Solomon as ruler of Hazor
by
Damien F. Mackey
Part One:
Jabin 3 of Hazor
If Hammurabi is to be re-dated to the era of David and Solomon, why is the city of Hazor,
at this time, in the hands of one Jabin, a long-standing name for Canaanite rulers of Hazor?
Whilst the conventional placement of Hammurabi of Babylon and Zimri-Lim of Mari in the early-to-mid C18th BC is to be rejected, as far as I am concerned, the relocation of these two kings to the time of Joshua (C15th BC) would seem to be, in the case of the contemporaneous Jabin of Hazor, at least, more appropriate than the era of David and Solomon (c. C10th BC) that I have adopted following Dean Hickman (“The Dating of Hammurabi”, Proc. 3rd Seminar of Catastrophism and Ancient History, Uni. of Toronto, 1985, 13-28).
The reason for this is that there is evidence in the Mari tablets at this time of a Jabin of Hazor, a third king of this name, following on from the one at the time of Joshua (11:1) - let us call him Jabin (1) - and a second one at the time of Deborah and Barak (Judges 4:2) - Jabin (2).
Jabin (3) now emerges as Ibni-Addu (Akkadian) of Hazor at the time of kings Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim.
That name (Ibni-Addu) would be, in Hebrew: Yabni-el. The very name emerges some time later in the El Amarna [EA] records, variously as Yabniel and as Yapa-addu (EA #97 and #98).
At first glance, this situation (of a Jabin ruling over Hazor at this time) seems to be highly problematical for Dean Hickman’s thesis – which, however, I have found to have worked so well until now. See for example my article:
Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon
Since the ‘destruction’ of Jabin of Hazor at the time of Deborah and Barak (Judges 4:23-24), the site should have fallen under the jurisdiction of Israel. And that situation would have continued until, and including, the time of David and Solomon – which is the era I consider (following Dean Hickman) to synchronise with Hammurabi, Zimri-Lim, and the Mari archive.
So I must conclude that the only hope of salvaging D. Hickman’s thesis is to identify Jabin (3) of Hazor with King Solomon himself. And that would not seem to be immediately promising, considering that the two predecessors of Jabin (3) of Hazor were both hostile to Israel.
What would King Solomon be doing adopting a name like Jabin, or Yabni?
To my own surprise, there is a name amongst the seven legendary names of King Solomon:
“Midrashic Tradition tells us that King Solomon appears in the Bible under several different names. His parents, King David and Batsheba, named him Shlomo, while the prophet Natan named him Yedidyah (see II Sam. 12:24-25). Actually, the name Shlomo was already given to him before his birth in a prophecy to King David (see I Chron. 22:9). Two of the twenty-four books in the Bible open by explicitly ascribing their authorship to Shlomo: Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) and Mishlei (Proverbs). A third book, Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), ascribes itself to somebody named Kohelet, son of David, king of Jerusalem. According to tradition, Kohelet is another name for Solomon. So far, we have three names for King Solomon.
The early Amora, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi adds another four names to this list. …” [,]
that can serve to bring a completely new perspective - and in favour of Dean Hickman’s thesis - to the conventional view that Mari’s Jabin of Hazor belonged to the C18th BC, and also to Dr. Courville’s view that this Jabin was the one at the time of Joshua.
Part Two:
Solomon was also named Jabin
Could King Solomon be the Ibni-Addu [or Jabin] king of Hazor
as referred to in the Akkadian tablet ARM VI, 236?
To suggest that would seem to be a very long stretch indeed, given that the Mari tablets are conventionally dated to c. 1800 BC, and given also that the kings Jabin of Hazor were Canaanite kings inimical to the Hebrews, whether of the Joshuan or the Judges eras.
What, however, makes far more plausible a connection between the Solomonic era and a king referred to in the Mari tablets is Dean Hickman’s thesis - previously considered - that the Mari archives, Zimri-Lim, and king Hammurabi of Babylon, must be re-dated to the actual time of King Solomon.
What makes even more possible a connection between King Solomon and King Ibni (Yabni) of Hazor at this particular time is the fact that Solomon had built up the important city of Hazor (I Kings 9:15): “Here is the account of the forced labour King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord’s Temple … Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer”.
But, if Solomon were this Yabni, or Jabin, why would he not be mentioned as “of Jerusalem”?
Well, geographically the Mari tablets do not go further SW than Hazor, which is in fact “the only Canaanite site mentioned in the archive discovered in Mari …”:
Similarly, the foremost king of the Syro-Mesopotamian region, the Amorite king, Iarim-Lim, is connected with Aleppo. He, I have argued, was David and Solomon’s loyal friend, referred to in the Bible as “Hiram king of Tyre” (e.g. I Chronicles 14:1).
It seems that kings of wide-ranging geographical rule were referred to by fellow monarchs in relation to the closest of their cities.
Hazor was, even as early as Joshua’s day, a city of immense importance (Joshua 11:10): “The Head of all those Kingdoms" (Joshua 11:10).
At a later time: “The Mari documents clearly demonstrate the importance, wealth and far-reaching commercial ties of Hazor”. http://www1.chapman.edu/~bidmead/G-Haz.htm
There is a lot to recommend the impressive Late Bronze Age Hazor as that which Solomon rebuilt: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:142088/FULLTEXT01.pdf
“Hazor’s role in an international Late Bronze Age context has long been indicated but never thoroughly investigated. This role, I believe, was more crucial than previously stressed. My assumption is based on the very large size of this flourishing city which, according to documents, possessed ancient traditions of diplomatic connections and trade with Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age. Its strategic position along the most important N-S and E-W main trade routes, which connected Egypt with SyriaMesopotamia and the Mediterranean Sea with the city and beyond, promoted contacts. Hazor was a city-state in Canaan, a province under Egyptian domination [sic] and exploitation during this period, a position that also influenced the city’s international relations. Methodologically the thesis examines areas of the earlier and the renewed excavations at Hazor, with the aim of discussing the city’s interregional relations and cultural belonging based on external influences in architectural structures (mainly temples), imported pottery and artistic expressions in small finds, supported by written evidence. Cultic influences are also considered. Various origin and find contexts of the imported and culturally influenced material can be recognized, which imply three concepts in the field of interaction studies found within the framework of a modified World Systems Theory and also according to C. Renfrew’s Peer Polity Interaction model: 1) The northern influenced material at Hazor should be understood in the context of cultural identity. It continues from earlier periods and is maintained through external trade and the regional interaction between Canaanite city-states in the north, resulting in certain cultural homogeneity. 2) A centre-periphery approach is used to explain the special unequal relation between Canaan and Egypt, in which Hazor might have possessed an integrating semi-peripheral role, a kind of diplomatic position between Egypt and its northern enemies. The city’s loyalty to Egypt is hinted at in documents and in the increasing evidences of emulation in elite contexts appearing on the site. 3)
A model of ‘interregional interaction networks’ describes the organization of the trade which provided certain consumers at Hazor with the Aegean and Cypriote pottery and its desirable content.
The cargo of the Ulu Burun and Cape Gelidonya ships and documents show that luxury items were transited from afar through Canaan. Such long-distance trade / exchange require professional traders that established networks along the main trade route …”.
King Solomon, like Ibni-Addu (Jabin) of Hazor had great need of tin, which had become scarce in the Mediterranean at that time. Much has been written on this. For example:
Did British-Israeli Tin Trade Supply Solomon’s Temple?
Dr James E. Patrick - 28 November 2019
Scientists recently found evidence suggesting that Solomon’s Temple may have been built with bronze made from British tin. Late Bronze Age tin ingots found in Israel have been analysed and shown to have originated in the tin mines of Cornwall and Devon.
The Bible records Solomon sending trading ships to Tarshish, returning along the African coast (1Kings 10:22). Jonah fled on such a ship away from Nineveh, confirming that Tarshish was far to the west of Israel (Jonah 1:1-3). Ezekiel 27:12 later tells us that the wealth of Tarshish was ‘silver, iron, tin and lead’. The mineral-rich kingdom of Tartessos did exist in south-west Spain, but the tin it traded was not indigenous, coming instead by sea from Cornwall. Britain had supplied tin for bronze-making to all of Europe for centuries, hence its prosperity during the Bronze Age. As such, Britain would have traded tin with Israel using ‘ships of Tarshish’.
But that biblical detective work has now been confirmed with hard evidence. In the second-millennium BC, known as the Bronze Age, the name itself illustrates how widespread and important bronze was to societies all across Europe and the Middle East. Bronze is made from copper and tin, but tin is very rare in Europe and Asia, giving it a value and strategic importance in those times similar to oil today. ….
Traditionally, one of King Solomon’s seven names was Bin, thought to indicate:
“Bin = "he who built the Temple".”
A thirteenth century AD scholar translated this Bin as Yabni, which is our Jabin.
Whatever reason had prompted Solomon to take (or be given) this name - and it may have been simply because this had become the traditional name for a ruler of the city of Hazor - the choice of name is a most fortuitous one, for it perfectly describes the wise and discerning Solomon:
The name Jabin comes from the verb בין (bin) meaning to understand or have insight:
Jabin (Hebrew: יָבִין Yāḇîn) is a Biblical name meaning 'discerner', or 'the wise'.
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