by
Damien
F. Mackey
‘I’ve never read a
King Hezekiah of Judah like that before’.
Such was
basically the comment made by professor Rifaat Ebied of the Department of
Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies (University of Sydney), upon having read
the draft of my thesis:
A Revised History
of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
However,
as often occurred to me whilst writing that thesis, King Hezekiah, though presumably
the focal point of the thesis, remained for the most part a largely obscure
figure, unlike some of his contemporaries whom I was able to develop in far more
detail.
But, firstly,
how did this thesis come about?
Providentially,
I would suggest.
In the
Year 2000 AD, professor Ebied asked me if I would like to do a doctoral thesis,
and he gave me the choice of the era of King Hezekiah of Judah, or the era of King
Josiah of Judah.
I, having
at that stage absolutely no clear cut ideas about the era of king Josiah,
jumped at the chance to write about the era of King Hezekiah. The reason for
this was that I had already spent almost two decades trying to ascertain an
historical locus for the Book of Judith and had finally come to, what was all
along the obvious conclusion, that the Judith drama was all about the
destruction of Sennacherib of Assyria’s 185,000-strong army during the reign of
Hezekiah.
King Hezekiah of Judah
King
Hezekiah, a formidable historical figure, whom his Assyrian opponent King Sennacherib
described as “the strong, proud Hezekiah” (Sennacherib’s Bull Inscriptions), and
who reigned for almost three decades (2 Kings 18:2), tends to disappear from
the scene of conflict after about his 14th year, the year of his
sickness.
Yet this
was well before the confrontation with the ill-fated army of Sennacherib.
More recently, though, I have managed
to enlarge Hezekiah considerably, by identifying him with the similarly good
and pious king of Judah, Josiah (prof. Ebied’s two points of reference). For my
arguments on this, and for my radical revision of the later kings of Judah, see
e.g. my article:
This article, if correct, takes
us far deeper at least into the reign of King Hezekiah, and it even tells of
his violent death at the hands of pharaoh Necho (2 Kings 23:29-30).
King Sennacherib of Assyria
This notorious king of Assyria I
had already enlarged in my thesis by multi-identifying him, especially in
Volume One, Chapter 6.
His chief alter ego, I had concluded, was the potent Sargon II. I have since
written further articles on this fusion of supposedly two Assyrian mega-kings, along
the lines of e.g:
Assyrian
King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib
My other move on Sennacherib at
that time involved the necessary (in terms of the revision) folding of Middle
Assyro-Babylonian history with Neo Assyro-Babylonian history.
Revised attempts at this so far do
not seem to have been very successful.
I thought that I had found the
perfect solution with my folding of the mighty Middle Babylonian king,
Nebuchednezzar I, conventionally dated to the C12th BC - he, I then declared to
have been ‘the Babylonian face’ of Sargon II/Sennacherib.
Such an identification, which
seemed to have massive support from the succession of Shutrukid-Elamite kings
of the time having names virtually identical to the succession of Elamite kings
at the time of Sargon II/Sennacherib (see Table
1 below), had the further advantage of providing Sargon II/Sennacherib with
the name, “Nebuchednezzar”, just as the Assyrian king is named in the Book of
Judith (“Nebuchadnezzar”).
My more recent collapsing of the
late neo-Assyrian era into the early neo-Babylonian era has caused me to drop
the identification of Nebuchednezzar I with Sargon II/Sennacherib.
More appropriately, now, Nebuchednezzar
I might be found to have been Nebuchednezzar II.
Fortunately though, with this tightened
chronology, the impressive Shutrukid-Elamite parallels that I had established
in my thesis might still remain viable.
Having rejected my former folding
of Nebuchednezzar I with Sargon II/Sennacherib the question must be asked, ‘At
what point does Middle fold with Neo?’
Hopefully, I had identified that
very point of fusion in my thesis (see next).
King Merodach-baladan of Babylonia
Here, I shall simply reproduce
part of what I wrote about the best point of folding in my thesis (Chapter 7, beginning
on p. 180):
So,
with what ‘Middle’ Babylonian period are we to merge the ‘Neo’ Babylonian
Merodach-baladan [II], in order to show that VLTF [Velikovsky’s Lowering on
Timescale by 500 Years] is convincing for this part of the world as well at
this particular time?
Actually,
there is a perfect opportunity for such a merger with one who is considered -
perhaps rightly - to have been one of the last Kassite kings: namely,
Merodach-baladan [I] (c. 1173-1161 BC, conventional dates). Now, as I have
emphasized in the course of this thesis, identical names do not mean identical
persons. However, there is more similarity between Merodach-baladan I and II
than just the name I would suggest. For instance:
- There is the (perhaps suspicious?) difficulty in distinguishing between the building efforts of Merodach-baladan [I] and Merodach-baladan [II]:[1]Four kudurrus ..., taken together with evidence of his building activity in Borsippa ... show Merodach-baladan I still master in his own domain. The bricks recording the building of the temple of Eanna in Uruk ..., assigned to Merodach-baladan I by the British Museum’s A Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities ... cannot now be readily located in the Museum for consultation; it is highly probable, however, that these bricks belong to Merodach-baladan II (see Studies Oppenheim, p. 42 ...).Further:
- There is the same approximate length of reign over Babylonia for Merodach-baladan [I] and [II]. Twelve years as king of Babylon for Merodach-baladan II, as we have already discussed. And virtually the same in the case of Merodach-baladan I:[4]
- The Kassite Dynasty, then, continued relatively vigorous down through the next two reigns, including that of Merodach-baladan I, the thirty-fourth and third-last king of the dynasty, who reigned some thirteen years .... Up through this time, kudurrus show the king in control of the land in Babylonia.
- Merodach-baladan I was approximately contemporaneous with the Elamite succession called Shutrukids. Whilst there is some doubt as to the actual sequence of events[5] - Shutruk-Nahhunte is said to have been the father of Kudur-Nahhunte - the names of three of these kings are identical to those of Sargon II’s/ Sennacherib’s Elamite foes, supposedly about four centuries later.Now, consider further these striking parallels between the C12th BC and the neo-Assyrian period, to be developed below:Table 1: Comparison of the C12th BC (conventional) and C8th BC
C12th
BC
·
Some time before Nebuchednezzar I, there
reigned in Babylon a Merodach-baladan [I].
·
The Elamite kings of this era carried
names such as Shutruk-Nahhunte and
his son, Kudur-Nahhunte.
·
Nebuchednezzar I fought a hard battle
with a ‘Hulteludish’ (Hultelutush-Inshushinak).
|
C8th
BC
·
The Babylonian ruler for king Sargon
II’s first twelve years was a Merodach-baladan
[II].
·
SargonII/Sennacherib fought against the
Elamites, Shutur-Nakhkhunte & Kutir-Nakhkhunte.
·
Sennacherib had trouble also with a ‘Hallushu’ (Halutush-Inshushinak).
|
Too
spectacular I think to be mere coincidence!
[End of
quotes]
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