King Amon’s descent into Aman (Haman)

Part One: Honing in on the ever malevolent king Amon by Damien F. Mackey If Haman is Amon, then that would account for the origin of the name Haman, which I had previously imagined must have been Jehoiachin’s Persian name. For instance, the famous Persian name Achaemenes can be rendered as Hakhamanish (containing the element haman). Amon itself, though, is very much an Egyptian name, and we know that pharaoh Necho, at about that time, had a certain influence in naming young kings of Judah (2 Kings 23:34). How could this young king of Judah have managed to achieve such a degree of wickedness, when, as according to 2 Chronicles 33:21: “Amon was two and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned two years in Jerusalem”? Not very long a reign, not very old in years, for Amon to have surpassed in wickedness (v. 23) his father, Manasseh, who “reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years”. My Revised Amon My explanation for how king Amon of Judah was able to amass such an appalling record of “evil in the sight of the LORD” would be that the count of his reign had continued into a long period of captivity. I would take as an example of this king Jehoiachin of Judah, who, having “reigned in Jerusalem three months” before having been taken captive to Babylon by Nebuchednezzar (2 Kings 24:8-12), continued to have his regnal years counted there in exile, so that we read further on (25:27): “In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Awel-Marduk became king of Babylon …”. King Jehoiachin is a particularly apt comparison - at least according to my revision - because he would continue in his evil ways (“trespassed more and more”) culminating in his rôle as the terrible Haman during the Medo-Persian era. See e.g. my article: If King Belshazzar made Daniel 3rd, who was 2nd? (10) If King Belshazzar made Daniel 3rd, who was 2nd? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu But king Jehoiachin now - in my steps here towards a deeper revision - becomes even more apt given that his alter ego, Haman, enables for a virtual name comparison with Amon, leading to my proposed new identification of (Jehoiachin)-Haman with Amon king of Judah. Haman is in fact called Aman (even closer to the name, Amon) in a version of Tobit 14:10, where he has been confused with Nadab (or Nadin), which is the correct reading. {Haman and Nadin, my ‘Holofernes”, belong to two entirely different eras} My new suggestion (Haman = Amon) does admittedly affect certain biblical sequences as we currently have them (e.g. Amon can now no longer be the father of king Josiah) - as well as affecting information pertaining to who was the mother of Amon. If Haman is Amon, then that would account for the origin of the name Haman, which I had previously imagined must have been Jehoiachin’s Persian name. For instance, the famous Persian name Achaemenes can be rendered as Hakhamanish (containing the element haman). Amon itself, though, is very much an Egyptian name, and we know that pharaoh Necho, at about that time, had a certain influence in naming young kings of Judah (2 Kings 23:34). Scholars dearly wish that they knew more about Amon, given that the Bible dismisses him, qua Amon, in just a few verses. “It is rather unfortunate that so little is known of the reign of Amon, king of Judah; for he lived evidently in a critical period”. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1420-amon-king-of-judah However, if Amon has the alter egos that I have proposed for him in this article, then we can actually know quite a lot about him. The Jewish Encyclopedia here recalls a Rabbinic comment on the extreme wickedness of King Amon of Judah: The fact that Amon was the most sinful of all the wicked kings of Judah (II Chron. xxxiii. 23) is brought out in the Talmud (Sanh. 103b) as follows: (Sanh. 104a) Ahaz suspended the sacrificial worship, Manasseh tore down the altar, Amon made it a place of desolation [covered it with cobwebs]; Ahaz sealed up the scrolls of the Law (Isa. viii. 16), Manasseh cut out the sacred name, Amon burnt the scrolls altogether [compare Seder Olam, R. xxiv. This is derived from the story of the finding of the Book of the Law, II Kings, xxii. 8]; Ahab permitted incest, Manasseh committed it himself, Amon acted as Nero was said to have done toward his mother Agrippina. And yet, out of respect for his son Josiah, Amon's name was not placed on the list of the kings excluded from the world to come. [End of quote] What does gel nicely - according to my revised view that Amon is Haman - is the situation of death of Amon (2 Kings 21:23): “Amon’s officials conspired against him and assassinated the king in his palace”, with the situation of death of Haman (Esther 7:9): “And Harbona, one of the eunuchs that stood waiting on the king, said: ‘Behold the gibbet which [Aman] hath prepared for Mardochai, who spoke for the king, standeth in Aman's house, being fifty cubits high’. And the king said to him: ‘Hang him upon it’.” Both deaths occurred violently, at the hands of officials, in the palace (house) of the offender. In the case of Amon, we get the added note that (2 Kings 21:24): “Then the people of the land killed all who had plotted against King Amon …”. The “land”, I believe, is Susa, and the Jews (now assisted by the Persian king) are in the midst of a major conflict, yet unresolved, with their enemies. So it may not be surprising to learn that there was a retaliation for the death of Amon-Haman, who had many friends and allies (Esther 5:10-11): “But dissembling his anger, and returning into his house, [Haman] called together to him his friends, and Zares his wife. And he declared to them the greatness of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and with how great glory the king had advanced him above all his princes and servants”. A concluding note New problems arise from this radical new proposal about King Amon of Judah, which places him much later in time than is usually accepted for him. I have already admitted this above. These problems will be elaborated upon, and hopefully addressed, as this article progresses. Part Two: Some implications of Amon’s being Jehoiachin-Haman “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he was king [reigned] three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan from Jerusalem”. 2 Kings 24:8 At the end of Part One I noted that “new problems arise from this radical new proposal about King Amon of Judah, which places him much later in time than is usually accepted for him”. These “problems” are not insignificant. First of all, this deeper revision must affect the sequence of the latter kings of Judah as currently set out in 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, etc. For instance, Amon can no longer be the father of Josiah as recorded in various places. E.g.: 2 Kings 21:24; 2 Chronicles 33:25; Jeremiah 1:2; Zephaniah 1:1; Matthew 1:10. And, considering that the royal sequence is also set out in the New Testament, in Matthew 1:6-11, then the Genealogy of Jesus Christ as we currently have it must be affected as well. According to another version of Matthew 1:10 (ESV), though, Josiah was the son of “Amos”, not Amon: “… Hezekiah [was] the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah …”. Bible Gateway adds the note to this: “Matthew 1:10 Amos is probably an alternate spelling of Amon; some manuscripts Amon; twice in this verse”. In actual fact, the names “Amos” and “Amon” are two entirely different names. The fact that “Amos” can appear instead of “Amon” may give me some hope now for thinking that there is a certain leeway for rejecting Amon as the father of Josiah. And, perfectly in accord with my revised view that King Amon of Judah was also the wicked Haman of the Book of Esther is Abarim’s association of these two names: http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Amon.html#.W5WkP-RNB9A Associated Biblical names ♂♕☀Amonאמון אמן ♂Haman Other related problems that arise from my deeper revision are the different ages and reign lengths attributed to the supposedly two kings, but whom I am identifying as one, plus three different female names ‘claiming the right’ to be the king of Judah’s mother: 2 Kings 21:19: “Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah”. 2 Kings 24:8: “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he was king [reigned] three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan from Jerusalem”. Esther 3:1: “After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha …”, she being queen Hamutal (Hammutal) of 2 Kings 23:30 according to my revision. Part Three: Re-casting the sequence of Judaean kings “Now after this he (King Manasseh) built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate, and compassed about Ophel, and raised it up a very great height, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah.” 2 Chronicles 33:14 With King Amon of Judah identified in this present series with Haman of the Book of Esther - described as a “king” in Queen Esther’s prayer (14:10), “to magnify forever a mortal king” - and whom I have previously identified with King Jehoiachin (var. Coniah) of Judah, and hence having now detected a duplicating sequence embedded in our various lists of Judaean kings, it becomes necessary to attempt to re-cast the royal list without any such duplications. Let us turn again the Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah in Matthew 1, to that part of Matthew’s list from King David to Jeconiah (= Amon) (vv. 7-11): David was the father of Solomon … Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah …. As has often been pointed out, four known kings (Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah and Jehoiakim) are missing from Matthew’s list here (Jehoahaz now needs to be added), making it seem to many to be artificially constructed. D. M. Williams, for instance, will wonder about three of these missing Judaean kings, in his “A word on the skipped generations in Matthew’s genealogy”: https://resurrectingraleigh.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/a-word-on-the-skipped-generations-in-/ But in addition to the striking features of the schema, there are some nettlesome ones as well: namely, Matthew has to skip a few kings in order to make the second block of fourteen “work” (compare, for instance, 1:8-9 with 1 Chronicles 3:11-12–what happened to Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah?) and the final block, if you count, actually only has thirteen generations. One question which came up in our study yesterday was basically What are we to make of this? Are we now resting our faith on a lie? If Jesus was not born precisely forty nine generations after Abraham, is our faith in vain? [End of quote] I have wondered especially about the omission of the mighty kings, Joash and Amaziah, who, though they erred, do not appear to have been so consistently bad as, say, Ahaz, or Manasseh, who are included in the list. But, in the end, I had acquiesced to arguments connecting them with the Omride queen, Athaliah - although that would apply more directly to king Jehoram (who was married to her, 2 Kings 8:18), who is not omitted from the list. But now, with duplications recognised (if I am on the right track), there is no longer need for Joash and Amaziah to be excluded from the list. With Amon now folded into Jeconiah (or Jehoiachin) as according to this series, and with Amon no longer recognised as the father of Josiah, but rather one named “Amos” thus being recognised, then, finally - and what I have long wondered about - Hezekiah can now be identified with his mirror-image Josiah. Manasseh now becomes the wicked Jehoiakim, another of those kings who has been left out of Matthew’s genealogical list. And “Amos”, the father of Josiah, becomes Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah. The name Amos, or Amoz, is only a consonant different from Ahaz. This would therefore be my emended list: Hezekiah [=Josiah] the father of Manasseh [=Jehoiakim], Manasseh the father of Amon [=Jehoiachin] …. If Manasseh were Jehoiakim, then that would explain, for one, why the prophet Jeremiah names Manasseh as the reason for the Babylonian enmity (Jeremiah 15:4): “I will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem”, even though Jehoiakim was just as evil and was, conventionally speaking, far closer in time to the Babylonian troubles than was Manasseh. Again it would explain the strong tradition of the prophet Isaiah’s being martyred during the reign of king Manasseh. “Michael A. Knibb writes: "The Martyrdom of Isaiah is a Jewish work which has come down to us as part of a larger Christian composition known as the Ascension of Isaiah".” http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/ascensionisaiah.html Un-mentioned in the Bible in connection with king Manasseh, qua Manasseh, this incident can (I think) be related to the martyrdom of the prophet Uriah (var. Urijah) during the reign of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 26:23): “And they fetched forth Urijah out of Egypt, and brought him to Jehoiakim the king; who slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people”. Uriah now becomes Isaiah. Incidentally, the prophet Uriah was “fetched forth” from Egypt by an “Elnathan” (v. 27), who may well be the same as the father of king Jehoiachin’s mother, “Nehushta daughter of Elnathan” (2 Kings 24:8): “His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan …”. Unlike king Amon/Jehoiachin, who evolved into Haman, and who “humbled not himself before the LORD [BUT WHO] trespassed more and more”, his similarly long-reigning (in captivity) father, king Manasseh/Jehoiakim, thankfully, “had humbled himself” (2 Chronicles 33:22, 23). The conversion of King Manasseh is told in vv. 11-13: Therefore the LORD brought against them the army commanders of the Assyrian king; they captured Manasseh with hooks, shackled him with chains, and transported him to Babylon. In his distress, he began to appease the LORD, his God. He humbled himself abjectly before the God of his ancestors, and prayed to him. The LORD let himself be won over: he heard his prayer and restored him to his kingdom in Jerusalem. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is indeed God. As we read at the beginning, king Manasseh began the rebuilding and fortifying of Jerusalem. I would tentatively identify king Manasseh/Jehoiakim with the “Sheshbazzar prince of Judah” of Ezra 1:8: “Cyrus king of Persia brought these out in the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah”. “Sheshbazzar” would of course have been the king’s Babylonian name, given to him in captivity. As we do not hear any more about Sheshbazzar, he, now aged (if he were Manasseh), may well have died not long afterwards – or simply left the overseeing of the remaining building work to younger men. Part Four: Who was the actual mother of King Amon of Judah? “After these events, King Ahasuerus honored Haman son of Hammedatha …”. Esther 3:1 Having alter egos for King Amon of Judah, whilst serving to solve certain problems according to the findings of this series, also adds a few complications as I noted in Part Two: “Other related problems that arise from my deeper revision are the different ages and reign lengths attributed to the supposedly two kings, but whom I am identifying as one, plus three different female names ‘claiming the right’ to be the king of Judah’s mother: 2 Kings 21:19: “Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem two years. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz; she was from Jotbah”. 2 Kings 24:8: “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he was king [reigned] three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan from Jerusalem”. Esther 3:1: “After these events, King Ahasuerus honored Haman son of Hammedatha …”, she being queen Hamutal (Hammutal) of 2 Kings 23:30 according to my revision”. Actually, I have already partly solved the problem of ‘three mothers’ for the one king here by indicating that the otherwise unattested “Hammedatha”, of whom Haman was the “son”, was the same as the Jewish queen, Hammutal (or Hamutal). http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Hamutal.html#.W5cH5uRNB9A “There is only one Hamutal in the Bible, and she is the mother of kings Jehoahaz and Zedekiah of Judah (2 Kings 23:31, 24:18, Jeremiah 52:1)”. {That these kings could have more than the one name is attested by Zedekiah originally having been Mattaniah (2 Kings 24:17)} As to whether either Meshullemeth (above), said to be the mother of Amon, or Nehushta (above), said to be the mother of (Amon’s alter ego) Jehoiachin, was the actual biological mother, I have not looked into the matter yet deeply enough to make any sort of judgment. One possibility to be considered is that Meshullemeth and Nehushta were the same person, though with different patronymics due to possible differentiation between father and grandfather. But, whatever may be the case, we have easily managed to reduce three ‘mothers’ to two. Differing ages and reign lengths: Amon … twenty-two years old … he reigned in Jerusalem two years; Jehoiachin … eighteen years old … he … [reigned] three months in Jerusalem, can readily be accounted for by co-regency.