Friday, December 21, 2018

Nebuchednezzar II involved in Sennacherib’s final campaign?


Assyrians at a Siege. Artwork by Johnny Shumate. Bronze Age, Ancient Near East, Ancient Rome, Ancient History, Military Art, Military History, Statues, Medieval, Sumerian
 
by
 
Damien F. Mackey

 
“Nebuchadnezzar, the "wicked one" ("ha-rasha'"; Meg. 11a; Ḥag. 13b; Pes. 118a), was a … son-in-law of Sennacherib (Targ. to Isa. x. 32; Lam. R., Introduction, 23, says "a grandson"), with whom he took part in the expedition of the Assyrians against Hezekiah, being one of the few who were not destroyed by the angels before Jerusalem (Sanh. 95b)”.
 
 

According to the standard interpretation of history one would hardly expect the young Nebuchednezzar, who began to reign in 605 BC (conventional dating) to have been involved in the ill-fated final campaign of Sennacherib (d. 681 BC, conventional dating), when Israel’s heroine Judith brought the massive Assyrian army to a shuddering halt at ‘Bethulia’ (Shechem). See e.g. my article:
 
 

 
In the less standard interpretation of events (e.g. my revision) this situation, a Jewish tradition, becomes quite possible, however. For, according to my reinterpretation of how things were, Nebuchednezzar II was the same person as Esarhaddon, the successor of - and thought to have been the son of - Sennacherib. See e.g. my recent series:
 

Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar
 
 

Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar. Part Two: Another writer has picked up this possible connection
 

 
Turning now to the Jewish traditions, or legends, we learn two interesting things about Nebuchednezzar, the second of which is his alleged involvement in Sennacherib’s campaign. About the first, that Nebuchednezzar was a descendant of the Queen of Sheba, I have mothing further to add at present: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11407-nebuchadnezzar

....
 
—In Rabbinical Literature:

Nebuchadnezzar, the "wicked one" ("ha-rasha'"; Meg. 11a; Ḥag. 13b; Pes. 118a), was a son—or descendant?—of the Queen of Sheba by her marriage with Solomon ("Alphabet Ben Sira," ed. Venice, 21b; comp. Brüll's "Jahrb." ix. 9), and a son-in-law of Sennacherib (Targ. to Isa. x. 32; Lam. R., Introduction, 23, says "a grandson"), with whom he took part in the expedition of the Assyrians against Hezekiah, being one of the few who were not destroyed by the angels before Jerusalem (Sanh. 95b). He came to the throne in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim of Judah, whom he subjugated and, seven years later, killed after that king had rebelled. Nebuchadnezzar did not on this occasion go to Jerusalem, but received the Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem at Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, informing that body that it was not his intention to destroy the Temple, but that the rebellious Jehoiakim must be delivered to him, which in fact was done (Seder 'Olam R. xxv.; Midr. 'Eser Galuyyot, ed. Grünhut, "Sefer ha-Liḳḳuṭim," iii.; Lev. R. xix.; comp. Jehoiakim in Rabbinical Literature). ….
 

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Naqia of Assyria and Semiramis




Mystery Of Queen Semiramis: Famous And Powerful Ancient Ruler And Warrior Queen


 

by

 Damien F. Mackey

  

“When Josephus named Nebuchadnezzar as builder of the [hanging] garden, both he and his readers would have been confused between Nineveh and Babylon, and between Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, because at the time they were reading his account, the Book of Judith was already in circulation”.

 
 

What a terrific book! I read it in one go.

I am referring to Stephanie Dalley’s The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced (OUP, 2013). Apart from her unscrambling of the Classical texts on the subject of the Seven Wonders of the World, and being able to conclude that it was not Nebuchednezzar II the Chaldean, but rather the Assyrian king Sennacherib, who created the ‘hanging’ gardens that became so famed in antiquity, Dalley provides an abundance of important information on Assyro-Babylonian technology, art and architecture.

Despite the necessary technicalities, this book, written by a most disciplined researcher - “a world expert on ancient Babylonian language” - is easy to read and enjoyable.

In Chapter 6, “Confusion of Names”, Dalley makes this important point (p. 107):

 

Several confusions have been identified. It would be satisfactory if we could account for them, to strengthen yet further the argument that the Hanging Garden was built by Sennacherib in Nineveh rather than by Nebuchadnezzar or Semiramis in Babylon. Four distinct pairs of names are relevant for tracing the story of the legendary garden: ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ named for Sennacherib, the city name ‘Babylon’ used for Nineveh, the river ‘Euphrates’ named instead of the Tigris, and ‘Semiramis’ confused with other queens and with ‘Nitocris”. For each of them an explanation can be given.

 

[End of quote]

 

When reading Dalley’s account here of name confusion, I was immediately reminded of the situation right at the beginning of the Book of Judith, about which I have written much. And, indeed, the point has not been missed on Dalley either. For she writes on the next page (p. 108), referring to Judith as a “late” text (but I would prefer to say a late copy of the original):

 

Sennacherib was evidently confused with Nebuchadnezzar in several late texts. In the opening words of the Book of Judith the two kings are confused: ‘It was the twelfth year of Nebuchadnezzar who reigned over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh’. When Josephus named Nebuchadnezzar as builder of the garden, both he and his readers would have been confused between Nineveh and Babylon, and between Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, because at the time they were reading his account, the Book of Judith was already in circulation.  

[End of quote]

 

 

 

 

“Here, then, we have a group of material that indicates attachment of Naqia’s deeds to the name ‘Semiramis’. As second wife of Sennacherib, she bears comparison with the historical Sammu-ramat for having her name on inscriptions written during her lifetime, and for supporting publicly first her husband and then her own son, both as kings”.

 

Stephanie Dalley

 

 

 

Continuing with Stephanie Dalley’s intriguing and helpful Chapter 6, “Confusion of Names” (The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced (p. 120):

 

An accretion of legends is attached to the name ‘Semiramis’ in Greek texts, and the use of the name for more than one woman can be explained through that concept.

She was variously credited with leading campaigns with her husband ‘Ninus’, and with building works in Babylon, among them the famous Hanging Garden: Diodorus Siculus wrote that she founded a large city in Babylonia on the Euphrates including the temple of the Babylonian Zeus and the Hanging Garden (he does not actually name the city), and Quintus Curtius Rufus wrote that Semiramis, not Bel, founded Babylon.

[End of quote]

 

An original ‘Semiramis’ is posited by some writers to have been contemporaneous with Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, obviously long before the days of Queen Sammu-ramat. According to: http://www.rogerswebsite.com/articles/Man'sHistoryfromAdamtoAbraham.pdf

 

…. Hislop identifies Ninus as Nimrod, the great hunter that defied God and built the Tower of Babylon and his wife Semiramis and son Tammuz as the great trinity who were worshipped all over Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, Greece and Rome and other cultures around the world.

 

Whilst Roy Schulz - as we can read at the same site - takes Semiramis back to pre-Flood times: “Aphrodite was the goddess of beauty and sensual love. She was actually a harlot or prostitute! Venus was the wife of Vulcan in pre-Flood times and so is the Semiramis of post-Flood history. She was actually a very distasteful type of person”.

 

Queen Sammu-Ramat and Naqia

 

Stephanie Dalley, referring to who she thinks to have been the “original ‘Semiramis’”, tells of this Queen Sammu-ramat (p. 121):

 

The original ‘Semiramis’ was a historical queen at a time when Nimrud, not Nineveh, was the main royal residence. If you were an Assyrian early in the 8th century BC you would have known about Sammu-ramat, daughter-in-law of Shalmaneser III, wife of Shamsi-Adad V, and mother of Adad-nirari III, because she was the most powerful woman in the world at that time. You would know that she in person, contrary to the custom of queens at that time, joined her son in a campaign to Arpad in the vicinity of modern Aleppo with the result that her own name was inscribed on a royal stela, as partner in heroism with her son the king. That stela was set up on the border of Assyrian territory on the upper Euphrates, and was discovered in recent times.

 

Dalley thinks that this real event may have inspired the campaigns attributed to ‘Semiramis’ by the later writers: “The inscription shows without a doubt that Sammu-ramat campaigned with her son, which suggests that the campaigns later ascribed to Semiramis by Ctesias and others may have had some link, however tenuous or garbled, with a genuine event”.

Two documents similarly connect, now Sammu-ramat, now Naqia, to great Assyrian kings. Dalley continues here:

 

The extent of [Sammu-ramat’s] fame during her lifetime is confirmed by the existence of another stela, inscribed only with her name and titles, found during excavations in the city of Ashur on the Tigris, and first published in 1913:

 

Statue … of Sammu-ramat the palace woman [means ‘queen’, ‘official consort’: Dalley] of Shamsi-Adad king of the universe, king of Assyria, mother of Adad-nirari, king of the universe, king of Assyria, daughter-in-law of Shalmaneser, king of the four quarters ….

 

[End of quotes]

 

Compare this text with one that Dalley now gives for Queen Naqia (on p. 124):

 

Naqia, the palace woman of Sennacherib king of the universe, king of Assyria, daughter-in-law of Sargon king of the universe king of Assyria, mother of Esarhaddon king of the world, king of Assyria … a palace befitting royalty for Esarhaddon my beloved son ….

 

[End of quote]

Based on my article:

 

Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib

 


 

I would immediately have to query here the mention of “Sargon”, whose name I have shown to have been - in at least one case - unjustifiably inserted by Assyriologists into a gap in a text.

 

Continuing on now with Dalley’s account of this latter queen, Naqia, we read on the same page:

 

Naqia was closely associated with Nineveh because her husband built two palaces there and made the city his capital. Many letters were written directly to her, and we have a document recording the loyalty oaths that she imposed on members of her family, requiring them to support her two royal grandsons. Another text particularly relevant here is that which records the building work she undertook at Nineveh on behalf of her son Esarhaddon, who ruled vast territories including Babylonia ….

 

That is the text quoted (in small print) above.

Dalley continues, drawing a further connection of Naqia with ‘Semiramis’:

 

Here, then, we have a group of material that indicates attachment of Naqia’s deeds to the name ‘Semiramis’. As second wife of Sennacherib, she bears comparison with the historical Sammu-ramat for having her name on inscriptions written during her lifetime, and for supporting publicly first her husband and then her own son, both as kings. There was every reason, therefore, to conflate the two great queens, two great builders, Naqia would be the wife of the later Assyrian king to whom Diodorus referred when he wrote: ‘the Hanging Garden, as it is called, which was built, not by Semiramis, but by a later Syrian [a Greek reference to Assyrian: Dalley] king …’ His account that ‘Semiramis alongside a Ninus founded ‘Babylon’ on the Euphrates gives details that are applicable to Nineveh: two palaces, technical details of water supply, walls adorned with hunting scenes. 

 

A Religious Revolution

 

 

“A strange religious revolution took place in the time of Adad-nirari III, which can be compared with that of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ikhnaton. For an unknown reason Nabu (Nebo), the god of Borsippa, seems to have been proclaimed sole god, or at least the principal god, of the empire”.

 

Francis D. Nichol

 

The influence of two historical queens, Nefertiti and Naqia, ought not to be underestimated. Nefertiti may have been the one who religiously spurred on her husband, pharaoh Akhnaton, and may therefore have been instrumental in fostering the strange and somewhat Indic cult of Atonism in EA’s Egypt. If so, then she would have been acting just like the biblical Jezebel. For, the very first we hear of Queen Jezebel is in association with Baal worship (I Kings 16:31): “[King Ahab] also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him”. 
And she, again, was apparently the wind beneath his idolatrous wings (I Kings 21:25): “… there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up”.
Likewise, Queen Semiramis may have been instrumental in the case of the (different) religious reform at the time of Adad-nirari III. Writing of “The Age of Semiramis” in his Chapter XVIII, Donald MacKenzie will make some interesting observations about her, including this one: “Queen Sammu-rammat of Assyria, like Tiy of Egypt, is associated with social and religious innovations”. Here is a part of MacKenzie’s intriguing account of this semi-legendary queen:
 

…. One of the most interesting figures in Mesopotamian history came into prominence during the Assyrian Middle Empire period. This was the famous Sammu-rammat, the Babylonian wife of an Assyrian ruler. Like Sargon of Akkad, Alexander the Great, and Dietrich von Bern, she made, by reason of her achievements and influence, a deep impression on the popular imagination, and as these monarchs became identified in tradition with gods of war and fertility, she had attached to her memory the myths associated with the mother goddess of love and battle who presided over the destinies of mankind. In her character as the legendary Semiramis of Greek literature, the Assyrian queen was reputed to have been the daughter of Derceto, the dove and fish goddess of Askalon, and to have departed from earth in bird form.

It is not quite certain whether Sammu-rammat was the wife of Shamshi-Adad VII [we now take this as V] or of his son, Adad-nirari IV [III]. Before the former monarch reduced Babylonia to the status of an Assyrian province, he had signed a treaty of peace with its king, and it is suggested that it was confirmed by a matrimonial alliance. This treaty was repudiated by King Bau-akh-iddina, who was transported with his palace treasures to Assyria.

As Sammu-rammat was evidently a royal princess of Babylonia, it seems probable that her marriage was arranged with purpose to legitimatize the succession of the Assyrian overlords to the Babylonian throne. The principle of "mother right" was ever popular in those countries where the worship of the Great Mother was perpetuated if not in official at any rate in domestic religion. Not a few Egyptian Pharaohs reigned as husbands or as sons of royal ladies. Succession by the female line was also observed among the Hittites. When Hattusil II gave his daughter in marriage to Putakhi, king of the Amorites, he inserted a clause in the treaty of alliance "to the effect that the sovereignty over the Amorite should belong to the son and descendants of his daughter for evermore". ….

As queen or queen-mother, Sammu-rammat occupied as prominent a position in Assyria as did Queen Tiy of Egypt during the lifetime of her husband, Amenhotep III, and the early part of the reign of her son, Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton).

The Tell-el-Amarna letters testify to Tiy's influence in the Egyptian "Foreign Office", and we know that at home she was joint ruler with her husband and took part with him in public ceremonials. During their reign a temple was erected to the mother goddess Mut, and beside it was formed a great lake on which sailed the "barque of Aton" in connection with mysterious religious ceremonials. After Akhenaton's religious revolt was inaugurated, the worship of Mut was discontinued and Tiy went into retirement. In Akhenaton's time the vulture symbol of the goddess Mut did not appear above the sculptured figures of royalty.

 

What connection the god Aton had with Mut during the period of the Tiy regime remains obscure. There is no evidence that Aton was first exalted as the son of the Great Mother goddess, although this is not improbable.

 

Queen Sammu-rammat of Assyria, like Tiy of Egypt, is associated with social and religious innovations. She was the first, and, indeed, the only Assyrian royal lady, to be referred to on equal terms with her royal husband in official inscriptions. In a dedication to the god Nebo, that deity is reputed to be the protector of "the life of Adad-nirari, king of the land of Ashur, his lord, and the life of Sammu-rammat, she of the palace, his lady". ….

 

During the reign of Adad-nirari … the Assyrian Court radiated Babylonian culture and traditions. The king not only recorded his descent from the first Shalmaneser, but also claimed to be a descendant of Bel-kap-kapu, an earlier, but, to us, unknown, Babylonian monarch than "Sulili", i.e. Sumu-la-ilu, the great-great-grandfather of Hammurabi. Bel-kap-kapu was reputed to have been an overlord of Assyria.

 

Apparently Adad-nirari desired to be regarded as the legitimate heir to the thrones of Assyria and Babylonia. His claim upon the latter country must have had a substantial basis. It is not too much to assume that he was a son of a princess of its ancient royal family. Sammurammat may therefore have been his mother. She could have been called his "wife" in the mythological sense, the king having become "husband of his mother". If such was the case, the royal pair probably posed as the high priest and high priestess of the ancient goddess cult--the incarnations of the Great Mother and the son who displaced his sire.

 

The worship of the Great Mother was the popular religion of the indigenous peoples of western Asia, including parts of Asia Minor, Egypt, and southern and western Europe. It appears to have been closely associated with agricultural rites practised among representative communities of the Mediterranean race. In Babylonia and Assyria the peoples of the goddess cult fused with the peoples of the god cult, but the prominence maintained by Ishtar, who absorbed many of the old mother deities, testifies to the persistence of immemorial habits of thought and antique religious ceremonials among the descendants of the earliest settlers in the Tigro-Euphrates valley. ….

It must be recognized, in this connection, that an official religion was not always a full reflection of popular beliefs. In all the great civilizations of antiquity it was invariably a compromise between the beliefs of the military aristocracy and the masses of mingled peoples over whom they held sway. Temple worship had therefore a political aspect; it was intended, among other things, to strengthen the position of the ruling classes. But ancient deities could still be worshipped, and were worshipped, in homes and fields, in groves and on mountain tops, as the case might be. Jeremiah has testified to the persistence of the folk practices in connection with the worship of the mother goddess among the inhabitants of Palestine. Sacrificial fires were lit and cakes were baked and offered to the "Queen of Heaven" in the streets of Jerusalem and other cities. In Babylonia and Egypt domestic religious practices were never completely supplanted by temple ceremonies in which rulers took a prominent part. It was always possible, therefore, for usurpers to make popular appeal by reviving ancient and persistent forms of worship. As we have seen, Jehu of Israel, after stamping out Phoenician Baal worship, secured a strong following by giving official recognition to the cult of the golden calf.

 

MacKenzie now proceeds to draw his hopeful religious parallel between EA and Sammuramat alongside Adad-nirari III:

 

It is not possible to set forth in detail, or with intimate knowledge, the various innovations which Sammu-rammat introduced, or with which she was credited, during the reigns of Adad-nirari … (810-782 B.C.) and his father. No discovery has been made of documents like the Tell-el-Amarna "letters", which would shed light on the social and political life of this interesting period.

 

…. The prominence given to Nebo, the god of Borsippa, during the reign of Adad-nirari … is highly significant. He appears in his later character as a god of culture and wisdom, the patron of scribes and artists, and the wise counsellor of the deities. He symbolized the intellectual life of the southern kingdom, which was more closely associated with religious ethics than that of war-loving Assyria.

 

A great temple was erected to Nebo at Kalkhi, and four statues of him were placed within it, two of which are now in the British Museum. On one of these was cut the inscription, from which we have quoted, lauding the exalted and wise deity and invoking him to protect Adad-nirari and the lady of the palace, Sammu-rammat, and closing with the exhortation, "Whoso cometh in after time, let him trust in Nebo and trust in no other god".

 

 

 

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Micaiah and Micah


Image result

 
by
 
Damien F. Mackey
 
 
 
 
“Micah uses the imagery of a threshing floor (same word in Hebrew) and
iron horns that come from the events surrounding Micaiah’s prophecy”.
 
Christadelphian Books 
 
   
 
 
 
Many have observed the amazing series of compelling likenesses between the words and visions of the prophet Micaiah and those of the prophet Micah. {“The name Mica(h) is the accepted abbreviated form of the name Michaiah (like … Rick is to Richard)”: Abarim Publications: http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Micah.html#.W8vYKWdRc_w}
However, the next step, to identify Micah as Micaiah, would clearly seem to be a step too far, given Micah’s contemporaneity with king Ahab of Israel (c. 871 - 852 BC, conventional dating) (1 Kings 22:8-28), and Micah’s contemporaneity with king Hezekiah of Judah (c. 715 - 686 BC, conventional dating) (cf. Jeremiah 26:18).
 
That is a time separation of at least a century and a half!
 
 
Micah, though, does seem to be making definite reference to king Ahab and the Naboth incident.
(See chart below). Not to mention this clearly direct reference to Ahab and Omri (Micah 6:16): “The statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab are observed; and in their devices you walk."
So I suspect that the Divided Monarchy needs further shortening, with the age of Ahab brought significantly closer to that of Micah.
 
The following chart is one example of just how well Micah lines up alongside Micaiah: http://www.christadelphianbooks.org/mannell/jehoshaphat/JEH5%20(Micah%20and%20Micaia
 
Micah
Micaiah
Comment
 
“Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth”
(1:2)
“Listen, all you people."
(2Chron 18:27)
Micah’s opening quotes Micaiah’s final words
(the only occasion of this phrase in scripture).
 
“…the Lord from His holy temple.“
(1:2)
“I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and
all the host of heaven standing on His right
and on His left.”
(2Chron 18:18)
 
 
“All this is for the rebellion of Jacob and for the
sins of the house of Israel. What is the rebellion
of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? What is the high
place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem? For I will
make Samaria a heap of ruins in the open
country, planting places for a vineyard. I will pour
her stones down into the valley, and will lay bare
her foundations. All of her idols will be smashed,
all of her earnings will be burned with fire, and all
of her images I will make desolate, for she
collected them from a harlot's earnings, and to
the earnings of a harlot they will return. Because
of this I must lament and wail, I must go barefoot
and naked; I must make a lament like the jackals
and a mourning like the ostriches. For her wound
is incurable, for it has come to Judah; it has
reached the gate of my people, even to
Jerusalem.”
(1:5-9)
 
Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the
king of Judah were sitting each on his
throne, arrayed in their robes, and they were
sitting at the threshing floor at the entrance
of the gate of Samaria; and all the
prophets were prophesying before them.
(2Chron 18:9)
Micah’s concern is that the evil from Samaria
is infecting Judah, it has even reached the
gate of Jerusalem. That infection can be
traced back to the gate of Samaria.
 
Micah
Micaiah
Comment
“Woe to those who scheme iniquity, who work
out evil on their beds! When morning comes,
they do it, for it is in the power of their hands.
They covet fields and then seize them and
houses, and take them away. They rob a man
and his house, a man and his inheritance.”
(2:1-2)
So Ahab came into his house sullen and
vexed because of the word which Naboth
the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he
said, "I will not give you the inheritance of
my fathers." And he lay down on his bed
and turned away his face and ate no food.
(1Kings 21:4 and context)
Micah’s description of evil doers is very
reminiscent of the incident of Ahab and
Naboth.
"If a man walking after wind and falsehood had
told lies and said 'I will speak out to you
concerning wine and liquor,' He would be
spokesman (KJV: prophet) to this people.”
(2:11)
"Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a
deceiving spirit in the mouth of these
your prophets; for the LORD has
proclaimed disaster against you.”
(2Chron 18:22)
Lying prophets
"I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob, I will
surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put
them together like sheep in the fold; like a
flock in the midst of its pasture they will be noisy
with men.
(2:11)
So he said, "I saw all Israel Scattered on
the mountains, like sheep which have no
shepherd…”
(2Chron 18:16)
Scattered sheep.
“Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets
Who lead my people astray; when they have
something to bite with their teeth, they cry,
"Peace," but against him who puts nothing in
their mouths, they declare holy war.“
(3:5)
Then the king of Israel assembled the
prophets, four hundred men …And they
said," Go up, for God will give it into the
hand of the king."
(2Chron 18:5)
400 prophets of the Asherah, who eat at
Jezebel's table.
(1Kings 18:19)
Ahab’s false prophets were clearly only saying
what their employer wanted.
 

 
Micah
Micaiah
Comment
Therefore it will be night for you-- without vision,
and darkness for you-- without divination. The
sun will go down on the prophets, and the day
will become dark over them. The seers will be
ashamed and the diviners will be embarrassed.
Indeed, they will all cover their mouths Because
there is no answer from God.
(3:6)
And Micaiah said, "Behold, you shall see on
that day, when you enter an inner room to
hide yourself."
(2Chron 18:24)
Zedekiah was a blind seer (“seer” and “see”
are almost identical in Hebrew) who would
finally see on the day he cowardly hides
himself in shame. (Inner room can mean the
toilet as in Judges 3:24)
On the other hand I am filled with power-- With
the Spirit of the LORD-- And with justice and
courage To make known to Jacob his rebellious
act, even to Israel his sin.
(3:8)
"How did the Spirit of the LORD pass
from me to speak to you?"
(2Chron 18:24)
Zedekiah claims that Micaiah did not have the
spirit of Yahweh as he makes known Ahab’s
sin.
"But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD,
and they do not understand His purpose; for He
has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing
floor. Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion, for your
horn I will make iron and your hoofs I will make
bronze, that you may pulverize many peoples,
that you may devote to the LORD their unjust
gain and their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.
(4:12-13)
Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the
king of Judah were sitting each on his
throne, arrayed in their robes, and they were
sitting at the threshing floor at the entrance
of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets
were prophesying before them. And
Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made
horns of iron for himself and said, "Thus
says the LORD, 'With these you shall gore
the Arameans, until they are consumed.'"
(2Chron 18:9-10)
Micah uses the imagery of a threshing floor
(same word in Hebrew) and iron horns that
come from the events surrounding Micaiah’s
prophecy.
"Now muster yourselves in troops, daughter of
troops; they have laid siege against us; with a rod
they will smite the judge of Israel on the
cheek.”
(5:1)
Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came
near and struck Micaiah on the cheek…
(2Chron 18:23
Struck on the cheek
 
 

Micah
Micaiah
Comment
And He will arise and shepherd His flock in the
strength of the LORD…
(5:4)
Shepherd Thy people with Thy scepter, the
flock of Thy possession which dwells by itself in
the woodland, in the midst of a fruitful field. Let
them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in the days
of old.
(7:14)
Israel Scattered on the mountains, like
sheep which have no shepherd; and the
(2Chron 18:16)
Micah looks forward to the day when Israel
and Judah will have a proper shepherd.
He also looks forward to that flock feeding in
Gilead, the very place Ahab and Jehoshaphat
were seeking to reclaim.
"My people, remember now what Balak king of
Moab counselled…Does the LORD take delight
in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of
oil? Shall I present my first-born for my
rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the
sin of my soul?
(6:5, 7)
When the king of Moab saw that the battle
was too fierce for him, he took with him 700
men who drew swords, to break through to
the king of Edom; but they could not. Then
he took his oldest son who was to reign
in his place, and offered him as a burnt
offering on the wall. And there came great
wrath against Israel, and they departed from
him and returned to their own land.
(2Kings 3:26-27)
A couple of years later Jehoshaphat and
Ahab’s son were again joined in a campaign,
against Moab when the king of Moab offered
his first born son.
"The statutes of Omri and all the works of the
house of Ahab are observed; and in their
devices you walk."
(6:16)
 
Micah’s criticism of Judah is that it is following the example Ahab and his father.
 
 
 

Part Two:

Not an overshadowed prophet

 

“It seems poor Micah is destined to forever play backup to headliner Isaiah”

Michael Williams 

   

  

This view expressed here by Michael Williams about Micah is by no means the one that I found to have been the case when Micah is accorded some stunning prophetic alter egos. See e.g. my:

 

Prophet Jonah's long life of service


 

And, in the first part of this particular series:


I had embraced a tradition according to which Micah was the same as the prophet Micaiah at the time of king Ahab of Israel.

The names are the same, and it is interesting that the prophet Jeremiah gives Micah the longer form name of Micaiah: “His name is a shortened form of Micaiah (Jdgs. 17:1,4; I Kgs. 22:13), which meant "who is like YHWH" (BDB 567). Jeremiah 26:18 has the full name in the Hebrew text (i.e., Micaiah) [מיכיה הַמּוֹרַשְׁתִּי]”: https://bible.org/seriespage/introduction-micah

Whilst this tradition is extremely difficult to sustain within the context of the extended conventional chronology of the Divided Kingdom, it becomes feasible when it is recognised that (as according to the Prophet Jonah article above):

 

(a)    our composite prophet lived to 120-130 years of age; and that

(b)   the early-mid Divided Kingdom period needs to be considerably shortened.    

 

I have already applied such a radical shortening to the later kingdom of Judah period in my article:

 

'Taking aim on' king Amon - such a wicked king of Judah


 

Far from Micah’s having played second fiddle to the great Isaiah, he was - according to my reconstructions - the very father of Isaiah. For one, he was the “Micah” of the Book of Judith (6:15): Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon …”, with the “Uzziah” here being Isaiah.

This was when the reluctant prophet (cf. Jonah), a shepherd and tender of sycamore trees, had been assigned to Bethel (“Bethulia” of Judith) in the reign of Jeroboam II (cf. Amos).

Micah (“Amos redivivus”) was thus Amos (or Amoz) the father of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:1).

Micah and Isaiah were a father-and-son prophetic combination, operating both in northern Israel and in the southern kingdom.

 

Wrongly Michael Williams writes (Hidden Prophets of the Bible: Finding the Gospel in Hosea through Malachi):

 

We have already seen that Micah's ministry was far overshadowed by that of Isaiah, his contemporary. Although the precise dates for the ministry of many of the Minor Prophets are difficult to nail down with any precision ...

 

My comment: Absolutely impossible “to nail down with any precision” the way that the conventional biblico-history has been constructed.

 

tradition maintains that Micah's ministry also overlapped that of at least two other prophets: Hosea and Amos.

 

My comment: I have already noted, though, that Micah was Amos.

Hosea, I believe, to be, again, Isaiah, operating (like his father) in northern Bethel.

 

So, according to tradition, possibly as many as three other biblical prophets who have left books for us in our canon ministered at the same time as Micah.

 

My comment: Perhaps make that just one other biblical prophet: namely, Isaiah (= Hosea, Uzziah).

 

That same tradition asserts, however, that Micah “was a younger contemporary of the other three” ….

 

My comment: Swing and a miss! Micah was older than the other one, who was his son.

 

It seems, therefore, that our hidden prophet Micah had to deal not only with other practitioners of his craft, but also with the fact that he was a junior to them.

 

My comment: Same comment. Micah was in fact like an Alpha prophet!

Further on, Michael Williams will write:

...

Although extrabiblical traditions regarding Micah are rare, there is one that claims he was a disciple of Elijah. …. Elijah ministered during the reign of Ahab in Israel (874–853). Clearly, this period precedes the time of Micah's ministry by at least a hundred years. So how an assertion that Micah was a disciple of Elijah could possibly be true is interesting to consider.

 

My comment: Micah was Elijah according to my reconstruction (see Prophet Jonah article above). And Jonah, too - thought to have been the boy raised to life by Elijah - was Elijah.

 

As we saw above, Micah's name is actually a shorter form of the name Micaiah. And there is indeed a prophet named Micaiah who ministered during the reigns of King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah (I Kings 22:8). Apparently, Jewish tradition has confused our Minor Prophet Micah with this earlier prophet Micaiah son of Imlah ... even though they clearly ministered at different times.

 

My comment: “Different times” during a very long life of 120-130 years.

Jewish tradition got this connection dead right.

 

So not only is poor Micah overshadowed by Isaiah and opposed by false prophets, but he has also been mistaken for someone else.  

 

My comment: The reality of Micah is far less negative than this, so I think.