The extraordinary life of Coniah the Captive – exiled, exalted, and finally executed

by Damien F. Mackey “The descendants of Jehoiachin the Captive: Shealtiel his son, Malkiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama and Nedabiah”. I Chronicles 3:17-18 Introductory The other notable biblical character in chronological range of King Jehoiachin (Jechoniah) of Judah who bore the epithet, “the Captive”, was Haman son of Hammedatha of the Book of Esther (3:1). Unfortunately, though, the original meaning, the Captive (or Prisoner), has been confused with the strikingly similar Greek word for Amalekite, so that Esther 3:1 is now translated as “Haman the Amalekite (or Agagite)”. He was nothing of the sort. I explained the linguistic confusion in e.g. my article: Haman’s nationality a complete surprise https://www.academia.edu/43437539/Haman_s_nationality_a_complete_surprise as follows: …. My view now is that the word (of various interpretations) that has been taken as indicating Haman’s nationality (Agagite, Amalekite, etc.), was originally, instead, an epithet, not a term of ethnic description. In the case of king Jehoiachin, the epithet used for him in 1 Chronicles 3:17 was: (“And the sons of Jeconiah), the captive”. In Hebrew, the word is Assir, “captive” or “prisoner”. Jeconiah the Captive! Now, in Greek, captive is aichmálotos, which is very much like the word for “Amalekite”, Amalikítis. …. Haman was, as by now determined – following Jewish legend – a Jew. He was the Jewish king, Jehoiachin (Coniah), the Captive. This sets him firmly in biblical history. But King Jehoiachin is also firmly established archaeologically as an historical figure, he with some of his sons: And we can easily, now, further unravel Esther 3:1 by identifying Hammedatha, whose son Haman is said to have been: “After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the [Captive], and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him”. This Hammedatha was a she, the biblical Queen, “Hamutal (Hammutal) daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah” (2 Kings 23:31; cf. 24:18). In these two texts, Hamutal is named as being the mother, now of King Jehoahaz, and now of King Zedekiah. She is not specifically called the mother of Jehoiachin, who is given as (24:8): “… Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem”. But I think this must be a mistake, that Nehushta was not the mother of the Captive, but his wife, Zeresh (Esther 5:10-14; 6:13): Calling together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials. The name Zeresh is not entirely unlike a shortened version of Nehush(-ta). This now opens the door for Queen Hamutal to have been the mother of Jehoiachin. As for the name, Haman (or Aman), which I had initially imagined to have been the Captive’s Medo-Persian name, e.g. Achaemenes (Hakhamanish), I now accept it to be the Egyptian name, Amon, for reasons to be explained. Adding Jehoahaz and Amon Jehoiachin/Haman, the Captive, has so far been established, more or less, as an exiled Jewish king, a descendant (“son”) of Queen Hamutal, and married to Nehushta/ Zeresh. We know from the Scriptures that he was exiled to Babylon during the reign of the Chaldean king, Nebuchednezzar (2 Kings 24:15): “Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the king’s mother, his wives, his officials and the prominent people of the land”. And we know that he was later released from prison by King Nebuchednezar’s son, Awel-Marduk (25:27): “In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Awel-Marduk became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison. He did this on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month”. But this was not, I now think, the young king’s first experience of exile. As Jehoahaz Pharaoh Necho would take into Egyptian captivity a young king of Judah named Jehoahaz, son of the great Josiah (23:30). And Jehoahaz had a mother, like Haman’s Hammedatha, called Hamutal (23:31-35): Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his predecessors had done. Pharaoh Necho put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, and there he died. Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh Necho the silver and gold he demanded. In order to do so, he taxed the land and exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments. If this Jehoahaz were to be another version of Jehoiachin, young and wicked, then some changes will need to be made. Instead of being a son of Jehoiakim (2 Kings 24:6), he must have been his brother; both sons of King Josiah. And, although he would have died in captivity, as Haman, he did not die in Egypt as 23:34 would suggest, but in Susa. 2 Chronicles tells nothing of the death of Jehoahaz, but simply reads: “But Necho took Eliakim’s brother Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt” (36:4). My reasons for identifying Jehoahaz as Jehoiachin/Haman the Captive would be descent from King Josiah, a mother named Hamutal, wickedness, dying in captivity (he was doubly a Captive), and the fact that King Jehoahaz of Judah (qua Jehoahaz) is completely missing from Matthew’s Genealogy. If Jehoahaz were Jehoiachin, then he was not missing from this NT Genealogy. It must have been during his first exile, in Egypt, that Jehoahaz/Jehoiachin acquired the Egyptian name, Amon (Aman), that is, Haman. As Amon And do we not have a wicked king of Judah called Amon? He, who does figure in Matthew’s Genealogy, wrongly, though (so I think), as the father of Josiah (Matthew 1:10), I have already identified as Haman: King Amon’s descent into Aman (Haman) https://www.academia.edu/115131376/King_Amon_s_descent_into_Aman_Haman_ There is a fair bit of doubling up in the extraordinary life of Jehoiachin the Captive: He was twice exiled (Egypt, Babylon). He ‘died’ twice (in Egypt, in Susa). He was twice highly exalted (by Awel-Marduk, and later by King Ahasuerus).