Identifying King Arioch who ruled Elam

by Damien F. Mackey “In those days King Nebuchadnezzar fought against King Arphaxad in the great plain that is on the border with Ragau. And many people joined him—everyone who lived in the highlands, everyone who lived along the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Hydaspes, and on the plain of Arioch, king of the Elymeans. Many nations joined forces with the Assyrians”. Judith 1:5-6 Commenting on this text in my postgraduate university thesis (2007), I double-identified the otherwise unknown “Arioch, king of the Elymeans”, as follows (Volume Two, pp. 46-47): Verses 1:6: “Arioch, king of the Elymeans” In [Book of Judith] 1:6, which gives a description of the geographical locations from which Arphaxad’s allies came, we learn that some of these had hailed from the region of the “Hydaspes, and, on the plain, Arioch, king of the Elymeans”. I disagree with Charles that: “The name Arioch is borrowed from Gen. xiv. i, in accordance with the author’s love of archaism”. This piece of information, I am going to argue here, is actually a later gloss to the original text. And I hope to give a specific identification to this king, since, according to Leahy: “The identity of Arioch (Vg Erioch) has not been established …”. What I am going to propose is that Arioch was not actually one of those who had rallied to the cause of Arphaxad in Year 12 of Nebuchadnezzar, as a superficial reading of [Book of Judith] though might suggest, but that this was a later addition to the text for the purpose of making more precise for the reader the geographical region from whence came Arphaxad’s allies, specifically the Elamite troops. In other words, this was the very same region as that which Arioch had ruled; though at a later time, as I am going to explain. But commentators express puzzlement about him. Who was this Arioch? And if he were such an unknown, then what was the value of this gloss for the early readers? Arioch, I believe, was the very Achior who figures so prominently in the story of Judith. He was also the legendary Ahikar, a most famous character as we read in Chapter 7. Therefore he was entirely familiar to the Jews, who would have known that he had eventually governed the Assyrian province of Elam. I shall tell about this in a moment. Some later editor/translator presumably, apparently failing to realise that the person named in this gloss was the very same as the Achior who figures so prominently throughout the main story of [Book of Judith], has confused matters by calling him by the different name of Arioch. He should have written: “Achior ruled the Elymeans”. [Book of Tobit] tells us more. Some time after the destruction of Sennacherib’s armies, he who had been Sennacherib’s Rabshakeh was appointed governor (or ‘king’) of Elymaïs (Elam) (cf. 1:18, 21: 2:10). This was Tobit’s very nephew, Ahikar/Achior. But the latter ruled Elam, not in Nebuchadnezzar’s Year 12, or at about the time when he himself was a high officer in the Assyrian army, but (approximately a decade) later, during the reign of Ashurbanipal - as previously determined - when the king of Assyria sent him to Elam. From there it is an easy matter to make this comparison: “Achior ... Elymeans” [BOJudith]; “Ahikar (var. Achior) ... Elymaïs” [BOTobit]. [End of quote] An important note: Anyone engaging in a serious study of Elam and its history, will now need to (my opinion) take well into account Royce (Richard) Erickson’s article, that has so stunningly re-located the ancient land of Elam (Elymaïs): A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY (2) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY | Royce Erickson - Academia.edu Figure 6 – Consensus Versus Proposed Route of Flight to Nagite And now for a note on historical chronology that will be vital for this present article: Sennacherib’s successor, Esarhaddon, I have also multi-identified, as Ashurbanipal, and as Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’. In Esarhaddon, we get a small, but vital, part of Ashurbanipal/Nebuchednezzar’s long 43-year reign: his re-building of Babylon; his dreadful illness; and the beginnings of his campaign against Egypt-Ethiopia: Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar (2) Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Other alter egos for this mighty king are: Ashur-bel-kala; Ashurnasirpal; Nabonidus; Cambyses (suffers madness; conquers Egypt; also named “Nebuchednezzar”). Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal and Cambyses can all be drawn together, in fact, through the agency of their association with the one same “Crown Prince” of Egypt/Ethiopia: Esarhaddon and Nes-Anhuret, Ashurbanipal and Usanahuru, Cambyses and Udjahorresne (2) Esarhaddon and Nes-Anhuret, Ashurbanipal and Usanahuru, Cambyses and Udjahorresne | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu So, according to the above, Arioch, who ruled Elam, was also Tobit’s nephew, Ahikar, and was the Achior of the Book of Judith. And Esarhaddon was also Ashurbanipal and Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’. This will give us a better scope for filling out King Arioch. It needs to be noted that governors of a region for Assyria - such as Arioch was of Elam - were regarded as “kings”. Thus the boastful Sennacherib declares (Isaiah 10:8): ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ The Historical Arioch Arioch may well appear under that very name during the reign of King Nebuchednezzar. I wrote about this in my article: Did Daniel meet Ahikar? (2) Did Daniel meet Ahikar? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu therein greatly enlarging the biblical character, Ahikar, as follows: The Vizier (Ummânu) With what I think is a necessary merging of the C12th BC king of Babylon, Nebuchednezzar so-called I, with the potent king of neo-Assyria, Esarhaddon (or Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’), we encounter during the reign of ‘each’ a vizier of such fame that he was to be remembered for centuries to come. It is now reasonable to assume that this is one and the same vizier. I refer, in the case of Nebuchednezzar I, to the following celebrated vizier [the following taken from J. Brinkman’s A Political History of Post-Kassite Babylonia. 1158-722 B.C. Roma (Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1968, pp. 114-115]: … during these years in Babylonia a notable literary revival took place …. It is likely that this burst of creative activity sprang from the desire to glorify fittingly the spectacular achievements of Nebuchednezzar I and to enshrine his memorable deeds in lasting words. These same deeds were also to provide inspiration for later poets who sang the glories of the era …. The scribes of Nebuchednezzar’s day, reasonably competent in both Akkadian and Sumerian…, produced works of an astonishing vigor, even though these may have lacked the polish of a more sophisticated society. The name Esagil-kini-ubba, ummânu or “royal secretary” during the reign of Nebuchednezzar I, was preserved in Babylonian memory for almost one thousand years – as late as the year 147 of the Seleucid Era (= 165 B.C.)…. To which Brinkman adds the footnote [n. 641]: “Note … that Esagil-kini-ubba served as ummânu also under Adad-apla-iddina and, therefore, his career extended over at least thirty-five years”. So perhaps we can consider that our vizier was, for a time, shared by both Assyria and Babylon. Those seeking the historical Ahikar tend to come up with one Aba-enlil-dari, this description of him taken from: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000639.php: The story of Ahiqar is set into the court of seventh century Assyrian kings Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. The hero has the Akkadian name Ahī-(w)aqar “My brother is dear”, but it is not clear if the story has any historical foundation. The latest entry in a Seleucid list of Seven Sages says: “In the days of Esarhaddon the sage was Aba-enlil-dari, whom the Aramaeans call Ahu-uqar” which at least indicates that the story of Ahiqar was well known in the Seleucid Babylonia. Seleucid Babylonia is, of course, much later removed in time from our sources for Ahikar. And, as famous as may have been the scribe Esagil-kini-ubba – whether or not he were also Ahikar – even better known is this Ahikar (at least by that name), a character of both legend and of (as I believe) real history. Regarding Ahikar’s tremendous popularity even down through the centuries, we read [The Jerome Biblical Commentary, New Jersey (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968), 28:28]: The story of Ahikar is one of the most phenomenal in the ancient world in that it has become part of many different literatures and has been preserved in several different languages: Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Slavonic, and Old Turkish. The most ancient recension is the Aramaic, found amongst the famous 5th-cent. BC papyri that were discovered at the beginning of the 20th cent. on Elephantine Island in the Nile. The story worked its way into the Arabian nights and the Koran; it influenced Aesop, the Church Fathers as well as Greek philosophers, and the Old Testament itself. Whilst Ahikar’s fame has spread far and wide, the original Ahikar, whom I am trying to uncover in this article, has been elusive for some. Thus J. Greenfield has written: http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511520662&cid=CBO9780511520662A012 The figure of Ahiqar has remained a source of interest to scholars in a variety of fields. The search for the real Ahiqar, the acclaimed wise scribe who served as chief counsellor to Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, was a scholarly preoccupation for many years. He had a sort of independent existence since he was known from a series of texts – the earliest being the Aramaic text from Elephantine, followed by the book of Tobit, known from the Apocrypha, and the later Syriac, Armenian and Arabic texts of Ahiqar. An actual royal counsellor and high court official who had been removed from his position and later returned to it remains unknown. E. Reiner found the theme of the ‘disgrace and rehabilitation of a minister’ combined with that of the ‘ungrateful nephew’ in the ‘Bilingual Proverbs’, and saw this as a sort of parallel to the Ahiqar story. She also emphasized that in Mesopotamia the ummânu was not only a learned man or craftsman but was also a high official. At the time that Reiner noted the existence of this theme in Babylonian wisdom literature, Ahiqar achieved a degree of reality with the discovery in Uruk, in the excavations of winter 1959/60, of a Late Babylonian tablet (W20030,7) dated to the 147th year of the Seleucid era (= 165 BCE). This tablet contains a list of antediluvian kings and their sages (apkallû) and postdiluvian kings and their scholars (ummânu). The postdiluvian kings run from Gilgamesh to Esarhaddon. …. Merging Judith’s ‘Arioch’ with Daniel’s ‘Arioch’ With my revised shunting of the neo-Assyrian era into the neo-Babylonian one, and with an important official, “Arioch”, emerging early in the Book of Daniel, early in the reign of “Nebuchednezzar”, then the possibility arises that he is the same as the “Arioch” of Judith 1:6. Previously, I multi-identified the famous Ahikar (var. Achior), nephew of Tobit, a Naphtalian Israelite, with Sennacherib’s Rabshakeh; with the Achior of the Book of Judith; and with a few other suggestions thrown in. Finally, my identification of Ahikar (Achior) also with the governor (for Assyria) of the land of Elam, named as “Arioch” in Judith 1:6, enabled me to write this very neat equation: “Achior … Elymeans” [Judith]; “Ahikar (var. Achior) … Elymaïs” [Tobit]. Arioch in Daniel Arioch is met in Daniel 2, in the highly dramatic context of king Nebuchednezzar’s Dream, in which Arioch is a high official serving the king. The erratic king has firmly determined to get rid of all of his wise men (2:13): “So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death, and men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death”. And the king has entrusted the task to this Arioch, variously entitled “marshal”; “provost-marshal”; “captain of the king’s guard”; “chief of the king’s executioners” (2:14): “When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact”. This is the customary way that the wise and prudent Daniel will operate. Daniel 2 continues (v. 15): “[Daniel] asked the king’s officer [Arioch], ‘Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?’ Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel”. Our young Daniel does not lack a certain degree of “chutzpah”, firstly boldly approaching the king’s high official (the fact that Arioch does not arrest Daniel on the spot may be testimony to both the young man’s presence and also Arioch’s favouring the Jews since the Judith incident), and then (even though he was now aware of the dire decree) marching off to confront the terrible king (v. 16): “At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him”. Later, Daniel, having had revealed to him the details and interpretation of the king’s Dream, will re-acquaint himself with Arioch (v. 24): “Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, ‘Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him’.” Naturally, Arioch was quick to respond - no doubt to appease the enraged king, but perhaps also for the sake of Daniel and the wise men (v. 25): “Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, ‘I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means’.” The famous vizier of the Assyrian empire, Ahikar, will later be re-presented most unrealistically as a great sage and polymath, and he will even be reproduced as a handful of sages of encyclopaedic knowledge of the so-called Golden Age of Islam: Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism (3) Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Historically in Elam We should also be able to find a trace of Arioch as ruler of Elam for the Assyrians. Although we appear to have little to go on, there was a somewhat obscure ‘king’ of Elam right at the appropriate time (in my revised setting), the reign of Esarhaddon/ the early reign of Ashurbanipal. And he had the appropriate name, Urtak (var. Urtaki), which - if we simply substitute the t for an i - renders for us, Uriak (Arioch). Similarly, the Greek text of Tobit has taken Tobit’s Hebrew name, Obadiah (עֹבַדְיָה), and has replaced the first letter, ‘ayin (עֹ), with a tau (τ), Τωβίτ. {Obadiah is, in fact, the same as the Arabic name, Abdullah. Most interesting that Mohammed’s supposed parents, Abdullah and Amna, have the same names, respectively, as Tobit and his wife, Anna. The Nineveh connection, so fitting in the case of Tobit, becomes a complete anachronism with its re-emergence in association with Mohammed} D. T. Potts has provided this brief account of the obscure Urtak, one-time ruler of Elam (I do not necessarily accept the BC dates given here): https://e-l.unifi.it/pluginfile.php/664124/mod_resource/content/2/Testi%20in%20pdf/Potts%20DT%201999%20The%20Archaeology%20of%20Elam%209780521563581.pdf Cambridge world archaeology THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ELAM FORMATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF AN ANCIENT IRANIAN STATE (2016) Pp. 275-276 …. The Babylonian Chronicle relates that Humban-haltash II ‘died in his palace without becoming ill’ (iv 11–12) and was succeeded by his brother Urtak (thus contra Dietrich 1970: 37, the letter ABL 839, which speaks about a king of Elam who suffered a stroke, cannot refer to Humban-haltash II; see Brinkman 1978: 308, n. 27), whose Elamite name was probably Urtagu (Zadok 1976a: 63). This occurred in the sixth year of Esarhaddon’s reign and was soon followed by a treaty between the Assyrian and Elamite kings (Borger 1956: 19) involving the return of some plundered cult statues, for in Esarhaddon’s seventh year, according to the Babylonian Chronicle, ‘Ishtar of Agade and the gods of Agade left Elam and entered Agade . . . ’ (iv 17–18; Brinkman 1990: 88; 1991: 44). This must have taken place c. 674 BC (Gerardi 1987: 12–13). Urtak is not attested in original Elamite inscriptions. He was still in power when Esarhaddon died in 669 BC and in the early years of the reign of his son and successor,Assurbanipal, grain was sent to Elam to relieve a famine which, according to Assurbanipal (ABL 295), was so bad that ‘there wasn’t even a dog to eat’ (restoration acc. to Malbran-Labat 1982: 250). Furthermore, Elamite refugees were allowed to settle in Assyria until such time as the harvest improved in Elam (Piepkorn 1933: 54). Assurbanipal was explicit in justifying his gesture of aid as a by-product of Urtak’s treaty with his father Esarhaddon (Nassouhi 1924–5: 103). But in 664 BC Urtak attacked Babylonia (for the date see Gerardi 1987: 129), apparently at the instigation of an antiAssyrian trio including Bel-iqisha, chief of the Gambulu tribe, Nabu-shum-eresh, governor of Nippur; and Marduk-shum-ibni, an Elamite official in Urtak’s administration. After receiving news of the Elamite invasion and checking it by sending his own messenger to Babylonia, Assurbanipal says, ‘In my eighth campaign, I marched against Urtak, king of Elam, who did not heed the treaty of (my) father, my sire, who did not guard the friendship’ (Gerardi 1987: 122). Assurbanipal’s account of the events which followed is very brief, noting only that the forces of Urtak retreated from their position near Babylon, and were defeated near the border of Elam. Later, Urtak himself died and according to Edition B of Assurbanipal’s annals, ‘Assur . . . , (and) Ishtar . . . , his royal dynasty they removed. The dominion of the land they gave to another; afterwards TeUmman, image of a gallû demon, sat on the throne of Urtak’ (Gerardi 1987: 133), whereupon the remaining members of both Urtak’s family and those of his predecessor, Humban-haltash II, fled to Assyria (Gerardi 1987: 123–4; Brinkman 1991: 52). If this is the same event referred to in the Shamash-shum-ukin Chronicle, according to which ‘the Elamite prince fled [to] Assyria’ on the 12th of Tammuz in the fourth year of Shamash-shum-ukin’s regency over Babylonia, then it can be placed around June-July 664 BC (Millard 1964: 19; Gerardi 1987: 128). ….