Two kings “Tirhakah"?
by
Damien F. Mackey
“In
701, when Sennacherib had ravaged the whole land and had Jerusalem
under
blockade (ch. 1:4-9), if words mean anything (“Why be beaten any more, [why]
continue rebellion?” v. 5), [Isaiah] counseled surrender; and ch. 22:1-14 ...
suggests
that nothing in the course of these events had caused him to alter his
evaluation of the national character and policy. It is not easy to believe that in this very same year he also counseled
defiance and promised deliverance”.
J. Bright, A History of Israel
In Ch. IX of The Sabbath and Jubilee Cycle, “The Identity of Tirhakah”, we read
of this bifurcation of pharaoh Tirhakah: http://www.yahweh.org/publications/sjc/sj09Chap.pdf
The Tirhakah of Scriptures was not Khu-Re´ Nefertem
Tirhakah of Dynasty XXV of Egypt. It is true that both were Ethiopians, and
that the Ethiopians controlled Egypt during the latter half of the eighth and early
part of the seventh centuries B.C.E. But here the similarity ends. Historians
have simply ignored the fact that Kush was ruled by a confederation of kings
and that two of these kings from the same general period both carried the name Tirhakah.
A close examination and analysis of the relevant ancient records reveals the
existence of two Kushite kings name Tirhakah – Khu-Re´ Nefertem Tirhakah and
Tsawi Tirhakah Warada Nagash – one a pharaoh of Egypt and the other a king of Kush. Evidence will also show that Tsawi
Tirhakah is better known under the name Snefer-Ra Piankhi. ....
The author of this piece is of
the opinion that Sennacherib king of Assyria, a contemporary of “Tirhakah king
of Ethiopia” (Isaiah 37:9), had waged only the one campaign against Israel – a
view that is completely at variance with the findings of my university thesis:
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
According to this thesis, king Sennacherib’s
highly successful campaign against Judah, his Third Campaign, cannot possibly be equated with the disastrous
campaign when 185,000 Assyrians marched to their demise in Israel.
Here is part of what I then wrote
(Volume Two, pp. 1-2):
Distinguishing
Sennacherib’s Two Major Invasions
We are now well equipped it would seem to answer with
conviction an age-long question as formulated by Bright:1156 “The
account of Sennacherib’s actions against Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:13 to 19:37
(//Isa., ch.36f.) presents a difficult problem. Does it contain the record of
one campaign or two?” The answer is, according to the revised history that was
developed in VOLUME
ONE, two
campaigns. These are:
(i)
Sennacherib’s Third Campaign (conventionally dated to 701 BC, but re-dated by
me to 712 BC); and
(ii)
his
campaign about a decade later, during the co-reign of Esarhaddon, after the
destruction of Babylon.
These were not of course Sennacherib’s only western
campaigns, for he (as Sargon II) had conquered Samaria in 722 BC, and had
likely reconquered it in 720 BC. Sennacherib moreover claimed to have been
taking tribute from king Hezekiah of Judah even before his Third Campaign (refer
back to p. 145 of Chapter 6).
It remains to separate invasions (i) and (ii) as given
in KCI [Kings, Chronicles, Isaiah]; a task that proponents of the ‘two
invasions’ theory, myself included, have found far from easy to do. Bright,
himself a champion of this latter theory, has referred to the “infinite
variations in detail” amongst scholars trying to settle the issue.1157
He has rightly observed, as have others as well,1158 that there is a
good match between Sennacherib’s Third Campaign account and the early
part of 2 Kings. Beyond
this, Bright has noticed
a polarity in KCI - suggesting the
telescoping of what were two separate campaign accounts - with Hezekiah on the
one hand being castigated by Isaiah for resisting the Assyrians, by turning to Egypt for help, and on the other being
told that the Assyrians would be defeated:1159
... Isaiah’s utterances with regard to the Assyrian
crisis are, it seems to me, far better understood under the assumption that
there were two invasions by Sennacherib. The sayings attributed to him in II
Kings 18:17 to 19:37 (//Isa., chs. 36f.) all express the calm assurance that
Jerusalem would be saved, and the Assyrians frustrated, by Yahweh’s power;
there is no hint of rebuke to Hezekiah reminding him of his reckless policy
which had brought the nation to this pass.
… Yet his known utterances in 701 [sic] and the years
immediately preceding (e.g., chs. 28:7-13, 14-22; 30:1-7, 8-17; 31:1-3) show
that he consistently denounced the rebellion, and the Egyptian alliance that
supported it, as a folly and a sin, and predicted for it unmitigated disaster.
1156 A History of Israel, p. 296.
1157
Ibid,
p.
300. B. Childs thinks that “a definite impasse has been reached” amongst
scholars, with: “No consensus [having] developed regarding the historical
problems of the [701 BC] invasion …”. Isaiah and
the Assyrian
Crisis, p.
12.
1158 Ibid, p. 297. Cf. J. Pritchard, ANET, pp.
287f; Childs, ibid, p. 72 (he claims a “striking agreement …”).
1159 Ibid,
p. 306. Emphasis added.
In 701, when Sennacherib had ravaged the whole land
and had Jerusalem under blockade (ch. 1:4-9), if words mean anything (“Why be
beaten any more, [why] continue rebellion?” v. 5), he counseled surrender; and
ch. 22:1-14 ... suggests that nothing in the course of these events had caused
him to alter his evaluation of the national character and policy. It is not
easy to believe that in this very same year he also counseled defiance and
promised deliverance.
One can easily agree with Bright when he goes on to
say that “different sets of circumstances must be presumed”,1160 and
that “telescoping” has been employed.1161 For the ancient Jews,
apparently, there was a strong link in the overall scheme of things between
Assyria’s first and second efforts to conquer Jerusalem, though well separated
in time. The KCI narratives read as if virtually seamless. In attempting to
separate the two campaigns, we shall need to draw upon a variety of sources in
order to determine where the actual break occurs. But, thanks to our findings
in VOLUME
ONE, we no longer
have the problem facing proponents of the ‘two campaigns’ theory of having to
establish the fact of a second Assyrian invasion into Palestine.
[End of quotes]
“The Identity of Tirhakah”
article above arrives at a conclusion that I, too, had reached in my university
thesis, based on Petrie, that Tirhakah was the same as the 25th Dynasty’s
Piankhi (thesis, Volume One, p. 384).
For more on this identification,
see my series:
Piankhi same as Bible's Tirhakah?
Piankhi same as Bible's Tirhakah? Part Two: 25th (Ethiopian) Dynasty not
clear cut
Given this connection, which, if
correct, would mean a significant expansion of the current length of reign attributed
to Tirhakah (c. 690–664 BC, conventional dating), then it is surprising that the author of “The Identity of Tirhakah” would
need to Procrusteanise poor Tirhakah.
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