King Ahab and his Two Sons

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

It is gratifying for me to find that King Ahab had, in his two El Amarna [EA] manifestations, also - as Lab’ayu and pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Naphuria) (my revision) - two prominent sons.

 

 

 

 

King Ahab

 

He actually had many more than just the two sons, but the others came to grief all at once. “Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria” (2 Kings 10:1). These were all slain during the bloody rampage of Jehu (vv. 1-10).

“So Jehu killed all who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men and his close acquaintances and his priests, until he left him none remaining” (v. 11).

Prior to this, Ahab had been succeeded on the throne by his two prominent sons. We read about them, for instance, at: https://bible.org/seriespage/7-my-way-story-ahab-and-jezebel

 

Yet their influence lived on in their children. And this is often the saddest side effect of lives like Ahab’s and Jezebel’s. Two sons of Ahab and Jezebel later ruled in Israel. The first was Ahaziah. Of him God says, “And he did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. So he served Baal and worshiped him and provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger according to all that his father had done” (1 Kgs. 22:52, 53). The second son to reign was Jehoram. As Jehu rode to execute vengeance on the house of Ahab, Jehoram cried, “Is it peace, Jehu?” Jehu summed up Jehoram’s reign with his reply: “What peace, so long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?” (2 Kgs. 9:22).

[End of quote]

 

Queen Jezebel provides a link from the Bible to the EA letters in the person of Baalat Neše:

 

Is El Amarna’s “Baalat Neše” Biblically Identifiable?

 

https://www.academia.edu/26077125/Is_El_Amarna_s_Baalat_Ne%C5%A1e_Biblically_Identifiable

 

I have identified the literate woman, Baalat Neše, with Queen Jezebel, the wife of Ahab. Moreover, I have suggested that Baalat Neše, “Mistress of Lions”, was married to EA’s Lab’ayu, “the Lion Man”.

Logically, then, Lab’ayu must be the biblical Ahab:

 

Is El Amarna’s Lab’ayu Biblically Identifiable?

 

https://www.academia.edu/17534703/Is_El_Amarna_s_Lab_ayu_Biblically_Identifiable

 

EA’s Lab’ayu

 

He, likewise, had two prominent sons, as is apparent from the multiple references by the correspondent Addu-qarrad to “the two sons of Lab'aya [Lab’ayu]” in EA Letter 250

(http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/labaya_files/labaya.htm):

 

EA 250: Addu-qarrad (of Gitti-padalla) ….

 

To the king my lord, say: message from Addu-qarrad your servant. At the feet of the king my lord, seven and seven times I throw myself. Let the king my lord know that the two sons of the traitor of the king my lord, the two sons of Lab'aya, have directed their intentions to sending the land of the king into ruin, in addition to that which their father had sent into ruin. Let the king my lord know that the two sons of Lab'aya continually seek me: "Why did you give into the hand of the king your lord Gitti-padalla, a city that Lab'aya our father had taken?" Thus the two sons of Lab'aya said to me: "Make war against the men of Qina, because they killed our father! And if you don't make way we will be your enemies!" But I responded to those two: "The god of the king my lord will save me from making war with the men of Qina, servants of the king my lord!" If it seems opportune to the king my lord to send one of his Grandees to Biryawaza, who tells him: "Go against the two sons of Lab'aya, (otherwise) you are a traitor to the king!" And beyond that the king my lord writes to me: "D[o] the work of the king your lord against the two sons of Lab'aya!" [..]. Milki-Ilu concerning those two, has become [..] amongst those two. So the life of Milki-Ilu is lit up at the introduction of the two sons of Lab'aya into the city of Pi(hi)li to send the rest of the land of the king my lord into ruin, by means of those two, in addition to that which was sent into ruin by Milki-Ilu and Lab'aya! Thus say the two sons of Lab'aya: "Make war against the king your lord, as our father, when he was against Shunamu and against Burquna and against Harabu, deport the bad and exalt the faithful! He took Gitti-rimunima and opened the camps of the king your lord!" But I responded to those two: "The god of the king my lord is my salvation from making war against the king my lord! I serve the king my lord and my brothers who obey me!" But the messenger of Milki-Ilu doesn't distance himself from the two sons of Lab'aya. Who today looks to send the land of the king my lord into ruin is Milki-Ilu, while I have no other intention than to serve the king my lord. The words that the king my lord says I hear!

 

EA correspondences pertaining to Lab’ayu, such as this one, are generally presumed by historians to have been addressed to pharaoh Akhnaton (= Amenhotep IV, EA’s Naphuria). That this could seem to be a problem for my revision has been picked up by a reader who wrote: “I've wondered for a long time how all these letters referring to Lab'ayu could be written to … Akhenaten. Was Ahab writing to himself?”

No pharaoh, however, is actually referred to in these letters, as I observed in my:

 

Is El Amarna's Lab'ayu Biblically Identifiable? Part One (b): Was Lab'ayu even writing to a Pharaoh?

 

https://www.academia.edu/30338420/Is_El_Amarnas_Labayu_Biblically_Identifiable_Part_One_b_Was_Labayu_even_writing_to_a_Pharaoh?campaign=upload_email

 

Mut-Baal

 

Tentatively, I, in my postgraduate thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 

AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

 

suggested that the one son of Lab’ayu actually named in the EA correspondence, Mut-Baal, may have been Ahab’s older son, Ahaziah (Volume One, pp. 87-88):  

 

Like Lab’ayu, the biblical Ahab could indeed be an outspoken person, bold in speech to both fellow kings and prophets (cf. 1 Kings 18:17; 20:11). But Lab’ayu, like all the other duplicitous Syro-Palestinian kings, instinctively knew when, and how, to grovel to pharaoh [as I had still accepted at this time: Mackey’s comment]. Thus, when having to protest his loyalty and readiness to pay tribute to the crown, Lab’ayu really excelled himself: … “Further: In case the king should write for my wife, would I refuse her? In case the king should write to me: “Run a dagger of bronze into thy heart and die”, would I not, indeed, execute the command of the king?”

Lab’ayu moreover may have - like Ahab - used Hebrew speech. The language of the EA letters is Akkadian, but one letter by Lab’ayu, EA 252, proved to be very difficult to translate. ….

Albright … in 1943, published a more satisfactory translation than had hitherto been

possible by discerning that its author had used a good many so-called ‘Canaanite’ words plus two Hebrew proverbs! EA 252 has a stylised introduction in the typical EA formula and in the first 15 lines utilises only two ‘Canaanite’ words. Thereafter, in the main body of the text, Albright noted (and later scholars have concurred) that Lab’ayu used only about 20% pure Akkadian, “with 40% mixed or ambiguous, and no less than 40% pure Canaanite”. Albright further identified the word nam-lu in line 16 as the Hebrew word for ‘ant’ (nemalah), נְמָלָה, the Akkadian word being zirbabu. Lab’ayu had written: “If ants are smitten, they do not accept (the smiting) quietly, but they bite the hand of the man who smites them”. Albright recognised here a parallel with the two biblical Proverbs mentioning ants (6:6 and 30:25).

Ahab likewise was inclined to use a proverbial saying as an aggressive counterpoint to a potentate. When the belligerent Ben-Hadad I sent him messengers threatening: ‘May the gods do this to me and more if there are enough handfuls of rubble in Samaria for all the people in my following [i.e. my massive army]’ (1 Kings 20:10), Ahab answered: ‘The proverb says: The man who puts on his armour is not the one who can boast, but the man who takes it off’ (v.11).

“It is a pity”, wrote Rohl and Newgrosh … “that Albright was unable to take his reasoning process just one step further because, in almost every instance where he detected the use of what he called ‘Canaanite’ one could legitimately substitute the term ‘Hebrew’.”

Lab’ayu’s son too, Mut-Baal - my tentative choice for Ahaziah of Israel (c. 853 BC) …. also displayed in one of his letters (EA 256) some so-called ‘Canaanite’ and mixed origin words. Albright noted of line 13: … “As already recognized by the interpreters, this idiom is pure Hebrew”. Albright even went very close to admitting that the local speech was Hebrew: ….

 

... phonetically, morphologically, and syntactically the people then living in the

district ... spoke a dialect of Hebrew (Canaanite) which was very closely akin to that of Ugarit. The differences which some scholars have listed between Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic are, in fact, nearly all chronological distinctions.

 

But even these ‘chronological distinctions’ cease to be a real issue in the Velikovskian context, according to which both the EA letters and the Ugaritic tablets are re-located to the time of the Divided Monarchy.

 

 

My identification of the biblical Queen Jezebel (= EA’s Baalat Neše) with Queen Nefertiti, wife of pharaoh Akhnaton, enables for a streamlining of my thesis view that Nefertiti/Jezebel had first been with Ahab, and then with Akhnaton.

Far preferable now to regard Ahab as Akhnaton.  

 

Pharaoh Akhnaton (Naphuria)  

 

Following on from this equation, Ahab = (pharaoh) Akhnaton, then Ahab’s two regal sons, Ahaziah and Jehoram, would most likely be, respectively, Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun. Though opinions can differ as to whether one or these latter was a true son of Akhnaton, according to http://ib205.tripod.com/akhenaten.html : there is “a good possibility that the two successors of Akhenaten [Akhnaton] - Smenkhkare and his brother Tutankhamun are both Akhenaten's own sons”.

With this father-to-son relationship in mind, I have written:

 

The Fall and the Fall of Pharaoh Smenkhkare

 

https://www.academia.edu/19443157/The_Fall_and_the_Fall_of_Pharaoh_Smenkhkare

 

I have also written articles on Jehoram as Tutankhamun – these many need some fine tuning.

Magi, Gentiles or Jews?

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him’.

 

Matthew 2:1-2

 

 

Just because they were “from the east” does not necessarily mean that the Magi had hailed from the Far East (Persia, India, China), because Job himself, who was a Naphtalian Israelite:

 

Job's Life and Times

 

https://www.academia.edu/3787850/Jobs_Life_and_Times

 

(hence a non-Gentile), from Transjordanian Bashan, “was the greatest man among all the people of the east” (Job 1:3).

In Part One of this series:

https://www.academia.edu/26423097/Bible_Critics_Can_Overstate_Idea_of_Enlightened_Pagan I tentatively listed the Magi amongst various biblical candidates generally considered to have been Gentiles, writing as follows:  

 

Here it will be argued that - contrary to what is often believed about the following biblical characters - none of these can really accurately be designated as an ‘enlightened pagan’:

 

1.      MELCHIZEDEK

2.      RAHAB (in genealogy of David and Jesus)

3.      RUTH

4.      ACHIOR (in my Catholic Bible, Book of Judith)

5.      JOB

6.      (Probably also) the Magi.

 

And later I noted briefly:

 

6.      THE MAGI. There is some tradition that has them descending from the family of Job. I would suspect that the “east” in which the Magi dwelt was, not Persia by any means, but the same approximate “east” wherein Job dwelt, in the land of Uz, in Transjordanian Bashan. …. 

 

Now, I have come across an article by David C. Sim, entitled The magi: Gentiles or Jews? http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/article/viewFile/1660/2952), which opens the door to the possibility that the Magi may have been Jews.

Sim’s Abstract for his article reads as follows:

 

From the second century onwards the Christian tradition has almost without exception accepted that the magi in Matthew's infancy narrative were Gentiles, and this view also completely dominates modern Matthean studies. Yet this identification of the magi as Gentiles is built upon a number of unconvincing arguments, which fail to stand up to closer scrutiny. A re-assessment of the evidence reveals that the evangelist did not stipulate the racial origins of the magi. They may have been Gentiles, but it is equally plausible that they were Jews.

 

After proceeding through the usual “seven arguments” raised by scholars in favour of a Gentile ethnicity for the Magi, Sim concludes his article by writing:

 

The preceding discussion has attempted to show that not one of the seven arguments produced by scholars to prove that the magi of Matthew 2:1-12 were Gentiles has any validity. Much of the evidence is in fact ambiguous and can apply just as much to the Jews as to the Gentiles. Despite scholarly claims to the contrary, there were Jewish magi and/or Jewish astrologers who lived to the east of the Jewish homeland, and there were Jews who used the expression "the King of the Jews". The fact that the magi appear not to have known the prophecies concerning the birth-place of the messiah need not necessarily identify them as Gentiles. As the Treatise of Shem demonstrates, it is quite unreasonable to expect Jews who devoted themselves to astrology and other esoteric arts to be experts as well in scriptural exegesis. The arguments concerning the fulfilment of certain Old Testament prophecies, the star of Balaam in Numbers 24: 17 and the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion in Isaiah 60 and Psalm 72, simply cannot be sustained in view of the absence of formula quotations. Moreover, the claim that Matthew has modelled the magi on the Gentile Balaam is rather incredible, given the universal condemnation of this figure in both Jewish and Christian sources. The final argument, that in this narrative the evangelist establishes a dichotomy between believing Gentiles and unbelieving Jews that is reflected throughout the Gospel, is based upon an incorrect assessment of Matthew's view of both the Gentiles and the Jews.

What conclusions should we draw from this discussion? The first thing to be said is that it would exceed the evidence to suggest that Matthew did not intend the magi to be taken as Gentiles. While none of the seven arguments usually offered in support of this hypothesis is convincing, it must be said that there is no definitive evidence which proves

that they could not be Gentiles. This a small and insignificant victory, however. Precisely

the same can be said of the alternative hypothesis that the evangelist depicted the magi as

Jews. The information Matthew provides about these figures is completely consistent with the thesis that they were Jewish astrologers, but nothing in the story explicitly identifies them as Jews and not as Gentiles. The reality of the situation is that the evangelist did not make clear the racial origins of the magi. We have to presume that Matthew assumed this knowledge on the part of his readers. Unfortunately we modern readers are not privy to this information, so we are faced with a choice between the two alternatives.

The very uncertainty of the evidence does, however, have an important consequence. As noted above, scholars make considerable use of the (Gentile) magi in developing an argument for Matthew's positive view of the Gentile world and for substantiating the  evangelist's universalistic perspective; it is in fact one of the main pillars on which these

theses are built. If, however, the certainty is removed and the Gentile nature of the magi

becomes a possibility to be considered alongside the equally plausible possibility that they were Jews, then these hypotheses are dealt a significant blow. From now on scholars must attempt to build their case without any reference to the magi in the Matthean infancy

narrative.