A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah
by
Damien F. Mackey
Part One:
A conventional overview of this period
My
intention in this series will be to contrast the conventional king-lists for
Judah; Egypt-Ethiopia; and Assyro-Babylonia for this period (c. 716 – c. 596
BC) with my recently revised version of it which will lop off almost half a
century from this approximately 120–year span.
{The following dates are all conventional, and approximate only, BC dates}
Later Kings of Judah
Hezekiah 716-687
Manasseh 687-643
Amon 643-641
Josiah 641-609
[Jehoahaz]
Jehoiakim 608-596
Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) 596
Later Pharaohs of Egypt-Ethiopia
Piye 744-714
Shebitku 714-705
Shabaka 705-690
Taharqa
(Tirhakah) 690-664 Necho I 672-664
Tantamani 664-653 Psamtik I 664-610 Necho
II 610-595
Psamtik
II 595-
Neo-Assyrian-Babylonian Kings
Sargon II 722-705
Sennacherib 705-681
Esarhaddon 681-669
Ashurbanipal 669-627
Ashur-etil-ilani 631-627
Sin-shumu-lishir 626
Sin-shar-ishkun 627-612
Nabopolassar 626-605
Nebuchednezzar
II 605-562
….
Part Two (i): Sorting out later kings of
Judah
Looking at the conventional version
of the:
Later Kings
of Judah
Hezekiah
716-687
Manasseh
687-643
Amon
643-641
Josiah
641-609
[Jehoahaz]
Jehoiakim
608-596
Jehoiachin
(Jeconiah) 596
I can see some serious problems
here, but also, now, I perceive the need to re-organise various things.
Hezekiah
With the Fall of Samaria
conventionally dated to c. 722/21 BC, then the favoured date these days for the
beginning of the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah, c. 716 BC, is blatantly
contrary to the flat statement of the OT (e.g. 2 Kings 18:10): “Three years later, during the sixth year of King Hezekiah's
reign and the ninth year of King Hoshea's reign in Israel, Samaria fell”. The Bible here assists us
with a 3-way synchronism (Hezekiah; Hoshea; and Fall of Samaria) which
scholars, though, choose completely to brush aside, they preferring to follow
the confusing and erroneous (neo-Assyrian-based) chronology of Edwin R. Thiele, in The Mysterious Numbers
of the Hebrew Kings.
If the Fall of Samaria is to be
dated c. 722 BC (a conventional date which will end up in the long run being
hopelessly inaccurate – but which can serve as a ‘sighter’ for the time being),
then King Hezekiah’s regnal beginning has to be set at c. 729/8 BC, and not at
716 BC.
More will be said on King
Hezekiah later, as we find an important regal alter ego for
him.
Manasseh
Although Manasseh would indeed
continue on for 55 years, it now needs to be understood (and this is certainly
radical) that more
than forty of those years were spent in Babylonian (and
probably also Susan) captivity.
This situation serves to explain
why the prophet Jeremiah could point the finger at (the conventionally well
dead) Manasseh as the cause of the Jewish deportations (Jeremiah 15:4): “And I will cause
them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son
of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem”.
More will be said on Manasseh
later, as we find a regal alter ego for him.
Amon
How could this young king of only
two years of reign in Jerusalem have gone down in biblical history as being
even worse than his long-reigning father, Manasseh?
Thus 2 Chronicles 33:21-23:
Amon was twenty-two years old when
he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. He did evil in
the eyes of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done. Amon worshiped and offered
sacrifices to all the idols Manasseh had made. But
unlike his father Manasseh, he did not humble himself before the Lord; Amon increased his guilt.
Once again the explanation lies
in the facts that (i) the king continued on for a very long time in captivity,
and (ii) he acquired a very nasty alter ego.
For a full account of all of
this, see my article:
King Amon's
descent into Aman (Haman)
‘Alter egos’
now come into play
While I accept this standard
sequence of Judaean kings so far, Hezekiah, father of Manasseh, father of Amon,
I now believe that the remaining kings, Josiah, Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, are
simply duplicates of the first trio, so that:
Hezekiah = Josiah;
Manasseh = Jehoiakim;
Amon = Jehoiachin.
Sorting
out some complications
There are complications, though,
as I have discussed before, insofar as various biblical texts, including
Matthew’s ‘Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah’, give Amon as the father of Josiah
(Matthew 1:10), plus the fact that different names are given for the mothers of
kings who I am arguing are duplicates.
Some versions of Matthew 1:10,
however, give “Amos” as the father of Josiah, and Amos is a name very different
from the apparently Egyptian name, Amon - probably given to Jehoiachin by his
Egypt-leaning father, Jehoiakim, or by the pharaoh:
Jehoiakim, who was 25 when he ascended the throne
(according to I Chron. 3:15 he was the second son of Josiah), was most likely
selected because of his known support of a pro-Egyptian policy. Jehoiakim's
original name Eliakim was changed by the Pharaoh in order to indicate the
Judahite king's subservience to Egypt (II Kings 23:34; II Chron. 36:4). Egypt
also imposed a heavy tax on Judah – 100 talents of silver and a talent of gold
– which Jehoiakim exacted by levying a tax upon all people of the land (II
Kings 23:33, 35).
Father’s
names
I would now re-identify this
“Amos” with Ahaz - whether this was another name for Ahaz, or simply a scribal
error, perhaps a confusion with Amon - thus refining my above list to:
Ahaz = Amos;
Hezekiah = Josiah;
Manasseh = Jehoiakim;
Amon = Jehoiachin.
The fact that the various kings
of Judah at this time had more than the one name (e.g., Jehoiakim was formerly
Eliakim, 2 Kings 23:34; Zedekiah was formerly Mattaniah, 2 Kings 24:17) assists
me somewhat in my case for alter egos.
Mothers’
names
The differing names of the women
(mothers) can be accounted for, at least to some extent, by the fact that
sometimes a woman was named “mother” who was not the biological mother. King
Amon was, for instance, in his guise as the evil Haman (see above article on
“Haman”) the “son of Hammedatha” (Esther 3:1); Hammedatha, a woman, being the
mother of Amon’s (i.e., Jehoiachin’s) uncles (Jehoahaz and Zedekiah), as
(queen) Ham[m]utal (cf. 2 Kings 23:31 and 24:18).
In the case of my Manasseh =
Jehoiakim identification, Manasseh’s mother (2 Kings 21:1), Hephzibah, could
perhaps be the same person as king Jehoiakim’s mother (2 Kings 23:36):
“[Jehoiakim’s]
mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah; she was from Rumah”.
Heph-zibah = Zebi-dah?
According
to 2 Kings 18:2: “[Hezekiah’s] mother’s name was Abijah [or Abi], daughter of
Zechariah”, whilst (his alter ego) “[Josiah’s] mother’s name was Jedidah
daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath”.
The
latter, I find, bears some resemblance to Jehoiakim’s [= Manasseh’s] mother, “Zebidah
daughter of Pedaiah” – compare with “Jedidah daughter of Adaiah”.
The location of Rumah (for Jehoiakim’s mother)
“is disputed” (Nadav Na’aman, Ancient Israel and Its Neighbors: Interaction and
Counteraction, p. 355).
Previously we found that certain
complications inevitably arise from my re-casting of the later kings of Judah
as follows:
Ahaz = Amos;
Hezekiah = Josiah;
Manasseh = Jehoiakim;
Amon = Jehoiachin.
But I was also gratified to find
that, with regard to my dependence upon alter egos for
my reconstruction, some of the kings of Judah at the time were biblically known
to have had more than the one name.
We also found that, whilst
mother’s names may appear to be inconsistent with my revision, at least one of
those designated as a “mother” of a particular king was not in fact his
biological mother, but was the mother of that king’s uncles.
The complications that arise from
my revision do become more severe, though, for this next category:
Regnal
years, ages at accession
In the case of Amon = Jehoiachin,
the differences in regnal years and ages at commencement of reign can fairly
easily be accounted for by co-regency, as I have already suggested.
And, whilst the 55-years of reign
attributed to Manasseh (2 Kings 21:1) far outnumber the eleven years attributed
to (my alter ego
for him) Jehoiakim (2 Kings 23:36), the count of Manasseh’s years continued on,
as I have suggested, into his long captivity in Babylon.
In the same way, Jehoiachin’s
reign of only “three months” in Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:8), will be extended to
his “thirty-seventh year” in captivity in 2 Kings 25:27.
However, there is a big
discrepancy, much harder to account for, in the case of my:
Hezekiah
= Josiah.
“[Hezekiah] was twenty-five years old
when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years” (2 King
18:2).
“Josiah was eight years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years (2 Kings 22:1)”.
At
this stage, I do not have a satisfactory solution to this very large
discrepancy in age at accession (25 years versus 8 years).
Added
to this is the fact that Sirach praises Hezekiah (48:17-22) and Josiah (49:1-3)
as if referring to two separate kings, concluding with (49:4): “Except for
David and Hezekiah and Josiah, all of them were great sinners, for they
abandoned the law of the Most High; the kings of Judah came to an end”.
Places
of burial
Francesca
Stavrakopoulou provides a useful comment on the burials of the kings in
question in this article, “Exploring the Garden of Uzza: Death, Burial and
Ideologies of Kingship”: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/42614642.pdf
As is well known, almost every
Judahite monarch up to and including Ahaz is said to have been buried
"with his ancestors in the City of David" (2), whilst the burial
notices for Ahaz's successors are either inconsistent or non-existent: Manasseh
is buried "in the garden of his house in the Garden of Uzza" (2 Kgs
21,18); Amon's body is interred "in his tomb in the Garden of Uzza"
(21 ,26); Josiah is buried "in his tomb" (23,30); the resting places
of Hezekiah and Jehoiakim go unmentioned though their deaths are acknowledged
(20,21; 24,6); Jehoahaz is said to die whilst in Egyptian captivity (23,34);
and neither the deaths nor the burials of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah are noted.
Given the important theological and narrative functions of the death and burial
notices in emphasizing the continuity of the Davidic dynasty (3), these variations
have proved problematic for many commentators. ….
Interestingly, here, the two
kings of Judah who went into long captivity, Manasseh and Amon, were buried in
the same place, in their palace garden (“the Garden of Uzza”).
Considering that Amon, as Haman,
was killed in his palace, in Susa, then this unknown “Garden” must have been
situated in Susa.
And that would explain why
neither Manasseh, nor Amon, was buried - like their ancestors were - “in the
City of David”.
‘The death and burial of king
Jehoiachin is not noted’ because these details have been noted in two other
instances, in the cases of Jehoiachin’s alter egos, (i)
Amon:
(2 Kings 21:23-24): “Amon’s officials
conspired against him and assassinated the king in his palace. Then the people
of the land killed all who had plotted against King Amon, and they made Josiah
his son king in his place”.
and (ii) Haman:
(Esther 7:9-10): “Then Harbona, one
of the eunuchs attending the king, said, ‘A pole reaching to a height of fifty
cubits stands by Haman’s house [palace]. He had it set up for Mordecai, who
spoke up to help the king’. The king said, ‘Impale him on it!’ So they impaled
Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai. Then the king’s fury subsided”.
“The
people of the land” who then avenged Amon would have been the people of the
land of Susa, some of whom would eventually swing over to the side of the Jews:
The Book of Esther tells that many of the peoples of the land became
Jews or passed themselves off as Jews. While the obvious motive for this
behavior was fear of the new Jewish power, the result was that people now saw
Jews as a religious community that all could join, not just a tribe living in a
certain land.
Part Two (ii):
Benefits from sorting out later kings of
Judah
What are some of these benefits?
For one, with
several of the later kings of Judah now identified as duplicates, namely:
Ahaz = Amos;
Hezekiah = Josiah;
Manasseh = Jehoiakim;
Amon = Jehoiachin,
then certain kings of Judah
inexplicably omitted from Matthew’s Genealogy can be re-instated. I refer to
kings Joash (Jehoash) and Amaziah, and possibly even their predecessor Ahaziah.
And, does king Jehoiachin (= Amon
= Haman) need to figure anymore in Matthew’s Genealogy, considering that he and
his sons were all slain?
This latter situation may also be
the key to Daniel 9:26: “… an anointed one will be put to death and will have
nothing”.
Secondly,
with Hezekiah now expanded to include Josiah, this
would fill out an important king of Judah who almost seems to disappear from
the scene after only his 14th year.
That Hezekiah, Josiah, shared the
same officials is apparent from this:
Chart 37
Comparison of Hezekiah and Josiah Narratives
which I accept in general –
though not in every detail.
Hezekiah’s merging with Josiah
would solve problems like this legitimate one:
Hezekiah
trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the
kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the LORD and
did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the LORD had given Moses.
Neither
before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he
did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in
accordance with all the Law of Moses.
How can
the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah both be the greatest, especially when it is
said of both that neither before nor after him was there a king like him? Is
this a contradiction?
[End of quotes]
Thirdly,
with the eras of Hezekiah, of Josiah, now crunched
together, the respective great prophets, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, would become
contemporaneous.
This enables for Isaiah’s
“Suffering Servant”, so reminiscent of the prophet Jeremiah (but culminating perfectly
in Jesus Christ), to be Jeremiah, now personally known to Isaiah (Jeremiah’s
older contemporary).
Fourthly,
the traditionally well attested ‘Martyrdom of
Isaiah’ at the hands of king Manasseh - unknown, however, from the biblical
record of Manasseh, qua Manasseh - can be found in the martyrdom of
the prophet Uriah (Urijah) at the hands of Manasseh’s alter ego, king
Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 26:23).
Fifthly,
Manasseh’s identification with Jehoiakim would
explain why Jeremiah could attribute to Manasseh - instead of Jehoiakim - the
guilt for the deportations of the Jews (Jeremiah 15:4).
Sixthly,
we can now count the regnal years of Manasseh
through the eleven years of Jehoiakim (the latter’s 4th
corresponding with the 1st of king Nebuchednezzar, Jeremiah 25:1),
through Nebuchednezzar’s 43rd (= Manasseh’s 46th); 3-4 of
Evil-Merodach (= Manasseh’s 50th); and on for approximately another
5 years into the Medo-Persian era. This means that:
Seventhly,
Manasseh can now likely be identified with the
“Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah” (Ezra 1:8), who returns briefly to restore to
Jerusalem the treasures stolen by the Babylonians, but who dies a few years
later and is buried in the “Garden of Uzza”, in Susa (as I have estimated),
where the executed king Amon (Haman) will later be buried.
Part Three:
Merging pharaoh Necho I and pharaoh Necho
II
If king Hezekiah of Judah is to
be identified with king Josiah, as according to this series, then it becomes
inevitable that there can be only one pharaoh Necho, and that Necho so-called
II, who killed Josiah, must be the same as Necho I of the approximate era of
king Hezekiah.
Art historians find it hard to
determine whether a pharaonic statue represents Necho I or II. Moreover, Necho
I is poorly known – as is apparent from the following:
This sculpture [see next page] probably
belonged to a group showing the king presenting an offering to a god. The
inscription indicates that the royal figure was King Necho. Two [sic] Saite
rulers had this name, the little-known Necho I and the more celebrated Necho II
in whose reign the Egyptians circumnavigated Africa and attempted to link the
Mediterranean and Red seas with a canal. Which Necho is represented is not
known.
Again, we do not know at least
the Horus Name, Nebty Name, or Golden Horus Name, of pharaoh Necho I: http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn26/01nekau1.html
It becomes inevitable now, also,
that Psamtik (Psammetichus) I, son of Necho I, be identified with Psamtik
(Psammetichus) II, son of Necho II.
Part Four:
Merging neo-Assyrians and neo-Babylonians
If pharaoh Necho I is to be
identified with pharaoh Necho II, as according to this series, then it becomes
inevitable now that Necho I’s Mesopotamian contemporaries, Esarhaddon and
Ashurbanipal, must be the same as Necho II’s Mesopotamian contemporaries,
respectively Nabopolassar and Nebuchednezzar II.
For more on this, see e.g. my
article:
Ashurbanipal the Great
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