Part Two:
Were northern Israelite
captives involved?
“The
city of Halah, or Halahhu, in which Israelites were resettled was therefore
located
just
outside Sargon’s new capital city complex. Amazingly, in spite of this
knowledge, apparently no one -- historian, scholar, or archaeologist -- has
ever examined
this
Halahhu city mound area. There seems to be no effort to trace lost Israel!”
Jory Steven Brooks
The only preliminary comment that
I (Damien Mackey) would need to make regarding this interesting piece by Jory Steven Brooks:
The Book 2
Kings ch.17 v.6 reveals that one of the places to which Israel was transplanted
was called, "Halah." Little has been written about this in Christian
literature, and some scholars plead ignorance as to the correct location of
this place of exile. However, the Anchor Bible Dictionary (III. 25) tells us
that this word matches letter for letter with the Assyrian district of
"Halahhu," except for the doubling of the last "h" and the
addition of the characteristic Assyrian "u" case ending. The latter
is not unusual, because the Biblical Haran (Genesis 11:32, 12:4-5, 28:10
& 29:4) appears in Assyrian as "Haranu", and Ur, the
birthplace of Abraham (Genesis 11:28 and 31, 15:7 and Nehemiah 9:7), is written
as Uru.
This district
of Halahhu was located north-east of the city of Nineveh in northern Assyria. A
map shown in the Rand-McNally Bible Atlas (1956) indicates that Halahhu covered
all of the area from Nineveh to the Zagros Mountains to the north and
north-east (p. 244-5). In the midst of this district, King Sargon II purchased
land along the Khosr River from the inhabitants of the small non-Assyrian town
of Maganuba to build a new capital city. This new city was named Dur-Sharrukin,
the Fortress of Sargon; it is better known today as Khorsabad after the modern
small village of that name built on part of the ruins.
Halahhu was
also the name of a city as well as a district. The Rand-McNally Bible Atlas (p.
297-8), informs us,
"Halah
lay northeast of Nineveh, which city at a slightly later day had a gate named
the 'gate of the land of Halah' [Halahhu]. Since there is reason to believe
that the city lay between Nineveh and Sargon’s new capital [Khorsabad], the
large mound of Tell Abassiyeh has been nominated for it. ….."
The city of
Halah, or Halahhu, in which Israelites were resettled was therefore located
just outside Sargon’s new capital city complex. Amazingly, in spite of this
knowledge, apparently no one -- historian, scholar, or archaeologist -- has
ever examined this Halahhu city mound area. There seems to be no effort to
trace lost Israel! Is it perhaps because of the popular myth in books and
journals that no Israelites were ever exiled or lost?
The reasons
why Sargon moved the capital of Assyria from Nimrud to the new city of
Dur-Sharrukin has been a fertile subject for speculation among scholars.
Historians believe that his predecessor, Shalmaneser V, was murdered in
Palestine during the siege of Samaria. The exact date of Shalmaneser’s death is
unknown, but it may have been in 721 BC, because Sargon claimed to be the
conqueror of the capital of Israel. If Sargon was in some way involved in the
conspiracy that enabled him to seize power (an obvious supposition), he may
have disdained ruling in the palace of his predecessor. Another possibility is
that Sargon wished to expand the borders of Assyria northward into the sparsely
inhabited Zagros Mountains, its foothills and valleys, to strengthen his
northern border.
Whatever the
reasons, a marvellous palace complex came into being almost a mile square,
twelve miles north-east of Nineveh along the Khosr River. It was a massive
building project. Assyrian scholar William R. Gallagher tells us that in
Assyrian terms, Dur-Sharrukin was 2,935 dunams in size, compared to the city of
Jerusalem at only 600 dunams (Sennacherib’s Campaign, p. 263). Yet this
accomplishment was in spite of the fact that Assyria had a massive labour shortage:
"At least
two letters to Sargon indicate a shortage of manpower. In one letter the sender
complained that the magnates had not replaced his dead and invalid soldiers.
These amounted to at least 1,200 men. The second letter, probably from
Taklak-ana-Bel, governor of Nasibina, reports a scarcity of troops"
(ibid., p.266).
This labour
shortage was partly due to the massive capital building project, but also
because of a deadly epidemic resembling the bubonic plague that later raged
across Europe in the fourteenth century AD. The Akkadian word for it was
"mutanu", the plural of "mutu," meaning death. This
epidemic struck not just once, but several times (802, 765, 759, and 707 BC)
with deadly effect. Historical records indicate that this plague had so
decimated the Assyrian army by 706 BC that they were unable to engage in any
military missions at all that year (ibid., p. 267).
The Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago carried out an archaeological excavation
at the site of Dur-Sharrukin during the years 1930-33, and published an account
of their discoveries in a volume written by Henri Frankfort which says the
following:
"We know
that Sargon used a considerable amount of forced labor in the building of his
capital -- captives and colonists from other parts of the empire" (p. 89).
Assyrian
scholar Gallagher adds:
"Sargon
II’s cumbersome building projects at Dur-Sharrukin had placed a great strain on
the empire...Much of the forced labor on Sargon‘s new city was done by
prisoners of war. The conditions shown on Sennacherib’s palace wall reliefs for
the transport of his bull colossi were undoubtedly the same as in Sargon‘s
time. They show forced laborers under great exertion, some clearly exhausted,
being driven by taskmasters with sticks" (ibid., p. 265).
Mackey’s comment
re: “The conditions shown on Sennacherib’s palace
wall reliefs for the transport of his bull colossi were undoubtedly the same as
in Sargon’s time”.
Sargon II was Sennacherib:
Assyrian
King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib
Jory Steven Brooks
continues:
A text
inscribed upon a carved stone bull at Dur-Sharrukin states,
"He
[Sargon] swept away Samaria, and the whole house of Omri" (Records Of The
Past, XI:18).
The
"House of Omri" was the Assyrian designation for Israel, and was
spoken with a guttural applied to the first vowel, so that it was pronounced
"Khumri." Following Sargon’s terse statement was a notice of the
building of the new Assyrian capital city. Construction of Dur-Sharrukin began
in 717 BC, only four years after the fall of Samaria, and took over ten years,
with ceremonies marking its completion in 706 BC.
Although
there is no record of the exact date that the Assyrians marched the Israelite
residents of Samaria eastward to Halah(hu), it is probable that Sargon knew
from the beginning of his rule (or even before he became king) that he would
build his palace in that location. Did he send the Israelites there in order to
help build his new city, the capital of Assyria? If not, why were they there
during these years of construction? Although proof does not exist at present,
the correlation of location and dates, coupled with the great need for
labourers, makes it highly probable that YEHOVAH’s people were involved.
And how
appropriate was the symbolism resulting from this circumstance! Israel was called
to build the Kingdom of YEHOVAH God on earth, but refused. They turned their
hearts to false gods and worshipped the work of men’s hands. Because of this,
YEHOVAH used the Assyrians, perhaps the foremost pagan idolaters, to punish his
people. Those who had been offered the highest honour of building YEHOVAH’s
earthly dominion instead were consigned the deepest dishonour of building the
earthly dominion of the enemies of YEHOVAH God.
Many of the
wall reliefs, stone idols, and other important finds from Dur-Sharrukin are now
on display at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Included is a massive stone
winged bull termed in Assyrian, "Lamassu," that formerly stood at the
doorway to King Sargon’s throne room. The carving and moving of several of
these monstrous stone monuments was undoubtedly one of the most amazing feats
of human labour. They were composite figures, with a human face, a body that
was part bull, part lion, and wings of a bird. The king was thus symbolically
empowered with the formidable qualities of speed, power, and intelligence.
Part Three:
Was Sargon II
aware of Solomon’s cherubs?
“…
it appears that cherubs are a kind of divine guard. This fits in with the
description
of
the cherubs in Solomon’s Temple as well (1 Kings 6:23-28), which were ten
cubits (approximately twenty two feet) high”.
Dr. Rabbi Zev
Farber
Sargon II’s lamassu at Khorsabad were apparently slightly
less than fourteen feet high:
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Form:
high relief sculpture from a monolithic stone of gypseous alabaster
13'9" tall
It stands more than 4 meters high by 4 meters wide
and is a meter in depth
Human headed winged bulls were very large protective
genies called shedu/ lamassu, and were placed as guardians at certain
gates/ doorways of the city and the palace.
Carved from a single block
the original position of these winged bulls: This
one formed the left jamb of Door K in the palace
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Function:
Guardian figures at the city and citadel gates
symbol of the king's power
also architectural purpose to hold up an arch to enter the citadel
Protective spiritual guardians were placed on either side of these entrances
to act as guardians.
They also had a strictly architectural function, as they bore some of the
weight of the arch above An inscription on two panels between the hind
legs of the bull: praises the ruler by rehearsing his virtues and calls down
a curse on who ever should seek to harm the edifice
Symbols combining man, bull, and bird, they offered protection against
enemies.
…...
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Whilst
Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber will adopt the standard view, that the biblical accounts
had borrowed from the pagan world, might it not have been the other way around
considering that cherubim (כְּרֻבִ֑ים) guardians
were known as far back as the days of Adam (Genesis 3:24) and, afterwards, Moses
(Numbers 7:89), long before Sargon II?
….
Modern scholarship approaches
the topic of cherubs both by looking at the contextual clues from the biblical
stories (similar to what ibn Ezra and Bekhor Shor did) and by looking at the
ancient Near Eastern evidence.
Keruvim and Karibu
The name kerub seems to be a loanword from the
Akkadian karibu.[11] The word karibu is a noun derived from the Akkadian
root karābu, which means “bless.” The karibu are the blessed ones; they were genies or lower level divine
beings who function as supplicants, standing before the god and praying on
behalf of others. The karibu were generally pictured as colossal bulls.[12] Apparently, the Torah incorporates the
Akkadian concept of karibu in the Hebraicized cherub. But was their function there same
as their Mesopotamian antecedents? Biblical accounts offer a variety of
answers.[13]
Image 1 – Guards
As noted earlier, Genesis 3:24
suggests that God stations Cherubim outside the garden of Eden to prevent Adam
and Eve from trying to re-enter.
He drove the man out, and stationed
east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to
guard the way to the tree of life.
From this source, it appears
that cherubs are a kind of divine guard. This fits in with the description of
the cherubs in Solomon’s Temple as well (1 Kings 6:23-28), which were ten
cubits (approximately twenty two feet) high.
Unlike the cherubs of the Ark,
they were gigantic in size and instead of facing each other they both faced the
door. The effect of such a display would be to intimidate people, forcing those
who enter the room to be somber and frightening off unauthorized people who
might be curious. [14]
Solomon’s daunting cherubs (as
well as the cherubs outside the garden of Eden) are highly reminiscent of the
Ancient Near Eastern practice of placing giant statues of heavenly beasts,
called karibu, apkallu (from Sumerian Abgal), lamassu, sheddu,[15] or alad-lammu outside
of palaces.
 Figure
1 – Assyrian Style Lamassu Guards from Nimrud (now in the Louvre)
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Although this is true for
Solomon’s cherubs, the cherubs on the Ark, however, do not seem to be guards,
since they face each other not the outside, and are small and hardly
intimidating. ….
