as he deserves? Remember that my father fought for you and risked his life to rescue you from the hand of Midian. But today you have revolted against my father’s family. You have murdered his seventy sons on a single stone and have made Abimelek, the son of his female slave, king over the citizens of Shechem because he is related to you. So have you acted honorably and in good faith toward Jerub-Baal and his family today? If you have, may Abimelek be your joy, and may you be his, too! But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelek and consume you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and let fire come out from you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and consume Abimelek!” For an account of Jotham’s tree imagery, see: Jotham’s Parable of Fig and Thorn (5) Jotham's Parable of Fig and Thorn | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Then Jotham fled, escaping to Beer, and he lived there because he was afraid of his brother Abimelek. After Abimelek had governed Israel three years, God stirred up animosity between Abimelek and the citizens of Shechem so that they acted treacherously against Abimelek. God did this in order that the crime against Jerub-Baal’s seventy sons, the shedding of their blood, might be avenged on their brother Abimelek and on the citizens of Shechem, who had helped him murder his brothers. In opposition to him these citizens of Shechem set men on the hilltops to ambush and rob everyone who passed by, and this was reported to Abimelek. Now Gaal son of Ebed moved with his clan into Shechem, and its citizens put their confidence in him. After they had gone out into the fields and gathered the grapes and trodden them, they held a festival in the temple of their god. While they were eating and drinking, they cursed Abimelek. Then Gaal son of Ebed said, ‘Who is Abimelek, and why should we Shechemites be subject to him? Isn’t he Jerub-Baal’s son, and isn’t Zebul his deputy? Serve the family of Hamor, Shechem’s father! Why should we serve Abimelek? If only this people were under my command! Then I would get rid of him. I would say to Abimelek, ‘Call out your whole army!’” When Zebul the governor of the city heard what Gaal son of Ebed said, he was very angry. Under cover he sent messengers to Abimelek, saying, ‘Gaal son of Ebed and his clan have come to Shechem and are stirring up the city against you. Now then, during the night you and your men should come and lie in wait in the fields. In the morning at sunrise, advance against the city. When Gaal and his men come out against you, seize the opportunity to attack them’. So Abimelek and all his troops set out by night and took up concealed positions near Shechem in four companies. Now Gaal son of Ebed had gone out and was standing at the entrance of the city gate just as Abimelek and his troops came out from their hiding place. When Gaal saw them, he said to Zebul, ‘Look, people are coming down from the tops of the mountains!’ Zebul replied, ‘You mistake the shadows of the mountains for men’. But Gaal spoke up again: ‘Look, people are coming down from the central hill, and a company is coming from the direction of the diviners’ tree’. Then Zebul said to him, “Where is your big talk now, you who said, ‘Who is Abimelek that we should be subject to him?’ Aren’t these the men you ridiculed? Go out and fight them!” So Gaal led out the citizens of Shechem and fought Abimelek. Abimelek chased him all the way to the entrance of the gate, and many were killed as they fled. Then Abimelek stayed in Arumah, and Zebul drove Gaal and his clan out of Shechem. The next day the people of Shechem went out to the fields, and this was reported to Abimelek. So he took his men, divided them into three companies and set an ambush in the fields. When he saw the people coming out of the city, he rose to attack them. Abimelek and the companies with him rushed forward to a position at the entrance of the city gate. Then two companies attacked those in the fields and struck them down. All that day Abimelek pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it. On hearing this, the citizens in the tower of Shechem went into the stronghold of the temple of El-Berith. When Abimelek heard that they had assembled there, he and all his men went up Mount Zalmon. He took an ax and cut off some branches, which he lifted to his shoulders. He ordered the men with him, ‘Quick! Do what you have seen me do!’ So all the men cut branches and followed Abimelek. They piled them against the stronghold and set it on fire with the people still inside. So all the people in the tower of Shechem, about a thousand men and women, also died. Next Abimelek went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it. Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women—all the people of the city—had fled. They had locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof. Abimelek went to the tower and attacked it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire, a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull. Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can’t say, ‘A woman killed him.’” So his servant ran him through, and he died. When the Israelites saw that Abimelek was dead, they went home. Thus God repaid the wickedness that Abimelek had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers. God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them. After the death of Gideon his son Abimelech asserted authority in the land and ruled from Shechem, reigning for 3 years until his death. “MB IIC at Shechem was a major destruction, so almost certainly it was the city of Abimelech”. Dr. John Osgood SHECHEM OF ABIMELECH Back in 1980’s, I, then following a pattern of biblical archaeology different from the one that I would embrace today, had raised with Dr. John Osgood this query about the city of Shechem in its relation to the Joshuan Conquest: https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j03_1/j03_1_124-127.pdf “Techlets”, EN Tech. J., vol. 3, 1988, pp. 125-126: …. I think too that Shechem might be a problem in your scheme of things. From the Bible it would seem that Shechem was a small settlement at the time of Abraham, but a city at the time of Jacob. It seems to me that according to your scheme Shechem would be the same size in Jacob's time as in Abraham's. Correct me if I am wrong. Also Prof. Stiebing, who has criticised at various times the schemes of all revisionists (see Biblical Archaeological Review, July/August 1985, pp. 58-69), raises the problem of the absence of LBA remains at Samaria as regards the EBA Conquest Reconstruction. Looking back now on Dr. Osgood’s reply to this, his view on Shechem, at least, makes perfect sense to me. He seems to have arrived at a proper overview of the archaeology of Shechem, from Abraham to Jeroboam I (and beyond). Here, again, is what Dr. Osgood wrote about it: Shechem: This is no problem to the revised chronology presented here, since the passage concerning Abraham and Shechem, viz. Genesis 12:6, does not indicate that a city of any consequence was then present there. On the other hand, Jacob's contact makes it clear that there was a significant city present later (Genesis 33 and 34), but only one which was able to be overwhelmed by a small party of Jacob's sons who took it by surprise. I would date any evidence of civilisation at these times to the late Chalcolithic in Abraham's case, and to EB I in Jacob's case, the latter being the most significant. The Bible is silent about Shechem until the Israelite conquest, after which it is apparent that it developed a significant population until the destruction of the city in the days of Abimelech. If the scriptural silence is significant, then no evidence of occupation would be present after EB I until MB I and no significant building would occur until the MB IIC. Shechem was rebuilt by Jeroboam I, and continued thereafter until the Assyrian captivity. Moreover, Shechem was almost certainly the Bethel of Jeroboam, during the divided kingdom. So I would expect heavy activity during the majority of LB and all of Iron I. This is precisely the findings at Shechem, with the exception that the earliest periods have not had sufficient area excavated to give precise details about the Chalcolithic and EB I. No buildings have yet been brought to light from these periods, but these periods are clearly represented at Shechem. MB IIC at Shechem was a major destruction, so almost certainly it was the city of Abimelech. The population's allegiance to Hamor and Shechem could easily be explained by a return of descendants of the Shechem captives taken by Jacob's son, now returned after the Exodus nostalgically to Shechem, rather than by a continuation of the population through intervening periods (see Judges 9:28, Genesis 34). For Jeroboam's city and after, the numerous LB and Iron I strata are a sufficient testimony (see Biblical Archaeology, XX, XXVI and XXXII). …. [End of quote] The city of Shechem, which has already figured prominently in this book, will become of most vital significance when, in the era of king Hezekiah of Judah (c. C8th BC, conventional dating), I proceed to discuss the opposing kings, Hezekiah and Sennacherib, and Israel’s famous defeat of the 185,000-strong Assyrian army. A combination of Dr. Osgood’s identification of Shechem with the northern Bethel, and Charles C. Torrey’s early identification of Shechem as the strategic town of “Bethulia”, which was Judith’s city, has enabled me to bring a full biblico-historical perspective to both the Book of Judith and the Assyrian incident. [Jan] Simons thinks that the reference in the Vulgate to the Assyrians coming at this stage to “the Idumæans into the land of Gabaa” (Judith 3:14) should more appropriately be rendered “the Judæans ... Gabaa”. Gabaa would then correspond to the Geba of the Septuagint in the Esdraelon (Jezreel) plain. Let us follow the march of the Assyrian commander-in chief through the eyes of Charles C. Torrey, in his article “The Site of Bethulia” (JSTOR, Vol. 20, 1899), beginning on p. 161: When the army of Holofernes reached the Great Plain of Jezreel, in its march southward, it halted there for a month (iii. 9 f.) at the entrance to the hill country of the Jews. According to iii. 10, "Holofernes pitched between Geba and Scythopolis." This statement is not without its difficulties. We should perhaps have expected the name Genin, where the road from the Great Plain enters the hills, instead of Geba. The latter name is very well attested, however, having the support of most Greek manuscripts and of all the versions. The only place of this name known to us, in this region, is the village Geba (Gěba‘) ... a few miles north of Samaria, directly in the line of march taken by Holophernes [Holofernes] and his army, at the point where the road to Shechem branches. It is situated just above a broad and fertile valley where there is a fine large spring of water. There would seem to be every reason, therefore, for regarding this as the Geba of Judith iii. 10; as is done, for example, by Conder in the Survey of Western Palestine, Memoirs, ii, p. 156, and by G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 356. There is nothing in the sequel of the story to disagree with this conclusion. According to the narrator, the vast 'Assyrian' army, at the time of this ominous halt, extended all the way from Scythopolis through the Great Plain to Genin, and along the broad caravan track … southward as far as Geba. Torrey will proceed to make excellent sense of the geography of this impressive (but ill-fated) Assyrian campaign. Jan Simons (The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1959) will later do a reasonable job of accounting for the earlier part of the Assyrian campaign, from its leaving from the city of Nineveh until its arrival at the plain of Esdraelon – the phase of the campaign that Torrey will dismiss as “mere literary adornment” (on p. 160): With regard to a part of these details, especially those having to do with countries or places outside of Palestine, it can be said at once that they are mere literary adornment, and are not to be taken seriously. Such for example are the particulars regarding Nebuchadnezzar’s ... journey westward .... I quoted Simons, for instance, in Volume Two, pp. 49-51 of my university thesis: A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf Commentators have not found it easy to unravel geographically, in its various stages, the [Book of Judith] narrative of the Assyrian army’s march westwards (2:19-3:9). A difficulty is that the account of its route, from Nineveh to its eventual arrival in northern Israel, varies from version to version. .... Nevertheless, Simons has made quite a good attempt to unravel [Book of Judith’s] geography here. He begins with the Assyrian army’s departure, from Nineveh: …. a) v. 21: after mentioning NINEVE [Nineveh] as Holofernes’ starting-point this verse deals with the first stage of the expedition, i.e. a “three days march” which brings the army to the border of the enemy country, viz. to “the plain of Bectileth”, which was apparently the site of a base-camp close to the general area of military operations (similar to the camp on the plain (of) Esdrelon [Esdraelon] … before the final stage of these operations: iii 10); b) v. 22 relates the opening proper of the military operations, viz. by saying that the army leaves the base-camp on the plain and moves up the mountain-land εἰς τὴν ὀρεινήν c) V. 27: (from this mountain-land) the army “descends into the plain of DAMASCUS”, the territory first to suffer; d) V. 28: the chastisement of the land of DAMASCUS causes a panic in the “coastland” (παραλία) from where several cities mentioned by name send ambassadors to offer submission (iii 1 ff.). As regards the cartographic interpretation of this part of the expedition preceding that attack on Judaea … itself we submit the following remarks: Independently of every hypothesis or reconstruction of Holofernes’ expedition it appears that the transmitted text does not mention Cilicia … (v. 21) as its objective or partial goal. Moreover, “Upper Cilicia” as an indication of the location of “the plain Bectileth” (“Bectileth near the mountain which lies to the left – north – of Upper Cilicia” or Cilicia above the Taurus Mountains) is completely out of the way which starts at NINEVE and is directed towards Syria-Palestine. We suspect, therefore, that τῆς ἄνω Κιλικίας has been inserted (perhaps in replacement of some another original reading) in order to adjust the account of the campaign to the terms of I 7 and I 12. Secondly, “the plain of Bectileth” mentioned as the terminus of the first stage of Holofernes’ advance seems to us simply the Syrian beqã‘ ... between Libanos and Antilibanos … mentioned in I 7. Holofernes’ base-camp was not in the centre of the plain (“ἀπὸ Βεκτιλὲθ” must have developed from or be the remaining part of a statement to this effect) but “near the mountains on the left (north) side”, in other words: at the foot of the Antilibanos … (cp. Its modern name “gebel esh-sherqi”: …). It is this mountain-ridge (ὀρεινή) which the army has to climb (v.22) before “sweeping down (κατέβη) on the plain of DAMASCUS” (V. 27). In the third place the text names (v. 28) the coastal towns, where the fate of DAMASCUS raises a panic. Most of these names create no problems: SIDON = saidã TYRUS = sûr JEMNAA = Jamnia …. AZOTUS = isdûd …. ASCALON = ‘asqalãn …. Some mss. add: GAZA = ghazzeh. Though Simons does not specify here to which particular ‘mss.’ he is referring, Moore tells us that “LXXs, OL, and Syr add “and Gaza”.” …. Simons continues: The remaining two are obscure. OCINA seems to have been somewhere between TYRUS and JEMNAA and is for this reason usually identified with ‘ACCO = ‘akkã …. which neither because of the name itself nor on the ground of its location … can be reasonably considered to render Hebrew “DOR” … is probably but a duplicate of TYRUS (cp. Hebr: SOR). It is possible that the distinction between the island-city and the settlement on the mainland (Palaetyrus) accounts for the duplication. [End of quotes] Further down p. 51, and continuing on to p. 52, I wrote – again making reference to Simons: The next crucial stopping point of the Assyrian army after its raids on the region of Damascus will effectively be its last: “Then [Holofernes] came toward Esdraelon, near Dothan, facing the great ridge of Judea; he camped between Geba and Scythopolis, and remained for a whole month in order to collect all the supplies for his army” (v. 9). Simons thinks that the reference in the Vulgate to the Assyrians coming at this stage to “the Idumæans into the land of Gabaa” (3:14) should more appropriately be rendered “the Judæans ... Gabaa”. …. Gabaa would then correspond to the Geba of the Septuagint in the Esdraelon (Jezreel) plain. (It has of course no connection at all with the ‘Geba’ discussed on p. 6 of the previous chapter, which was just to the north of Jerusalem). Judah’s reabsorbing of this northern region (Esdraelon) into its kingdom would have greatly annoyed Sennacherib, who had previously spoken of “the wide province of Judah” (rapshu nagû (matu) Ya-û-di). …. Naturally the Israelites would have been anticipating (from what Joel called the “northern army”) a first assault in the north. And that this was so is clear from the fact that the leaders in Jerusalem had ordered the people to seize the mountain defiles in Samaria as well as those in Judah ([Book of Judith] 4:1-2; 4-5): When the Israelites living in Judea heard how Holofernes, general-in-chief of Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians, had treated the various nations, first plundering their temples and then destroying them, they were thoroughly alarmed at his approach and trembled for Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord their God. … They therefore alerted the whole of Samaria, Kona, Beth-horon, Belmain, Jericho, Choba, Aesora and the Salem valley. They occupied the summits of the highest mountains and fortified the villages on them; they laid in supplies for the coming war, as the fields had just been harvested. Here we encounter that “Salem valley” region that I believe was, rather than Jerusalem, the location of the great Melchizedek. I continue now with Charles Torrey’s article, where he has just noted the crucial strategic importance of Bethulia (p. 162): This city could 'hold the pass' through which it was necessary that Holofernes, having once chosen this southward route, should lead his army in order to invade Judea and attack Jerusalem. This is plainly stated in iv. 7: …. "And Joachim wrote, charging them to hold the pass of the hill-country; for through it was the entrance into Judea, and it would be easy to stop them as they came up, because the approach was narrow”. When the people of Betylūa comply with the request of the high priest and the elders of Jerusalem, and hold the pass. (iv. 8), they do so simply by remaining in their own city, prepared to resist the approach of Holofernes. So long as they continue stubborn, and refuse to surrender or to let the enemy pass, so long their purpose is accomplished, and Jerusalem and the sanctuary are safe. This is made as plain as possible in all the latter part of the book; see especially viii, 21 ff., where Judith is indignantly opposing the counsel of the chief men of the city to surrender: "For if we be taken, all Judea will be taken … and our sanctuary will be spoiled; and of our blood will he require its profanation. And the slaughter of our brethren, and the captivity of the land, and the desolation of our inheritance, will he turn upon our heads among the nations wheresoever we shall be in bondage. And we shall be an offence and a reproach in the eyes of those who have taken us captive .... Let us show an example to our brethren, because their lives hang upon us, and upon us rest the sanctuary and the house and the altar." That is, the city which the writer of this story had in mind lay directly in the path of Holofernes, at the head of the most important pass in the region, through which he must necessarily lead his army. There is no escape from this conclusion. After making this emphatic statement, Torrey will refer to two other sites “which have been most frequently thought of as possible sites of the city, Sanur and Mithiliyeh” (see below). The latter of these, Mithiliyeh, or Mithilia, was my own choice for Judith’s Bethulia - following Claude Reignier Conder - when writing my thesis, but it was based more on a romantic view of things rather than on any solid military strategy – though the name fit had seemed to be quite solid. Thus I wrote (pp. 70-71): Conder identified this Misilya - he calls it Mithilia (or Meselieh) - as Bethulia itself: … Meselieh … A small village, with a detached portion to the north, and placed on a slope, with a hill to the south, and surrounded by good olive-groves, with an open valley called Wâdy el Melek (“the King’s Valley’) on the north. The water-supply is from wells, some of which have an ancient appearance. They are mainly supplied with rain-water. In 1876 I proposed to identify the village of Meselieh, or Mithilia, south of Jenin, with the Bethulia of the Book of Judith, supposing the substitution of M for B, of which there are occasional instances in Syrian nomenclature. The indications of the site given in the Apocrypha are tolerably distinct. Bethulia stood on a hill, but not apparently on the top, which is mentioned separately (Judith vi. 12). There were springs or wells beneath the town (verse 11), and the houses were above these (verse 13). The city stood in the hill-country not far from the plain (verse 11), and apparently near Dothan (Judith iv. 6). The army of Holofernes was visible when encamped near Dothan (Judith vii. 3, 4), by the spring in the valley near Bethulia (verses 3-7). ‘The site usually supposed to represent Bethulia – namely, the strong village of Sanûr – does not fulfil these various requisites; but the topography of the Book of Judith, as a whole, is so consistent and easily understood, that it seems that Bethulia was an actual site’. Visiting Mithilia on our way to Shechem … we found a small ruinous village on the slope of the hill. Beneath it are ancient wells, and above it a rounded hill-top, commanding a tolerably extensive view. The north-east part of the great plain, Gilboa, Tabor, and Nazareth, are clearly seen. West of these are neighbouring hillsides Jenin and Wâdy Bel’ameh (the Belmaim, probably of the narrative); but further west Carmel appears behind the ridge of Sheikh Iskander, and part of the plain of ‘Arrabeh, close to Dothan, is seen. A broad corn-vale, called “The King’s Valley”, extends north-west from Meselieh toward Dothan, a distance of only 3 miles. There is a low shed formed by rising ground between two hills, separating this valley from the Dothain [Dothan] plain; and at the latter site is the spring beside which, probably, the Assyrian army is supposed by the old Jewish novelist to have encamped. In imagination one might see the stately Judith walking through the down-trodden corn-fields and shady olive-groves, while on the rugged hillside above the men of the city “looked after her until she was gone down the mountain, and till she had passed the valley, and could see her no more”. (Judith x 10) – C. R. C., ‘Quarterly Statement’, July, 1881. [End of quotes] But Torrey tells us why neither Mithilia, nor Sanur, would even have figured in the march of Holofernes (p. 163): This absolutely excludes the two places which have been most frequently thought of as possible sites of the city, Sanur and Mithiliyeh, both midway between Geba and Genin. Sanur, though a natural fortress, is perched on a hill west of the road, and "guards no pass whatever" (Robinson, Biblical Researches, iii. 152 f.). As for Mithiliyeh, first suggested by Conder in 1876 (see Survey of Western Palestine, ‘Memoirs’, ii. 156 f.), it is even less entitled to consideration, for it lies nearly two miles east of the caravan track; guarding no pass, and of little or no strategic importance. Evidently, the attitude, hostile or friendly, of this remote village would be a matter of indifference to a great invading army on its way to attack Jerusalem. Its inhabitants, while simply defending themselves at home, certainly could not have held the fate of Judea in their hands; nor could it ever have occurred to the writer of such a story as this to represent them as doing so. He the proceeds to contrast the inappropriateness of these sites with the significant Shechem: Again, having once accepted the plain statement of the writer that the army during its halt extended from Scythopolis to Geba, there is the obvious objection to each and all of the places in this region which have been suggested as possible sites of Betylūa (see those recorded in G. A. Smith, /. c, p. 356, note 2; Buhl, Geographie des alien Paldstina, p. 201, note), that they are all north of Geba. From the sequel of the story we should be led to look for the pass occupied by Betylūa at some place on the main road not yet reached by the army. It is plainly not the representation of the writer that a part of the host of Holofernes had already passed it. And finally, Betylūa is unquestionably represented as a large and important city. This fact is especially perplexing, in view of the total absence of any other mention of it. Outside of this one story the name is entirely unknown. On the other hand, nothing can be more certain than that the author of the book of Judith had an actual city in mind when he wrote. Modern scholars are generally agreed in this conclusion, that whatever may be said of the historical character of the narrative, the description of Betylūa and the surrounding country is not a fiction. Shechem, he says, “meets exactly the essential requirements of the story” – it and no other site in the entire area (p. 164): … no other city between Jezreel and Jerusalem can compete with [Shechem] for a moment in this respect. When the advance guard of Holofernes' army halted in the broad valley below Geba, it was within four hours' march of the most important pass in all Palestine, namely that between Ebal and Gerizim. Moreover, this was the one pass through which the army would now be compelled to proceed, after it had once turned westward at Bethshan and chosen the route southward through Genin. We see now why the narrator makes Holofernes encamp "between Scythopolis and Geba." It is a good illustration of the skill which he displays in telling this story. Having advanced so far as this, it was too late for the ‘Assyrians’ to choose another road. As for the city Shechem, which was planted squarely in the middle of the narrow valley at the summit of the pass … its attitude toward the invaders would be a matter of no small importance. As to why Shechem might be called “Bethulia” in the Book of Judith, the explanation may be in the following statement by Dr. John Osgood: “W. Ross in Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1941), p. 22–27 reasoned, I believe correctly, that the Bethel of Jeroboam must be Shechem, since it alone fills the requirements”. https://creation.com/techlets Both the unidentified woman of Judges 9, and Judith, will slay a male foe, attacking the enemy’s head, in the environs of Shechem. God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them. Judges 9:56-57 ‘Woe to the nations that rise up against my people! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment; he will send fire and worms into their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever’. Judith 16:17 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; she will crush your head, and you will strike her heel. Genesis 3:15