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it actually be an historical reference to our man, the high priest Azariah of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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