Judges of Israel

 

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

Aiming for a reasonable chronology of Joshua

 

 

“The first part of period A is the actual conquest of the land …. The length of this period

is deduced from statements made by Caleb. In Joshua 14:7 Caleb recalls that he was

40 years old when he was sent to spy out the land, while in verse 10 he states that he is

now 85 years old at the date of speaking, which was immediately after the Conquest”.

 

Dr John Osgood

 

 

 

For the following I shall be dependent, again, upon the insights of Dr. John Osgood – in this case his article, “The Times of the Judges - The Archaeology: (a) Exodus to Conquest” (pp. 144-145):

 

He commences: “Having accepted I Kings 6:1 as a record of actual elapsed time and the 450 years of Acts 13:20 as an occurrence prior to the times of the Judges, we are now able to begin to piece together the internal arrangements and arrive at final, though somewhat surprising, conclusions”.

 

Most of this will be looked at when we come right into the Judges period.

 

Dr. Osgood continues:

 

“Period A - Joshua and Judges 1-3:7

 

Period A begins with the death of Moses which is described in Deuteronomy 34. In Joshua 1:2 God speaks to Joshua, Arise, go over this Jordan thou and all this people unto the land which I do give to them. The first part of period A is the actual conquest of the land …. The length of this period is deduced from statements made by Caleb. In Joshua 14:7 Caleb recalls that he was 40 years old when he was sent to spy out the land, while in verse 10 he states that he is now 85 years old at the date of speaking, which was immediately after the Conquest. In the Book of Numbers, from chapter 10 onward, we find that the spies were sent into the land of Canaan in the early part of the second year after they came out of the land of Egypt. It was 40 years from the time they left Egypt until the time they crossed the Jordan, so by simple subtraction we find that a period of 6 years is occupied in conquering the land ….

 

However, there is a second phase of period A that is often overlooked. Judges 2:7 says,

 

And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua.

 

The same phrase is found in Joshua 24:31.

 

The elders that outlived Joshua.

 

Two of these elders appear to be Caleb and Eleazer the High Priest. In Judges 1 we are told that the events of the chapter begin after the death of Joshua but we see Caleb in battle with Judah against the Canaanites. Similarly, in Joshua 24:33 after the record of Joshua’s death we read,

And Eleazer the son of Aaron died.

 

Now we do not know how long this period is, yet it could have been of considerable length. Joshua 23:1 reports,

 

It came to pass a long time after that the Lord had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua waxed old and stricken in age.

 

This attests an event preceding Joshua’s death. Note that the Scripture claims this period was ‘a long time’. In Judges 2 we are told that the first rebellion occurs after Joshua and all the elders have died. Thus the servitude under Chushan-Rishathaim (the beginning of period B) does not occur until after Joshua and all the elders died.

….

As to how long ‘a long time’ is we cannot set an exact figure, but it is instructive to look at the life of Joshua to estimate at least a part of that period.

….

We first meet this man in Exodus 17:9 where Joshua is already a commander of the army. In Exodus 24:13 he is spoken of as Moses’ minister. In Exodus 33:11 he is at that time described as a ‘young man’.

 

Now as far as I am aware, the oldest age in the Bible at which a man is described as young is at the age of 41 years. In 2 Chronicles 12:13 Rehoboam comes to the throne at the age of 41. In 2 Chronicles 13:7 Abijah his son describes Rehoboam at that age as being ‘young and tenderhearted’.

 

Although it is beyond proof with Joshua, such as age would fit the facts.

 

1.      He is described as a young man.

2.      He is supreme commander of the army.

 

This indicates a man of considerable experience.

 

Now he is described as a young man in the first year of the Exodus and we then see him as described in the Book of Joshua some 40 years later, so at that time he would have been about 80 years of age or less if our previous reasoning is correct. Joshua 24:29 tells us that Joshua the son of Nun, a servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old, so Joshua’s life during the events of the Book of Joshua was a possible 30 years.

 

But as the time span of period A extends to ‘the elders that outlived Joshua’ plus time of increasing apostasy following this (as mentioned in Judges 2:6-7), then we are postulating a time span in excess of 30 years for period A, although it is impossible to ascertain the exact time covered”.

[End of quotes]

 

Because the age of 110 (attained by both Joseph and Joshua) became legendary amongst the ancient Egyptians, critics can suggest that the Old Testament artificially ascribed it to Joseph.

My suggestion has been, instead, that it was due to Joseph – {perhaps including as the sage in Egypt, Ptahhotep, who is said to have attained to 110 years of age} - that 110 came to be regarded by the Egyptians as the ideal age at death.

 

 

Balaam’s Bedlam, Amalekites and Philistines

 

“The Deir Alla text presents a problem to those who dismiss the Biblical account of the Exodus, … Wanderings and Conquest as legendary, as is the trend in scholarship today. It is clear that Balaam was a real person who operated on the east side of the Jordan river. He was known as a cursing prophet and continued to be revered hundreds of years after his death. His persona as revealed in the Deir Alla text precisely matches that of the Balaam of Numbers 22-24”.

 

Bryant Wood

 

 

Since the time when Abram defeated the powerful coalition of four eastern kings (Genesis 14), now approximately half a millennium ago, I have been unable (to this point) to suggest any further biblico-historical (or archaeological) connections with the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent.

 

I have been focussed entirely upon Palestine and Egypt at the western end.

 

As far as I am aware, no significant revisionist progress has been made so far to cover this lack.

D. Hickman had, in “The Dating of Hammurabi” (Proc. 3rd Seminar of Catastrophism and Ancient History), referred to the mention in Joshua 7:21 of ‘a cloak from Shinar’, relating to when Joshua’s forces, having conquered Jericho, had now begun to fight against the city of Ai. Hickman, taking “Shinar” in its conventional sense of indicating Babylonia (which is how the verse is often translated, anyway), had suggested that this may have corresponded with the time of the Ur III dynasty.

If, however, Ur III had followed on from the dynasty of Akkad as according to the text books, it would have been too early (so I believe) for the era of Joshua, given that I have the dynasty of Akkad as partly contemporaneous with Abram.

 

More recently I have been inclined towards a merging of the Ur III with the Akkadian dynasty:

 

Nimrod a "mighty man"

 

https://www.academia.edu/39638349/Nimrod_a_mighty_man_

 

As far as I can tell the Bible does not supply us with - during this Moses-Joshua period - the names of any kings or dynasties from the land of Shinar (NE Syria) and on to Mesopotamia.

And, whilst I had previously suggested that Balaam may be the closest that we come to this, see now my different view of Balaam’s home location:

 

Deir 'Alla inscription and the historical Balaam son of Beor

 

https://www.academia.edu/36938889/Deir_Alla_inscription_and_the_historical_Balaam_son_of_Beor

 

suggesting, instead, that Balaam was an Edomite.

 

Balaam was the seer at the time of Moses, for whom Balak king of Moab had sent, to curse the swarming Israelites. Numbers 22:4: “‘This horde is going to lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field’, said Balak”.

 

“Balaam son of Beor”, we are told, was then situated at Pethor, near the Euphrates River” (v. 5), which has been identified with Pitru, on the west bank of the Euphrates, a few miles south of the important Carchemish. 

According to vv. 5-6, “Balak said:

 

‘A people has come out of Egypt; they cover the face of the land and have settled next to me. Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that whoever you bless is blessed, and whoever you curse is cursed’.

 

Now, regarding the extra-biblical literary evidence for Balaam, Bryant Wood has written, “Is there any evidence to prove the existence of the prophet, Balaam?”: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a014.html

 

“In an unprecedented discovery, an ancient text found at Deir Alla, Jordan, in 1967 tells about the activities of a prophet named Balaam. Could this be the Balaam of the Old Testament?

 

The text makes it clear that it is. Three times in the first four lines he is referred to as “Balaam son of Beor,” exactly as in the Bible. This represents the first Old Testament prophet to be dug up in Bible lands—not his tomb or his skeleton, but a text about him. The text also represents the first prophecy of any scope from the ancient West Semitic world to be found outside the Old Testament, and the first extra-Biblical example of a prophet proclaiming doom to his own people.

 

Balaam was not an Israelite. He was hired by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites. They were camped on the east side of the Jordan river, about to make their historic entry into the promised land. Through God's intervention, Balaam was obliged to bless the Israelites rather than curse them (Num 22-24).

 

Afterwards, Balaam seems to have been the cause of the Israelites' sin in Numbers 25 when they took Moabite and Midianite women and worshipped the Moabite god Baal-peor (Num 31:16).

 

Balaam was eventually killed when Moses sent the Israelites against the Midianites (Num 31). He is further condemned in Scripture in 2 Peter 2:15 (he loved the wages of unrighteousness), Jude 11 (ungodly men ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward) and Revelation 2:14 (he taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication).

 

The remarkable text found at Deir Alla consists of 119 fragments of plaster inscribed with black and red ink. It was among the rubble of a building destroyed in an earthquake. It seems to have been one long column with at least 50 lines, displayed on a plastered wall. According to the excavators' dating, the disaster was most likely the severe earthquake which occurred in the time of King Uzziah (Azariah) and the prophet Amos in about 760 BC (Amos 1:1; Zec 14:5). The lower part of the text shows signs of wear, indicating that it had been on the wall for some time prior to the earthquake.

 

Written in Aramaic, the text begins with the title “Warnings from the Book of Balaam the son of Beor. He was a seer of the gods.” It is in red ink, as are other portions of the text where emphasis is desired. The reference to the “Book of Balaam” indicates that the text was part of a pre-existing document and therefore the original date of the material is much earlier than the plaster text itself. Balaam goes on to relate a vision concerning impending judgment from the gods, and enters into a dispute with his listeners.

 

There are a number of similarities between the text and the account of Balaam in the book of Numbers. To begin with, the events described in Numbers 22-24 took place in the same general area where the text was found. At the time of the Numbers 22-24 incident, the Israelites were camped on the Plains of Moab, across the Jordan river from Jericho.

Deir Alla is located about 25 miles north of this area, where the Jabbok river flows into the Jordan valley. Balaam was from Pethor, near “the river” (Num 22:5), in “Aram” (Num 23:7; Dt 23:4).

 

The reference to Aram has led most scholars to conclude that Balaam was from northern Syria, in the vicinity of the Euphrates river. That does not fit well with the Biblical account, however, since Balaam's home seems to have been close to where the Israelites were camped (Num 22:1-22; 31:7-8).

 

In view of Balaam being revered at Deir Alla, one would expect that Deir Alla was his home. This is exactly what William Shea has proposed, based on his reading of the name Pethor in an inscribed clay tablet found at Deir Alla (1989:108-11). In this case, the river of Numbers 22:5 would be the Jabbok river and the naharaim (two rivers) of Deuteronomy 23:4 would be the Jabbok and Jordan rivers.

 

With regard to the references to Aram, Shea suggests that the original place name was Adam, with the “d” being miscopied as “r,” since the two letters are nearly identical in ancient Hebrew. Adam was a town about eight miles southwest of Deir Alla, on the east bank of the Jordan river, where the Jabbok meets the Jordan.

 

Balaam evidently was well known as a “cursing prophet,” for Balak specifically summoned Balaam for the purpose of cursing Israel (Num 22:6). Much of the Deir Alla text was given to curses uttered by the prophet. The term “shadday-gods” is used on two occasions in the text. Shadday is one of the names for God in the Old Testament, used mainly in the book of Job. Since the account of Job is set in Transjordan (Job 1:1-3), it seems that Shadday was a name used for deity in this region. Balaam used the name twice in his blessing speeches where it is translated “Almighty” (Num 24:4, 16).

 

The Deir Alla text presents a problem to those who dismiss the Biblical account of the Exodus, Wilderness Wanderings and Conquest as legendary, as is the trend in scholarship today. It is clear that Balaam was a real person who operated on the east side of the Jordan river. He was known as a cursing prophet and continued to be revered hundreds of years after his death. His persona as revealed in the Deir Alla text precisely matches that of the Balaam of Numbers 22-24. If Balaam was a real person, what about Balak, Moses, Joshua and all of the other persons named in the Biblical narrative? They must have been real as well, and the events described authentic”.

[End of quotes]

 

Balaam is also famous for having a talking donkey (vv. 21-30), an ancient story whose marvel has been picked up, but altered, in later mythologies. See e.g. my article:

 

A funny thing happened on the way to Mecca. Part Three: Mohammed’s talking donkey taken from Balaam

 

https://www.academia.edu/39982066/A_funny_thing_happened_on_the_way_to_Mecca._Part_Three_Mohammed_s_talking_donkey_taken_from_Balaam

An angel (“The Messenger of the Lord’), who had been steering Balaam’s donkey, will finally appear to Balaam (Numbers 22:31-33): “Then the Lord let Balaam see the Messenger of the Lord who was standing in the road with his sword drawn. So Balaam knelt, bowing with his face touching the ground”.

The angel will spare the life of the repentant Balaam, but will insist that the latter say to the king of Moab only what the angel instructs him to say (vv. 34-35): “Balaam said to the Messenger of the Lord, ‘I’ve sinned. I didn’t know you were standing there in the road to stop me. If you still think this trip is evil, I’ll go back’.

 

The Messenger of the Lord said to Balaam, ‘Go with the men, but say only what I tell you’. So Balaam went with Balak’s princes”.

 

In Balaam’s final messages, which, too, are focussed primarily upon the region of Palestine-(Egypt), we do get mention at least of “Assyria” (אַשּׁוּר), which is in Mesopotamia.

 

Thus Balaam proclaims (Numbers 24:15-24):

 

‘This is the message of Balaam, son of Beor.

This is the message of the man whose eyesight is clear.

This is the message of the one who hears God’s words,

    receives knowledge from the Most High,

        has a vision from the Almighty,

            and falls into a trance with his eyes open:

I see someone who is not here now.

    I look at someone who is not nearby.

        A star will come from Jacob.

        A scepter will rise from Israel.

            He will crush the heads of the Moabites

                and destroy all the people of Sheth.

Edom will be conquered,

        and Seir, his enemy, will be conquered.

            So Israel will become wealthy.

He will rule from Jacob

    and destroy whoever is left in their cities.”

 

Then Balaam saw the Amalekites and delivered this message:

 

“Amalek was first among the nations,

    but in the end it will be destroyed.”

 

Then he saw the Kenites and delivered this message:

 

“You have a permanent place to live.

Your nest is built in a rock.

But it is destined to be burned, you descendants of Cain,

        when Assyria takes you as prisoners of war.”

 

He delivered this message:

 

“Oh no! Who will live when God decides to do this?

Ships will come from the shores of Kittim [כִּתִּים].

    They will conquer Assyria and Eber.

        But they, too, will be totally destroyed’.

 

Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, who would put forward the novel thesis in his Ages in Chaos I (1952) that the Hyksos (Aamu) people who invaded Egypt were – in a chronologically revised scenario – the biblical Amalekites with whom the Moses-led Israelites had had to contend, would latch on to Balaam’s references to “Agag” (24:7) and “Amalek” as pertaining to the Hyksos ruler Apophis:

 

“The name of the king Agog [Agag] is the only Amalekite name that the Scriptures have preserved. Besides the king Agog mentioned in the Book of Numbers there was another Amalekite king Agog, their last king, who reigned some 400 years later and was a contemporary with Saul.

In the history of Egypt the most frequently mentioned name of the Hyksos kings is Apop [or Apophis]. One of the first and most prominent of the Hyksos rulers was Apop; their last king of the Hyksos was also Apop [Apophis].

The early Hebrew written signs as they are preserved on the stele of Mesha show a striking resemblance between the letters g (gimel) and p (pei)…similar to the written number 7; the size of the angle between the two oblique lines constitutes the only difference…”.

 

[End of quote]

 

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/hyksos.htm

“Aamu was the contemporary term used to distinguish the people of Avaris, the Hyksos capital in Egypt, from Egyptians. Egyptologists conventionally translate aamu as "asiatics" The Jewish historian, Josephus, in his Contra Apionem, claims that Manetho was the first to use the Greek term, Hyksos, incorrectly translated as "shepherd-kings". Contemporary Egyptians during the Hyksos invasion designated them as hikau khausut, which meant "rulers of foreign countries", a term that originally only referred to the ruling caste of the invaders. However, today the term Hyksos has come to refer to the whole of these people who ruled Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt's ancient history, and had to be driven out of the land by the last ruler of the 17th Dynasty and the earliest ruler of Egypt's New Kingdom”.

 

Velikovsky’s identification of the Hyksos as the Amalekites has been a popular one amongst revisionists, despite their disagreements over other aspects of his revision.

Dr. John Osgood, for instance, firmly accepted this aspect of Velikovsky’s thesis.

 

I, too, early in the peace, had tended to fall right in line with Dr. Velikovsky’s identification of the Hyksos with the Amalekites. It seemed to be one area of his Ages in Chaos about which revisionists of varying persuasions had generally concurred. However, I, in the course of writing my university thesis: A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background (AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf) had begun to wonder if the Amalekites, a desert tribe, could actually suffice to represent, by themselves, the mighty Hyksos power. I simply give here my musings on the subject, taken from Volume One, Chapter 2 of my thesis (without references), beginning on p. 43:

 

 “[David] Rohl has proposed an alliance between these ‘Indo-Europeans’ and the Hurrians:

 

…. These foreign settlers were Indo-Europeans – in other words speakers of an Indo-European language rather than Semites. They came from the north, landing near the city of Ugarit before setting off on their march south towards Egypt, their fleet moving down the coast in support of the land army.

During the first stage of this military migration, the largest tribal group of the Caphtorim confederacy – the Pelasts (known in the later Greek literature as Pelasgoi from an original Pelastoi) – had allied themselves with another group of migrants from the Zagros mountains known as the Hurrians.

 

In later years the Egyptians would refer to Syria as Hurri-land (or Kharu) after the new settlers in the region, whereas the Bible calls the allies of the Philistines ‘Horites’. In the Classical period, the Greeks knew them as the Kares (Carians).

 

 

Velikovsky too had, in a detailed discussion, argued for an identification of the enigmatic Hurrians with the Carians. ….

 

Rohl continues:

 

Together the two allies from the north virtually took over the territories which the Israelites (who were still contained within the hill country) had failed to occupy. They massacred the indigenous ethnic population known in the biblical text as the Avvim and even came to rule over the Aamu/Amalekites of the Egyptian delta. These élite Indo-European rulers founded both the ‘Greater Hyksos’ Dynasty at Avaris and the kingdom of Mitanni beyond the Euphrates river. The latter would be a powerful political and military force in the region during the Late Bronze I period when they at first became the principal enemy and then subsequently (during LB II-A) the main political ally of the Egyptian 18th-Dynasty pharaohs.

 

Rohl has raised here a series of thought-provoking points. His view that the Hurrians were the ‘founders of the kingdom of Mitanni’ seems to concur with the testimony of both Grimal and van de Mieroop, who refer to Mitanni as a “Hurrian” entity.

…. According to Grimal, for instance: … “Mitanni is the name of the Hurrian civilization which was contemporary with the Kassites in Babylonia”. Van de Mieroop tells that the “rulers of Mittani, the Hurrian state in northern Syria, bore Indo-European names and their charioteers were designated with the word mariyannu, a term that might include the Vedic word for “young man”.” …. Van de Mieroop has also attempted to explain here the connection between the Hurrians and the ‘Indo-Europeans’:

 

These [Hurrian] immigrants probably brought some cultural elements we usually associate with Indo-Europeans, even if Hurrian itself is not an Indo-European language. Later Hurrians honored the Indian gods Mitra, Varuna, and the divine pair Nasatya [and Indra]. There has been much speculation as to whether the Hurrians themselves were subjected to an Indo-European military upper-class: later rulers of Mittani, the Hurrian state in northern Syria bore Indo-European names …. The evidence is inconclusive as to the character of the military class, however, and it seems best to regard its members as men with a special training for warfare.

Perhaps it may be time to reconsider an earlier view that the new bichrome ware pottery that we have been discussing was Hurrian in origin. …. The Philistines would then be a part of the Hurrian polity. I should also like to see reconsidered the equation between the Hurrians and the Habiru (or Hapiru), referred to e.g. in the [El Amarna] letters, given that I shall be arguing, in Chapter 4 (pp. 109-111), that Philistines were among the Habiru (Egyptian `PR.W) ‘rebels’ of EA.

 

The Tikunani Prism, conventionally dated to c. 1550 BC, lists the names of 438 Habiru soldiers or servants of king Tunip-Teššub of Tikunani, a small citystate in central Mesopotamia. The majority of these names are typically Hurrian…..

 

Rohl has also, above, made the fascinating suggestion that these foreigners were the founders of the ‘Greater Hyksos’ Dynasty, though apparently continuing to preserve the Velikovskian connection between (at least the broader) Hyksos/Amu and the Amalekites. But, given the view of Courville and Bimson, that the incursion of the ‘Indo-Europeans’ coincided approximately with the Exodus/Conquest – rather than Rohl’s estimation of its coincidence with a later biblical period – is it not now logical to consider the entire Hyksos invasion of Egypt, from its very beginning, as being the overflow of this new people into Palestine and Egypt? According to Keller: … ““… rulers of foreign lands”. That is the meaning of the name Hyksos”. What better description for this new people? Moreover, Keller quotes Manetho in regard to the Hyksos as follows: “Unexpectedly from the regions of the East, came men of unknown race. Confident of victory they marched against our land. By force they took it, easily, without a single battle”. Likewise, Ramses III will later refer to the confident attitude of the ‘Sea Peoples’: …. “Their hearts were high and their confidence in themselves was supreme: ‘Our plans will succeed’.” According to Keller: …. “The reliefs at Medinet Habu indicate … the faces of the Biblical Philistines. … The tall slim figures are about a head higher than the Egyptians”. (See Figure 2, p. 50).

 

In the case of this second wave of ‘Indo-Europeans’ though, at the time of Ramses III, the attempted invasion was not successful; even though this people too had come fully confident of victory.

 

Manetho would not likely perhaps have referred to the indigenous Amalekites as “men of unknown race”; but he might well have said this of the first wave of ‘Indo-Europeans’. It is quite possible, however, that the Amalekites had allied themselves to this formidable host of invaders and had thereby become partners in the conquest of Egypt; just as indigenous Philistines would no doubt later have been caught up in the relentless southward movement of the ‘Sea Peoples’. Indeed one finds, late in the reign of Saul, Philistines and Amalekites apparently acting as allies against Israel (1 Samuel 30 and 31; 2 Samuel 1:1-16).

 

Rohl has provided archaeological evidence – for approximately the same era of MB (towards the end of MB II B) in which Bimson had dated the beginning of Hyksos rule (MB II C) – for the appearance of the new pottery type at ancient Avaris in Egypt. It makes sense, then, to connect the Hyksos – at least in part – with the first wave of ‘Indo-European’ invaders. …. Bimson has grappled with trying to distinguish between what might have been archaeological evidence for the Philistines and evidence for the Hyksos, though in actual fact it may be fruitless to try to discern a clear distinction in this case. Thus he writes: ….

 

Finds at Tell el-Ajjul, in the Philistine plain, about 5 miles SW of Gaza, present a particularly interesting situation. As I have shown elsewhere, the “Palace I” city (City III) at Tell el-Ajjul was destroyed at the end of the MBA, the following phase of occupation (City II) belonging to LB I ….

There is some uncertainty as to exactly when bichrome ware first appeared at Tell el-Ajjul. Fragments have been found in the courtyard area of Palace I, but some writers suggest that this area remained in use into the period of Palace II, and that the bichrome ware should therefore be regarded as intrusive in the Palace I level ….

 

It seems feasible to suggest that the invading Philistines were responsible for the destruction of City III, though it is also possible that its destruction was the work of Amalekites occupying the Negeb (where we find them settled a short while after the Exodus; cf. Num. 13:29); in view of Velikovsky’s identification of the biblical Amalekites with the Hyksos … the Amalekite occupation of the Negeb could plausibly be dated, like the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, to roughly the time of the Exodus …. But if our arguments have been correct thus far, the evidence of the bichrome ware favours the Philistines as the newcomers to the site, and as the builders of City II”.

 

A correspondent has asked:

 

“So what do you think happened to ruined, leaderless, denuded Egypt immediately after the Exodus? Surely opportunistic ‘neighbours’ would have quickly worked out there was an opening for looting and an easier life… There is no biblical note of any population migrating N-S through Canaan/Sinai into Egypt while the Israelites were in the Sinai-Negev. When did this happen? (the Hurrians etc) In biblical times or not?”

….

 

Continuing on with sections from my university thesis on the subject (Volume One, Chapter 2, pp. 32-43) I wrote, beginning with a quote from Dr. D. Courville:

 

The Philistines in Early Scripture

 

According to the table of nations as given in Genesis 10, the Philistines are the descendants of Philistim in the line of Casluhim, son of Mizraim, ancestor of the Egyptians. Since the Philistines are stated to have come from Caphtor, which is undoubtedly correctly identified as Crete, they would certainly be closely related to the Caphtorims, who are also of the line of Mizraim and who, from their name, also must have settled in Crete (Caphtor) and have given the island its ancient name.

 

Courville is here following the general view that ‘Caphtor’ refers to Crete. Bimson has noted, though, that this view has its critics: ….

 

 According to Jeremiah 47:4 and Amos 9:7, the original home of the Philistines was the island of Caphtor (hence their designation as Caphtorim). Caphtor of the scriptures, along with Keftiu of Egyptian sources, is usually identified with Crete, though this view has not been without its critics. For example, J. C. GREENFIELD comments: “… There is no evidence for a Philistine occupation of Crete, nor do the facts about the Philistines, known from archaeological and literary sources, betray any relationship between them and Crete”. …. Greenfield suggests that perhaps Caphtor was a term used very broadly for the Aegean area.

 

Bimson himself, at least in 1978, preferred Velikovsky’s view … that Caphtor was Cyprus:

 

… “It also seems that Keftiu of Egyptian sources is Cyprus, in spite of the many claims that it is Crete, based on a misinterpretation of the literary and pictorial evidence”.

Certainly Cyprus was an island of great geographical importance in relation to southern Anatolia and Phoenicia. However, I think that the standard view, that Caphtor was Crete, is the correct one, and that one can in fact trace an archaeological trail for the Philistines right back to Crete.

 

Courville continues:

 

Scripture records the presence of the Philistines in the territory just to the south of Palestine from the time of Abraham. At this time, they may not have comprised a vast population, but neither were they an insignificant people, since they had a king over them (Abimelech) and his people (armies) are referred to as a host. At the time of the Exodus, the Philistines continued to occupy this same territory, as evidenced by the routing of the escaping Israelites to avoid passing through Philistine territory, though this was the more direct route.

 

Courville continues on, to a consideration of:

 

The Philistines in Scripture for the Post-Exodus Period

 

The Philistines appear as a fully settled and organized people in the area south of Palestine at the time of the conquest under Joshua. At that time, the people were ruled by five lords or kings, each ruling over a city state. They also appear among the oppressors of Israel during the period of the Judges; the earliest mention is at the time of Shamgar.

 

This Shamgar, according to Bright, “was not even an Israelite”. And Bright refers to various sources in regard to “this enigmatic figure”, whose name, he says, “appears to be Hurrian”….. Bright has also suggested here a possible connection between the biblical Sisera (of the same approximate era of the Judges as Shamgar) and “Aegean elements” related to the Sea Peoples.

 

“Even at this time”, Courville continues, “the Philistines were evidently not a vast population, since the slaughter of 600 of them is represented as a significant victory”.

He then proceeds on to discuss the Philistines in relation to Israel’s monarchy, including the reign of Hezekiah: ….

 

After an interval of somewhat less than 300 years, the Philistines had become sufficiently powerful to dominate the Israelites, at least locally. From this time on through the era of the monarchy, we find periodic mention of the Philistines, who continue to occupy territory on the southern border of Israel; at times they are even within Israelite territory. That their power was intermittently broken is indicated by the stated results of the wars with the Israelites at the time of Samuel, at the time of David, in the reign of Uzziah, and in the reign of Hezekiah.

 

Just because the Bible tends to speak of the Philistines in connection with localized areas, though, does not mean that their geography was thus limited. This brings me to the introduction of a principle of biblical interpretation that will become important throughout this thesis. Liel has expressed it as follows, though not in terms of geography: …. “Remember–the Bible is a didactic history. Its goal is to teach ideas, not political science”. The biblical writers were not interested in writing a history or geography of the Philistines, or of the rulers of Mitanni, or of the Egyptians. They were essentially concerned with Israel, and any ‘accidental’ information with which they might have provided us concerning elements foreign to Israel would depend entirely upon the degree to which these elements impacted upon Israel itself. So, just because most of our biblical information about the Philistines pertains to their activity along the southern coast, close to the kingdom of Judah, does not mean that the historical Philistines themselves were in fact largely confined to that particular region.

 

Courville now proceeds to tell of the Philistine occupation of parts of northern Israel at the time of Saul. This will lead him to important archaeological considerations further on:

 

Pertinent to the problems to be dealt with is the appearance of the Philistines along the northern coastal region of Israel in the area of Megiddo and Beth Shan at the time of Saul, as well as in their more commonly recognized home in the south. To have maintained their presence in territories thus far separated suggests that they controlled the coast between these territories, either by land or by sea or both.

 

And, during the neo-Assyrian era:

 

The Philistines continued to occupy the territory in the south into the reign of Ahaz .… Since the Assyrians already were harassing the southern kingdom of Judah also, the Philistines would appear to have been competing with the Assyrians for the diminishing Israelite territory. Such a situation could be expected to be a source of difficulty between the Assyrians and the Philistines. It is apparent from the inscriptions of Tiglathpileser of Assyria and of his successor, Sargon, that untoward relations did exist at this time between these two peoples.

 

Having summarised the biblical account of the Philistines, Courville now proceeds to introduce the somewhat different history of this people as held by the historians: ….

 

Current Views on the Origin of the Philistines in Palestine

 

While Scripture indicates the presence of the Philistines in Palestine from the time of Abraham, this concept is generally rejected by archaeologists. This latter view is based on the absence of recognized archaeological evidence for such occupation prior to the incident of the invasion of Egypt by the Sea Peoples in the reign of Rameses III (c. 1200 B.C. by current views), or possibly a few years earlier in the reign of Merneptah. This invasion was a failure and the remnants of the abortive attempt were thrown back on Palestine and Syria.

 

These invaders, known as the Sea Peoples, represented a mixture of races who had origins in the islands of the Mediterranean, including Cyprus, Crete, and the islands of the Aegean Sea near Greece. However, some of the names indicate a possible origin in Greece or in southwest Asia Minor. The inscription of Rameses III mentions peoples by the names Palusathu (generally identified with the Philistines), the Shakalaha, the Sherdanu, the Zakkaru, the Ashwaka (thought by some to refer to the Achaeans of Greece), and the Danaus (whom Gordon would identify with the Danites of the tribe of Dan on the basis of Judges 5:17, but whom most scholars take to be one of the several peoples related culturally to the Philistines). The Egyptian list provides the names of ten different peoples who comprised the invaders.

 

Courville is here referring to the vast literary and pictorial account of this land and sea invasion as recorded by Ramses III on his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. Scholars can vary quite considerably in their attempts to identify each of these peoples (even to transliterate their names), and as to the degree to which they managed to discomfort Egypt. Lloyd has high praise for the painstaking study of them by Sandars: ….

 

During Ramesses’ land- and sea-battles with the Peoples of the Sea, many prisoners were taken, and on the walls of Medinet Habu his sculptors not only listed their supposed countries of origin but depicted in relief their national dress and other peculiarities. The information thus provided has been studied with great care, notably by N. K. Sandars in a book which is a small masterpiece of patient scholarship.

 

Sandars herself, speaking of Merenptah’s time, has written thus of the ‘Sea Peoples’, including the important Libyans: ….

 

With the Libyans, and their neighbours the Meshwesh, came a number of northern allies: the Sherden or Shardana and the Lukka, already well known; also three new names, Ekwesh (Egyptian ´Ikwš), Teresh (Trš) and Shekelesh (Škrš).

 

… The name Sherden-Shardana has, since it was first recognized, been connected with Sardinia … It has also, rather less convincingly, been linked with Sardis. That the Shardana wore horned helmets is one of the few sartorial certainties in the complicated history of Egypt’s friends and attackers. … Horned helmets were alien to the Aegean … but they were indigenous in Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Levant. … The Lukka, who also joined the Libyan invaders, had been allies of the Hittites at the battle of Kadesh. We have met them already as pirates from south-western Anatolia. … Also among the Libyan allies are the Ekwesh, not heard of before this time …. They have been connected with the Ahhiyawa of the Hittite texts … and so with the Homeric Achaeans; if so, it is rather surprising that, as Indo-Europeans, they were circumcised. … A Hittite text … refers to Taru-(u)i-ša (Taruisha), which may be the same as the Teresh …. The Hittites located their Taruisha in northern Assuwa near the Troad, but they have also been placed not far from the land that was later Lydia … and from where, according to Herodotus, the Tyrrhenians migrated to central Italy.

This would link the Teresh-Taruisha-Tyrsenoi with the Etruscans. …The Hittite texts appear to be silent concerning the Shekelesh …. But just as the Shardana are linked with Sardinia, and the Teresh with the Etruscans, so the Shekelesh have for a long time been identified with the inhabitants of south-eastern Sicily.

 

Trigger, Kemp et al. argue a relatively feeble Egyptian response to these incoming hordes: ….

 

During the reign of Ramesses III … the political and ethnic structure of Syria, Palestine and Anatolia was drastically altered as the result of a mysterious population movement, that of the ‘Sea-Peoples’, who surged along the eastern Mediterranean and had to be repulsed at the seaward and eastern frontiers of Egypt itself. At the same time, perhaps not coincidentally, Libyan pressure … reached a climax in two abortive invasions of the western Delta. To a degree, these developments were uncontrollable; neither the Hittites nor any other state in the region had been able to resist the ‘Sea-Peoples’ …. But it is significant that Egyptian reaction was comparatively weak.

 

According to Brewer and Teeter, the invasion altered the balance of power in the region: …. “The “People of the Sea” ultimately changed the entire balance of power in the Near East, sweeping away the Hittites and setting the stage for Assyria to step into the void as the new dominant power in the Near East”.

 

Courville now turns to the all-important consideration of a distinctive pottery type introduced by this new mix of peoples: ….

 

On the basis of the appearance of a new type of pottery in the area occupied by the Philistines following the attempted invasion, and in the absence of any earlier recognized evidence of the Philistines in Palestine, the new occupants are identified with the Philistines of Scripture in the time of the late judges. This view, of necessity, must reject the earlier references to the Philistines in Scripture. Wright would explain this discrepancy by assuming that a later writer was bringing the account up to date in terms of the later occupation.

…. 

Another example [of modernizing Scripture] is the mention of the Philistines as living along the southern coast of Palestine … but we now know that the settlement of the Philistines did not occur until five or six hundred years later …

Later Hebrews were simply bringing the stories up to date, and what modern teller of tales does not do the same?

 

Courville proceeds to challenge the standard archaeological view on the Philistines: ….

 

The New Pottery appearing in the Territory

of the Philistines is not of Cretan Origin

 

The archaeology of Crete … yields most damaging evidence for the view that these invaders and their culture came from Crete; hence it becomes necessary to refer to one phase of Cretan history. Using the popularly accepted dates, the following facts are to be noted.

The dates by the proposed revision will be five to six hundred years later. The sea power and culture of Crete reached its zenith in the period dated c. 1500-1400 B.C. During this century, Crete represented the major sea power of the ancient world, and produced some of the most beautiful and elaborately decorated pottery known anciently. About 1400 B.C. Crete was the victim of an overwhelming catastrophe from which neither its power nor its culture ever recovered … The evidence indicates that the same culture survived the catastrophe but underwent a steep decline, so that by 1200 B.C. the power and culture of Crete was at its nadir, the residual culture being but a crude remnant of its predecessors. If the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt at this time came from Crete under these conditions, then how could they suddenly be in full possession of a high level of pottery culture as indicated by the appearance of this new pottery type in southern Palestine? This new pottery is stated to be on a higher level than that used by the occupants prior to this (as compared to the pottery in the level below it) …. The anachronism that results from supposing that this pottery had a Cretan origin was recognized by Baikie who commented:

 

… But the remaining tribes [mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions] are in all probability Cretans, fragments of the old Minoan Empire which had collapsed two centuries before, and was now gradually becoming disintegrated … There remain the Pulosathu, who are, almost beyond question, the Philistines, so well known to us from their connection with the rise of the Hebrew monarchy. The Hebrew tradition brought the Philistines from Kaphtor, and Kaphtor is plainly nothing else than the Egyptian Kefti, or Keftiu. In the Philistines, then, we have the last organized remnant of the old Minoan sea-power. Thrown back from the frontier of Egypt by the victory of Rameses III, they established themselves on the maritime plain of Palestine …. But all the same the Philistine was an anachronism, a survival from an older world.

 

An examination of the new pottery that appeared in Philistia at the time of this attempted invasion of Egypt, and comparison of it with that used in Crete at this time, and prior to this for two centuries, provides no basis for presuming that this new pottery is of Cretan origin. ….

 

Courville next proceeds to argue that: ….

 

 

This New Pottery in Philistia Is of Aegean Origin

 

A comparison of this pottery with that of the Aegean area for this and the preceding era leaves no room for doubt on this point. While this pottery found its way to Cyprus and even to the mainland to the north, its origin may be placed unequivocally to the Aegean Islands and the immediate area. Miss Kenyon commented thus on this pottery:

 

There is, however, one class of archaeological material which may reasonably be associated with the newcomers. This is a type of pottery entirely new to Palestine [sic], decorated with elaborate patterns. The most characteristic elements in the decoration are metopes enclosing stylized birds, very often with back-turned head, friezes of spirals, and groups of interlocking semicircles.

The form of the vessels and the elements in the decoration all have their origins in the Late Helladic ceramic art of the Aegean. ….

 

“But if the pottery is of Aegean origin, and not Cretan”, Courville continues, “then it is most inconsistent to identify the pottery as Philistine on the basis of the Scriptural statements to the effect that the Philistines came from Crete”. “And if it is not Philistine, then what basis is there for presuming”, he asks, “that this pottery provides any evidence at all that this is the date for the first appearance of the Philistines in Palestine?”: ….

 

To be sure, it remains possible, though not demonstrated, that this pottery is Philistine of Aegean origin. But if shelter is to be taken under this possibility, then consistency would require that not only the early Scriptural references be rejected, but also the later references which so clearly portray a Cretan origin of the Philistines. It is to be noted that Miss Kenyon recognized the insecurity of the proposed identification of this pottery as Philistine.

 

It cannot of course be accepted without question that this pottery is necessarily associated with the Philistines, but the evidence does seem to be strongly in favour of this ascription.

 

Courville will eventually trace back this distinctive pottery type to the earliest phase of Cretan archaeology, in support of the biblical view that the immigrant Philistines were of Cretan origin. More on that later.

 

I think we need to recognize, with Rohl, that the coming of the Sea Peoples was “a secondary wave of migrants”, following on from an earlier influx of ‘Indo-Europeans’.

 

With that in mind, whilst Caphtor would still stand – as it does conventionally – for Crete, Cyprus may later have become prominent as a base and stepping-stone for these peoples during the second invasion. Here is Rohl’s account, with a corresponding stratigraphy (he juxtaposes here OC – Old Chronology dates – against his NC – New Chronology dates): ….

 

… who were these Philistines and where did they come from?

 

Of course, in the conventional chronological scheme, the Philistines appear in Philistia not during the Middle Bronze Age but at the beginning of the Iron Age (OC – c. 1200 BC).

They are identified with a group called the Peleset who attack Egypt by land and sea in the 8th year of Pharaoh Ramesses III (OC – 1177 BC, NC – 856 BC).

 

These Iron Age invaders are indeed Philistines – but they are not the first ‘Sea Peoples’ to arrive in the region. In the New Chronology the original incursion of Indo-European peoples from the Aegean occurs towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age (NC – c. 1350 BC). The Peleset of Ramesses III’s time are a secondary wave of migrants moving into the Levant (to dwell alongside their ancestral Philistine kin) during the period of collapse of the Mycenaean Bronze Age city states of Greece. This collapse was triggered by the long and debilitating campaign of the Trojan war (NC – c. 872-863 BC) and the subsequent Dorian invasion (NC – c. 820 BC) which ousted the Mycenaean élites onto the islands of the eastern Mediterranean and into the Levant itself.

But these events are hundreds of years in the future as the original Philistine migrants arrive on the Canaanite coast during the Hyksos period.

 

I had earlier referred to the person of Shamgar, during the period of the Judges, and had noted Bright’s indication that his name, at least, might be Hurrian. Now Rohl has dated the arrival of the first wave of ‘Indo-Europeans’ precisely to this very same time of the Judges, conveniently, according to his New Chronology, in 1300 BC: ….

 

During the judgeship of EHUD only one minor external conflict occurred in this long period of internal squabbling amongst the tribes. Shamgar, son of Anath, came up against a raiding party of Philistines (Hebrew Pelishtim) in the Shephelah hills which border the coastal plain. As had happened with the Edomites and the Moabites, here too the Israelites managed to push this new enemy back from their territory. But behind this apparently insignificant biblical story – which occupies just one line in the book of Judges [Judges 3:31] – is a momentous event in the history of the ancient Near East. This first mention of the Philistine soldiers heralds the arrival of a new Indo-European-speaking political force in the region.

 

The year of Shamgar’s run-in with these strange foreigners from a far-off land was 1300 BC. In Egyptian terms, this places the Philistine ‘arrival’ on the biblical stage right in the middle of the Hyksos period – a little over a century after the invasion of the eastern Delta by King Sheshi (in c. 1409 BC) and the subsequent demise of the remnant native 13th Dynasty.

 

Whilst it is perhaps arguable that the Old Testament, with its aforementioned emphasis upon pedagogy rather than having any particular concern for recounting the history of foreign nations, could relegate to “just one line”, in only one of its books, an event as momentous as the incursion of the ‘Indo-Europeans’ into the ancient Near East, I would nevertheless instead embrace the view of Courville … and Bimson (see below) that there was an actual biblical tradition associated with the arrival of these foreign masses.

 

And, according to such tradition, this significant event pertains to a period somewhat earlier than the one that Rohl thinks he has pinpointed to the time of Ehud and Shamgar, in the era of the Judges. Here I take up Bimson’s account of this biblical tradition: ….

 

There is a tradition preserved in Joshua 13:2-3 and Judges 3:3 that the Philistines were established in Canaan by the end of the Conquest, and that the Israelites had been unable to oust them from the coastal plain …. There is also an indication that the main Philistine influx had not occurred very much prior to the Conquest. As we shall see below, the Philistines are the people referred to as “the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor” in Deuteronomy 2:23 … where it is said that a people called the Avvim originally occupied the region around Gaza, and that the Caphtorim “destroyed them and settled in their stead”. Josh. 13:2-3 mentions Philistines and Avvim together as peoples whom the Israelites had failed to dislodge from southern Canaan. This suggests that the Philistines had not completely replaced the Avvim by the end of Joshua’s life. I would suggest, in fact, that the war referred to in Ex. 13:17, which was apparently taking place in “the land of the Philstines” at the time of the Exodus, was the war of the Avvim against the newly arrived Philistines.

 

As conventionally viewed, the end of MB II C coincides with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt. Bimson however, in his efforts to provide a revised stratigraphy for the revision of history, has synchronised MB II C instead with the start of Hyksos rule. He will argue here in some detail that the building and refortifying of cities at this time was the work of the Avvim against the invading Philistines, with some of the new settlements, however, likely having been built by the Philistines themselves.

 

Rohl, basically following Bimson, has identified certain MB pottery as Philistine, and representing his first wave of ‘Indo-Europeans’. And he will link it to a similar form of pottery belonging, later, to the Sea Peoples – the second wave: ….

 

Towards the end of the Middle Bronze II-B era a new kind of pottery begins to appear in the Levant – particularly on the coastal plain and at Tell ed-Daba (ancient Avaris) in Egypt. This ‘bichrome ware’ is finely decorated pottery with designs painted in black and red on a beige slip (background). The designs include metopes (rectangular boxes) running around the shoulder of the vessel, within which stylized birds and geometric designs are placed.

 

The basic principles of such decoration are witnessed once more, three hundred years later, when the so-called ‘Philistine ware’ proper appears in the archaeological record at the beginning of the Iron Age (around the time of Ramesses III). This later pottery is Aegean in origin and is regarded as being a rather degraded development from Mycenaean Bronze Age ceramics. Given that the earlier bichrome ware of the late MB II-B/LB I is very similar in terms of its decoration to the Iron Age ‘Philistine ware’, you should not be surprised to learn that the clay from which many of the earliest bichrome pots were made comes from Cyprus, thus confirming the Mediterranean connection to the culture which introduced it into the Levant and Egypt. It seems that the first generation of bichrome ceramics was made in Cyprus and brought by newcomers to the southern Levant who then began to produce these distinctive vessels from local clays found in their newly adopted lands.

 

It thus appears that there were two major waves of ‘Indo-European’ migrations, connected the one to the other by this distinctive form of pottery: the first wave being coincident in my revision with the early Conquest and the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, and the second wave occurring early in the reign of Ramses III …. The prophet Amos even seems to synchronise for us the first wave against a biblical era (9:7): ‘Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor …?’ It remains to be seen if we can also find a biblical resonance for the upheaval that was the second wave: the ‘Sea Peoples’.

 

…. Bimson will, in his joint discussion of the Exodus and the arrival of the Philistines, the first wave, propose that plague had been a significant factor in both movements of peoples in this case.

 

Let us follow Bimson’s discussion, centring upon Cyprus, in which he believes “we find some interesting correlations emerging”: ….

 

Bichrome pottery began to be manufactured on Cyprus at the beginning of the period known as Late Cypriot I (abbreviated to LC I) …. Since, as we have seen, it occurs on the mainland at some sites before the end of Palestine’s MB II C period, it is clear that the transition from the latest Middle Cypriot period (MC III) to LC I occurred some while before the end of MB II C on the mainland. In terms of the scheme proposed here, we may tentatively place the beginning of LC I roughly at the time of the Exodus, the end of MB II C marking the Conquest …. This means that the first Late Bronze period on Cyprus, LC I A, was at least partially contemporary with the time the Israelites spent in the wilderness.

 

This synchronism is significant. A number of writers have noted that LC I was a period of considerable unrest of some kind. A striking feature of the first part of the period is the occurrence of mass burials, which are without precedent in the Early and Middle Cypriot periods. The reason for their sudden appearance throughout the length of the island is much debated …., plague and warfare being the two most favoured explanations. Against the view that the people thus buried were killed in battle are the facts, pointed out by SCHAEFFER …, that no wounds are evident on the skeletons, and that the grave-goods do not suggest that the graves are those of warriors. Schaeffer therefore prefers to view many of these burials as the result of plague.

 

Here Bimson makes mention of Velikovsky’s highly controversial view that the earth had suffered catastrophes at the time of the Exodus and Conquest due to “the effects of a close approach of the proto-planet Venus”, before adding:

 

But even without the global catastrophe theory, the mass burials would still provide support for our synchronisms of early LC I with the time of the Israelites’ wilderness journeys. There is ample evidence from the Old Testament that this was a time when plague was rife on the mainland. Apart from the fact that Egypt was affected by plague shortly before the Exodus (Ex. 9:8-12), the Israelites themselves were hit by plague no less than five times between the Exodus and the start of the Conquest (cf. Ex. 32:55; Num. 11:33; 14:37; 16:46-50; 25:9). I have referred elsewhere to KENYON’S conclusion that plague affected the inhabitants of Jericho shortly before the end of the MB II C city, and have noted the possibility that this outbreak should be linked with the plague mentioned in Num. 25:9 …. Thus if we follow Schaeffer, and see Cyprus suffering the effects of plague at the start of LC I, it is logical to synchronise this time with the period when the mainland was similarly afflicted ….

 

However we interpret the mass burials, there is no doubt that on Cyprus at the start of LC I, “abnormal conditions had begun to affect the pattern of contemporary life” ….

One important result of those abnormal conditions was the abandonment of several previously important centres at the eastern end of the island …. In the light of the arguments presented above, that the Philistines arrived in Canaan from Cyprus in MB II C, it would be logical to identify them specifically with the people who were abandoning the island’s eastern centres in LC I …”.

We shall be considering this Middle Bronze II (MB II) stratigraphy further on.

 

 

Cushan the oppressor was a king of Edom

 

 

“Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chushan rishathaim ... and the children of Israel served Chushan rishathaim eight years”.

 

Judges 3:8

 

 

The version of the Bible from which I recently read this verse, Judges 3:8, had Cushan rishathaim as “king of Edom”; whereas I had usually read him as being a “king of Aram Naharaim”.

There is, of course, a fair bit of distance between Edom, to the south of Israel, and Aram Naharaim, in Upper Mesopotamia.

 

Armed with this new piece of information, I decided to re-visit the list of Edomite kings to be found in Genesis 36, in anticipation of perhaps finding there a name like Cushan (כּוּשַׁן).

Having previously thought to have identified Balaam in that Edomite list (following Albright):

 

Insights of William Foxwell Albright. Part Two (i): Albright insisted that Balaam was an ‘Edomite sage’

 

https://www.academia.edu/38431125/Insights_of_William_Foxwell_Albright._Part_Two_i_Albright_insisted_that_Balaam_was_an_Edomite_sage_

 

and knowing that Balaam (at the time of Joshua) to have pre-existed Cushan (the time of Othniel), I checked for an appropriate name not far below King No. 1 in the list, Bela ben Beor (or Balaam son of Beor):

 

1. Bela ben Beor from Dinhabah

 

1. Jobab ben Zerah from Bozrah
    
2. Husham from Teman

 

1. Hadad ben Bedad from Avith

 

1. Samlah from Masrekah

 

1. Saul from Rehoboth

 

1. Baal-Hanan ben Achbor

 

1. Hadar/d from Pau

 

King No. 3 looked perfect for Cushan, or Chushan: namely, Husham (or Chusham, חֻשָׁם).

 

Later I would learn that other scholars (see below) had already come to this same conclusion (i.e., Husham = Cushan).

 

In the following brief article, the jewishvirtuallibrary will query both long names associated with this enemy of Israel, the “Rishathaim” element and the “Naharaim” element.

“The second element, Rishathaim ("double wickedness"), is presumably not the original name”, and: “The combination Aram-Naharaim is not a genuine one for the period of the Judges”:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cushan-rishathaim

 

CUSHAN-RISHATHAIM (Heb. כּוּשַׁן רִשְׁעָתַיִם), the first oppressor of Israel in the period of the Judges (Judg. 3:8–10). Israel was subject to Cushan-Rishathaim, the king of Aram-Naharaim, for eight years, before being rescued by the first "judge," *Othniel son of Kenaz. The second element, Rishathaim ("double wickedness"), is presumably not the original name, but serves as a pejorative which rhymes with Naharaim. The combination Aram-Naharaim is not a genuine one for the period of the Judges, since at that time the Arameans were not yet an important ethnic element in Mesopotamia. In the view of some scholars, the story lacks historical basis and is the invention of an author who wished to produce a judge from Judah, and raise the total number of judges to twelve. Those who see a historical basis to the story have proposed various identifications for Cushan-Rishathaim: (1) Cushan is to be sought among one of the Kassite rulers in Babylonia (17^th–12^th centuries; cf. Gen. 10:8). Josephus identifies Cushan with an Assyrian king. Others identify him with one of the Mitannian or Hittite kings. (2) Cushan is an Egyptian ruler from *Cush in Africa (Nubia; cf. Gen. 10:6; Isa. 11:11, et al.). (3) The head of the tribe of Cush, which led a nomadic existence along the southern border of Palestine. Such Cushite nomads are mentioned in the Egyptian Execration Texts of the first quarter of the second millennium B.C.E. and in the Bible (Num. 12:1; Hab. 3:7; II Chron. 14:8; 21:16). (4) Aram (Heb. ארם) is a corruption of Edom (Heb. אדום) and Naharaim is a later addition. Thus, Cushan is an Edomite king who subjugated the tribe of Judah whose territory was adjacent to Edom. (5) Cushan is from central or northern Syria, and is to be identified with a North Syrian ruler or with irsw, a Hurrian (from the area of Syria-Palestine) who seized power in Egypt during the anarchic period at the end of the 19^th dynasty (c. 1200 B.C.E.). In his campaign from the north to Egypt, he also subjugated the Israelites.

Othniel's rescue of the Israelites is to be understood against the background of the expulsion of the foreign invaders from Egypt by the pharaoh Sethnakhte [sic], the founder of the 20^th dynasty.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

 

E. Taeubler, in: HUCA, 20 (1947), 137–42; A. Malamat, in: JNES, 13 (1954), 231–42; S. Yeivin, in: Atiqot, 3 (1961), 176–80.

 

Point 4 above: “... (4) Aram (Heb. ארם) is a corruption of Edom (Heb. אדום) and Naharaim is a later addition. Thus, Cushan is an Edomite king who subjugated the tribe of Judah whose territory was adjacent to Edom”, will now be viewed as the relevant one, with the addition of Husham the Temanite as the actual identification of this “Edomite king”.

 

Avrāhām Malāmāṭ has, I think, managed to sew it all up, following Klostermann.

In Cushan Rishathaim and the Decline of the Near East around 1200 B. C.“Cushan Rishathaim and the Decline of the Near East around 1200 BC” (Jstor 13, no. 4, 1954), Malāmāṭ wrote (p. 232):

 

The second component of the name Cushan Rishathaim is even more obscure and is undoubtedly a folkloristic distortion of the original form. ... Among the various efforts to ascertain the original name, those of Klostermann and Marquart have found the widest acceptance. Klostermann's proposal was that רִשְׁעָתַיִם originally represented [` נ] תימ ה ש[א]רֵ, “chieftain of the Temanites”, and identified כּוּשַׁן with חֻשָׁם, “(Husham) of the land of the Temanites”, who is third in the list of the kings of Edom (Gen. 36:34). .... Understandably, those who proposed that Cushan Rishathaim reigned in the south of Palestine could not believe the name Aram-Naharaim or Aram (Judg 3:10) to be the genuine form. They accepted the emendation of Aram to Edom, a proposal made as far back as Graetz. Naharaim was considered as a later gloss inserted for the sake of rhyming with Rishathaim. .... Consequently, our passage was viewed as the echo of a local struggle between the Edomites (or Midianites) and Othniel the Kenizzite, the leader of a southern clan related to the tribe of Judah. ....

 

Given the lack of detail associated with the oppression of Israel by Cushan, this scenario appears to make more sense than my previous notion that Cushan was a significant Mesopotamian (perhaps Assyrian) king controlling Palestine. It was more of “a local struggle”.

 

This now means that I must also re-consider Dr. John Osgood’s view (as previously discussed) that the Khabur culture in the north was archaeologically reflective of the period of domination by Cushan. We would need to look instead for a localised cultural dominance.  

 

 

 

Benjaminite Ehud, Eglon, and Jericho

 

 

The popular [revisionist] model today, as espoused by … David Rohl … arguing instead for

a Middle Bronze Jericho at the time of Joshua, ends up throwing right out of kilter the biblico-historical correspondences. [This] is apparent from the part of Dr. Bryant Wood’s critique …

in which Bryant has well pointed out that Rohl’s revised Jericho stratigraphical sequence “completely misses Eglon's occupation of Jericho”.

 

 

“Again the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer—Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a cubit long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man”.

 

Judges 3:15-17

  

 

The narrative about Ehud and his assassination of the oppressive Eglon king of Moab, in Judges 3:12-30, is extremely graphic and gives the impression of being told by an eye-witness.

We encounter a similarly graphic and detailed biblical incident somewhat later, in the shattering fall of Queen Jezebel, as witnessed by General Jehu.

 

The Jericho Level of King Eglon

 

Dr. Osgood, continuing on with what he has classified as his Period B for the Judges (which also includes Othniel and the oppressive king Cushan-Rishathaim as already discussed), now writes (“The Times of the Judges”, p. 145):

 

“Judges 3:12 tells us that the children of Israel rebelled again. God strengthened the hand of Eglon, King of Moab, and they served Moab for 18 years. (Eglon was also associated with AMMON and AMALEK. It is worth bearing in mind that two other authors (Velikovsky and Courville) identify Amalek with the HYKSOS Rulers of Egypt). The indications are that the centre of the conquest was around Jericho (Deuteronomy 34:3) and its neighbouring territory and not the whole land, but it clearly would include much of the Transjordan …”.

 

We need to note that, as we continue with Dr. Osgood’s article (pp. 145-146), he is not guilty of P. Mauro’s criticism of Bishop Ussher that the latter “… changes the rest by Ehud from “fourscore years” (Judg. 3:30) to 20…”:

 

“At the end of this period God raised up Ehud who slew the Moabites (Judges 3:29-30). This resulted in the land having rest for four-score (eighty) years.

Period B covers a total of 146 years …. This period is assumed to have followed immediately after period A by virtue of Othniel’s relationship to Caleb, but definitely not overlapping, for the narrative allows for no such overlap”.

 

Dr. Osgood, though, now moving on into his Period C, looks to include Shamgar still in his Period B (pp. 146-147):

 

“The description of the ‘rest’, the following disobedience, and the oppression also suggests that this oppression followed immediately after this 80 years rest.

There is no doubt that the children of Israel were beginning to turn away from God prior to the death of Ehud. Between the time of his death and the end of the 80 years rest was the period where Shamgar, the son of Anath, judged Israel. This period under Shamgar, son of Anath, appears to have been an unstable period owing to the spiritual drift of Israel at the close of Ehud’s judgeship. Judges 5:6 says: In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied and the travellers walked through byways”.

 

Judges 3:31, however, does appear to state quite clearly that Shamgar came after (וְאַחֲרָיו) Ehud: “And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who smote of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox-goad; and he also saved Israel”. And that is the view taken in the interesting article, “The Chronology of Judges solved!”, whose “Indivisible Units of Chronology” do differ somewhat from Dr. Osgood’s Periods (A to H): http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-route-date-chronology-of-judges.htm

 

1.      The unit [Unit 1] consists of periods of oppression and peace that are mutually exclusive. In other words, you cannot overlap a times of war and times of peace. While it is possible that in this first Unit, the times of war and peace are in different regions of Israel, we consider this unlikely given the natural reading of the text. It is also unnecessary.

2.      You have 8 years of oppression, followed by 40 years when the "land had rest", followed by 18 years of oppression, followed by 80 years when the "land had rest". There simply is no way to shorten this time by overlapping periods of oppression and peace within the unit.

3.      But a secondary factor comes into play within unit 1. It says "after Ehud died came both Shamgar and Deborah". We know therefore, that both Shamgar and Deborah judged within the same period of chronological time side by side, and it is quite interesting that no dates are given for Shamgar. All we know is that Shamgar followed Ehud, as did Deborah who judged 40 years. So we can rightly ignore Shamgar in terms of the chronology since we know he judged during the same "post Ehud" period as Deborah, for whom we know the specific dates of her judgeship.

 

Throughout the Scriptures one encounters many incidents of people turning away from God, or hardening their hearts, most notably – in the latter case – the “Pharaoh” of the Exodus.

I introduce this point here because I heard in today’s sermon by a Dominican priest that it can read like God was deliberately hardening the heart of the Pharaoh for the sake of Israel.

So I shall do what the priest did, and quote from Origen, a scholarly Greek Father (c. 200 AD) http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04123.htm

 

“But, to establish the point more clearly, it will not be superfluous to employ another illustration, as if, e.g., one were to say that it is the sun which hardens and liquefies, although liquefying and hardening are things of an opposite nature. Now it is not incorrect to say that the sun, by one and the same power of its heat, melts wax indeed, but dries up and hardens mud: not that its power operates one way upon mud, and in another way upon wax; but that the qualities of mud and wax are different, although according to nature they are one thing, both being from the earth. In this way, then, one and the same working upon the part of God, which was administered by Moses in signs and wonders, made manifest the hardness of Pharaoh, which he had conceived in the intensity of his wickedness but exhibited the obedience of those other Egyptians who were intermingled with the Israelites, and who are recorded to have quitted Egypt at the same time with the Hebrews. With respect to the statement that the heart of Pharaoh was subdued by degrees, so that on one occasion he said, Go not far away; you shall go a three days' journey, but leave your wives, and your children, and your cattle, and as regards any other statements, according to which he appears to yield gradually to the signs and wonders, what else is shown, save that the power of the signs and miracles was making some impression on him, but not so much as it ought to have done? For if the hardening were of such a nature as many take it to be, he would not indeed have given way even in a few instances. But I think there is no absurdity in explaining the tropical or figurative nature of that language employed in speaking of hardening, according to common usage. For those masters who are remarkable for kindness to their slaves, are frequently accustomed to say to the latter, when, through much patience and indulgence on their part, they have become insolent and worthless:

It is I that have made you what you are; I have spoiled you; it is my endurance that has made you good for nothing: I am to blame for your perverse and wicked habits, because I do not have you immediately punished for every delinquency according to your deserts. For we must first attend to the tropical or figurative meaning of the language, and so come to see the force of the expression, and not find fault with the word, whose inner meaning we do not ascertain. Finally, the Apostle Paul, evidently treating of such, says to him who remained in his sins: Despise the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But, after your hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto yourself wrath on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Such are the words of the apostle to him who is in his sins. Let us apply these very expressions to Pharaoh, and see if they also are not spoken of him with propriety, since, according to his hardness and impenitent heart, he treasured and stored up for himself wrath on the day of wrath, inasmuch as his hardness could never have been declared and manifested, unless signs and wonders of such number and magnificence had been performed”.

 

Now, what of Eglon’s Jericho?

Judges 3:12-14 introduces us to the foreign intruder, Eglon, and his adopted place of residence in Israel:

 

“Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and because they did this evil the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel. Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms. The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years”.

 

The “City of Palms” is Jericho (see below).

Judges 3:20 will inform us that Eglon had a “palace” there.

 Considering that Joshua (6:26) had boldly foretold a future re-building of the city of Jericho that would have to await the time of the reign of king Ahab, the presence of a palace at the site of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) has been something of a source of difficulty for me in terms of the archaeological sequences at the site.

But Drs. John Osgood and Bryant Wood seem to have the proper measure of the situation, as I have more recently noted:

 

The popular [revisionist] model today, as espoused by … David Rohl … arguing instead for a Middle Bronze Jericho at the time of Joshua, ends up throwing right out of kilter the biblico-historical correspondences. [This] is apparent from the part of Dr. Bryant Wood’s critique (“David Rohl's Revised Egyptian Chronology: A View From Palestine”), in which Bryant has well pointed out that Rohl’s revised Jericho stratigraphical sequence “completely misses Eglon's occupation of Jericho”: http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2007/05/23/David-Rohls-Revised-Egyptian-Chronology-A-View-From-Palestine.aspx

 

In his book Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest (1995a; it was first published in England as A Test of Time: The Bible - From Myth to History [1995b]), David Rohl purports to have produced a better correlation between the findings of archaeology and the Bible by revising Egyptian chronology. ….

 

The Middle Building at Jericho

 

Concerning occupation at Jericho following the Conquest, Rohl makes the following statement:

... the next time we hear mention of Jericho after Joshua's destruction of the town is during the reign of David (313).

This is simply incorrect. The next mention of Jericho following Joshua's destruction is in Judges 3 where we are told that Eglon, king of Moab, took possession of the "City of Palms" and built a palace there. The City of Palms, of course, is none other than Jericho (Dt 34:3; 2 Chr 28:15). Rohl makes a connection between the LB IIA "Middle Building" at Jericho, excavated by John Garstang in 1933, and David's seclusion of the Israelite delegation at Jericho recorded in 2 Samuel 10:5.

The Bible does not tell us what, if anything, was at Jericho in David's day. Garstang's Middle Building, on the other hand, exactly fits the description of Eglon's palace in Judges 3 using conventional chronology (Garstang 1941a; 1941b; 1948: 175-80). It was an isolated palatial structure with no corresponding town. There was evidence of wealth (expensive imported pottery), and administrative activities (an inscribed clay tablet). The Middle Building was constructed toward the end of the 14th century B.C. by conventional chronology, which matches the time period of the Judges 3 account according to Biblical chronology. It was occupied for only a short period of time and then abandoned, paralleling the Biblical description of an 18 year oppression by Eglon and the subsequent rout of the Moabites by Ehud and the Israelites.

….

The "Middle Building" was excavated in 1933 by John Garstang on Jericho's southeastern slope. A palace like structure (28 x 47 ft.), it was an isolated building with evidence of wealth and administrative activity. It date and finds fit very well with Moabite king Eglon's palace (Judges 3:12-25).

Rohl completely misses Eglon's occupation of Jericho in his reconstruction and tries to relate the Middle Building to the time of David”.

 

Eglon of Moab

 

Once again it will be Dr. John Osgood who first properly sorted out the Jericho sequence. Regarding Eglon of Moab’s occupation, Osgood has written (“The Times of the Judges -The Archaeology: (b) Settlement and Apostasy”):

 

“A new alignment begins

 

The land of Israel rested in peace and freedom from oppression for a period of 40 years—here equated with the MB IIA period, or the last portion of it (Judges 3:11).

Again they [apostatised] into idolatry, and soon a new spectre appeared on the horizon. A strong king of Moab began a conquest of Israel which brought him into control of at least the strategic central portion of the land. Eglon of Moab now rebuilt on the ruins of Jericho, ‘the city of palms’, a fortress capable of stationing 10,000 troops, and a palace (Judges 3:12-30).

 

This apparently was not a rebuilding of the old city which had been cursed by Joshua, later rebuilt by Hiel the Bethelite (1 Kings 16:34), but it was, nonetheless, the same site geographically.

Assisting him in this conquest naturally was Moab’s old sister nation Ammon. This is quite easy to accept. However, surprisingly, also in the raiding force was AMALEK (Judges 3:13). Now geographically Amalek was in the western Negev (see Genesis) 14:17, Numbers 13:29, Numbers 14:25, 1 Samuel 15:7, 27:8). The related Edomites were between Moab and Amalek, so the alliance does seem a little unusual ….

….

However, Amalek has a number of enigmatic statements made about it in the Scriptures (Numbers 24:20). Balaam says of Amalek that it was then ‘the first of the nations’ (first = Hebrew reshith—foremost). This is a truly incredible statement on first glance, but the same concept is supported by Balaam’s other comment about Agag, the Amalekite king. He said that Israel’s kingdom would be higher than Agag, and his kingdom exalted. In other words, the whole idea being conveyed was that Agag occupied a position of immense power (Numbers 24:7).

The implication of these statements is that Amalek was a power to be reckoned with, no longer just a fledgling nation, as before. It is with this in mind that the recent assertions of Velikovsky¹⁸ and Courville¹⁹ need to be perused. They were united in identifying Amalek with the ‘AMU’( = Hyksos) overlords of Egypt during the Second Intermediate period of that nation. Such an assertion would give weight to statements of scripture that imply an Amalekite nation was the foremost of the nations in Moses’ day. It would also bring meaning into Eglon’s call for help to Amalek for the subjugation of Israel.

In fact, it would almost be a necessity for Moab to obtain Amalek’s blessing on her conquest of Israel in order to bear rule over what Amalek (the Hyksos rulers of Egypt) would regard as their sphere of rule. Eglon then would be a vassal ruler of the Amalekite/Hyksos over a subjugated Israel.

It is of interest to note that from this point in Israel’s history as the scriptures record it, Amalek is on the scene more consistently than any other nation in attack against Israel for the next 300 years, first assisting Eglon, then in association with Midian (Judges 6:3), and then in the days of King Saul and David (1 Samuel 15 and 1 Samuel 30).

Such an interval of time adds to the circumstantial weight of the identification of Amalek with the Amu, and the Hyksos, and this author accepts fully at least this part of the theses of Velikovsky¹⁸ and Courville¹⁹ (This is not, however, a blanket endorsement of other areas of their work.) Hereafter in this work I will assume the identification of Amalekite/Hyksos to be valid, although further discussion on this point will undoubtedly ensue. Taking the above premises, we would expect to find an MB IIB city at Jericho, of larger proportions than the old city (identified as EB III), evidence of a palace, and evidence of Hyksos rule. Furthermore, if we were able to differentiate Moabite culture from Israelite, we would also expect some evidence of Moabite culture in the MB IIB city.

 

Jericho MB IIB—A new fortress arises

 

Jericho was definitely rebuilt along different lines in the MB II period—larger than it was before. A regional similarity was also apparent as Garstang says:

 

This is indeed fairly clear, because the site lay more or less derelict thereafter for some time, perhaps a century, and when finally the city revived it is found to have been entirely replanned and reconstructed upon fresh lines, with a new and improved defensive system; while an entirely new culture, that of the Middle Bronze Age, replaced the old. Moreover the change was general, and it affected in similar fashion all the great cities on the highlands above the Jordan valley, Jericho nearest surviving neighbours; while many early settlements in and near the southern end of the Rift never revived at all” ….

 

 Garstang continues: It was during this period that Jericho, under the Hyksos regime attained its greatest extension and the height of its prosperity. The protected area was now about nine acres, which was nearly the size of contemporary Jerusalem.” ….

Jericho gave evidence of being a premium city at this time. It was most important to have a palace in the heart of the city—and that a most prominent one. Here in the revised chronology we suggest that this palace was, in fact, that of the Moabite King Eglon, vice regent to his Hyksos/Amalekite overlords of Egypt and the Negev.

 

In the heart of the City, on a peak of ground overlooking the spring, rose a royal palace, the most elaborate dwelling uncovered upon the site. The main block, which was square, crowned the highest part of the knoll, and it was surrounded at groundfloor level by a sort of roofed ambulatory, in which would be half-cellar store-rooms, offices, stables, etc., much as in the arcaded basements of many houses of the East to-day.” ….

 

Certainly the description of this palace fits the details of Judges 3:13 and 20–26, but Garstang continues: “The very proportions and solidarity of the palace building show that the ruler of Jericho at this period had attained both wealth and power; and the contents of the extensive store-rooms committed to his care seem to explain the source of his increased prestige.” ….

Moreover, it was during this period that Hyksos power was evident and strong, the many scarabs with the red crown of Lower Egypt pointed out by Kenyon … testifying to the hegemony of Jericho.

Garstang continues with his details of the Ruler of Jericho at this time:

 

He became in fact the chief of an important unit in the Hyksos organization. Associated with him as guardian of the Hyksos stores or ‘treasury’ was a resident official, whose title ‘Scribe of the Vezir’ appears upon scarab-signets and jar-sealings recovered from the store-rooms; the names of two persons who held this office were Senb. ef and Se. Ankh, both characteristic of this period.” ….

 

We emphasise our belief that this ruler was, in fact, Eglon of Moab.

It appears that although Eglon’s presence was removed from Jericho, some sort of Israelite presence persisted at the site, as witnessed by its occupation in the days of David’s reign (2 Samuel 10:5).

A new influence

 

A new influence now affected Palestine, producing the MB IIB culture (Albright nomenclature). The Khabur influence had come briefly and then gone, not being the sort of influence that one attributes to an ethnic movement of people, but eminently in the style of a conquest introduction. The main item of that influence was, in fact, a storage jar which would be suitable for grain or wine.

The new culture was a continuation of the main body of cultural tradition, but gone was the Khabur influence, and a new pottery tradition came, known as the Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware.

 

A close analysis of MB IIA and B–C pottery shows many differences between the two periods, but a definite continuity of form and decoration can undoubtedly be observed.” ….

 

The Tell el-Yahudiyeh pottery was not totally new to the MB IIB but was present already to a small extent in the MB I. However, its popularity peaked in MB IIB then continued into MB IIC, finally to leave a remnant in the LB I (Late Bronze I). ….

This ware appears to have been produced in Palestine, some exported to Cyprus, Egypt and north into Phoenicia, but its centre was in Palestine (assumed by current thinking to be CANAANITE, but by this revised chronology it would almost certainly be Israelite). ….

Despite the difference that is generally assumed between MB I and the MB IIA–C pottery, it is not inconceivable that the Tell el-Yahudiyeh decorations on the juglets which form the distinctive feature, were ultimately conceived from the very features already inherent in the MB I; viz, incisions and ‘notches’ in the MB I pottery made by a comb or fork^,29 and ‘punctured decoration’ and ‘designs delineated by grooves’ also reminiscent of the use of comb or fork, in MB IIB Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware. ….

Considering the general features of the MB I to MB IIA–C sequence, there is every reason to believe that what we are seeing was the ongoing development of the early Israelite pottery tradition.

Moreover, the pottery of MB I Palestine shows at least some affinity with the late 12th Dynasty of Egypt, which is of course, what we would expect if the MB I to MB IIA to MB IIB–C sequence is postulated as Israelite. As Kenyon says:

 

As a result, the royal tombs at Byblos can be closely dated by Egyptian objects. In tombs of the period of Amenemhet III and IV (second half 19th–beginning 18th centuries BC) there appears pottery which is very close to this new pottery in Palestine. Moreover, on a number of other sites in coastal Syria we find the same kind of pottery, and it is clear that part at least of the new population of Palestine must have come from this area.”³¹ (emphasis ours)”

 

Dr. Osgood continues with his discussion of Eglon of Moab, as a governor on behalf of Amalek (= the Hyksos), ruling a Middle Bronze IIB Jericho:

 

“From the point of discussion of the new influence in Palestine in the MB IIB, the most significant features are those which point to a significant Hyksos influence in the land; and this is considerable.

As Amiram has said: “The correspondence of MB IIB to the Hyksos Dynasties in Egypt is also established with a fair measure of certainty and is generally accepted.”….

With this statement I would make no objection, only with the question of who the Hyksos were would we differ. It follows that if the chronology here espoused is the correct view, then the generally held view on Hyksos origins must fall and be replaced by one which conforms to the scriptural details—the Hyksos would be the biblical Amalekites, found in the area of the Negev, mainly in the west, south of the Wadi Besor, then extending their influence into Egypt. Much that has been called Hyksos in Palestine would in fact be Israelite, but showing evidence of Amalekite hegemony, by scarabs and similar artifacts. Such intricacies of interpretation do not come freely with the sole use of archaeological evidence, but demands a basic framework of hypothesis against which to evaluate the findings. This the biblical record provides.

The major change of influence in Palestine in the MB IIB–C period was to the Hyksos influence. This influence was found, to judge by the scarab evidence, mainly in the area of Palestine south of the Carmel Ridge, a geographic fact worthy of note.

In my earlier discussion on the details of the servitude under the Midianites and Amalekites and their subsequent deliverance under Gideon^,33 particular attention was paid to the evidence that this servitude was confined to Israel south of the Carmel Ridge. As soon as the northern deliverance from Jabin’s yoke had been completed, the Midianites and Amalekites moved over the Carmel range to fill the political vacuum, but were quickly defeated by Gideon.

 

Likewise, it was pointed out that the song of Deborah testified to a presence of Amalek in some sort of controlling influence in the area of Ephraim during the time of Jabin’s rule in the north. The later part of this period, however, was seen to be contemporary with the Midianite/ Amalekite rule in the south ….

….

Also, it was reasoned that Eglon’s (Moab) rule was with the influence of Amalek.

Thus I am suggesting that the Amalekites of the Bible must be seen to be the same as the Hyksos who ruled over Egypt.

When all the above reasoning is brought together, it becomes apparent that the distribution of the Hyksos artifacts (as here defined by the scrabs) occupied exactly this distribution geographically, and no other. And as this period in the biblical record Eglon and onward corresponds most particularly to the MB IIB–C period on my revised Archaeological Table, the possible correctness of the revised chronology is upheld.

 

Most interesting is the fact that Hyksos royal-name scarabs and sealings have not been discovered at sites in the Galilee, the Huleh Valley, Lebanon, or Syria.”….

 

And again: “Only one Hyksos royal-name scarab and but a handful of contemporary private name-and-title scarabs have been found north of the Carmel Ridge.”….

Weinstein then argues that the principal centres of Hyksos power in Palestine were in the southern and inland regions south of the plain of Esdraelon. He concludes that the Hyksos were in fact simply southern and inland Palestinian princes.

Against the revised chronology here presented it becomes apparent that the Hyksos were in fact the Amalekites of the southern and western portion of Palestine, viz, the Negev, and that during the MB IIB–C period of Palestine they not only controlled Lower Egypt, but extended their influence up to the Carmel Ridge with the help of firstly Moab under Eglon, who ruled from Jericho on their behalf ….

As for the names and order of the Hyksos kings of the 15th and 16th Dynasties who were so involved, their details are in great confusion still. The whole question of the Hyksos is a confused question, with hardly any authority agreeing with the next on details of even the place of the individual kings in the scheme of the period. We need, however, to remind ourselves of the fate of the Amalekite nation, Exodus 17:14 records that God said He would “blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven”.”

 

 

Ruth was not ethnically a Moabite

 

 

 

“If Ruth was a Moabite by race, why would there be such attention to detail concerning the law of redemption by Naomi, Boaz, and the “near-kinsman” more near than Boaz? It would all have been performed in complete opposition to the very law being invoked to settle the issue being settled!”

 

Richard Fix

 

 

“The Chronology of Judges solved!” article: http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-route-date-chronology-of-judges.htm has located the story of Ruth to this same period: “The book of Ruth coincides with Ehud’s liberation of Eglon, king of Moab and the story of Benjamin's sodomy of Judges 19-21”.

 

Matthew the Evangelist has linked Ruth very close to Rahab, both as ancestresses of David (1:5-6):

…. Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,

Obed the father of Jesse,

and Jesse the father of King David.

 

For Deuteronomical reasons that we have already given about the foreign Rahab the prostitute (not the Rahab of Matthew’s Genealogy), Ruth of the Judges era could not plausibly have been ethnically a Moabitess (see e.g., Deuteronomy 23:3 and argument below by Richard Fix).

 

No more could Achior of the Book of Judith have been ethnically an Ammonite.

 

Ruth was geographically, only, a Moabitess.

 

Now here is some discrimination: Whilst Ruth, a woman, apparently gets away with her supposedly being a Moabitess, Achior, a male, does not.

 

Richard Fix well explains the proper situation, in his article: “The Story of Ruth the Israelite!?” http://www.israelofgod.org/ruth.htm

 

“Have you been taught that the Moabitess Ruth, the daughter-in-law of Naomi, was a Moabite? Yes, that is the question, it is neither intended as jocular nor facetious, although it may well be rhetorical.

Ruth 1:4 And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years.

In the first chapter of the book of Ruth it appears to be quite clear that Ruth and her sister Orpah were Moabite by descent or lineage.

Ruth 1:1 ¶ Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.

Further, as we can see in the above verse, Naomi, with her husband and sons, went to sojourn “in the country of Moab.” Now, if we stop here, we got about as far into this matter as the traditional scholars, theologians, biblical historians, and the vast masses of people who look to the bible as the word of God. By stopping here we are doing what so many do with the bible and in bible study, we take what appears to be “obvious” and indisputable as fact, then either ignore or find it imperative to “explain away” the contradictions within scripture created by our newly created “fact.”

What contradictions are we referring to? Glad you asked. For just one (there are several):

Deut. 23:3 An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD forever:

 

While “forever” in the Hebrew does not mean for the rest of eternity, it does mean so far into the future as to be impossible to “see” (or foresee from that vantage point). Thus, the expression, “even to their tenth generation” is not literally specific, but an idiom meaning that they can forget it, it won’t happen.

So, the difficulty in justifying the two positions- (1) that Ruth was a Moabite by lineage, and (2) Naomi’s sons, as well as Boaz, would marry a Moabite and not only bring her into the “camp,” but in turn bring her into the line of David and Jesus (Yeshua), is in stark contrast with Deut. 23:3 and what a God-fearing Israelite would possibly do, especially when we consider what God had to say about such actions, not just in this time frame, but even in the time of Ezra. It then makes God look incompetent or extremely forgetful in His old age, or maybe God is just double-minded? Not to mention that this all transpires little more than a century after God declared His stand concerning this very matter to Israel in Deut. 23 above.

Or, is it possible, just asking mind you, is it possible that we may not yet have enough information to determine whether our “understanding” of Ruth’s heritage is biblically sound or correct? Should we not presume that in a circumstance wherein we find either, (1) our understanding is contradictory to some or all scripture, or (2) that it “appears” that the bible is contradicting itself, that we are the ones who are missing information necessary to eliminate such apparent contradictions? Let’s see if we can find out what is what - biblically.

You can do your own in-depth study, but just to present the minimum necessary to unravel this apparent contradiction let’s first begin by retracing the trail of Israel on their way out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land. We pick up the travels in Numbers 21.

 

Numbers 21:13 From thence they (Israel) removed, and pitched on the other side (north of) of Arnon (an east-west river), which is in the wilderness that cometh out of the coasts of the Amorites: for Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

OK, note that Israel crossed the Arnon and left the nation of Moab behind them, thus now entering into the land of the Amorites. By the way, the Amorites are not Ammonites. Ammon and Moab are brother tribes or nations and related to Abraham, and thus Israel, through Lot, but Amorites were, at least generally speaking, Canaanite.

What happened next?

 

Numbers 21:21 ¶ And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,

22 Let me pass through thy land: we will not turn into the fields, or into the vineyards; we will not drink of the waters of the well: but we will go along by the king’s high way, until we be past thy borders.

23 And Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his border: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness: and he came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel.

24 And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon (Ammonites were to the east of Amorites): for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.

25 And Israel took all these cities: and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the villages thereof.

26 For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even unto Arnon.

Now we see that Israel conquered and occupied the Amorite land from the river Jabbok (an east to west tributary of the Jordan and is north of the Dead Sea) and fully eastward to the border of the Ammonites, again, related to Moab.

So, for the land between the river Jordan and the Dead Sea on the west and the border of Ammon on the east, plus the land north of Arnon all the way to the river Jabbok, was now owned and operated by Israel and their to do with as they pleased.

Side note: It is vital to make notice that this describes the borders and nations at the time being discussed.

Earlier in history the nation of Moab did “occupy” or possess land north of the Arnon- all the way to Jabbok, but they lost possession of that territory prior to the Israelites appearance and as such, Moab’s northern border was the Arnon when God told Israel to “by-pass” them (Moab). To further clarify what we have just covered we can read from Deut 2 below.

Deut. 2:34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:

35 Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.

36 From Aroer, which is by the brink of the river of Arnon, and from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us: the LORD our God delivered all unto us:

37 Only unto the land of the children of Ammon thou camest not, nor unto any place of the river Jabbok, nor unto the cities in the mountains, nor unto whatsoever the LORD our God forbad us.

 

Just what did some Israelites think of this newly possessed land that was “east” of Jordan?

 

Numbers 32:1 ¶ Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle: and when they saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that, behold, the place was a place for cattle;

2 The children of Gad and the children of Reuben came and spake unto Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and unto the princes of the congregation, saying,

3 Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Shebam, and Nebo, and Beon,

4 Even the country which the LORD smote before the congregation of Israel, is a land for cattle, and thy servants have cattle:

5 Wherefore, said they, if we have found grace in thy sight, let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan.

 

The short story is that Moses and God agreed to let Reuben and Gad and half of Manasseh possess the newly possessed lands east of Jordan so long as they helped the rest of Israel conquer the lands west of Jordan.

Joshua 13 also confirms for us that Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh received for their inheritance this land east of Jordan. The half tribe of Manasseh possessed the land of Bashan, to the north of the land of the formerly Amorite land. This area also included the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee and the east bank of the Jordan river northward to (at that time) the land of the Hittites.

But, where again did Israel cross the Jordan and enter into the land west? We all know the story of Jericho, but who recalls where it was, or what the area was called where Israel camped immediately prior to their siege of Jericho?

Numbers 33:48 And they departed from the mountains of Abarim, and pitched in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho.

49 And they pitched by Jordan, from Bethjesimoth even unto Abelshittim in the plains of Moab.

50 ¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying,

51 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan;

 

From this we can note that the “plains of Moab” are not in Moab! They may certainly have once been “in” Moab, but at the time of the entrance into the Promised land, the Moabites all lived well to the south, and their northern national border was the river Arnon, which the Israelites had already passed over to eventually arrive at the embarkation point in the “plains of Moab” for their march forward to Jericho.

We should also note that as a matter of course and history, 1 Chronicles 5 shows that this conquered and possessed land stayed in Reuben’s, Gad’s, and the half tribe of Manasseh’s control until Assyria took them away captive some 700 years later, Manasseh being in Bashan to the north of the Plains of Moab.

One might now ask, “So, what’s the big deal? This still does not prove Ruth was not a Moabite by race.” Well, not in itself, and not yet, but we do have more to consider as previously stated. There is still more to the story. Remember this?

Deut. 23:3 An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever:

The Problems

 

1.  How could a law abiding Israelite, whether Mahlon or Boaz, legally marry a Moabite?

1. How can we circumvent Deut 23:3 in order to accept the actions of Mahlon, Elimelech, Naomi, and later Boaz to let Ruth become a part of their family by law and bring her into Israel?

1. The women of Israel welcomed Ruth into the “family” in Ruth 4:11 … The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem:

1. If Ruth was a Moabite by race, why would there be such attention to detail concerning the law of redemption by Naomi, Boaz, and the “near-kinsman” more near than Boaz? It would all have been performed in complete opposition to the very law being invoked to settle the issue being settled!

1. Judah’s eldest two sons were slain by God, Er for his wickedness and Onan for his disrespect for the very law Boaz invokes to accomplish his goal to marry Ruth. Now Er and Onan were both from a Canaanite mother, the first wife of Judah. Point being, God slew Onan for not obeying a part of the very law that Mehlon and Boaz would likewise have been guilty of breaking had Ruth really been Moabite.
    
   The Solutions
    
   We should closely take notice that in Numbers 25 we see the direct result of breaking the law. Are we to believe that later on this law is “suspended” for Mahlon and then Boaz, which would also mean it was suspended for Naomi, her husband, and all who welcomed Ruth into Judah?
   Considering the death of 23,000 Israelites that resulted from their law breaking, might it be somewhat still in the memory and history of Naomi, her husband, her sons, and Boaz and even his near kin?
   Therefore, let’s look a little closer at what is really stated in the book of Ruth.
   Ruth 1:1 ¶ Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.
   First of all, the use of the word “country” must be understood both by definition and also by context. The Hebrew word translated to “country” here is one that simply means or refers to “the country” as in a rural area or field, not a “nation.” For one example we can look at:
   1Sa 27:5 And David said unto Achish, If I have now found grace in thine eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country , that I may dwell there: for why should thy servant dwell in the royal city with thee?
   Notice that the “town” is “in” the country, as opposed to a major city in a metropolitan area. As a result of this we now have absolutely no reason to assume that “the country of Moab” was “the nation of Moab.” Nor do we have any reason to claim that the “plains of Moab” were “in” the nation of Moab, the location of which we previously addressed.
    
   Next, we can note that the time period is one where-in Israel’s tribes were not yet unified into a Federalist single nation or kingship, but were independently ruled by judges, each with jurisdiction in their own tribe and not beyond or overlapping into other tribes.
   Continuing, we see that Naomi’s husband was from Judah, and a town called Bethlehem. You may have heard of this town before? Thus, Naomi, her husband and her sons, were Israelites of the tribe of Judah, and in the land of Judah.
   Putting this all together, with what we have so far, leaves us with Naomi and her family escaping the famine by traveling to a place identified as “the fields of Moab,” which then equates better to “the plains of Moab,” which were in Reubenite and Gadite possession and inheritance. Thus, Ruth, in the land of her nativity (Ruth 2:11), was either Reubenite or Gadite.
    
   But Wait! There’s More!
    
   One more “problem” to solve! Was Ruth and her sister a pagan worshipper, or a worshipper of the One True God?
   A funny thing happened on the way to English from the Hebrew. We, in English, have a culture or cultural thinking that “god,” from the Hebrew word “elohiym,” must always refer to a deity of some sort, whether real or imagined (pagan, etc.). Thus, we can only perceive “elohiym” as either the God, or a “god” (as in false “god”). However, the facts are that “elohiym” can, and often is, used to identify a human being, too! Please do your own research on this if you wish. You may also peruse a number of the related articles on the Israel of God website (www.israelofgod.org) that relate to the use of “elohiym” in the bible.
    
   What happens if we now put everything into the newly understood context- one that has no biblical contradictions and complies with the stated law of God?
    
   Ruth 1:15 And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law.
   16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
   17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
   Now, finally, we can see that what the translators created in error is solved and resolved in truth. The references to “elohiym” in verses 15 and 16 are addressing their respective governments of the day, their “Judges”, who were known as “elohiym”. The “capitalization” of “G” in God in verse 16 is a translators doing, not the Hebrew’s.
   The “her people” was either Reuben or Gad, and the “my people” was Judah. The “her gods” was simply the judges in Reuben or Gad, and the “thy God my God,” becomes “your judges my judges.” Now, the additional comment by Ruth in verse 17 makes even more sense as she invokes the name of the “G”od of Israel, Yahweh, something not likely by an alien, but totally expected from a law abiding Israelite”.
   [End of quotes]
    
   The great women of the Old Testament, such as Sarah, Judith (Catholic Bible), Esther and Ruth, Naomi, are types of the Blessed Virgin Mary: for example, Judith, of the Immaculate Conception; Esther, of Our Lady of the Rosary at Fatima (emphasis on the 13^th day).
   I have already said something about this, and shall continue to do so.
    
   In the case of Ruth, we read (http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/2008/10/the-mystery-of-):
    
   “Ruth, the "Moabitess"
    
   This humble and generous woman, who had the courage to leave her own country to follow the pious Naomi, her sister-in-law, ended, according to the designs of providence, by becoming the wife of Boaz, and therefore mother of Obed, the grandmother of King David, for which reason she is mentioned in the genealogy of Christ ….
    
   She prefigures Mary in this, that Mary as a child was also consecrated to God and enclosed in the Temple, far from her home and from her parents. There she prepared to become, according to the inscrutable designs of God, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, in order to beget the Messiah, Redeemer of the human race.
    
   Ruth is introduced to Boaz as a humble maiden, and hence was chosen by him as wife, thus becoming "the woman who prepares the way to the Messiah" …. Similarly, Mary concludes her conversation with the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation by proclaiming herself "handmaid" of God, chosen by him to be the Spouse of the Holy Spirit and to cooperate in the work of the redemptive Incarnation of the Word of God.
    
   Ruth is customarily depicted with sheaves of corn on her arm, as she gleans behind the reapers. In this as well she prefigures Our Lady, who gathers graces and prayers to assist the most desperate and needy. Fr. Mauri writes: "The Fathers of the Church agree in affirming that Ruth, who gleans the corn left behind by the reapers, is a figure of Mary who gathers to herself and brings to God the souls even of the most abandoned and desperate sinners" …”.
    
   [End of quote]
    

Sister Mary Virginia Quinn (I.H.M.) also considers:

https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/n/naomi-as-a-type-of-mary.php

 

Naomi as a Type of Mary

 

In Matthew's genealogy of Jesus we hear:

 

"...Boaz became the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse, Jesse the father of David the king.”

 

But hidden in this lineage was a very humble and courageous woman who I would dare say prefigured Mary. I am speaking here of Naomi, the wife of Elimelech, from Bethlehem of Judah.

 

Elimelech, along with his wife Naomi, and their two sons had to leave Bethlehem and go settle for some time in the land of Moab because of a severe famine. It was here that Naomi became a young widow. She was left with the care of her two sons without the support of family or homeland.

She suffered further heartache for her sons grew up and married in this foreign land, but both sons died childless. God did not forsake this noble woman. God provided for Naomi by giving her a very faithful daughter-in-law.

 

It is this relationship between Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth that I see a connection with the relationship between Mary and John the Apostle.

 

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold you son." Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. (John 19: 26)

 

After the death of her sons, Naomi told her daughters-in-law to go back to their own families. Ruth stayed on and Naomi encouraged her to follow her sister-in-law. "See now, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god. Go back after your sister-in-law." (Ruth 1:15)

 

Ruth responded:

 

Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! For wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die I will die, and there be buried. (Ruth 1: 16-17)

 

Can we not hear a similar exchange between Mary and John?

 

It is not improbable that Mary said:

 

See now! Your brothers (the other apostles) have gone home to their families and then off to preach Jesus' message. Don't stay with me; you have your life to live. You are young, and have no legal obligation to stay with me.

 

And John responded:

 

Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! For wherever you are I will be ...you will be my mother and I will be your son.

 

When Ruth pledged her love and fidelity to Naomi, her future marriage to Boaz was not apparent. Naomi humbly welcomed Ruth's love and in so doing cooperated in God's plan for salvation. Mary, too, accepted a gesture and pledge of selfless love. What had she to offer John but a broken heart? She had lost her one treasure in life. John was young and had a life ahead of him. Yet, Mary, like Naomi, held the promise of salvation. It was through Mary's loving and humble acceptance of John as son that the Church came into the plan of salvation.

 

Some further comparisons can be made between these two women:

 

After the death of her sons, Naomi and Ruth went back to Judah. Naomi cared for Ruth as a loving mother, and she helped plan for Ruth's future welfare. We know from scripture that she counseled Ruth about working in the fields of Boaz. "You would do well, my dear, to go out with his servants; for in someone else's field you might be insulted." (Ruth 2:22) Our church tradition tells us that Mary spent many intimate years with John, sharing her knowledge and understanding of her Son and his plan for salvation with him. It was this wisdom that came to fruition in John's Gospel.

 

In the Book of Ruth we see Naomi as a woman of blessing. She blessed Boaz for his goodness to Ruth: “May he who took notice of you be blessed.” (Ruth 2:19) The Church today tells us that Mary blesses all those who do the will of her Son, Jesus.

In the last chapter of Ruth, we hear the Israelite women praising God for sending Naomi a grandson, so that her son's name would not perish: "Blessed is the Lord who has not failed to provide you today with an heir." (Ruth 4:14) Yes, the Lord looked on Naomi's plight and he blessed her fidelity with the birth of her grandson, Obed. Mary in her Magnificat echoed this blessing:

 

...The hungry he has filled with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. (Luke 1:53-55)

 

For her courage as a young widow, who raised her sons alone, her suffering the death of her sons, and her open embrace of Ruth as her own daughter, Naomi found favor with the Lord, who blessed her as the grandmother of King David. This same God blessed Mary, who at the death of her Son willingly embraced John as her Son, by making her the Mother of the His Church.

 

 

Jabin, Deborah, Gideon

 

“… Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor.

Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim.

Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed

the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.”

 

Judges 4:2-3

 

Problematical King Jabin

 

See also on this my article:

 

Two Kings, “Jabin”, are better than one

 

https://www.academia.edu/29403887/Two_Kings_Jabin_are_better_than_one

 

“Jabin king of Canaan” of Judges 4 may have become something of a snare for revisionists. The name Jabin (or Ibni) appears to be one of those generic names used by kings of a particular region, for we shall find that there was more than the one king Jabin in Canaan (Hazor).

The biblical “Abimelech” (Genesis 20:2), whom Abraham and Sarah will encounter, has a name that will also crop up historically more than once, e.g., as Abimilki, prince of Tyre, in the El Amarna letters (C9th BC, revised).

And Syrian Damascus seems to have had a proliferation of kings with the theophoric name-element, Hadad. “David … defeated Hadad-ezer the son of Rehob, king of [Syrian] Zobah, as he went to restore his power at the river Euphrates” (2 Samuel 8:3). In my revision, this Syrian king will be identified with Shamsi-Adad (= Hadad) I, son of Uru-kabkabu (= Rechob/Rehob).

 

King Ahab will also fight successfully against Ben-Hadad I of Damascus (I Kings 20:1-21).

 

And from what we shall read below, at least of the kings Jabin (Ibni-Adad) had included in his name the Hadad (Adad) element.

 

Mention of “Jabin of Hazor” in one of the Mari letters has led even some astute revisionists, such as Drs. Courville and Osgood, seeking more solid ground for the Hammurabic era, to bind Hammurabi and his contemporary, Zimri-Lim, to the era of Joshua and his foe, Jabin of Hazor.

I have written about this as follows: 

 

“Dr. Courville, writing his important two-volume set, The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications (1971), was concerned about establishing an ancient history/archaeology that properly accorded with the biblical data. He, realising that uncertainty about the proper date for Hammurabi, the famous king of Babylon, had left that monarch, as Courville wrote, “floating about in a liquid chronology of Chaldea”, had set about to establish some sort of biblico-historical anchor for Hammurabi.

This great King of Babylon had already been gradually shifted down the centuries by historians, and is now dated to the C18th BC.

 

Courville’s choice of an anchor for Hammurabi and his contemporary, Zimri-Lim of Mari, was one “Jabin of Hazor”, who figures in the correspondence of Zimri-Lim. Courville identified this Jabin with the King Jabin of Hazor at the time of Joshua, thereby pinning kings Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim to the C15th BC. Other revisionists have followed him in this, including the perceptive Dr. John Osgood, in his generally brilliant archaeological revision: https://creation.com/the-time-of-the-judges-the-archaeology-b-settlement-and-apostasy

The Times of the Judges—The Archaeology:

 

(b) Settlement and Apostasy

 

Whilst Dr. Osgood probably does this better than anyone else, he has unfortunately (I believe) attempted to fuse two biblico-historical eras that were, in fact, separated the one from the other by about half a millennium.   

 

Dr. Osgood will, on the flimsiest of evidence, date Zimri-Lim (and so Hammurabi) to “just prior to” this biblical incident. Dr. Osgood wrote:

 

The question of the Khabur ware period becomes even more intriguing when we turn to the Mesopotamian scene ….

 

A Synchronism Archaeologically

 

Just prior to the Khabur surge and dominance, we are in the period of Mari’s zenith under Zimri-Lim. It was during his early reign that a letter was written concerning the shipment of a significant quantity of tin to the Palestinian city of Hazor (among others)—no doubt to be used for bronze, and some of that most certainly for weapons^.15

 

The king named was IBNI-ADAD, or the same as JABIN-HADAD, a name that brings to mind the king of Hazor JABIN (Joshua 11:1). He certainly would have an urgent desire for bronze and hence tin as he heard the news of the approaching Israelite conquests. Moreover, Jabin and Zimri-Lim fit archaeologically with the time surrounding the establishment of the MB I civilisation of Palestine, here identified with the Israelite conquerors. Though nothing is proved, the fit is excellent for such an identification. ….

 

Unfortunately for both Courville and Osgood, and those who have followed them on this, the name “Jabin” was used by various rulers of Hazor down through the centuries.

We read, for instance, at (http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-ibni-addad-yabni-haddad-qishon-jabin-king-of-hazor-joshua-deborah-barak-1700bc.htm):

 

 

“Five different references to Jabin of Hazor

 

Archeology now has uncovered a total of three different references to Jabin, in addition to the two [sic] Bible references to Jabin of Joshua (1406 BC) and Deborah (1200 BC). This proves the Bible was right all along and that "Jabin" is a dynastic name for a series of kings rather than the one time use of a single king. Two 18-17^th century [sic] inscriptions have been found at Mari and Hazor with the name Jabin. A third is on the names list of Ramesses II at the Amon Temple at Karnak 1279-1212 BC.

 

1.      The Accadian tablet from Mari reads: “Ibni-Addad king of Hazor.” (18^th century BC)

2.      The Old Babylonian tablet letter from Hazor is actually addressed "To Ibni". (18-17^th century BC)

3.      The Ramseese [Rameses] II namelist at Karnak reads: "Qishon of Jabin"

 

Drs. Courville and Osgood have picked out quite the wrong Jabin of Hazor for the alignment with Zimri-Lim, and hence for the establishment of a rock-solid historical synchronism for Hammurabi. The correct era for Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim is clearly the time of King Solomon, as eventually pioneered by Dean Hickman (1986), and now flourishing with abundant synchronisms. ….

 

Dr. Osgood’s view that “Jabin and Zimri-Lim fit archaeologically with the time surrounding the establishment of the MB I civilisation of Palestine, here identified with the Israelite conquerors”, whilst correctly identifying the Israelites archaeologically with the MB I people, is only because the conventional historians have incorrectly dated Zimri-Lim to the C18th BC, which is wrongly identified as the MB I phase.

 

However, he is wise enough to add to this that “…nothing is proved …”.”

 

We must now check on what our helpful guide, Dr. John Osgood, has been able to work out about this phase of the Judges. He, unlike Mauro who adopts the longer, more linear approach, will reasonably overlap (thus shorten) some periods (“The Times of the Judges”, pp. 146-147):

 

“We come to Period C in Judges chapter 4. When Ehud was dead, Israel did evil again (thus a further rebellion) and God sold the Israelites into the hand of Jabin of Canaan, who oppressed them 20 years. At the conclusion of this 20 years He raised up Deborah and Barak. After a great victory, at the end of chapter 5, we are told the land had rest for 40 years, so Period C represents a period of 60 years ….

….

It is most logical to conclude that Period C followed the end of Period B. This occurred after Ehud died because the resulting oppression could not have started until the 80 year period of rest from oppression had run its course”.

….

 

It is most instructive to note the area where Jabin, King of Canaan ruled …. It would appear to have been north of the Esdraelon and Jezreel valleys through which the Kishon River flows. This geographical situation is of great significance in our later arrangement. There is no evidence of any oppression by Jabin of the southern half of Israel. At this stage we appear to have a continual chronology from the time of the conquest onward and there appears to be no evidence of overlap in any of the events so far recorded …”.

 

Dr. Osgood will now continue on to his “Period D – Judges 6-12”, which he will overlap in part with his Period C (op. cit., p. 148):

 

“A correct perspective of this period is pivotal to a correct interpretation of the times of the Judges, the strategic point being the time that Jephthah arose to judge Israel. It is here that we are given an important chronological statement that helps us to understand this period of time. The period commences at Chapter 6 verse 1, where we find that:

 

The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years.

 

The Midianites were associated with the Amalekites and the Children of the East. These people came from the south and the east in the manner of vandals attempting to destroy the land ….

It appears they overflowed much of the land, with the possible exception of that north of the Kishon River. This will become apparent in later discussion.

….

After the deliverance of the people under the leadership of Gideon we are told that the land rested for 40 years.

 

After the death of Gideon his son Abimelech asserted authority in the land and ruled from Shechem, reigning for 3 years until his death.

 

Chapter 10 tell us that AFTER HIM (indicating a definite chronological sequence), Tola the son of Puah arose to defend Israel and judged for 23 years. Verse 3 adds that after Tola, Jair arose and judged for 22 years, after which the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and so he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the children of Ammon.

 

There is a special emphasis on the children of Ammon who oppressed them for 18 years, particularly in the land of Gilead to the east of the River Jordan …. Now if it was particularly in the land of Gilead then it seems that this happened after Jair died because he judged from Gilead, and there is no indication of war in his days.

 

God then raised up Jephthah …”.

 

….

 

Returning now to Dr. Osgood’s “God then raised up Jephthah …”, we shall now be presented with, courtesy of Jephthah, another of those vital chronological time spans:

 

“God then raised up Jephthah and delivered the land. In so doing we are told by Jephthah that the period Israel had dwelt in the land was 300 years (Judges 11:26), which would have been measured from the time of the crossing of Jordan. Even though this may possibly be a round figure, one can assume that it is reasonably close.

 

The first peart of Period D is calculated as a period of 113 years beginning with God allowing Israel to fall into the hands of the Midianites and ending when Jephthah delivered them.

 

The second part of Period D is very straightforward. We are told in chapter 12 verse 6-15, that Jephthah judged for 6 years, Ibzan of Bethlehem 7 years, Elon, a Zebulonite, 10 years, and Abdon the son of Hillel judged 8 years. The statements ‘after him’ repeated in each case indicate a continuous chronology 31 years above and beyond the previous 113 years for Period D ….

 

Now when Jephthah was contending with the King of Ammon, he stated that Israel had dwelt in the land 300 years (Judges 11:26). This period of 300 years began just prior to the crossing of the Jordan at the commencement of the conquest of the west bank.

 

Now adding all the years that have occurred chronologically in the narrative up to this point, we find that the total in fact exceeds 300 years. Altogether the time span totals 355 years and probably a few extra years as a result of the unknown length of time immediately after Joshua’s death. Even if we assume that Jephthah’s 33 years is a round figure (and this is not certain) a disagreement of 50 to 60 years is still to large a discrepancy tolerate”.

 

Dr. Osgood’s proposed solution will be to overlap “… the 40 years ‘rest’ spoken of in Judges 5:31 following Deborah and Barak’s victory and the 40 years ‘rest’ spoken of in Judges 8:28 when Gideon was Judge …”.

 

This will bring him back to a consideration of King Jabin (op. cit., pp. 149-150):

 

“A close examination brings out some very interesting points which fit together extremely well. Let us examine these points.

 

Should these periods overlap, then Jabin who oppressed Israel for 20 years would share that oppression with the Midianites and Amalekites for at least the last 7 of those 20 years …. Is there any support for this possibility?

 

I believe there is. Compare the formula of Judges 6:1 with the same formula in Judges 4:1 and 3:12. The word ‘again’ is noticeably absent form Judges 6:1. This to me is significant, opening up the distinct possibility that Judges 4:1 and 6:1 are in reality referring to the same rebellion, and not to a further rebellion which inclusion of the word ‘AGAIN’ would have indicated.

 

It should be noted that Jabin appears to have only ruled over Israel north of the Kishon River, and the range of mountains running south-east from Mount Carmel ….

It was from here that deliverance came. But it appears that the Midianites and the Amalekites only ruled over Israel south of this same range of mountains.

 

This fact becomes apparent as the battle between Gideon and the Amalekites and Midianites is about to commence. …”.

 

Did Deborah and Gideon Judge Together?

 

Yes, according to: http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-route-date-chronology-of-judges.htm

 

“.... We can prove that Deborah and Gideon judged at the same time. After each Judge the narrative tells us there were two periods of 40 years where the land had rest. Most view these as two different sets of 40 years which they add up to 80 chronological years. However, these two periods of 40 years of rest are in fact the same period and amount to a total of only 40 chronological years. Therefore we match the 40 years of rest of Gideon (8:28) with the 40 years of rest of Deborah (5:31) and it creates a close harmony with the 300 years of Jephthah in Judges 11:26.

 

By lining up the two 40 years of peace, we very nicely splice the end of "indivisible unit 1", with the beginning of "indivisible unit 2".

 

This shows us that Israel was being oppressed in the north by the Canaanites at the same time the Midianites were crossing the Jordan and raiding the crops of central Israel, then returning transjordan.

 

Deborah's battle was at Mt. Tabor and involved 10,000 men from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun: "the God of Israel, has commanded, 'Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun." Judges 4:6.

 

Gideon's battle started in the valley of Jezreel, then moved transjordan far east of the Jordan and involved a specialized army of 300 from Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali: "the Midianites and Amalekites and the sons of the east ... camped in the valley of Jezreel. ... Gideon ... called together to follow him: Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet them." Judges 6:33-35.

 

The critical link between Deborah and Gideon is in the tribes who fought and the tribes who refused to fight. Deborah started judging 13 years before Gideon and chastised the region of Gilead, and the tribes of Dan and Asher because they would not join in the battle: "Gilead remained across the Jordan; And why did Dan stay in ships? Asher sat at the seashore, And remained by its landings." Judges 5:17. She praises Zebulun and Naphtali for joining the battle: ""Zebulun was a people who despised their lives even to death, And Naphtali also, on the high places of the field." Judges 5:18

 

When Gideon (from the tribe of Manasseh) started judging 13 years later, the same tribes fight and the same tribes refused! Gideon comes to two towns in Gilead (‍Succoth and Penuel) and asks the leaders for food to feed his army of 300 and they both refuse. (8:5-8) Gilead had previously refused Deborah's request for help at Mt. Tabor: "Gilead remained across the Jordan" Judges 5:17. So this was the second time Gilead had refused to fight for their brethren. After Gideon destroys Midian, he returns and destroys the town leaders of Gilead (‍Succoth and Penuel).

A kind of "two strikes and you're out" policy with God. Later Gilead would redeem themselves under Jephthah, who himself was a Gileadite who saved themselves from the Ammonite oppression. Perhaps still not that noble, since they were merely defending their own home turf from the invasion of the king of Ammon. Good thing the Gileadites had no French genes in them, or else they would have just surrounded to the Ammonites and expected the other tribes to liberate an fight for them!

 

So we can prove that Deborah and Gideon Judged at the same time because they same two tribes (Zebulun and Naphtali) willingly supplied valiant warriors and the Gilead refused both of them to fight. This is an enormous key to unlocking the chronology of Judges!

 

Since Deborah and Gideon judged at the same time, then the 40 years of peace that followed both are identical and should be laid upon one another in chronological terms. ...”.

 

“De Moor associates the name Deborah with the Hebrew word dabar (דבר)

and translates her name as “the woman of the word.”

 

Dr. Claude Mariottini

 

 

Amalekite and Midianite Foes

 

 

“Then Gideon said to him, ‘O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian’."

 

 Judges 6:13

 

 

This statement by the frustrated Gideon ranks in unintended humour, I think, with that of Aaron when confronted by his angry brother, Moses, in the case of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32:24):

‘So I told them, 'Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.' Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!’.’ As if it were all purely accidental!

 

The down-to-earth Gideon is effectively, but respectfully, asking: ‘Excuse me sir, but if the Lord is really with us, then why are we getting belted by the Midianites?’

 

The Scriptures will, from beginning to end, provide many instances of hard-heartedness and turning away from God.

Some of these we have already considered.

But it will balance these with instances of the people turning back to God with prayer.

The entire Book of Judges seems to be, now a falling away by the Israelites, now their return.

And the era of Gideon is to be no different.

 

Judges 6 commences with (1-5):

 

The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.

 

This must have been brutal for the Israelites. But then, we read (v. 6): “Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help”.

 

God will never ignore sincere prayer, even if it said under duress.

In this case, He sends them Gideon, “mighty warrior” (gibbor hehayil: גִּבּוֹר הֶחָיִל) (vv. 7-12):

 

When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, he sent them a prophet, who said, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land.

 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me’. The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The Lord is with you, mighty warrior’.

 

This last statement is the one that will provoke Gideon’s incredulous response.

Nor will it be his last. In the fashion of Moses, Gideon will procrastinate (vv. 14-15):

 

The Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?’

‘Pardon me, my lord’, Gideon replied, ‘but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family’.

 

No blazing of anger, though, on the Lord’s part this time (cf. Exodus 4:14): “The Lord answered, ‘I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive’.”

 

Still, Gideon will ask for signs, and the Lord will oblige – just as He had given signs to Moses (Exodus 3:12; 4:2-9).

The Lord will set on fire an offering that Gideon had brought forth (Judges 6:17-23), prompting Gideon to build an altar (v. 24), and He will later humour Gideon with the fleece (vv. 36-40). This was when (v. 33): “… all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel”.

 

Gideon will also earn himself a nickname from his people at this time (v. 32): “Gideon broke down Baal’s altar, they gave him the name Jerub-Baal that day, saying, ‘Let Baal contend with him’.”

 

Gideon’s resembling, now Moses, now his brother, Aaron, is suggested in this brief piece: https://bible.org/seriespage/9-when-more-less-or-what-happened-gideon-judges-723-832

 

 If “All’s well that ends well,” then all is not well with either Gideon or Israel. As I was thinking back over the life of Gideon, it occurred to me that Gideon started out like Moses and ended like Aaron. Moses began his ministry with a great deal of self-doubt. Even though God Himself spoke to Moses, indicating that he was the one to deliver the Israelites from their bondage, Moses took a great deal of convincing. So did Gideon. And yet when the story of Gideon ends, we read that he made an ephod that the Israelites worshipped. That sounds more like Aaron, who fashioned a golden calf for the Israelites to worship. How sad that Gideon would begin by tearing down the heathen altar of Baal in his home town of Ophrah only to set up another object of worship at the end of the account of his life and ministry”.

 

But perhaps Gideon may not be any more to blame in the case of the ephod (Judges 8:22-27) than was Moses, in setting up the curative Bronze Serpent (Numbers 21:9) that would later be worshipped by the people as “Nehushtan” (2 Kings 18:4). Though we are told that Gideon’s ephod “became a snare to Gideon and his family” (Judges 8:27).

 

The Greeks may have picked up, and amalgamated, the ancient accounts of the Golden Calf and Gideon’s Fleece in their myth about Jason and the Golden Fleece.

But, even if they had, scholars would inevitably think to turn this in favour of the Jason myth being the older, as e.g: http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/jason-and-jonah-parallel-lives

 

“A few weeks ago I wrote about the theory that the author of the Biblical book of Judges adapted the more ancient Greek myths of Iphigenia and Persephone (Kore) in crafting the story of the sacrifice of Japeth’s [sic] daughter. Today, let’s look at another case of the Biblical authors apparently reacting to Greek myth.

 

In 1995, the Jewish scholar Gildas Hamel proposed that the Biblical tale of Jonah and the whale had been created with the intent of adapting and inverting the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts. Hamel noted that the Greek version of Jonah’s name, IONAS, was an anagram of the Greek version of Jason’s, IASON”.   

 

Gideon’s initial army, 32,000 strong, was to be whittled down drastically by the Lord who would announce to Gideon (Judges 7:2): ‘You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’”

 

Ultimately, only 300 men were left (v. 7).

Sound familiar?

The Spartan King Leonidas is said to have resisted the massive force of Persians with 300 men.

 

It is pure fiction, however, as we shall find later in this series when we come to consider the neo-Assyrian and Persian empires, and striking parallels (e.g. as noted by Emmet Sweeney) between Sennacherib of Assyria and ‘Xerxes’, and the dearth of (conventionally expected) Medo-Persian archaeology.

 

The two main elements in the name Leonidas, Leon (“Lion”) and Ides (a patronymic?), can be glimpsed in the name Gideon, inverted, -eon and ide.

 

From the following, we learn that Leonidas is supposed to have had humble beginnings http://www.ancient-origins.net/history/king-leonidas-sparta-and-legendary-battle-300-thermopylae-002848

 

King Leonidas of Sparta and the Legendary Battle of the 300 at Thermopylae

 

Zack Snyder’s 2007 fantasy historical film, 300, has probably made the Battle of Thermopylae one of the most famous battles of the ancient world. It may be pointed out, though, that the film has more fantasy than history in it. Most people would be aware that the leader of the Greeks during the battle was Leonidas of Sparta. Yet, how much do we actually know about King Leonidas, and what happened during the Battle of Thermopylae?  

 

According to ancient Greek historian Herodotus, Leonidas was the son of King Alexandridas and his first wife, an unnamed woman who was also the king’s niece. Leonidas, however, was not the first child, as his father’s second wife bore a son, Cleomenes. Soon after this, Alexandridas’ first wife bore a son as well, Dorieus, who was Leonidas’ elder brother. After Dorieus was born, she was pregnant with Leonidas, and he was followed by Cleombrotus, although Herodotus suggests that there was an account stating that Leonidas and Cleombrotus were twins.

 

Leonidas’ ascension to the throne of Sparta in 489 BC was, as described by Herodotus, ‘a result of an unforeseeable situation’. As the third son of Alexandridas, Leonidas’ chances of succeeding the throne were rather slim, and he had no designs on the kingship. Upon the death of Alexandridas, the Spartan throne went to Cleomenes. The new king, however, died without a male heir. Additionally, Dorieus lost his life on an expedition in Sicily. This meant that Leonidas was the eldest surviving son of Alexandridas, and he was the best person to succeed his bother. Moreover, Leonidas had married Cleomenes’ daughter, Gorgo.

….

The threat of another Persian invasion threw the Greek states into alliance though many were still technically at war with each other.

….

Darius was unable to launch an offensive in Greece immediately because of rebellions in other sectors of his empire and in 486 BC, while he was quelling these, he was killed in battle. His son, Xerxes, ascended to the throne. Determined to avenge his father’s defeat, Xerxes began to muster forces to once again invade Greece. By 480 BC, Xerxes had built up an enormous army of some one hundred and fifty thousand men and a navy of six hundred ships.  He was now ready. In late August or early September of 480 BC, Xerxes launched his offensive upon Greece in what is now known as the Battle of Thermopylae.

 

The Battle of Thermopylae is the most famous battle of the Second Persian Invasion of Greece and one of the most famous battles in European ancient history.  Unlike other battles, however, it was not a victory for the Greeks, but a defeat. Its fame is derived from being one of the most courageous last stands by the vastly outnumbered defending army of Greek city states led by King Leonidas of Sparta against the invading Persians under King Xerxes.

 

It took place in a narrow pass between the mountains of central Greece and the sea, called Thermopylae. This was a strategic move on the part of the Greeks. The narrowness of the pass negated the advantage the Persians had in numbers.

 

Although the 300 Spartans were the most famous combatants on the Greek side, they were not the only Greeks present at the battle. One has to bear in mind that the Spartans had other Greek allies with them, including the Thespians, Thebans, soldiers from Mycaene and other Greek states. Herodotus gives the actual number of Peloponnesians at the battle alone as 3,100 or 4,000, and a grand total of over 5,000 Greeks. Modern estimates, however, suggest that the Greek forces numbered at around 20,000, which included the helots, retainers, and auxiliaries.  The number of invading Persians is disputed at being between two hundred thousand to two and a half millions soldiers, though it is most likely closer to the former. …. 

 

Nor were Gideon’s forces “the only [Israelites] at the battle”. They were to be joined by other tribes (“Naphtali, Asher and all Manasseh”) as the Midianites were defeated (Judges 7:19-25):

 

Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, ‘A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!’ While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.

When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled to Beth Shittah toward Zererah as far as the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath. Israelites from Naphtali, Asher and all Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites. Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim, saying, ‘Come down against the Midianites and seize the waters of the Jordan ahead of them as far as Beth Barah’.

So all the men of Ephraim were called out and they seized the waters of the Jordan as far as Beth Barah. They also captured two of the Midianite leaders, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb.

They pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was by the Jordan.

 

Israel would remember this victory for centuries to come.

Thus Isaiah 9:4: “For you have broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian”.

 

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/isaiah/9-4.htm

“As in the day of Midian.—The historical allusion was probably suggested by the division of spoil that had been in the prophet’s thoughts. Of all victories in the history of Israel, that of Gideon over the Midianites had been most conspicuous for this feature (Judges 8:24-27). In Psalm 83:9-11 (which the mention of Assur shows to have been nearly contemporary with Isaiah) we find a reference to the same battle. Men remembered “the day of Midian” centuries after its date, as we remember Poitiers and Agincourt”.

 

Facing down '900 chariots of iron'

 

I have followed Dr. John Osgood in his overlapping of the 40 years ‘rest’ of Judges 8:28, when Gideon was Judge, with the 40 years ‘rest’ spoken of in Judges 5:31 following Deborah and Barak’s victory. In his “The Times of the Judges – A Chronology”, Dr. Osgood will propose this “logical sequence of events” (p. 151):

 

“[King Jabin [of Hazor] first conquered Israel north of the mountain range …. Towards the end of this period the Amalekites and their cousins the Midianites moved up from the south where they lived …. The Amalekites and Midianites advanced northward to conquer Israel and to check the rising power of Jabin. Later God called Deborah, who moved northward to call Barak, and they together waged war in the north against Jabin and defeated him. Very soon afterwards, almost certainly in a matter of months, the Midianites and the Amalekites poured over the mountain range into the valley of Jezreel. At the same time God called Gideon, who issued a proclamation for the army to come together. God used only 300 of the 32,000 men who gathered around Gideon. These 300 men ascended northward to the valley of Jezreel to do battle against the Midianites and the Amalekites. From there they drove the enemy southeastward across the Jordan River at Bethbarah and into eastern Israel where they were resoundingly defeated ….

Instructive also is the passage in Psalm 83 [Psalm 82, Douay] where these two battles are brought together in the same Psalm.

Although this does not actually prove the point, it does add a little circumstantial weight to the possibility that these two judgeships covered the same time span”.

 

Regarding the name, “Deborah”, Dr Claude Mariottini has written: http://doctor.claudemariottini.com/2009/04/deborah-prophetess.html

 

“The book of judges calls Deborah a prophetess: “Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time” (Judges 4:4). Deborah’s name (דְבוֹרָה֙) is generally translated as “bee.” However, it is rare for Israelites to be named after animals. For this reason, Johannes Cornelis de Moor, in his book The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist (Leiden: Brill, 2001), p. 240, proposed another possible translation of Deborah’s name.

De Moor associates the name Deborah with the Hebrew word dabar (דבר) and translates her name as “the woman of the word.” Although most of the prophets in the Old Testament were men, several women were also called prophets (the Hebrew word nebia, translated “prophetess” in English, is the feminine of the Hebrew word for prophet nabi). In addition to Deborah, the following women were called prophetesses in the Old Testament: Miriam (Exodus 15:20), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chronicles 34:22), Noadia (Nehemiah 6:14) and Isaiah’s wife (Isaiah 8:3). These women prophets are present in all major historical periods in the history of Israel. Miriam and Deborah come from the pre-monarchic period, Isaiah’s wife and Huldah from the monarchic period, and Noadia from the post-exilic period”.

 

We are not told of Deborah’s tribe, but she appears to have been an ancestress of Tobit, who was of the tribe of Naphtali. Tobit, tells us that he was most faithful to the observance of the Law, even from a young age (1:3-7). But the Law of Moses was not the only strong pedagogical influence shaping young Tobit, who became an orphan. There were also “the exhortations” of a certain ancestral woman named Deborah. Thus Tobit (v. 8):

 

‘I gave the third to orphans and widows and to the strangers who live among the Israelites; I brought it them as a gift every three years. When we ate, we obeyed both the ordinances of the law of Moses and the exhortations of Deborah the mother of our ancestor Ananiel; for my father had died and left me an orphan’.

 

One may wonder whether this could be the famous Deborah of the Book of Judges, who was indeed a teacher, judge and leader of Israel (Judges 4:4-5): “ Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided”.

If so, then it would be little wonder that her descendant, Tobit, would have been influenced by her “exhortations”.

 

As the following texts shows, Deborah had close associations with Naphtali:

 

Judges 4:6-10: “[Deborah] sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands’.’

 

Barak said to her, ‘If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go’.

‘Certainly I will go with you’, said Deborah. ‘But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman’. So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh. There Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men went up under his command. Deborah also went up with him”.

 

Judges 5:18 (“Song of Deborah”): “The people of Zebulun risked their very lives; so did Naphtali on the terraced fields”.

 

‘But … the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman’, Deborah tells.

Not Deborah herself, though, but by “the hands of” Jael (Judges 4:21-22):

 

“But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while [Sisera] lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died. Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. ‘Come’, she said, ‘I will show you the man you’re looking for’. So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple—dead”.

 

A woman crushing the enemy’s head!

Very similar to what Judith would do in the case of “Holofernes”, about half a millennium later. Did Isaiah have this in mind when he proclaimed (31:8): “And Assyria shall fall by the sword of no man …”? This being echoed by the triumphant Judith’s ‘… the Assyrians … the Lord Almighty … used a woman to stop them.

Their hero was not slain by young soldiers or attacked and killed by mighty giants. It was Judith, the daughter of Merari, who brought him down with her beauty’ (Judith 16:4, 6, 7).

 

That Deborah herself was a most rare character in the history of ancient Israel is apparent from Andrew Curry’s consideration of her, in his article, “Facing down '900 chariots of iron'.” http://www.usnews.com/news/religion/articles/2008/01/25/as-a-military-leader-deborah-is-a-rare-biblical-character

 

“In answering the call, Deborah became a singular biblical figure: a female military leader. She recruited a man, the general Barak, to stand by her side, telling him God wanted the armies of Israel to attack the Canaanites who were persecuting the highland tribes. Barak was reluctant, and he insisted that Deborah go with him to the battle. Her answer was assertive and prophetic: "I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman."

 

So it was an unlikely commander who led the Army to a decisive battle with the Canaanites. Faced with "900 chariots of iron," the height of military technology at the time, Deborah's army of 10,000 Israelites rushed down from the hills, clashing with the Canaanite general Sisera near the Kishon River. The "Song of Deborah," one of the oldest in the Bible, says the stars strayed from their courses and the river washed Sisera's armies away in a massive flood. The battle was a total victory. "All the Army of Sisera fell by the sword; no one was left."

 

Defeated, Sisera fled, taking refuge in an ally's tent. Expecting refuge from the army chasing him, the Canaanite general was greeted by a woman named Jael. Sisera demanded shelter and water. Instead, Jael gave him a bowl of milk—and a tent peg through the skull.

 

The violence of Deborah's story is a radical departure from standard biblical themes, which rarely place women in roles as warriors and generals. "Every other instance we have of women acting in a military context is of a woman acting as an assassin, using sexual attraction to lure male war leaders to their deaths," says Susan Ackerman, a religion and women's and gender studies professor at Dartmouth College. "Deborah, in terms of the portrayal of her taking the lead as a military commander, is unique."

 

Deborah's story would stand out even without her unusual role as a military leader. It's essentially told twice: first in a sort of prose summary in Judges 4 and then in a poem or song in Judges 5. The song may be one of the Bible's oldest texts, "probably composed not long after the original events, possibly by Deborah herself," writes University of Chicago Divinity School Prof. Tikva Frymer-Kensky in Women of Scripture. The song's archaic language also sets it apart. Ackerman says the song's Hebrew is as distinct from the Hebrew in the rest of the Bible as the English of Beowulf is from the modern tongue”.

 

With Deborah dated to c. 1200 BC (Osgood, op. cit., p. 158, Figure 30), she must have lived in at least a reasonable chronological closeness to a famous queen of Egypt, Ahhotep, of the later Seventeenth to Eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, who was also a Warrior Woman.

Though conventionally dated to the C16th BC, Queen Ahhotep would need to be lowered by centuries according to the revision. We read about this extraordinary woman at: http://modernscribe.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/warrior-woman-queen-ahhotep-of-egypt.html

 

“…. I'm proud to present to you a little-known warrior woman who was the mother of a famous dynasty: Ahhotep of Egypt.

Ahhotep lived during a turbulent period of Egyptian history, so different scholars have different interpretations of how she fits into the family sequence. I'm going with the interpretation set forth by Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton in The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt.

 

Ahhotep was born into the ruling family of Thebes (in southern Egypt) in the 16th century BC. During this time, which is known as the Second Intermediate Period, Egypt was fragmented. Northern Egypt had fallen under the control of Asiatic invaders known as the Hyksos. Ahhotep's family wanted to reunite the Two Lands, and they sacrificed at least two sons in this venture.

 

Ahhotep was married to her brother, Seqenenra Taa II. Along with their two sisters, who were also Seqenenra's wives, they fathered a brood of children, almost all of them named Ahmose. Seqenenra's skull is riddled with gashes that are shaped like Hyksos ax blades, so most likely he died in battle.

 

Seqenenra was succeeded by a man named Kamose, who was probably his brother. Apparently Seqenenra's sons were all too young to succeed him. Kamose was also married to a lady named Ahhotep, who may have been his brother's sister-wife. Kamose too died after several years.

 

The next king to take the throne was Ahhotep's son Ahmose I. Ahmose was still a child, so Ahhotep served as his regent until he came of age. Once Ahmose was grown, he resumed the fight against the Hyksos and ultimately expelled them from the country.

 

Ahhotep is the first Egyptian woman known to have held the important religious role of God's Wife of Amun. The God's Wife was a powerful priestess chosen from among the royal women. This title was inscribed on her coffin. Also found at Ahhotep's burial were several battle axes and swords, as well as the Golden Flies of Valor.

 

These fly necklaces were normally awarded to warriors who had acquitted themselves well in battle. A stela set up in Karnak by her son declares that Ahhotep took decisive military action, probably after the death of one of her husbands. It mentions specific steps she took to restore order, such as rounding up fugitives and deserters and driving out rebels. Given the flies and weapons found in her burial, Ahmose's stela might not be just a pious tribute to his beloved mother. Did Ahhotep take part in battle rather than just rally the troops? We have no way of knowing, but I think she did.

 

Ahhotep mothered a dynasty of powerful warrior kings who ruled a rich and powerful empire. Her female descendants too enjoyed a great deal of religious and political power. One of them, Hatshepsut, even became a female king. I think Hatshepsut may have been partly inspired by her illustrious great-grandmother.

 

Ahhotep must have been a woman with a strong and charismatic character. She was the wife of two kings and the mother of a third. She took control after the death of one of her husbands and may even have led troops into battle. No doubt the power she enjoyed made it possible for later women in her family to hold powerful positions as well. More people remember Hatshepsut than Ahhotep. But if Ahhotep had not lead her people at a critical time in their history, Hatshepsut may never have become king. …”

 

Deborah has been compared to the Egyptian goddess Neith.

Before I look at that, though, I need to say that Neith herself was - like most of the gods and goddesses - most ancient, originating in antediluvian times.

 

Her actual origins may be traced to Naamah, the sister of Tubalcain.   

 

According to Plato’s dialogue, Timaeus, the Egyptian goddess Neith was the same as, in Greek mythology, the goddess Athena. The fanciful Greek and Roman mythologies had their origins in the real antediluvian histories of which the Book of Genesis provides only the barest of details. According to my revised estimation, these real histories would largely (perhaps not entirely) have come second-hand to Egypt, then third-hand, or worse, to Greece.

 

Although the gods and goddesses tended to be based on real pre-Flood persons of note, mythological tales about them can accumulate much later influences. The Epic of Gilgamesh, who was a very ancient king, contains, however, parallels with King Solomon’s Ecclesiastes.

And that is how I would account for the following striking comparisons between Neith and Deborah - that later tales of Neith being influenced by the biblical account of famous Deborah: http://ggreenberg.tripod.com/ancientne/neith.html

 

“.... [Neith's] role as both mother goddess and warrior is most evident from the Hymn to Neith preserved at the Esna temple, where she is quoted as saying:

 

“An august god will come into being today. When he opens his eyes, light will come into being; when he closes them, darkness will come into being. People will come into being from the tears of his eye, gods from the spittle of his lips. I will strengthen him by my strength, I will make him effective by my efficacy, I will, make him vigorous by my vigor. His children will rebel against him, but they will be beaten on his behalf and struck down on his behalf, for he is my son issued from my body, and he will be king of this land forever. I will protect him with my arms . . .. I am going to tell you his name: It will be Khepri in the morning and Atum in the evening; and he will be the radiating god in his rising forever, in his name of Re, every day.”

 

Compare elements of this hymn with the Song of Deborah.

 

1. Deborah and Neith both talk about their role as a mother;
2. Deborah and Neith each talk about how their actions led to an increase in population;
3. In both stories we find a rebellion of new gods battling against heaven;
4. In both stories, the mother, in her role as mother, promise to intervene in the fighting;
5. In both stories, the mother fights on the side of the chief deity;
6. In both stories there is talk about the enemy being struck down; and
7. In both stories the side representing the chief deity wins.

 

Additionally, we note that in the prose version, Barak is made effective by Deborah’s participation, and, in the Hymn to Neith, Re was made effective and vigorous by the actions of the goddess.

 

One difference between the two stories is that the Neith is identified as the mother of the chief deity, but the child of Deborah is not named. This is not surprising given the monotheistic nature of Hebrew religion. Permitting a character to have too close a resemblance to the chief Egyptian deity would be highly offensive.

 

Although we don’t know the name of Deborah’s child, we do know the names of the only two persons with a close relation to her. Her husband’s name, Lapidoth, translates as “torches”. Barak’s name means “lightening.” Both of these names are interesting in connection with the iconography of Neith.

 

…. Neith and Deborah also have a connection as Judges. In the New Kingdom story known as “the Contendings of Horus and Set”, Neith appears twice in a judiciary role. In this story, Set and Horus sue for the right to succeed Osiris as king of Egypt. Early in the story we are told that the struggle has been going on for eighty years but the dispute was unresolved. The gods then implored Thoth to send a letter to Neith, asking for guidance on how to resolve the dispute. Neith replied that the office should go to Horus, and then adds that if the gods don’t award judgment to Horus, “I shall become so furious that the sky will touch the ground.”

This threat sounds very much like a description of [lightning], an interesting phrase considering that Deborah’s general, the enforcer of her will, is named “lightening.” Later in the story of the “Contendings”, Neith is once again called upon to make a decision.

 

From the above, we can see a number of points of comparison between Neith and Deborah the warrior/judge. Not only were there thematic similarities between the Hymn to Neith and the Song of Deborah, we find both are judges … and both have an important connection to torches and perhaps [lightning]”.

 

 

 

 

Was Jephthah of Gilead a dope?

 

 

Saint Paul did not share the negative opinions of modern commentators about the Judges, including in his praise of them “Samson and Jephthah” (Hebrews 11:32-33): “And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah …. who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised …”.

 

 

What Was Jephthah Thinking?

 

Why, it needs to be asked, if Jephthah the Judge of Israel were a child killer, would Paul bother to praise him for his “faith” (Hebrews 11:32-33)?

The rollicking and bloodthirsty Book of Judges has been a stumbling block for some, with preachers recoiling in horror from the very thought of engaging in a discussion of the incident of Jephthah and his supposed sacrifice to God of his own daughter – his only child in fact.

But was Jephthah really that foolish?

Even those clever authors, I. Kikawada and A. Quinn (Before Abraham Was: The Unity of Genesis 1-11, Ignatius: 1985) are aghast at what they regard as the callous and pitiless “Song of Deborah”, and also the antics of the strong man, Samson, about whom they write (p. 134):

 

“Samson fits the pattern of a champion worthy of a people unworthy of their God--a champion strong but stupid, willful, lustful, unclean; one of his great triumphs coming after the humiliation of Judah (the once vaunted lion's whelp) and through the ridiculous agency of the ass's jawbone; his other triumph coming after his own humiliation by the uncircumcised and through an act tantamount to suicide. Even in this final triumph the author takes care to deflect our sympathies. Samson calls not for God's glory but for his own revenge. And then there is the young boy who places Samson's hands on the pillars, the young boy who in an act of kindness places Samson so he can rest, a young boy who for his kindness will be crushed to death”.

 

And they continue on in the same fashion (p. 135): “…. Samson’s willingness to defile himself for sweets is a nice commentary on his desire for Gentile women”.

Samson is so stupid according to these authors’ way of thinking that he even gets wrong his own riddle (ibid.): “Samson’s answer is completely wrong. In particular, we can now understand the suggestion made by Torczyner in the 1920s that the correct solution to this riddle is “vomit”.”

 

This supposed “solution”, however, completely misses the point of Samson’s riddle - Samson knew exactly what he meant by it.

Here follows an account of the more enlightened explanation of the riddle by professor Cyrus Gordon (as posted by Peter Buckley at: http://www.thebookblog.co.uk/2012/01/samsons-sweet-riddle/):

 

“One of Britain’s iconic foodstuffs is Lyle’s Golden Syrup. Everyone knows the century-old design: a round tin can with a lid you prise off with a knife; racing green bodywork with the golden words arching over a central picture of a dried dead lion, and emanating from its stomach is a swarm of bees. A strange image for a foodstuff?

Under the logo are the words: “Out of the strong came forth sweetness”, a reference by its creator Abram Lyle to a scene in the Bible. While no one is certain why this quotation was chosen, Abram Lyle was a deeply religious man and it has been suggested that it refers either to the strength of the Lyle company which delivers the sweet syrup or possibly even to the trademark tins in which Golden Syrup is sold. Lyle’s is “Britain’s oldest brand” according to the Guinness Book of World Records, having remained almost unchanged since 1885.

So the lion corpse definitely hasn’t done them any harm!

 

The full quote, a riddle, is “Out of the eater something to eat came forth, and out of the strong something sweet came forth” (Judges 14:14 NWT)

 

This is a good example of a bible account in the style of journalism, accurately conveying what took place. Samson killed a lion and later found that bees had made a hive in the carcass, from which honey was dripping. The strong aversion of most bees to dead bodies and carrion is well known. However, the account states that Samson returned “after a while” or, literally in the Hebrew, “after days,” a phrase that can refer to a period of even a year (The expression “from year to year” in Hebrew is literally “from days to days”). The time elapsed would allow for scavenger birds or animals and also insects to have consumed the flesh or the burning rays of the sun to desiccate the remainder. That a fair amount of time had passed is also evident from the fact that the swarm of bees not only had formed their nest within the lion’s corpse but also had produced a quantity of honey. He told nobody about the lion or the honey, but made a pact with the Philistines that within a week they could not solve the riddle. In translation there is no possible way to solve this riddle without being in on the secret about the lion and the bees. The Philistines found out the answer from Samson’s wife Delilah, who had nagged Samson into telling her. They [succeeded] by saying to Samson just before the week expired: “What is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion (a-ri)?” (Judges 14:18)

 

It happens that while ‘a-ri’ is well-known in the sense of ‘lion’ it is at the same time a very rare word for ‘honey’ preserved in Arabic, but nowhere in extant Hebrew literature. The biblical text is cleverly constructed, because up to that point in the account, it refrains from calling the lion ‘a-ri’. Instead the solution is kept from the reader by calling the lion a ‘ke-fir a-rayot’ (maned young lion) and later, ‘a-ryeh’ (apparently distinguishing the larger African from the Asian lion), neither of use in solving the riddle. One example of how every word is there for a reason.

 

Thanks to: Cyrus H Gordon (1974): Riddles in history”

 

Saint Paul did not share the negative opinions of modern commentators about the Judges, including in his praise of them “Samson and Jephthah” (Hebrews 11:32-33): “And what more shall I say?

I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah …. who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised …”.

 

Now, the following item provides us with a far more realistic interpretation of the Jephthah incident (from http://www.htdb.net/1901/r2897.htm):

 

 

 

“JEPHTHAH'S VOW--A BETTER TRANSLATION.

 

The original, Judges 11:30, when properly translated, reads thus: 'And it shall be that whoever comes forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace, from the children of Ammon, shall surely be Jehovah's, and I will offer to him a burnt offering.' The vow contains two parts:

 

(1) That person who would meet him on his return should be Jehovah's, and be dedicated forever to his service, as Hannah devoted Samuel before he was born. (1 Sam. 1:11.)

 

(2) That Jephthah himself would offer a burnt offering to Jehovah.

 

Human sacrifices were prohibited by the Law (Deut. 12:30); and the priests would not offer them. Such a vow would have been impious, and could not have been performed. It may be safely concluded that Jephthah's daughter was devoted to perpetual virginity; and with this idea agrees the statements that 'she went to bewail her virginity;' that the women went four times in every year to mourn or talk with (not for) her; that Jephthah did according to his vow, and that 'she knew no man.'

 

We are glad that our attention is called to this evidently better translation, which clears away the difficulty, and shows that the burnt-offering was one thing, and the devotion of the daughter another thing. We are to remember, too, the testimony of the entire Old Testament, to the effect that prior to our Lord's birth all the women of Israel coveted earnestly the great blessing and privilege of being possibly the mother of Messiah, or amongst his forebears. We are to remember, also, the exultant language of the Virgin Mary when finally it was announced to her that she had won this long-sought prize: "Henceforth all shall call me blessed"--all shall recognize me as the one who has attained this blessed privilege of being the mother of Messiah.”

 

  We may get glimpses of the famous Jephthah story in later literature, e.g., Greek, Islamic.

 

• Agamemnon and Iphigenia
   
  The Homeric masterpieces, Iliad and Odyssey - thought to be the “classics” and “key works” of “western civilization” - are replete with biblical allusions, as I have previously pointed out:
   
  Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit
   
  http://www.academia.edu/8914220/Similarities_to_The_Odyssey_of_the_Books_of_Job_and_Tobit
   
  The Book of Tobit apparently influenced other Greek literature as well, as we read at (http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-02-036-f):
   
  “…. some readers have found in [the Book of] Tobit similarities to still other pagan themes, such as the legend of Admetus. …. More convincing … however, are points of contact with classical Greek theater. Martin Luther observed similarities between Tobit and Greek comedy … but one is even more impressed by resemblances that the Book of Tobit bears to a work of Greek tragedy—the Antigone of Sophocles. In both stories the moral stature of the heroes is chiefly exemplified in their bravely burying the dead in the face of official prohibition and at the risk of official punishment. In both cases a venerable moral tradition is maintained against a political tyranny destructive of piety. That same Greek drama, moreover, provides a further parallel to the blindness of Tobit in the character of blind Teiresias, himself also a man of an inner moral vision important to the theme of the play.
  Bearing just as obvious a connection with non-biblical literature, I believe, is the demon Asmodeus (Tobit 3:8), who is doubtless to be identified, on purely morphological grounds, with Aeshma Daeva, a figure well known in ancient Iranian religion. …. Moreover, Tobit’s nephew Ahikar (1:22) is certainly identical with a literary character of the same name, time, place, and circumstances, found in the Elephantine papyri from the late fifth century B.C. …. In short, whatever may be the case relative to questions of historical dependency, Tobit’s cultural contacts with the ancient world of religion, philosophy, and literature are numerous and varied. …”.
   
  One could greatly multiply examples such as these.
   
  And it may be the case, too, that the story of Agamemnon and Iphigenia owes something to the Judges’ story of Jephthah and his daughter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphigenia):
   
  “The Achaean (Greek) fleet was preparing to go to war against Troy and had amassed in Aulis. While there, Agamemnon, the leader of the expedition, killed a deer in a grove sacred to the goddess Artemis. She punished him by interfering with the winds (either by becalming them or by blowing the ships back into port) so that his fleet could not sail to Troy.
   
  The seer Calchas revealed that in order to appease Artemis, Agamemnon must sacrifice his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. Agamemnon at first refused, but, under pressure from the other commanders eventually agreed.^[4]
   
  Iphigenia and her mother Clytemnestra were brought to Aulis under the pretext of a marriage to Achilles, but soon discovered that the marriage was a ruse. In some versions of the story, Iphigenia remains unaware of her imminent sacrifice until the last moment, believing that she is led to the altar to be married”.
   
  My comment: Though Iphigenia, like the daughter of Jephthah, may not finally have been sacrificed.
   
  The article continues:
   
  “Whether or not Iphigenia was actually sacrificed depends on the source. According to Hyginus' Fabulae, Iphigenia was not sacrificed.^[4] Some sources claim that Iphigenia was taken by Artemis to Tauris in Crimea on the moment of the sacrifice, and that the goddess left a deer^[5] or a goat (the god Pan transformed) in her place.
  The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women called her Iphimede (Ἰφιμέδη)^[6] and told that Artemis transformed her into the goddess Hecate.^[7] Antoninus Liberalis said that Iphigenia was transported to the island of Leuke, where she was wedded to immortalized Achilles under the name of Orsilochia”.
   
   

• Prophet Mohammed and Jephthah
   
  Now we also find that poor ‘Abdullah, the supposed father of Mohammed, in an episode that harkens back to the era of the Judges, to Jephthah’s vow, in fact, wrongly construed (Judges 11:30): ‘… whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering’, was elected by his father, ‘Abdel Muttalib, as the one of his ten sons to be sacrificed to God in thanksgiving.
  Ultimately ‘Abdullah was spared that grim fate, due to an encounter between ‘Abdel Muttalib and the shamaness, Shiya.
   
  {Here, again, in the case of the ruler and Shiya, we may have a reminiscence of king Saul of Israel’s clandestine visit to the witch of Endor (I Samuel 28:7)}.
   
  Another facet of the Jephthah story will recur again in the biography of Mohammed, later, in the quite different context of which person will have the honour of placing the fabled Black Stone of the Ka’aba back on the eastern wall after repairs.
  Abu Umayyah will advise the assembled crowd to wait for the next person who will come through a nearby gate in the courtyard of the Ka’aba. That person was, as fate would have it, Mohammed himself.
  A less traumatic fate, however, than the one experienced by Jephthah’s daughter!
   
  This whole wall building episode in the story of Mohammed is somewhat like the biblical one of Nehemiah. And Mohammed strangely has a contemporary “Nehemiah”.
  See my article:
   
  Two Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and AD time
   
  https://www.academia.edu/12429764/Two_Supposed_Nehemiahs_BC_time_and_AD_time
   
  In Part Six:
  https://www.academia.edu/40024985/Those_colourful_Judges_of_Israel._Part_Six_Jabin_Deborah_Gideon we considered, with regard to Jephthah, that crucial biblical time span of 300 years. “God then raised up Jephthah and delivered the land”. In so doing we are told by Jephthah that the period Israel had dwelt in the land was 300 years (Judges 11:26), which would have been measured from the time of the crossing of Jordan. Even though this may possibly be a round figure, one can assume that it is reasonably close.