by
Damien F. Mackey
“However Na'aman (1974) showed that one of one of the inscriptions that connected this Azriyahu to a land called Yaudi was actually attributed to Tiglath-pileser III erroneously, and was actually a part of an inscription by Sennacherib describing his campaign to Yaudi/Judah in 701, long after the death of [King] Azariah”.
Concerning what is thought to be the rock inscription of Sobna (Shebna), I had surmised in Part One:
Instead of Shebna-yahu, I think that the original might have read Azri-yahu (i.e., Azariah). Most interestingly, the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser boasted of having received tribute from “Azriyahu of Yaudi”, generally thought by historians to refer to (but the chronology would be over-stretched) the great King Azariah (= Uzziah) of Judah.
Then I followed this with the question: “Could it actually be an historical reference to our man, the high priest Azariah of Judah?”
It will be recalled that Sobna (Shebna) was identified in Part One with the high priest Azariah of the time of King Hezekiah, and with the high priest Uriah of the time of King Ahaz – and further identified as the rebellious Azuri of Ashdod of the Assyrian records of King Sargon II.
Though there is nothing to suggest that our composite character had rebelled during the reign of the Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser [III] - {he, the high priest, then being an obedient lackey of the idolatrous Ahaz who was pro-Assyrian} - there is now to be considered that intriguing view of Na’aman, above (taken from Yigael Levin’s The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=mFzyDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA245&lpg=PA245&dq=sennacherib+azriyahu+of+yaudi), that the Assyrian reference to Azriyahu of Yaudi properly belongs to the time of Sennacherib’s assault on Jerusalem (701 BC being a conventional date) – the approximate time when the high priest Azariah was indeed revolting.
This, then, would make it highly likely that Azriyahu of Yaudi was the rebellious Azuri of Ashdod (= Lachish) of Sargon II’s records, and it would further strengthen my view of the
Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib
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