AARON. The brother of Moses and his deputy during the migration of the Israelites in the wilderness (see Desert, Migrations in the Desert) and the eponymous ancestor of the Aaronite priesthood. The traditions about Aaron have been colored by the formation of the Aaronite priesthood that probably belongs to a relatively late phase of Israel’s history. In this way, the character of Aaron can be divided into, on one hand, a priest administering priestly duties, on the other, obligations connected with the leadership in combination with Moses. Sometimes he is called a “prophet” (Exod 7:1). One tradition stands apart: the story of the Golden Calf (Exod 32-34), where Aaron appears both as the leader of the people in Moses’ absence, and as the priest in front of the idol. It has been customary within Old Testament scholarship to associate the image of Aaron the priest with the alleged late priestly strand of traditions in the Pentateuch (usually dubbed “P”), whereas other traditional layers (usually called the Yahwist [“J”] and the Elohist [“E”]) have a much more reserved view of this figure from the past.
According to the story of the call of Moses, Aaron was installed as Moses’ assistant and spokesperson because of his claim that he was deficient in speaking properly (Exod 4:10-17). In this capacity, Aaron appears at the side of Moses in the confrontation with Pharaoh (Exod 5-11). He also appears in this role in other traditions, e.g., at Sinai (Exod 24:9-11), in the story about Moses’ spies (Num 13:26; 14:26), and at Meribah where Moses struck water from the rock (Num 20:1-13). In the retelling of the desert stories in Deuteronomy, Aaron is almost totally missing, although Deuteronomy includes the information about his death at Mosera (Deut 10:6—in Deut 32:50 his place of death is given as Mount Hor—today identified with a mount overlooking the rock city of Petra in Jordan).
As is the case of almost every personality of the early traditions of Israel, it is practically impossible to verify any part of the tradition about Aaron as historical. He is a composite figure that has been reworked many times. If there ever was a historical Aaron, it is hardly the figure presented in the Old Testament.
ABDON. A judge in Israel, from Pirathon in Ephraim, who had 40 sons and 30 grandsons and judged Israel for eight years (Judg 12:13-15). He belongs to the list of five judges (Judg 10:1-5; 12:8-15) who together judged Israel for 70 years but left no records about their exploits.
ABEL. Meaning “stream,” the name of a number of localities in Palestine mentioned in the Old Testament. Most important are Abel-Maachah or Abel-Beth-Maacah (Tell Abil), a town at the border between Israel and Aram, sometimes ruled by the Aramaeans, sometimes by the Israelites, and Abel-Mehola, the home of the prophet Elisha.
ABIATAR. One of David’s priests, the son of Ahimelech, the priest at Nob (2 Sam 20:35). He escaped the fate of his father and fellow priests who were killed on Saul’s request for supporting David fleeing from the wrath of the king. Abiatar joined David’s men in the desert (1 Sam 22:20-23) and brought the ephod—an important cultic requisite—from Nob to David’s camp (1 Sam 23:6). After David’s conquest of Jerusalem, Abiatar became his priest together with Zadok (2 Sam 20:25). His career came to an end when he, after the death of David, supported Adonijah against Solomon. He was, however, spared by Solomon and allowed to retreat in peace to Anatot (1 Kgs 2:26-27). He has sometimes been considered a representative of old Israelite religious habits in contrast to Zadok, who has been seen as representing new and non-Israelite religious innovations. Speculation that Abiatar is the author of the “Succession History” (2 Sam 7-1 Kgs 2) is totally without foundation.
ABIEL. Two men of this name (“My father is El”) are mentioned in the Old Testament: 1. King Saul’s grandfather (1 Sam 9:1; 14:51), and 2. One of David’s heroes (1 Chron 11:32).
ABIGAIL. One of David’s wives, first married to Nabal, whose husband died from fear in a confrontation with David (1 Sam 25). In Hebron, she became the mother of Chileab, David’s second son. Abigail’s fate, being another man’s wife before joining David, is paralleled by the story of Bathsheba, the wife of the Hittite Uriah, and perhaps also of Michal, the daughter of King Saul.
ABIJAH. A number of persons in the Old Testament carry the name of Abijah (“Yahweh is my father”). From a historical point of view, two persons are interesting:
1. The infant son of King Jeroboam of Israel who died after a curse was put upon his father by the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh (1 Kgs 14).
2. The successor of King Rehoboam of Judah (1 Kgs 14:31-15:8; a variant tradition presents the name as Abijam). His mother was Maacah, a daughter of David’s son Absalom (1 Kgs 15:2). According to the Hebrew text, he reigned for three years (c. 915-913 B.C.E.); the Greek Septuagint, however, gives him a six-years reign. The biblical evaluation of Abijah is negative. He sinned against the Lord; however, at the same time he was able to fight off the Israelites under King Rehoboam.
ABIJAM. The name means “My father is [the god] Jam.” Some are of the opinion that this was the real name of the king Abijah, suppressed by later biblical tradition, Jam being the Canaanite god of the sea.
ABIMELECH. Two persons of importance carry the name of Abimelek (“the king is my father”).
1. The Philistine king of Gerar when Abraham and Isaac visited the city (Gen 20 and 26). The two occurrences are similar: The patriarch had left his own region in order to travel to a place where he could find food, and on both occasions almost lost his wife. However, something happens and the plot is solved without endangering the survival of the patriarchal family. The two stories are variants of the narrative about Abraham in Egypt (Gen 12) and carry no independent historical information.
2. Abimelech, the son of the judge Gideon and a woman from Shechem (Judg 9). Upon his father’s death, Abimelech used the support of his Schechemite relatives to obtain power, whereafter he disposed of his 70 brothers who were executed “on one stone” (Judg 9:5). Only one survived the ordeal, Jotham, the author of the Jotham fable about the trees looking for a king (Judg 9:7-21). A person of the name of Gaal, the son of Ebed (literally “the son of the slave”), instigated a rebellion against Abimelech in Shechem, but was outsmarted by Abimelech’s agent, Zebul. Abimelech defeated Gaal, who was chased from Shechem by Zebul. After this, Abimelech took gruesome revenge on the people of the Tower of Shechem. When they looked for refuge in their stronghold, Abimelech had it burned down, and they perished. Abimelech met his death at the hand of a woman who threw a millstone on him when he entered besieged Thebez. No information about Abimelech can be found outside the Old Testament, although scholars have sometimes speculated about his relationship with the Shechemite champion of the Amarna Period (see Amarna and the Amarna letters), Labayu, who was a crafty and shifty local ruler of the central hill land around the middle of the 14th century.
ABINADAB. The Old Testament includes short notes about a number of persons of the name of Abinadab (“My father is noble”), among these:
1. A man from Kiriath-jearim housing the ark of the Lord for 20 years after it was conquered but not kept by the Philistines at the battle of Aphek (1 Sam 7:1-2).
2. An older brother to David, in the service of King Saul (1 Sam 16:8).
3. A son of King Saul who died together with his father and brother at Gilboa (1 Sam 31:2)
ABIRAM. Two persons of this name (“My father is exalted”) are mentioned in the Old Testament.
1. Abiram, who in connection with Dathan instigated a rebellion against Moses and his leadership but was swallowed up by the earth (Num 16:1-40). The story is totally legendary, although scholars have sometimes tried to extract tribal history from it, such as the demise of the tribe of Reuben.
2. The oldest son of Hiel of Bethel, who was probably sacrificed by his father when he rebuilt the city of Jericho (1 Kgs 16:34). The note in 1 Kgs 16:34 may reflect a custom attested in archaeological discoveries of child sacrifices in connection with foundation ceremonies.
ABISHAG. A handsome girl from Shunem who was brought to the royal court to revitalize the ailing King David—without much success (1 Kgs 1:1-4). The anecdote might reflect a custom when an old king is on trial in order to see that he is still fit for ruling his country. Instead of becoming the king’s mistress, Abishag acted as the nurse of the old and sick David. After David’s death and Solomon’s assuming of power, Solomon’s half brother Adonijah showed interest in the girl (1 Kgs 2:12-25), something Solomon recognized as a renewed bid for the kingship on the part of Adonijah. In this way Abishag became the indirect reason for Adonijah’s death.
ABISHAI. A nephew of King David, the son of the king’s sister Zeruah and brother of David’s general Joab. The Old Testament narrative presents a portrayal of a split person: on one hand, a staunch supporter of the king and, on the other, a rather independent person who sometimes in combination with his brother carried on with a policy of his own, although always with the interest of the king in mind. He is said to be one of the chiefs of David’s heroes, the elite force of David (2 Sam 23:18). He supported David in his early days: together with Joab he slew Saul’s general Abner (2 Sam 3) and participated in quenching the rebellion of Absalom (2 Sam 18) and later of Sheba (2 Sam 20). Finally, he is said to have saved the life of the king by killing the Philistine hero Ishbi-benob (2 Sam 21:17).
ABNER. King Saul’s cousin and general, son of Saul’s uncle Ner (1 Sam 14:50, the name means “the father is Ner”). The books of Samuel (see Samuel, Books of) present an interesting portrayal of Abner as an ambitious politician whose plans are destined to end tragically, being crossed by the younger David, the very person Abner had to look for on the king’s request after he had killed Goliath (1 Sam 17:55-58). Abner remained loyal to Saul to the very end, and appeared regularly at the side of the king, thus during a festival (1 Sam 20:25), and again when he was reproached by David for not protecting his lord and master (1 Sam 26:15). After Saul’s death at the battle at Gilboa, Abner was the person who ensured the kingship for Saul’s family by bringing Saul’s surviving son, Ishboshet, to Mahanaim where he was elected king of Israel (2 Sam 2:8-9). During the warfare that broke out soon after Ishboshet’s enthronement between the armies of Ishboshet and David, Abner made a bid for the city of Gibeon. In the course of this campaign, Abner lost the battle but killed Asahel, the brother of David’s general Joab (2 Sam 2). At a later date, Abner may have planned to become king himself by approaching Rizpah, Saul’s concubine (2 Sam 3:7). A quarrel broke out between Abner and the king, and Abner opened negotiations with David in Hebron. When he returned from Hebron, Abner was killed by Joab, officially as revenge for the death of his brother but in light of the political situation probably to rid David of his fiercest competitor for the Israelite throne (2 Sam 3).
ABRAHAM. Or Abram (the name is changed in Gen 17:5). Abraham was the first among Israel’s three patriarchs. The name Abraham might either represent a learned “Aramaic” variant to the name of Abram, meaning “the father is exalted,” or a peculiar dialectal form of the name Abram. The part of Genesis devoted to the story of Abraham covers chapters 11:26-25:10. Abraham is said to have left his parental home in Ur of the Chaldaeans (see also Chaldaea, Chaldaeans) in order to travel in the company of his father Terah and his nephew Lot to Haran. After Terah’s death, Abraham together with his wife, Sarah (until Gen 17:15 Sarai), left Haran and traveled to Canaan, the country promised to him and his family by God. Shortly after his arrival in Canaan, Abraham was forced to leave the country because of a great famine and travel to Egypt. In Egypt he almost lost his wife to Pharaoh’s harem but Sarah was given back to Abraham by the direct order of God. Finally, Abraham returned to his own country a richer man than ever before. In Canaan, Abraham and Lot were forced to separate. Lot moved on to Sodom, no longer a part of Israel’s future.
Abraham settled in Mamre, where he began to experience God’s promises coming true. God concluded a covenant with Abraham including promises of a country and plenty of descendants. However, so far Sarah had not been able to give birth to a child. Abraham, and Sarah, endeavored to circumvent God’s promise about a son, and Abraham begot a substitute heir, Ishmael, by the Egyptian slave girl Hagar, a futile project as Hagar and Ishmael were forced to leave Abraham because of Sarah’s jealousy. A son had to be fathered by Abraham with Sarah as his mother. The promise of a son was repeated to Abraham by God who visited him at Mamre. The son, Isaac, is born, however, on the order of God only to be sacrificed to God, although spared in the last moment by God’s personal interference. Now the last part of Abraham’s life was approaching. Sarah died, and Abraham had to negotiate the acquisition of a grave cave for her from the local population at Hebron. After Sarah’s death, Abraham provided a wife for his son, a girl, Rachel, coming from his own family back in Haran. Having provided for the future of his family, Abraham took his leave. He died and was buried next to his wife.
The story of Abraham is a comprehensive tale of the ancestor’s life. Here it has only been possible to present a short summary. The summary might seem to reflect a homogenous narrative. It is far from being so. The narrative is a compositional story made by including a number of anecdotes and single stories, sometimes interrupted by additional stories about the fate of the minor characters of the narrative, such as Lot, Hagar, and Ishmael. At intersections the narrative also leaves space for the genealogies of a number of people in contact with Abraham. One of the anecdotic sections, Abraham’s visit to Egypt (Gen 12), is repeated in Gen 20, although this time the scene has been removed to Gerar. Some stories have been classified as “legends of the sacred place,” purportedly founded by Abraham, such as Shechem (Gen 12:6-7) and Bethel where Abraham installs an altar (Gen 12:8). Accordingly, scholars traditionally consider the Abraham story a redactional collection of narratives with a complicated history of compilation. On the other hand, the story is kept together by a thread that shows a compiler whose redaction was determined by the message to be included in the narrative, a message about devotion to the God of Israel, a devotion that is fully rewarded by God. The message is that Yahweh will never forsake his people, not even if they are not always absolutely obedient to the commandments of God, as sometimes happens in Abraham’s relationship to his God. If Israel stays with Yahweh and scorns other gods, the promises will come true, Israel will become a great nation with its own country, and Yahweh will always remain faithful to his people.
The special qualities of the narrative about Abraham have to be evaluated on the basis of the message contained in this story. These qualities have little to do with external circumstances, such as historical events purportedly connected to the life of this patriarch. Historical-critical scholarship, however, normally aims at explaining the historical background of such narratives. Accordingly, scholars for more than a hundred years have tried to connect the person Abraham to specific periods in the history of the Holy Land and the ancient Near East at large. Sometimes attempts have been made to connect Abraham to real historical figures. It is a precondition that it can be demonstrated that there once existed in the prehistory of ancient Israel a special time, the period of the patriarchs. Such a period has turned out to be most elusive. Among the periods proposed as the time of Abraham may be mentioned the final part of the Early Bronze Age, that is, the end of the third millennium B.C.E. For a short while, following the discovery of ancient Ebla, and the decipherment of its inscriptions, Abraham was likened to a king of Ebla, who has, however, subsequently vanished as the reading of these texts became more solid. The period of the patriarchs has also been identified with the Middle Bronze Age—the first part of the second millennium B.C.E. From this period the cuneiform tablets from Mari are supposed to describe a nomadic society close to the one described in the Old Testament. Abraham and his two successors, Isaac and Jacob, have also been connected to the early part of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1500 B.C.E.) and the milieu of the text from Nuzi in Mesopotamia, purportedly—based on the text from ancient Nuzi—showing a juridical situation close to the one presumed by the patriarchal narratives. Finally, the early part of the Early Iron Age (c. 1200 B.C.E.) has been proposed, again based on information included in the patriarchal narratives.
This survey already shows that this direction within scholarship has met with little success. In present Old Testament scholarship it is becoming more and more evident that the ideological content of the patriarchal narratives is much more important than any possible historical content of the narratives. The narratives have been composed not in order to image the historical past but with regard to their ideological importance for early Judaism.
Abraham is mentioned in only a few places outside Genesis, mostly in formulaic sentences like “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob” (e.g., in Exod 3:6 ff.). In Prophets and Psalms Abraham occurs sporadically, as in Ps 105:6-9. Generally, it is clear that such texts are totally dependent on the image of Abraham created by the narratives in Genesis. In this category must also be placed later Jewish speculation and tradition about Abraham.
ABSALOM. The third among David’s sons, born in Hebron. His mother was Maacah, a royal princess from the Aramaean petty state of Geshur (2 Sam 3:3). Absalom’s part in David’s history (2 Sam 13-19) began when his half brother Amnon raped his sister Tamar. Absalom took his revenge on his brother and killed him. To escape his father’s punishment he went to his mother’s father, the king of Geshur, and hid there. After a while, David pardoned his son, who returned to the court of David in Jerusalem, only soon after to initiate a rebellion that almost overwhelmed his father. At the end of the day, David’s general Joab subdued the rebellion and killed Absalom. David was hardly pleased by the news of his son’s death. In spite of all the quarrels, Absalom remained to his death David’s most beloved son.
Often, Absalom’s rebellion against his father has been interpreted as reflecting a conflict between various power groups in the time of King David. One such explanation sees Absalom as the leader of a Judean rebellion against a king who, from his residence in neutral Jerusalem, not belonging to the land of any tribe of Israel, has allowed other tribes a leading role in his new kingdom. As proof it has been customary to point to the opening of the insurrection in Hebron, the ancient capital of Judah, but also David’s withdrawal from exposed Jerusalem to his provinces to the east of the Jordan River might be understood in the light of the Judean origin of his son’s betrayal.
A more recent interpretation of the story of David and Absalom generally disregards the possible historical content of the Absalom incident and sees it as a kind of narrative that explains the dangers of a father who, like the patriarch Jacob, loves one of his sons all too much—a preference that can only lead to disaster within the family, as was also the case in the Joseph story in Genesis. Within the compass of the David story, the narrative about Absalom illustrates how David’s career took a bad turn after the violation of Bathsheba, the wife of the Hittite Uriah.
ACCO (or ACCHO). An important harbor and city c. 15 kilometers to the north of modern Haifa. It belonged to the tribal territory of Asher (Josh 19:30—according to the usual correction of the Hebrew text followed by modern scholars)—but according to Judg 1:31 was not conquered by the Asherites. Excavations at the place (Tell Fulkhar, less than a kilometer from the walls of the medieval city of Acre) demonstrate that it was a Phoenician city rather than an Israelite one. The tell was continuously settled from Chalcolithicum (fourth millennium B.C.E.) and until Hellenistic times when the population moved to the new city at the coast, the Acre of the Middle Age, or modern Acco. It is well documented in ancient sources from the Middle Bronze Age and onward and functioned for most of its history as an important trading center and production site.
ACHAEMENIDS. The name of the ruling house of the Persian Empire from 559 to 331 B.C.E. The Achaemenid dynasty produced a series of important kings of Persia known from Old Testament, Persian, and Greek sources and literary imagination, for example, Xerxes, the tragic hero of Greek tragedy (Aeschylus). Among the important kings are Cyrus II (559-530 B.C.E.), the founder of the Persian Empire, referred to with many hopes in the prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah (Isa 44:28; 45:1) and Darius I (522-486 B.C.E.), who consolidated the power of the huge Persian Empire. The dynasty was brought down when the last king, Darius III (335-330 B.C.E.), was defeated by Alexander the Great and subsequently killed by his own people.
List of Achaemenid kings:
Cyrus |
(559-530) |
Cambyses |
(529-522) |
(522-486) |
|
Xerxes I |
(486-465) |
Artaxerxes I |
(465-423) |
Xerxes II |
(423) |
Darius II |
(423-405) |
Artaxerxes II |
(404-359) |
Artaxerxes III |
(358-338) |
Arses |
(337-335) |
Darius III |
(335-330) |
ACHAN. A man of the tribe of Judah who stole from the war booty from Jericho. Therefore Achan became the direct reason for Israel’s defeat in front of Ai (Josh 7). Achan was tried and punished with death, and the place where this happened is known to posterity as “the Valley of Achor.” The story of Joshua 7 is most likely to be classified as an etiological narrative, presenting an explanation of the place name Achor.
ACHISH. King of Gath of the Philistines, David’s contemporary and ally. Flying from Saul, David sought and obtained a safe asylum at the Achish court not totally in accordance with the inner hopes of the servants of Achish (1 Sam 27). When the Philistines mustered at Aphek before the battle at Gilboa, David was among Achish’s retainers but was sent back at the demand of Achish colleagues, the assembly of Philistine rulers (1 Sam 27:1-2; 29). Otherwise nothing is known about this king of Gath. His name is certainly not Hebrew and may be Philistine in origin.
ACHOR. In the etiological narrative of Joshua 7, Achor got its name from Achan, who was executed and buried at this spot. The name means “to bring into trouble.” It has been identified with the small valley in the Judean desert, El Buqeah, a few kilometers to the west of the Qumran settlement where remains of three small Iron Age II Settlements have been discovered.
ACHZIB. Harbor city some kilometers to the north of Acco. Reckoned as belonging to Asher (Josh 15:44), however—according to Judg 1:31—never conquered by Israel. The history of Achzib goes back to the Bronze Age, when the harbor was constructed, and it survived as a Phoenician city to Persian and Hellenistic-Roman times. Achzib was excavated in the 1960s.
ADMINISTRATION. Societies with an unsophisticated political structure likely to be found in Palestine in the Iron Age were in no need of an extended bureaucracy. The Old Testament includes very little in the way of precise information about the administration and officers of the two states of Israel and Judah. The lists of the Officers of David and Solomon (2 Sam 8:16-18; 20:23-26; 1 Kgs 4:1-6) are the only examples of a systematic description of the public administration. They indicate a tripartite system of administration that was divided between three departments: a civilian, a military, and a religious bureau. Next to the central administration, a system of provinces and provincial governors was established. Only in the Hellenistic and Roman periods did the need emerge for a more elaborate system of administration, serving not only the civilian and military interests, but which—alongside the enormous temple complexes of that time—demanded an elaborate system of priests of many categories.
ADONI-BEZEK. A Canaanite ruler who fought against the tribe of Judah at Bezek (Judg 1:5-7). Adoni-Bezek was caught and was mutilated—as he had formerly mutilated his own prisoners. He was brought in capture to Jerusalem, where he died. It has been proposed that Adoni-bezek, literally “the lord of Bezek,” the place of the battle, is a corrupted form of Adoni-zedek, the king of Jerusalem slain by Joshua (Josh 10). Irrespective of the legendary character of the information about Adoni-bezek, it informs about the existence of a Jerusalem tradition that did not link the Israelite conquest of this city as firmly to the figure of King David as is generally the case in the Old Testament. There may have been traditions other than the ones in 2 Sam 5, telling stories about how Jerusalem became an Israelite city.
ADONIJAH. King David’s fourth son, born in Hebron (2 Sam 3:4). Adonijah—meaning “Yahweh is my lord”—may have been the oldest surviving son of David and accordingly the natural successor to the throne of Israel. In the quest for the kingdom, Adonijah sought support among David’s old retainers, the general Joab and the priest Abiatar, but was subsequently outsmarted by his younger brother Solomon who through his mother, Bathsheba, had direct access to the old king (1 Kgs 1:5-53). After Solomon’s accession to the throne, Adonijah retired and was at first left in peace. When he requested the hand of Abishag from Shunem, his action was seen by the king as a claim to the throne, and Adonijah was executed on the king’s order. His supporters were either killed or banished from the country (1 Kgs 2:12-25).
ADONIRAM. Or Adoram or Hadoram, one of at first King David’s (2 Sam 20:24) and later King Solomon’s official (1 Kgs 20:24). Adoniram (“My Lord is exalted”—the variant names may mean “Ad[ad] or Had[ad] is exalted”) was in charge of the forced labor necessary for the building activities of the king. In this capacity he directed the carving of cedar trees in Lebanon (1 Kgs 5:14). After Solomon’s death, his successor, Rehoboam, during the negotiations with the representatives of the northern tribe, sent Adoniram to quench the impending rebellion of the infuriated Israelites. The Israelite representatives responded to this challenge by killing Adoniram (1 Kgs 12:18).
ADONI-ZEDEK. The Canaanite king of Jerusalem who assembled a coalition of five kings, of the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, against Joshua and the Israelites. In the battle at the Ajalon Valley, Joshua was victorious. Together with his allies, Adoni-Zedek sought refuge in the cave of Makkedah but was caught by Joshua’s men and together with the four other Canaanite kings he was executed (Josh 10). Adoni-zedek is sometimes believed to be identical with Adoni-bezek who fought against Judah (Judg 1:5-7). The narrative about Adoni-zedek in Josh 10 is sometimes considered an etiological narrative commemorating a landmark known in later times.
ADRIEL. The son of Barzillai from Mehola and the husband of Saul’s oldest daughter Merab (1 Sam 18:18—but according to 2 Sam 21:8, he married younger daughter Michal, otherwise said to be David’s first wife [1 Sam 18:20]). Five of his sons were executed by David at Gibeon (2 Sam 21:8).
ADULLAM. A place in southwestern Judah, sometimes identified with Tell esh Sheikh Madhkur, although the identification has never been confirmed by excavations at the site. The place is mentioned a number of times in the Old Testament, the first time indirectly by the reference to a friend of Judah, the son of Jacob, as being an Adullamite (Gen 38:12.20). An unnamed king of Adullam is mentioned in the Book of Joshua (Josh 12:15) as a Canaanite king defeated by Israel. A cave close to Adullam became the hiding place of David fleeing from Saul (1 Sam 22:1). According to Chronicles, Rehoboam fortified the city (2 Chron 11:7), and the prophet Micaiah mourned its fate.
AGAG. Two kings carry the name of Agag. 1. A legendary king mentioned by the sorcerer Balaam (Num 24:7). No more is known about this figure from the past, although there has been a lot of speculation but hardly any facts about his eventual connection to the traditional enemy from the north, Gog—a totally fabulous being. 2. An Amalekite king, an enemy of King Saul. He was spared by Saul but cut down by Samuel (1 Sam 15). It has been proposed that Agag was not a name but the title of the ruler of Amalek.
AGRICULTURE. See ECONOMY.
AHAB. King of Israel c. 874-853 B.C.E. and the most important ruler in his dynasty. The main source on the life of Ahab is supposed to be 1 Kgs 16-22. However, 1 Kgs 17-19 is part of the Elijah and Elisha legends, and 1 Kgs 20 and 22, that tell how intense warfare broke out between Israel and Aram, may have been wrongly placed by the editors of Kings as relevant to Ahab’s time. Ahab is also mentioned in an Assyrian (see Assyria and Babylonia) inscription commemorating the battle at Qarqar in 853 B.C.E. as Ahabbu Sir’ilaja, that is, “Ahab of Israel,” Sir’ilaja most likely being a corrupted form of Israel. He may also be mentioned by the Mesha inscription from ancient Moab, although without a name. Finally, his relations to the Tyrian King Ittoba’al (Old Testament: Ethbaal 1 Kgs 16:31) have been elaborated by Josephus.
The description of Ahab’s reign in the Old Testament is strongly biased and directly misrepresents the deeds of a great king. According to the Old Testament, Ahab was perhaps the most pathetic crook among all his fellow kings. This source can only be used as historical information with the utmost care when it comes to the reign of Ahab. According to the Old Testament, Ahab, provoked by his marital alliance with the Tyrian princess Jezebel, seduced his people into idolatry when he established a sanctuary for her god, Ba’al, at his capital, Samaria, in the heartland of Israel. It is also Jezebel who brought the conflict between Ahab and the Israelite nobleman Naboth to its gruesome conclusion. Ahab failed both when it came to his internal policies and in his foreign affairs. His policies brought upon him and his dynasty a conflict with the supporters of the traditional Israelite God, Yahweh—most notably the two prophets Elijah and Micaiah, the son of Imlah. His foreign policy is said to have ended in disaster when the Aramaeans laid siege to his capital. Finally, according to the Old Testament, Ahab succumbed to the Aramaeans in a battle close to Rabba Ammon (see also Ammon, Ammonites)—present-day Amman.
Although the Old Testament is highly critical of Ahab and his house, it cannot totally cover up that he was a king of eminent importance. Thus the biblical narrative includes some notes that describe his building activities (1 Kgs 16:32-33; 22:39—the last note said to come from “the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel”—by a number of scholars reckoned to have been the official annals of the kingdom of Israel). Furthermore, the note about Ahab’s death in 1 Kgs 22:40 indicates that he did not die violently in a battle but peacefully in his own home at Samaria.
When all the information about Ahab is taken into consideration, a totally different picture emerges from the one in the Old Testament. Ahab inherited from his father, King Omri, a relatively wealthy kingdom and was able to hand over to his son and successor a well-established and consolidated kingdom. He established a series of connections to Phoenicia through his marriage policies, and entertained a perfect relationship with the important Aramaean state of Damascus to the east and its northern neighbor, the kingdom of Hamath. Between the state of Israel and its southern neighbor, the petty kingdom of Judah, another marital union was created, between Ahab’s sister (2 Kgs 8:26) or daughter (2 Kgs 8:18) Athaliah and the king of Judah—either Joram or Ahaziah. According to the Moabite Mesha inscription, Mesha was able to liberate his kingdom from Israelite supremacy, although—according to the OT—this only happened in the days of Ahab’s successor, Joram. The clearest example of Ahab’s greatness may be his contribution to the Syrian anti-Assyrian coalition that fought and won the battle of Qarqar. In this alliance between, among other states, Damascus and Hamath, Ahab contributed with an enormous contingent of chariots. It may be correct, as maintained by the Old Testament, that his religious policies created problems within his own kingdom, but excavations in Palestine show that his building activities were indeed considerable. Important remains from his time have been excavated—apart from Samaria—at Megiddo, Hazor, and Jezreel.
AHASUERUS. In the Book of Esther the king of Persia married the Jewish woman Esther and made her his queen. When a Persian courtier named Haman raised the king against the Jews, Esther saved her father and her people and Haman was executed. Ahasuerus is the Hebrew form of the Persian Chshajarsha (“the righteous king”), better known as Xerxes.
AHAZ. King of Judah c. 741-726 B.C.E. The complete name was Joahaz (meaning “Yahweh holds [him] firmly”) mentioned in an Assyrian (see Assyria and Babylonia) inscription. Ahaz was the son and successor of King Jotham. According to the evaluation of the Old Testament historiographers, not much can be said in favor of Ahaz and his time (2 Kgs 16; 2 Chron 28; Isa 7). He had his son pass through fire—possibly a reference to a child sacrifice—and he plundered the temple and substituted the traditional altar with a new one constructed according to a foreign pattern. He sacrificed on the hills and, finally, he pledged his country in order to obtain the support of the Assyrian King Tiglath-pileser III, thereby showing contempt and lack of confidence in his God, Yahweh. Not even the name of his mother has been preserved, and according to 2 Chronicles, he was not found worthy to be buried in the royal cemetery outside the walls of Jerusalem among his predecessors, the former kings of Judah. According to the historical literature in the Old Testament, the reign of Ahaz was the turning point in the history of his country. The catastrophe was now imminent and unavoidable. The historical King Ahaz should perhaps be allowed greater respect than accorded him in the Old Testament. He was living in a difficult time when the Assyrian empire (see Assyria and Israel) was directing its interest against the territories to the west of the Euphrates. After his accession of power in 745 B.C.E., Tiglath-pileser III successively subdued Urartu in Asia Minor, and Babylonia. After 740 B.C.E. he conquered northern Syria and most of Phoenicia. Now his armies were directed to Damascus and southwestern Asia, including Samaria. In the tradition of former times (see also Ahab), Damascus and Samaria tried to revitalize an old anti-Assyrian coalition also including Judah. Ahaz refused to accept the offer. When the two powers in the coalition tried to replace Ahaz with a certain Tabel, he submitted to Tiglath-pileser’s rule and became the vassal of Assyria, something he deemed preferable to serfdom under Samaria and Damascus. In this way, Jerusalem and Judah escaped the fate of the two states of the coalition. Damascus was sacked by the Assyrians in 732 B.C.E., while Samaria lost all its provinces except the city area of Samaria, and became an Assyrian puppet state. Ahaz’s religious innovations have often been seen in the light of his pro-Assyrian policies, and he has been accused of introducing Assyrian religious beliefs and practices into his kingdom. This is hardly correct, although from his time Judah became part of the Assyrian sphere of interest.
AHAZIAH. (“Yahweh holds firmly”) The name of two kings of the Old Testament.
1. Ahaziah king of Israel, the son of Ahab and Jezebel, who reigned for little more than a year (852/1 B.C.E.). Very little in the way of concrete information has been preserved about Ahaziah, except from the note on his ascension to the throne (1 Kgs 22:40). Ahaziah may be regarded as continuing his father’s policies, especially entertaining good relations with Damascus, but virtually no information has survived, except that he invited Jehoshaphat, his colleague from Judah, to participate in overseas trade out of Ezion-Geber. The story about Ahaziah’s death (2 Kgs 1:1-18) forms part of the circle of prophetic legends about Elijah. It says that Ahaziah suffered from a fall from a lattice in his upper chamber in the palace of Samaria. Ahaziah sent for an oracle from Baalzebub (pejorative for “Baal-zebul, the “prince Baal”) at Ekron, and was properly condemned by Elijah. As a consequence he died from his injuries and was followed on the throne by Jehoram.
2. Ahaziah king of Judah for only one year (842/1 B.C.E.), the son of King Jehoram and Queen Athaliah, the daughter of Omri or Ahab (2 Kgs 8:24-29). According to 2 Kings, Ahaziah joined King Jehoram of Israel in his fight against the Aramaeans from Damascus led by the warrior King Hazael and a battle was joined at Ramoth-Gilead to the east of the Jordan River (2 Kgs 8:28-29). This episode is said to lead to Ahaziah’s death. At the same time the wounded King Jehoram was disposed of by the push of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, the future king of Israel, Ahaziah fled from Jezreel toward nearby Megiddo but, while making his escape, he was injured by Jehu’s retainers. Although he succeeded in reaching Megiddo, he died there from his wounds (2 Kgs 9:27-28). Seventy of his male relatives (the Old Testament says “brothers”) were executed in Samaria on Jehu’s order (2 Kgs 10:12-14). 2 Chronicles has a different story of Ahaziah’s life and death giving not only a different age at his ascension (42 years instead of 22 years, see also 2 Kgs 8:26/2 Chron 22:2), but also a variant story of his death saying that he was hiding in Samaria after the coup d’état of Jehu but Jehu’s people found him and brought him to Jehu, who had him executed (2 Chron 22:7-9).
AHIJAH. A number of persons in the Old Testament carry the name of Ahijah (“Yahweh is my brother”). The most important is Ahijah, the prophet from Shiloh, related to the fate of King Jeroboam and his family (1 Kgs 11:29-30; 12:15; 14:2-18; 15:29). Ahijah prophesied to Jeroboam that the kingdom of Solomon would be split into two parts and the biggest part would follow Jeroboam. Later he turned against Jeroboam and prophesied about the death of the king and the destruction of his dynasty. Ahijah belonged to a series of prophets supposed to have acted as the strongest critics of monarchy. It should be noted that, according to Chronicles, one of the major sources for Solomon’s reign is supposed to be “the prophecy of Ahijah” (2 Chron 9:29).
AHIKAM. The son of the high official Shaphan and the father of the governor Gedaliah, installed after the Babylonian conquest. Ahikam belonged to one of the leading families of administrators at the royal court in Jerusalem. He is said to have saved the life of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 26:24), and he led a delegation in connection with the finding of the law book to the prophetess Hulda. During the conflicts that led to the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, he may in his political orientation have been pro-Babylonian. As a testimony to his attitude against Nebuchadnezzar, his son was appointed governor by the Babylonians after they had brought down the traditional ruling house of Judah, the house of David. There is no information at the end of the Judean state of Ahikam’s activities, nor is he included among the list of deportees from sacked Jerusalem. A safe guess is that he did not live to see the destruction of his nation.
AHIMAAZ. The son of Zadok, one of David’s two important priests (2 Sam 15:27.36). Together with Jonathan, the son of David’s second priest Abiatar, Ahimaaz was used by David as an intelligence officer. In this capacity he stayed in Jerusalem when David fled from Absalom and provided the king with news about the whereabouts of Absalom (2 Sam 17:17-21). He was the first messenger who reached the king after the defeat of Absalom, bringing only good tidings while he at the same time “forgot” to tell the serious news about Absalom’s death (2 Sam 18:17-33). In this way, the tale about Ahimaaz presents an interesting variant to the messenger stories of ancient tradition, telling of how a messenger may escape the risks of being the harbinger of bad news, bringing for his own part only the good news to the king.
AHIMELECH. (Meaning “my brother is king”). The name of three persons mentioned by the Old Testament.
1. Ahimelech, the priest at Nob who without knowing the true reason of David’s visit—running away from Saul—helped him by providing him with food and Goliath’s sword. Doeg, an Edomite retainer of Saul, refers the matter to Saul who ordered Ahimelech and the other priest at Nob killed. Only Doeg had the stamina to execute the king’s order (1 Sam 21:2-10). Ahimelech is the father of Abiatar, one of David’s associates since his days on the run from King Saul.
2. One of David’s people who did not assist him when he forced his way to Saul, who was sleeping in his tent (1 Sam 26:6). This Ahimelech is called “a Hittite.” This is not a reflection of his origin among the historical Hittites of the second millennium; it is rather the result of a development of the tradition about the Hittites that was current in the first millennium when the inhabitants of Syria were sometimes named Hittites by Mesopotamian sources.
3. A priest, the son of Abiatar and the grandson of the priest Ahimelech who according to Chronicles helped Zadok in reorganizing the priests (1 Chron 24:3).
AHINOAM. The name (meaning “my brother is delightful”) of two royal ladies of the Old Testament. 1. The wife of Saul and mother to most of his known children (1 Sam 14:50). 2. One of David’s wives since his time in the desert (1 Sam 25:50). She belonged among the booty made by the Amalekites but was quickly saved by David (1 Sam 30). She was the mother of Amnon, David’s firstborn son (2 Sam 3:2).
AHITOPHEL. A wise man (name partially incomprehensible) who first served as a counselor to David but changed sides during the Absalom rebellion and became Absalom’s most important advisor (2 Sam 16:15-17.23). His advice was said to be as if it came from God (2 Sam 16:23). Ahitophel advised Absalom to violate David’s harem in order to show that he was now the king. Absalom followed this advice, but he did not follow the advice immediately to continue his pursuit after David. This advice was countered by Hushai, David’s agent among the retainers of Absalom. When Absalom followed the wrong advice, that allowed David to gain time and reassemble his forces; Ahitophel took his leave, went home, and hung himself.
AHITUB. The name (meaning “my father is good”) of several persons in the Old Testament, among whom may be mentioned, 1. The father of Ahimelech, the priest at Nob (1 Sam 14:3), and 2. The father of David’s priest Zadok (2 Sam 8:17).
AI. A city of the Old Testament, said to have been conquered by Joshua (Josh 8), almost universally identified with the modern ruined site of et-Tell (meaning “the Ruin,” an exact rendering of the Hebrew name) close to present-day Beitin (Bethel). The city was extensively excavated during the British Mandate of Palestine, and again in the 1960s and 1970s. At the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (c. 3100 B.C.E.), a fairly large urban settlement was founded here that was to experience a complex history of destruction and rebuilding that was to last until c. 2400 B.C.E., when the city was destroyed for the last time. After 2400 B.C.E and until the Early Iron Age (c. 1200 B.C.E), Ai was a desolate place without habitation. In the Early Iron Age (between c. 1200 and 1150 B.C.E.) a small unfortified village existed at Ai. After that time the place was never resettled.
From a historical point of view, Ai became a key location when the scholarly discussion about the Israelite settlement in Canaan (see Settlement of Israel) sharpened and it became clear that the image of a great conquest as described in the Book of Joshua had little or nothing to do with the process that changed the Late Bronze Age society of Palestine into the society of the Iron Age. Although scholars have tried to manipulate the dating of the conquest, Ai would still have been a desolate place when Joshua conquered it. The story about the conquest of Ai in Joshua 8 has therefore been interpreted as an etiological narrative of a traditional kind giving explanation to the place name of “Ai” and lacking any historical foundation.
AJALON. A city and a fertile valley about 18 kilometers to the northwest of Jerusalem where the sun stood still on Joshua’s request to provide time for the total defeat of the coalition of the Canaanite kings (Josh 8:12-14). The exact location of the city has not been finally settled, although the valley carrying its name is a well-known and fertile plain west of Jerusalem.
AKKAD. The name of a city and a state situated in central Mesopotamia and ruled by Semitic-speaking kings. It became the center of the first empire (2335-2154 B.C.E.). The empire was founded by Sargon (2335-2279) and consolidated and enlarged by his successors to also include southern Mesopotamia and western Elam. Sargon’s grandson, Naram-sin, during his campaigns to the west reached the “Cedar mountains,” that is, the Amanus mountain range in northwestern Syria, and the Mediterranean coast. After Naram-sin’s death, the empire began to crumble and was soon to disappear from history, although in the historical tradition of later Mesopotamia, the age of Akkad was a kind of golden past and King Sargon the epitome of a divinely inspired ruler.
AKRABBIM, THE ASCENT OF. According to the Old Testament, a pass leading from the southern end of the Dead Sea to the Judean plateau at the border between Judah and Edom (Num 34:4). The name means “the Pass of the Scorpions” and refers to the tortuous character of the ascent.
AMALEK, AMALEKITES. A desert people reckoned among the traditional enemies of early Israel. Amalek, their eponymous ancestor, belongs to the genealogy of Esau (Gen 36:15), making a close relationship with the Edomites more than likely. They also inhabited an area in southern Palestine and northern Sinai often associated with Edom. They were dependent on camels (1 Sam 30:17; see also Judg 6:5; 7:12), a fact that placed them alongside the Ishmaelites (see Ishmael) and Midianites as proto-Bedouins, representatives of the early phase of the development of the Arab Bedouin type of nomadism. Their way of living made them a highly mobile force that raided Palestinian territory from the north to the south, for example, in the Jezreel Valley (Judg 6:33), at Jericho (Judg 3:13), or at Ziglag in Judah (1 Sam 30). They appeared as mercenaries among Philistine troops (2 Sam 2:1-10) or in alliance with Moabites (Judg 3:12-14). The origin of the enmity between Amalek and Israel is supposed to go back to the time of the Israelite migrations in the desert (see Desert, Migrations in the) when they confronted but were defeated by Israel at Rephidim (Exod 17:8-16). They suffered a serious defeat at the hand of King Saul (1 Sam 15), and their King Agag, the only Amalekite mentioned by name in the Old Testament, was executed. They raided David’s home at Ziglag during his absence but were duly pursued and punished. After the period of David, they vanished from history, and may have joined one of the other Arab tribal coalitions of the first millennium B.C.E.
AMARNA AND THE AMARNA LETTERS. In the Late Bronze Age, Egypt ruled large parts of western Asia—for a short time as far north as the Euphrates. For the local rulers of Syria and Palestine, it was a period of adaptation to customs and rules very different from their own. In the history of the Late Bronze Age, the Amarna period played a special role, partly because of the religious sentiments of the time—it was the period of Pharaoh Akhnaten’s break with tradition—partly because of a collection of letters in cuneiform writing found in 1887 at Akhnaten’s residence in present-day Amarna, a ruined place c. 300 kilometers south of Cairo that got its name from the local Bedouin tribe. Apart from the Old Testament, the collection of Amarna letters is the most extensive source in existence of information about life and sentiments in Bronze Age Palestine, and indeed is valuable also for describing the conditions of life in the Iron Age. The collection of Amarna letters includes about 380 tablets in cuneiform writing, the majority being letters sent to the Pharaoh from abroad and a few going in the opposite direction. A minority of the letters includes the correspondence of the “great kings,” that is, independent rulers with vassals of their own, such as the king of Babylonia or the king of the Hittites. The vast majority contains the remains of the correspondence between the Pharaoh and his vassals of Syria and Palestine and includes all kinds of trivia provoked by the everlasting rivalry between the governors of mostly small townships naming themselves “kings” but understood to be no more than low-standing public servants by their Egyptian masters. Being the patrons of their own society, they were in the eyes of the Egyptians little more than “dust”—a common metaphor in these letters.
Among the more interesting sections of the Amarna correspondence, several mentions can be found of a social group called habiru, homeless people who struggled for survival in a foreign habitat, but also local patrons denounced by their colleagues in front of the Pharaoh as “habiru,” runaway slaves, paying no attention to their lords.
The social and political structure as described by the Amarna letters has been compared to the biblical portrayal of the Period of the Judges. To a large extent this is a correct observation, although there are no hints at the existence of a tribal system like the Israelite one of the Old Testament. Although tribal groups were present in the shape of Sutu nomads, small cattle nomads, they had no central role in the local power play between Palestinian potentates. On the other hand, a story like the one about Abimelech’s rule over Shechem and its territory (Judg 9) may just as well have had Palestinian society in the Amarna age as its subject. The tribal society of early Israel, as told by the Old Testament historiographers, had much less influence than was usually assumed (see also tribal society, patronage society).
AMASA. A relative of David who was appointed commander of the army by Absalom when he rebelled against David (2 Sam 17:25). After having put down the rebellion, David kept him as his general, probably at the same time sacking Joab for having killed his son Absalom (2 Sam 20:4). When the rebellion of Sheba broke out, Amasa was ordered to assemble the troops in three days but failed miserably. When he joined David’s forces at Gibeon, Joab treacherously murdered him and reinstated himself in the position as commanding general.
AMASIAH. (The name means “Yahweh supports”). An officer of King Jehoshaphat of Judah (2 Chron 17:16) praised for his piety. The text indicates that he had bound himself to serve the king by pledging himself to God.
AMAZIAH. (The name means “Yahweh has shown his strength”) King of Judah 797-769, the son of King Joash. Most of the information about Amaziah’s long reign comes from 2 Kings 14, but 2 Chronicles 25 includes additional material aiming at explaining Amaziah’s disastrous war against Joash of Israel. Amaziah is supposed to have stabilized Judean rule by defeating Edom. He also occupied Sela, by many scholars identified as the city of Petra in Transjordan. According to 2 Chronicles 25, he employed Israelite mercenaries for his campaigns against Edom. When these soldiers were fired after the end of the war, they started plundering the cities of Judah, maybe a reason for the following hopeless war against Joash of Israel. The encounter between Amaziah’s and Joash’s armies was a disaster for the Judeans. The battle was fought at Beth-Shemesh, west of Jerusalem. The king was taken prisoner and Jerusalem sacked. Several years after the debacle at Beth-Shemesh, Amaziah fled to Lachish because of a coup d’état. Here he was killed, although brought back to Jerusalem and buried among the former kings of Judah. His son assumed power after his death.
AM-HA-ARES. Literarily “the people of the land,” a Hebrew social term that appears a number of times in the Old Testament. It is rather difficult to define the exact meaning of the term, maybe because it has changed its content over time. It is possible roughly to divide the use of the term into three phases, an old pre-exilic usage when it referred to so-called “full citizens” in the southern kingdom, that is, wealthy landowners living outside the confines of the royal city of Jerusalem. This group was active on a number of occasions, including the coups that led to the institution of King Joash (2 Kgs 11) and King Jehoahaz (2 Kgs 23). In the post-exilic period the term lost importance and may have ended up as a term denoting people who did not take part in the exile. Finally, in later Jewish literature, the term Am-ha-ares was used about common people in contrast to law-abiding Jews.
AMMON. King of Judah 642-640 B.C.E. (1 Kgs 21:18-26). The only information about his reign is that he ruled for two years and was slain by his servants, who for their part were executed by the Am-ha-ares, and had his infant son Josiah installed on his throne. There have been many speculations about the reason for the murder: either older brothers who were passed over in the competition for the kingship, religious opposition (Ammon is supposed to have followed his father Manasseh’s bad ways), or opposition to Ammon’s pro-Assyrian (see Assyria and Babylonia) policy. Although such speculation is common in biblical studies, the Old Testament offers no reason for the murder. It just states it as a fact.
AMMON, AMMONITES. According to the Old Testament, the eponymous ancestor of the Ammonites, Ammon, was the result of the intercourse between Lot and his daughters (Gen 19:36-38). The Ammonites are mentioned in biblical, Assyrian, and local sources. When put together, the various sources allow for a reconstruction of a fragmentary list of eleven Ammonite kings and a likewise fragmentary reconstruction of Ammonite history. They inhabited an area in Transjordan with their capital Rabbath-Ammon (modern Amman) as the center. According to the Old Testament tradition they opposed the migrating Israelites who were forced to circumvent Ammonite territory (Num 25:24-35). Later they became the enemies of the judge Jephthah (Judg 11:4.12-33). They were the enemies of Saul (1 Sam 11:1-11) and were defeated by David and joined his empire as a vassal state (2 Sam 10-12). Renewed military confrontation arose during the time of King Jehoshaphat of Judah who was obliged to fight against a coalition from Transjordan (2 Chron 20), and again in the days of King Jehoiakim, this time in alliance with the Chaldaeans (2 Kgs 24:2). Little is known about the following history of Ammon, apart from the fact that the killers of Gedaliah escaped to Ammon (Jer 41:10.15), and that it became a Persian province ruled by a governor.
AMNON. David’s firstborn son, born at Hebron (2 Sam 3:2). Amnon fell in love with his sister Tamar and raped her. His father pardoned him but not his brother Absalom. Later on he was invited to a party by his brother Absalom. Here Absalom killed Amnon, but also in this case David showed leniency toward his children and pardoned Absalom.
AMORITES. In the Old Testament the Amorites are counted among Palestine’s pre-Israelite nations. The application of the term centers on four different usages: 1. The Amorites are the people living in the mountains whereas the Canaanites are identified as the inhabitants of the coast (Josh 5:1; 11:3); 2. The Amorites are simply one of the many nations who together with the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, etc., appear in lists spread among the historical literature in the Old Testament (Gen 15:19-21); 3. The term Amorites embraces all the inhabitants of pre-Israelite Canaan (Josh 24:15.18); and 4. The Amorites are the people living in Transjordan who oppose the Israelites during their wanderings to the east of the Jordan River.
There is no correlation between the use of the term Amorite in the Old Testament and the historical references to Amorites found in ancient Near Eastern sources from the third and second millennia B.C.E. Indeed, the closest parallel to the biblical usage can be found in the Mesopotamian tradition of the first millennium, when “Amorite”—in Akkadian Amurru—was simply used as a designation of the people living to the west of the Euphrates, a development of a literary tradition from the past without actual relations anymore to the ethnic composition of Syria in the first millennium. The origin of the term Amorite should be sought back in the third millennium, in Syria and Mesopotamia in the Early and Middle Bronze Age (3200-2000 B.C.E. and 2000-1500 B.C.E. respectively). Amorite was simply the general Mesopotamian term for “Westerner.”
The presence of Amorites in Western Asia was formerly attributed to the consequences of a great migration when Semitic-speaking people moved from the Arabian Desert into the cultural and developed zone of the Fertile Crescent. Influenced by a theory about major popular migrations, scholars reckoned a “Canaanite” migration to have taken place c. 3000 B.C.E., an Amorite migration c. 2000 B.C.E., and an Aramaean one c. 1000 B.C.E. This idea of the past as governed by a general exchange of population has by and large been given up by present-day scholarship. First of all, the Syro-Arabian Desert has never in historical times been able to support any large population. Secondly, Mesopotamian inscriptions indicate that Amorites were already living in Mesopotamia a long time before the assumed date of their migration. Finally, the excavations at Ebla in Syria have shown the presence of a social and political organization hardly expected to have existed in that part of the world as early as the middle of the third millennium B.C.E.
The Amorites could hardly have migrated to Syria, Palestine, or Mesopotamia c. 2000 B.C.E.; rather they constituted the majority element of the population of Syria and Palestine a long time before the turn of the third millennium. A number of common traits connected this population, the most important one being the fact that they all spoke the same language, worshipped the same deities, and basically shared a common material culture—of course, with many local variations. Among the peoples of Syria and Palestine in the latter part of the Early Bronze Age the rural districts were dominated by an Amorite speaking population. After the breakdown at the end of the Early Bronze Age and the reestablishment of Syrian urban culture in the Middle Bronze Age, the Amorites dominated Syrian city life. Furthermore, a number of Mesopotamian states, including Babylon, were in the first part of the second millennium B.C.E. ruled by Amorite dynasties, the best known being the dynasty of King Hammurabi of Babylon (1792-1750 B.C.E.).
In the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.E, in the Late Bronze Age, a short-lived Syrian state assumed the name of Amurru, playing on the traditions of the Amorites but not being the reason for the survival of the term.
AMOS. A Judean prophet from Techoa near Bethlehem said to have ministered in the days of King Jeroboam II of Israel (784-753 B.C.E.) and Uzziah of Judah (769-741) (Amos 1:1). He is reckoned to be a firsthand witness to the effects of the policies of the royal administration on the local population and is especially important because of the criticism of the social injustice that had created an intolerable gap between the rich and the poor. In this way, Amos’s prophecies have been accepted as an important source that describes how the inner solidarity between the various parts of the population had broken down, preparing for the following political disasters that led to the downfall of the Kingdom of Israel a few decades after Amos’s death. Most of his activity is placed in the Kingdom of Israel, and King Jeroboam belongs among the people especially addressed by him (Amos prophesies about the violent downfall of the royal house of Israel). He was confronted by Amaziah, the priest at Bethel, who forbade Amos to prophesy in the royal sanctuary of the north and urged him to return to his own country (Amos 7).
AMPHICTYONY. The name of a sacral league in ancient Greece. Members of the Amphictyony were either city-states or alliances of city-states. The temple at Delphi functioned as the center of the Amphictyony. A number of similar organizations are known from the history of the classical world. It was formerly common—following a proposal by the German scholars Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth—to see the Israelite tribal organization of twelve tribes in the Period of the Judges as a kind of Amphictyony organized according to the Greek model (see also Tribal league). The sacred center of this organization was supposed to be Shechem or Shiloh. The official title of “judge,” Hebrew shofet, should be interpreted in the light of this organization. In present scholarship, the Amphictyony has largely been given up as irrelevant to the understanding of early Israelite history and society. Most importantly, there is no information in the Book of Judges that indicates that any Amphictyony existed. Nor can it be shown that one particular sanctuary acted as the center of such a league.
AMRAPHEL. The king of Shinar, one of the great kings who was defeated by Abraham in the Valley of Siddim (Gen 14). Amraphel is sometimes identified with King Hammurabi of Babylonia (see Assyria and Babylonia) (1792-1750 B.C.E.). Recently scholars have proposed Merodak-Baladan as the historical figure behind this mythical king.
ANAK, ANAKITES. Anak is said to be the son of Arba (Josh 15:13), the founder of Kiriath-arba (Hebron) and the eponymous ancestor of the Anakites, said to be a giant race that inhabited Canaan before the arrival of the Israelites (Deut 2:10.21; 9:2). They appear in the story about Joshua’s spies sent in advance to Canaan (Num 13-14) as the inhabitants of the southern Judean hills. There are no extra-biblical references to the Anakites.
ANATOT. A city of Benjamin, a few kilometers north of Jerusalem, normally identified as Ras el-Kharrube not far from the Arab village of Anata that has preserved the name. Mentioned in the Old Testament as the home of two of David’s champions (2 Sam 23:27; 1 Chron 11:28; 12:3; 27:12), and as the place of banishment for David’s priest Abiatar (1 Kgs 2:26). It is described as lying on the Assyrian line of advance toward Jerusalem (Isa 10:30). The prophet Jeremiah was born here (Jer 1:1).
ANER. An Amorite allied to Abraham together with his brothers, Mamre and Eshkol, and a participant in Abraham’s campaign against the great kings of the east (Gen 14:13-14).
ANNALS. The great kingdoms of the ancient Near East normally compiled a system of yearbooks or annals that in shorthand listed the most important events of the year. Extensive annals have been found at Assyrian and Babylonian (see Assyria and Babylonia) sites, but also from the Hittite Empire of Asia Minor. Annals were also composed in the Persian, and later the Hellenistic and Roman, Empires.
Although no annals can be found in the Old Testament, there are, strictly speaking, a series of references to such annals. In 1 Kgs 14:19 and 2 Kgs 15:31, references are presented to “the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel,” and in 1 Kgs 14:29 and 15:31 to “the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.” In 1 Kgs 11:41, the author refers to “The Book of the Acts of Solomon.” None of these has survived and the content can never be reconstructed, although the note about Sennacherib’s campaign in 2 Kgs 18:13-14 might well be representative of such a source. The Old Testament books of the Chronicles have nothing to do with annals.
APHEK. Variant spelling Apheka. Place name, probably meaning “spring,” or “riverbed.” Up to five different cities of this name are mentioned in the Old Testament. The more important were: 1. Aphek of Asher, likely to be identified with modern Tel Kabri close to the modern city of Nahariya, a city not conquered by Asher (Judg 1:31); 2. Aphek in the Sharon, situated at the sources of the Yarkon River at Tel Ras el-‘Ain, mentioned in the Old Testament as well as Egyptian and Assyrian sources. In the Old Testament, the Philistines mustered their troops at Aphek before joining the battle at Ebenezer (1 Sam 4:1), and probably again when moving on to do battle against Saul at Gilboa (1 Sam 28:1-2). In Hellenistic and Roman times, Aphek was known as Antipatris.
ARABAH. The biblical name of the Palestinian part of the rift valley that passes from Syria right down to Mozambique in Africa. Most often Arabah indicates the part of the valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqabah, a dry and desolate spot (Arabah means “the dry country”), however rich in minerals, and exploited already in the Late Bronze Age by Egyptian mining activities, especially at Timna‘ some 16 kilometers to the north of present-day Elath. Apart from the legendary references to Arabah in the tales about the migration of the Israelites in the desert, Arabah seems in the Period of Kings to have been a contested area, sued for by Judaean as well as Edomite princes.
ARABIA, ARABS. From a linguistic point of view perhaps the most satisfying translation of Arab may well be the ancient Egyptian term for the inhabitants of the desert, the “sand-dwellers.” Only later did the term “Arab” become an ethnic term, denoting people speaking a special language, “Arabic.” Thus the words Arab and Arabia occur rather sporadically in the Old Testament, Arabia indieating, apart from the Arabian Peninsula, also the desert regions of Syria and Transjordan and their inhabitants. A reference to an Arab in the Old Testament is not necessarily a reference to an Arab in a strictly ethnic sense; it is a reference to an inhabitant of the desert. The origin of the Arabic-speaking people along the fringe of the Syro-Arabian desert should probably be dated back to the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age (roughly 1200-1000 B.C.E.), and the development of this language group may be seen as parallel to the earlier appearance of the Amorites and the almost contemporary spread of the Aramaeans, in both cases better understood to be language groups than well-defined ethnic identities. A decisive reason for the development of the Arabs was that from the very beginning they had domesticated camels, something that only became common at the end of the second millennium B.C.E. Early Arabs can accordingly be defined as camel-breeding proto-Bedouins.
Among the early Arabs, two tribal organizations or coalitions come to mind: the Midianites and the Amalekites of the Old Testament. The Midianites had their homeland in the northwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula, the Amalekites in the Negeb and Sinai. With their base in these territories, both groups, encouraged by their way of living, raided, traded, and travelled all over the region, making the best of every opportunity, being a constant problem to the settled population of Palestine and Transjordan. Little if anything is known about these groups outside the Old Testament. Assyrian sources mention an Arab leader providing a contingent of a thousand camels to the anti-Assyrian coalition at Qarqar in 853 B.C.E., showing that Arabs were becoming a force to be reckoned with. Thus, already in the ninth century B.C.E., Arabs began to penetrate settled society and sometimes also assumed high positions like the professional soldier Omri (his name is most likely Arabic, like the name of his son Ahab, and the first part of the name of the royal princess Athaliah), who rose to become the founder of an important dynasty of Israelite kings.
In the eighth century a new phenomenon turned up in Assyrian sources that was to be characteristic of Arab tribal societies until modern times: the first major Arabian tribal coalition, the Shumuil, or Ishmaelites, who are supposed to have covered most of the regions of the Syrian and North Arabian Desert. The Shumuil coalition was a respected enemy and sometimes partner of great Assyrian kings. At a certain point, the Shumuil coalition was substituted by other coalitions, among them the Nabataeans of the Hellenistic-Roman period. It is characteristic of Old Testament tradition that it only hints at this development and position of the Shumuil in the genealogy of Ishmael (Gen 25:12-15) where most of the twelve sons of Ishmael also appear in extra-biblical evidence, the exception being Kedemah—probably a general name (“easterner”) to bring the number of sons/tribes to twelve. Somehow these were related, if not identical, to the group of Hagarites (most likely a derivation of the name of Hagar, Abraham’s Egyptian second wife and Ishmael’s mother), said to have opposed the forces of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh (1 Chron 15:18-20).
Throughout history, Arabia and the Arabs played an important role in trade. Not only was Arabia itself considered the home of exotic items, spices, precious stones, etc., some of it probably being trade goods in transit from even more remote regions rather than local production, but Arab caravans were also now able to cross the desert because of the camels bringing and selling their merchandise and buying goods for export. Thus it is characteristic that the first note on Arabs in the Old Testament (1 Kgs 10:15) lists tributes from the kings of Arabia among the income of King Solomon. On top of this the Solomonic tradition speaks of the visit of the South Arabian queen from Sheba (see Sheba, Queen of Sheba) to Solomon’s court (1 Kgs 10:1-13). Such contacts—although not on the personal level—were not unusual for the rest of the Period of the Monarchy.
ARAD. A royal Canaanite city of the Negeb (Num 21:1; 33:40), situated in the Negeb of Arad (Judg 1:16). The ruins of ancient Arad were discovered at Tell Arad some 23 kilometers east of Beersheba, and escavated from 1962-67, and again in 1976. The phases of inhabitance at Arad can mainly be divided into two: the first belonging to the Early Bronze Age, the second to the Iron Age. The heyday of Arad was the Middle Bronze Age, when a large and well-constructed city was placed here on the foundations of a village-like settlement with roots going back into the Chalcolithic Period. The Early Bronze Age city shows a connection to Egypt that includes the presence of Egyptian royal names, and pottery produced at Arad has been discovered in Egypt. Also the layout—or type of layout—of the city walls may be reflected in a pictorial presentation on the Egyptian Narmer palette from the Early Dynastic Period, c. 3000 B.C.E. About 2650 B.C.E., the city was destroyed and never rebuilt. Probably a climatic deterioration made such a rebuilding uneconomic.
In the Iron Age an unfortified village existed here, but was substituted by a proper fortress situated on the highest spot of the city from the Judaean Period of the Kings. According to the archaeologists who excavated Arad, the fortress was constructed in the 10th century B.C.E. and modified a number of times since then. Within the compound of the fortress a temple of Yahweh was constructed, but according to a recent reinterpretation of the archaeological evidence not before the late eighth or early seventh century B.C.E. The fortress was probably demolished by the troops of Nebuchadnezzar at the beginning of the sixth century B.C.E. Although rebuilding followed, Arad had only marginal importance and in the Persian period no settlement was found in this place.
The excavations of Arad had important consequences for archaeology in Palestine. By meticulously sorting and cleaning all the pottery found, an extensive number of inscribed ostraca emerged, adding considerably to the amount of written material from Palestine in ancient times. Since Arad, this has been common procedure at all archaeological excavations.
ARAM, ARAMAEANS. The eponymous ancestor of the Aramaeans, Aram, turns up in the “Table of Nations” (Gen 10:22) as one of the sons of Shem. The patriarchs’ close relationship to the Aramaeans is a stereotype motive in the patriarchal narratives. Thus Rebecca’s brother and Jacob’s father-in-law is “the Aramaean Laban” (Gen 28:5). At a later date, the descendants of Aram, the Aramaeans, appear in the Book of Kings as the staunchest adversaries of the Israelite kingdoms. Especially crucial to the history of Israel is the rivalry between Israel and the Aramaean kingdom of Damascus. Israel sometimes got the upper hand, whereas Damascus at other times almost subdued Israel. This situation lasted until 734 B.C.E. when the Assyrian conquest of Syria put an end to the political independence of the Aramaeans and saved Israel from the Aramaean threat.
The inclusion of the Aramaeans in the patriarchal narratives has, in the light of biblical chronology, been seen as an anachronism. The historical Aramaeans do not show up on the historical scene before the Early Iron Age, shortly before 1000 B.C.E. whereas the patriarchs and “the Aramaean” Laban are supposed to have lived perhaps as early as the end of the third millennium B.C.E. It is also possible to roughly sketch the origin of the Aramaeans who—like the Amorites—may have originated at the fringe of settled Syrian society among a mixed population of partly nomadic, partly peasant background and merged into independent or quasi-independent rural societies outside the control of the centralized states of the Late Bronze Age. In connection with the breakdown of centralized state organization at the end of the Bronze Age, an opportunity arose for the people living at the fringe to extend their political control and to expand their territories toward Mesopotamia and toward the central parts of Syria.
Around 1000 B.C.E., a series of Aramaean states was founded, among the best known being Damascus. Other important Aramaean states included Bit Gusi in northern Syria and Bit Adini in the valley of the Euphrates. In the southeastern part of Mesopotamia the Chaldaeans, linguistically related to the Aramaeans, established a number of similar petty states. The political independence of the Syrian Aramaean states lasted from c. 1000 until 734 B.C.E. These were unruly times characterized not only by internecine warfare between the Aramaeans, but also by the ever existing external threat to their independence from Assyria. Sometimes the Aramaeans succeeded in fighting off the Assyrians as at Qarqar in 853 B.C.E. by forming a strong anti-Assyrian coalition including King Ahab of Israel. At other times they were forced to submit to Assyrian supremacy. The end came when Tiglath-pileser III in 734 B.C.E. subdued all of western Asia and pushed the Assyrian frontiers as far as the borders of Egypt. The Aramaeans never recovered their independence, but they lived on in tradition because until the Arab conquest in the seventh century C.E. their language functioned initially as the lingua franca of the Persian Empire and later as the ordinary language of common men.
ARAM-MAACAH. A small Aramaean kingdom in the northern part of the territories to the east of the Jordan River. Maacah was part of the Aramaean coalition that was defeated by David and became part of his kingdom (2 Sam 10). With the resurrection of Aramaean power in Damascus, the territory of Maacah became part of the new state.
ARAM-NAHARAIM. Meaning “Aram of the two rivers” (see Aram, Aramaeans), the last part of the name being linguistically an equivalent of the Greek Mesopotamia, meaning the same, although Aram-Naharaim did not include all of Mesopotamia but was limited to a region around the great bend of the Euphrates in northern Syria. According to Genesis, Abraham’s servant travels to Nahor in Aram-Naharaim to find a wife for Isaac among Abraham’s Mesopotamian relatives (Gen 24:10). Among the people coming from Aram-Naharaim belong the seer Balaam (Num 23:5) and Cushan-Rishataim, who oppressed Israel (Judg 3:10). The element Naharaim is well documented in extra-biblical sources from the second millennium B.C.E. In Egyptian sources, the name appears as Naharina, an area of interest to the Egyptian conquerors, and the Amarna letters sometimes also refer to this region, however never with any hint of an Aramaean presence.
ARAM-ZOBAH. An Aramaean kingdom situated in the northern part of the territories to the east of the Jordan River, and the adversary of Saul (1 Sam 14:47) and David. David defeated Aram-Zobah and its king Hadadezer, although he was an ally of Damascus (2 Sam 10). Aram-Zobah is not mentioned in ancient sources outside the Old Testament, although—according to the OT—a person from Zobah, Rezon, became the new founder of the Aramaean state of Damascus (1 Kgs 11:23-24).
ARAUNA’S THRESHING GROUND. When God punished David because of his census (2 Sam 24), God’s revenging angel stopped at the border of the Jebusite Araunah’s threshing ground. David bought the place and reserved it for the future temple. The name of Araunah is believed not to be Hebrew. It has been proposed that “Araunah” comes from Hittite or Hurrian, with the meaning “magnate.” Araunah has accordingly been considered the last Jebusite king of Jerusalem before David’s conquest. The question of whether or not the second Book of Samuel contains any historical information is without importance to the general meaning of the text: to provide legitimation for the temple of Jerusalem, understood to be a holy place.
ARCHAEOLOGY OF ISRAEL. The importance of archaeology for the study of the history of ancient Israel cannot be exaggerated. Before archaeologists began to roam the regions of Palestine, the Old Testament was the only source of information relating to the country’s ancient history. The role of archaeology in Palestine started early. Its history can roughly be divided into five phases. In the 19th century archaeologists concentrated on soundings in the Jerusalem area. The technique was rather primitive with the organization lagging behind. Although local success was experienced and things of interest were found, the published results of the early excavations are mainly worthless by today’s standards. The second phase began when archaeologists who had been working in Egypt started to drift to Palestine shortly before the turn of the 20th century. Especially British, German, and American archaeologists were very active here in the years preceding World War I. The period witnessed the first traces of stratigraphical archaeology, which although primitive in design nevertheless constituted a vast advance in comparison with the earlier period. The digs were generally extensive, and involved the removal of whole strata of occupation, sometimes almost down to bedrock. Very little of the published results have survived the scrutiny of time.
During the British Mandate of Palestine, in the 1920s and 1930s, extensive excavations took place in many important places. These excavations generally reached similar results as previous expeditions but got closer to developing a proper archaeological method that relied on a number of different techniques, including the establishment of a pottery chronology for dating occupation layers. The development of the British stratigraphical method at Samaria is especially worth mentioning. British archaeologists working here moved from horizontal excavations of whole city strata to limited selections that were carried down to bedrock whenever it was possible. The fruitful activity of the time of the British Mandate came to a partial end with the eruption of the first Palestinian revolt (1934-36) and it stopped totally at the outbreak of World War II.
When archaeological excavations were resumed after the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, it became to a large extent an Israeli enterprise, although especially American and British archaeologists were still active. The stratigraphical method became the only one accepted by the community of archaeologists and was perfected over the first 20 years to such a degree that a modern archaeological excavation is a highly sophisticated scientific enterprise including a meticulous recording of all kinds of small finds, objects, ceramics, bones, etc. It involves specialists from many branches of the sciences, including architects, medical experts, palaeobotanists, chemists, pottery experts, and many others. The postwar years can be divided into two phases: one devoted to biblical archaeology and one to independent Palestinian archaeology. Since the beginning of archaeological explorations in Palestine many archaeologists literarily dug with the spade in one hand and the Bible in the other, with the intention of illustrating the Bible with archaeological findings. The last 20 years have seen a change of attitude. It has become clear that archaeology cannot be used to prove that the Bible is true. It is an independent science with its own scholarly agenda, and this agenda is not always at ease with the agenda of biblical historiographers. In this way, archaeology has turned into a major player when it comes to modern reconstructions of the history of ancient Israel.
ARIOCH. King of Ellasar, and one of the four great kings who were defeated by Abraham in the Valley of Siddim (Gen 14). He is sometimes identified with Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria (1243-1207 B.C.E.).
ARK OF THE COVENANT. A cultic relic located in the time of the Israelite monarchy in the temple of Jerusalem. The traditions about its prehistory since the time of the Israelite migrations in the desert (see Desert, Migrations in the Desert) describe it as a movable shrine which the Israelites used to carry with them into war. The last time the Ark of the Covenant was taken into the field it was ignominiously lost to the Philistines, although in the event the Philistines were not able to keep it but had to send it away (1 Sam 4-6).
ARNON. A mighty river in Transjordan forming the natural border of Moab to the north. It runs through the present Wadi el-Mudjib, a huge canyon to the east of the Dead Sea.
AROER. Name of a number of cities in Transjordan. The more important are:
1. Aroer at the Arnon, in a number of places reckoned to be at the Moabite border. It was conquered by the Israelites migrating through Transjordan (Deut 2:36) and was supposed to be part of the territory of the tribe of Reuben (Josh 13:16), although other information lists it as part of the tribe of Gad (Num 32:34). In the inscription of the Moabite King Mesha (c. 8730 B.C.E.), Mesha boasts of having fortified Aroer. About 800, according to the Old Testament, it marked the southern border of Hazael’s kingdom (2 Kgs 10:33). Later it returned to Moabite rule (Jer 48:18). It has been located at Arair, an Arab village at the fringe of the Wadi-Mujib canyon in Jordan, and was excavated in the 1960s. Here remains of a fortress or small city were found.
2. The Ammonite Aroer was situated east of Rabah (present-day Amman) forming the border between the tribe of Gad and Ammon (Josh 13:15). Its present location has not yet been established.
ARTAXERXES. The name of three kings of Persia. 1. Artaxerxes I Longimanus (465-425 B.C.E.) who made peace with the Greeks c. 450 B.C.E. and consolidated his realm after troubles following the death of Xerxes and rebellion in Egypt. 2. Artaxerxes II Mnemon (404-358 B.C.E.), who stabilized the situation of the empire in Asia Minor but had to quell rebellions in Egypt. 3. Artaxerxes III Ochus (359-338 B.C.E.), the last important king of Persia, who reconquered Egypt, but was murdered by his eunuchs.
Artaxerxes I is normally associated with the mission of Nehemiah to Jerusalem, whereas Artaxerxes II is seen as the master of Ezra the scribe. The Old Testament makes no distinction but simply uses Artaxerxes of any king of this name.
ASA. The third king of Judah, who reigned for 41 years (traditionally 913-873 B.C.E.), and the son of Abijah and Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. Asa’s reign thus paralleled the reign of Israelite kings from Jeroboam to Ahab. The information about Asa can be found in 1 Kgs 15:9-24 and 2 Chron 14-16. The expanded version of Asa’s reign in Chronicles, however, is constructed on the basis of the shorter version in Kings but has been supplemented by information not from an independent source but from the need of the Chroniclers to provide more information about this pious king. 1 Kings describes Asa as the initiator of the reform of the cult in Jerusalem. He fought successfully against Baasha, the king of Israel, and concluded a defensive alliance with the Aramaeans against the kingdom of Israel. Mention is also made of his sickness, death, and burial in Jerusalem, and that he was followed on the throne by his son Jehoshaphat. From a literary point of view, the Asa story shows remarkable similarity to the narratives about Ahaz and Hezekiah. It is possible that the author of 1 Kings 15 composed the story about Asa on the basis of the tradition of other pious kings of Judah rather than using old source material. No source outside the Old Testament mentions him, nor can any remains be found that can safely be attributed to the reign of Asa.
ASAHEL. “And Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe” (2 Sam 2:18). Asahel (the name means “God has made”) was Joab’s younger brother who was killed at the battle at Gibeon by Abner (2 Sam 2:18-23). Later this became Joab’s pretext for killing Abner in revenge for his brother’s death (2 Sam 3:27).
ASHDOD. A Philistine city about 4 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast. It never became part of either the kingdom of Judah or Israel but remained independent until Hellenistic times. In the Old Testament it is reckoned—without regard for reality—as part of Judah’s inheritance (Josh 11:21-22). In the narrative about the loss of the Ark of the Covenant in 1 Samuel 4-6, Dagon’s temple in Ashdod was imagined as the new home of the ark. However, history turned out otherwise, and the Philistines had to give up the idea of controlling the ark. Ashdod was extensively excavated between 1962 and 1970. The city was founded in the later part of the Middle Bronze Age, c. 1650 B.C.E. and existed as Azotus well into Hellenistic-Roman times, when it was gradually superceded by nearby Azotus Paralios (Ashdod Yam). Apart from casual notes in the Old Testament, Ashdod appears in texts from ancient Ugarit, and in Sargon’s inscriptions pertaining to the year 713 B.C.E. That year the Assyrians had to put down a rebellion caused by a certain Yamani. The city was destroyed but was rebuilt and regained a part of its former status under Esarhaddon, who mentions it in his inscriptions. Later it became a province under the Neo-Babylonian Empire (see Assyria and Babylonia).
ASHER. The northwestern Israelite tribe, said to be the descendants of Asher, the son of Jacob and his second wife Zilpah. However, the name of Asher turns up in Egyptian sources from the 13th century B.C.E. Accordingly the ranking of Asher among the tribes of Israel may be secondary and reminiscent of the Israelite control over the coastal plain bordering on the Phoenician cities in the Period of the Monarchy. The tribal borders of Asher are described in Josh 19:24-31). A special branch of this tribal group appears in central Ephraim (see also 1 Chron 7:30-40). Not much information about the Asherites has survived. They are said to be rich and fat (Gen 49:20, see also Deut 32:24-25), and are reproached for not participating in the battle against Sisera (Judg 5:17), although they sided with Gideon against the Midianites (Judg 6:35).
ASHKELON. A major city and important harbor on the southern coast of Palestine about 50 kilometers south of modern Tel Aviv. It was excavated in 1920, and again in ongoing excavations since 1985. Traces of a settlement reaching back to the third millennium B.C.E. have been found but a major city with strong fortifications may only have appeared in the Middle Bronze Age, at which time it is mentioned in a number of Egyptian “execration texts”—formulaic curses directed against Egypt’s enemies. In the Late Bronze Age it was part of the Egyptian Empire and is mentioned in several documents including the Amarna letters. After the migration of the Sea People it became one of the major Philistine cities—together with Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza. The Old Testament mentions that Joshua did not conquer Ashkelon (Josh 13:3). As a matter of fact, it remained a Philistine town to the end of the Iron Age, although it had to cede to the power of the Assyrians and became an Assyrian vassal state. Although destroyed by the Babylonians in 604 B.C.E., it was soon rebuilt and remained an important center of trade not only in Persian times but actually until the Middle Ages when it was finally destroyed by Arab rulers after their victories over the crusaders.
ASHTEROT-KARNAJIM (also ASHTAROTH). A city in the northern part of Transjordan, said to have been formerly inhabited by the Rephaites (Gen 14:5). Later, it was the capital of the Amorite King Og (Deut 1:4). Today it is identified with Tell ‘Ashtara in southern Syria. In extra-biblical documents, it is mentioned in Egyptian sources and in the Amarna letters, as well as Assyrian war reports. The double name may indicate that there were as a matter of fact two interrelated towns, Karnajim sometimes being identified with Tell Sa‘d a couple of kilometers to the north of Tell ‘Ashtara.
ASHURBANIPAL. King of Assyria 668-c. 627 B.C.E. Although the youngest son of Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal was designated by his father as the heir to the throne of Assyria, while at the same time the prestigious but less politically influential office as governor of Babylonia was given to his older brother Shamash-shum-ukin. Ashurbanipal was the first king of Assyria who did not lead his armies in the field. The king’s interest lay in the maintenance of the ancient culture of Mesopotamia and he invested most of his energy in creating a cultural milieu in his capital second to none. In Nineveh he collected the literary treasures of all of Mesopotamia in his famous library. He consolidated the power of Assyria over western Asia by, for example, giving up overambitious conquests such as Egypt, his father’s conquest. On the eastern border he defeated Elam and conquered its capital Susa, ironically providing an opportunity for the rise of the Medes (see Media) to statehood. He also had to stand up against his brother who was heading a coalition against Ashurbanipal. Shamash-shum-ukin ended his days in the burning ruins of his palace, and peace was restored. About 627 B.C.E., when Ashurbanipal died, the Assyrian Empire looked healthier than ever. The fact was that it was already doomed. Less than 20 years after Ashurbanipal died, his empire had ceased to exist.
ASHURNASIRPAL II. King of Assyria 883-859 B.C.E. Ashurnasirpal inherited from his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II (890-884 B.C.E.), an expanding kingdom that had provided Assyria with a safe border to the north. Now, Ashurnasirpal turned the armies of Assyria toward the west against the Aramaean states in northern Syria. After having subdued these states, Ashurnasirpal pushed on to the coast of the Mediterranean where he received tribute from the cities of Phoenicia. He founded a new capital, Kalhu (Nimrud) and initiated the creation of a proper provincial administration. The relationship to Babylonia could best be described as a kind of armed neutrality.
ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. Together Assyria and Babylonia formed the two dominating states of Mesopotamia in ancient times. Assyria and Babylonia is often used synonymous with Mesopotamia. Although both of the names of Assyria and Babylonia go back to ancient cities, Ashur and Babylon respectively, they were not the oldest center of power in the region. In the Bronze Age, the center of political gravity was to be sought in the northern part of Mesopotamia. Until c. 2900 B.C.E., a rich urban culture dominated the area. In the so-called “proto-dynastic” period, that is, between 2900 and 2350 B.C.E., this culture spread to other parts of Mesopotamia, including the region closest to the Persian Gulf where a number of Sumerian city-states appeared, among the best known Ur (see Ur of the Chaldeans), Uruk, and Lagash. In this period Mesopotamia was not a politically unified country but split between innumerable small political units.
Toward the end of the period, a new development started that was to become characteristic of the next 2,000 years of Mesopotamian history, when one of the petty states began to dominate the rest of the territory. About 2350 B.C.E., the first Mesopotamian empire emerged ruled by Sargon, the king of Akkad, a city situated in the center of the country close to Babylon and modern Baghdad. He initiated his imperial aspirations by assuming control over central and southern Mesopotamia. The second phase was devoted to the expansion of his rule toward the north and west to the border of Syria at the upper course of the Euphrates. The third and final phase saw the successor of Sargon pushing the borders of the empire to the east into the Iranian plateau, and toward the west until the Mediterranean. However, as fast as the empire was established, it also crumbled and was replaced by other kingdoms, including the Sumerian kingdom of Ur that toward the end of the third millennium controlled all of southern Mesopotamia. The development leading to one imperial political construction substituting a previous one was repeated several times as the centuries went by.
Another political development characteristic of Mesopotamian history was the replacement of local dynasties with new ruling houses originating on the fringe of the political centers. In the beginning of the second millennium, a number of Amorite dynasties assumed power over most of the important Mesopotamian centers including Babylon itself. The early second millennium was also the period when Mesopotamian history began to split into two polar political societies, in the north Assyria and in the south Babylonia. This polarization persisted until the Persian conquest in the sixth century. About 2000 B.C.E., Mesopotamia was divided into a number of small states. However, in northern Mesopotamia the city-state of Ashur developed into the first Assyrian state under Shamshi-Adad I (1812-1780) who ruled large parts of upper Mesopotamia and the eastern part of Syria, including Mari at the Euphrates, where Shamshi-Adad placed his son as a puppet king. After Shamshi-Adad’s death, his state dissolved, and Assyria was again reduced to an insignificant small kingdom in northern Mesopotamia.
Now Babylon took over and for the first time became the center of an important Mesopotamian state under King Hammurabi, the most important king of the Amorite first dynasty of Babylon. This period that lasted from 1894-1595 B.C.E. is generally considered the golden age of Mesopotamian civilization. In spite of this, Hammurabi’s empire was soon to disappear, and Babylon returned to its former status of a local power in central Mesopotamia. Until Hellenistic times, Babylon was considered the cultural center of the region but was not able to be the dominant political power for almost a millennium after the fall of the Amorite dynasty.
From c. 1550 B.C.E., Babylonia was ruled by another dynasty of foreign origin, this time consisting of Kassite kings whose home should be sought in the mountains to the east of Babylonia. In the same period, Assyria was involved in a protracted struggle for survival against, among others, the Hurrite kingdom of Mitanni in upper Mesopotamia. Toward the middle of the fourth century B.C.E., this struggle led to the appearance of the Middle Assyrian Kingdom, the usual name for a rather unstable major Assyrian political construction that survived to the middle of the 11th century B.C.E. and at least at one point, during the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243-1207 B.C.E.) was able to occupy Babylonian territory. At the beginning of the first millennium B.C.E., a political situation emerged when history almost repeated itself, and the political structure of Mesopotamia resembled the one in c. 2000 B.C.E. In southern Mesopotamia, Babylon was still the most important power that was sometimes able also to interfere with policies in neighboring regions like Elam in present-day western Iran. Assyria was once again reduced to an insignificant political existence. At the same time, at the fringe of Mesopotamian society, a number of new states appeared, ruled by dynasties of Aramaean or Chaldaean origin.
In the period that followed to the middle of the first millennium B.C.E., the political history of Assyria and Babylonia was to become very different. Assyria was forced to fight for survival against a series of Aramaean states to the west, against states of Asia Minor—the more important being Urartu—to the north, and against tribal coalitions in the Zagros Mountains to the northeast and east. Until c. 900 B.C.E., the basic problem that confronted the rulers of Assyria was simply survival. However, after c. 900 B.C.E., the Assyrians had learned their lesson and out of this continuous struggle for survival a state of conquerors emerged, the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 900-612 B.C.E.), whose destiny was to conquer all of western Asia, and at the end of the line even Egypt. Babylonia continued to exist in the shadow of Assyria until another foreign dynasty, the Chaldaean, assumed power. For most of a century, Babylon was allowed to play the role as capital in a major empire of western Asia, the Neo-Babylonian Empire (625 B.C.E.-639 B.C.E.).
The heyday of this Neo-Babylonian Empire came in 612 B.C.E., when the king of Babylonia, Napolassar, joined forces with the Medians (see Media), the rulers of Iran, and succeeded in conquering and destroying Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. The last traces of Assyrian resistance were extinguished at Charchemish in northern Syria in 605 B.C.E., and Assyria vanished forever from history. The Neo-Babylonian Empire witnessed a period of cultural nostalgia when its rulers tried to revitalize the great moments of the past. However, it was to become the last independent Mesopotamia realm for a period of almost 2,500 years.
Between 539 and 331 B.C.E., Mesopotamia was ruled by the Persians as one of their provinces, to be substituted after the conquest of Alexander the Great by the empire of the Seleucids who moved their capital from old Babylon to their new city of Seleucia—later to become Baghdad—no more an oriental but a Hellenistic city.
The reasons for this vexed history of Assyria and Babylonia must be sought in a general factor that was decisive. From a geographical point of view, Mesopotamia is not a unit, nor has it stable and well-defined borders against the outside world. Although at a later date, when Assyria and Babylonia no longer existed, they were almost understood to be synonymous, especially when it came to culture and ethnicity, this first impression is far removed from the political, economic, and demographic realities of ancient times. The Assyrians who inhabited a mixed geographical environment, partly a mountainous region, were formed into a tough and well-organized nation of warriors, culturally not on the level of the sophisticated Babylonians who thrived along the lines laid out by Sumerian culture. Naturally, the Assyrians were generally superior to the Babylonians when it came to military exploits but they were never able to obtain full recognition from their Babylonian neighbors as their peers. The Babylonians continued to the very end to see the Assyrians as brutes, barbarians without culture, and they never accepted the Assyrian domination. The Assyrians did not even reside in the city of Babylon; they sacked it. The political power structure of Assyria and Babylonia was also very dissimilar. Assyria was for all of its history ruled by Assyrians—in theory by members of the same dynasty. Babylonia for its part saw a succession of ruling houses of foreign extraction: Amorites, Kassites, and Chaldaeans. The Amorites ruled for 300 years, the Kassites even longer, c. 350 years, and although the rule of the Chaldaeans was limited to c. 90 years, their time represented the acme of Babylonian greatness.
The openness to foreign rule was because of the open borders. During the period of political instability that followed the demise of the empire of Sargon of Akkad, the Amorites, who at the end of the third millennium formed the majority of the population at the fringe of Babylonian society and in Syria, were able to penetrate the political scene in Mesopotamia. The story was repeated after the fall of the Amorite ruling house, when the Kassites and later the Chaldaeans rose to power over Babylonia. These substitutions had little to do with big migrations of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people that changed the composition of the Babylonian population. Rather, they were the result of a changing orientation of the Babylonian population as a whole. In the third millennium the Sumerians gradually assimilated Akkadian-speaking people, and Akkadian replaced Sumerian as the common language. The process was repeated in the second millennium, although Akkadian remained the official language. However, when it was repeated in the first millennium, Aramaic began to replace Akkadian as the language of ordinary persons.
The complicated and changing history of Mesopotamia also accounted for the peculiar development of Assyrian and Babylonian culture and civilization that displayed an extraordinary diversity at the same time as an astounding unity. The diversity was the result of the many and variable inputs from the countries and peoples around Mesopotamia proper. It would be safe to say that everybody with business in mind, whether economic or political, would sooner or later arrive in Babylon. The pressure from tribal peoples—Amorites or Aramaeans in the west, and mountaineers in the north and east—oriented against the center of the world, central Mesopotamia with its rich urban culture, also influenced the ethnic and cultural composition of the local civilization.
On the other hand, the culture also showed this special homogeneity that was peculiar to it. The people of Mesopotamia, whether Assyrians or Babylonians or immigrants, where held together by a common tradition that reached back to the third Sumerian dominated millennium, and probably to cultures only known from material artifacts from an even earlier time. It was a very conservative tradition that kept its treasures for millennia, until the second century B.C.E., when the special Mesopotamian culture began seriously to break down under the impact of Hellenistic culture. The survival of the tradition was dependent on the existence of a network of scholarly institutions, so-called “scribal schools” where the students were educated in using the difficult cuneiform system of writing. Most of the education was based on copying ancient, classical texts from the Mesopotamian past. In this way any person who could read and write would be familiar with this tradition that also included the knowledge of Sumerian, the original language of cuneiform writing.
However, the education was not limited to writing lessons; it also included a series of scholarly subjects such as ancient mythology, astronomy—or rather astrology, for which enterprise exact astronomic knowledge was essential—medicine, and natural sciences, mostly preserved in long lists. Also classical texts from the legal tradition were preserved, read, and discussed. This antiquary domination of the Mesopotamian mind culminated when Ashurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria, established his famous library in order to preserve the Mesopotamian literary tradition in one place.
The reason for entertaining the costly and prolonged educational system had to do with the need for well-educated people with the ability to read and write. The often huge urban centers of Mesopotamia, housing sometimes several hundred thousand people, made a complicated administrative organization a necessity. The activities of the scribes and scholars were present in every sector of Mesopotamian society. Moreover, they followed the merchants and armies of Mesopotamia to the rest of the ancient Near East to such a degree that Akkadian in the second millennium B.C.E. became the lingua franca of the whole territory. The influence of Assyria and Babylonia on the society of Palestine and Syria in antiquity, an influence that is also evident on the pages of the Old Testament, was not only one of military conquest and suppression of local civilization, but it was also the influence of a superior culture that made its impression on every society that came into contact with it.
Lists of kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and of the Neo-Babylonian Empire:
Assyria:
Adad-Nirari I |
(911-891) |
Tukulti-Ninurta II |
(890-884) |
Assurnasirpal II |
(883-859) |
Shalmaneser III |
(858-823) |
Shamshi-Adad V |
(823-811) |
Adad-Nirari II |
(810-783) |
(782-773) |
|
Ashur-Dan III |
(772-755) |
Ashur-Nirari V |
(755-745) |
Tiglath-pileser III |
(744-727) |
Shalmaneser V |
(726-722) |
Sargon |
(721-705) |
Sennacherib |
(704-681) |
Esarhaddon |
(680-669) |
Ashurbanipal |
(668-627) |
Ashurbanipal is followed by a succession of four insignificant kings who carried Assyria to its end.
List of synchronism between Assyrian kings and kings of Israel and Judah:
853 |
Shalmaneser III/Ahab of Israel |
c. 830 |
Shalmaneser III/Jehu of Israel |
c. 740 |
Tiglath-pileser III/Azariah of Israel |
c. 735 |
Tiglath-pileser III/Menahem of Israel |
c. 730 |
Tiglath-pileser III/Ahaz of Judah |
c. 701 |
Sennacherib/Hezekiah of Judah |
c. 680 |
Esarhaddon/Manasseh of Judah |
c. 660 |
Ashurbanipal/Manasseh |
Babylonian kings:
Napolassar |
(625-605) |
Nebuchadnezzar II |
(604-562) |
Evil-Merodach |
(561-560) |
Neriglissar |
(559-556) |
Labashi-Marduk |
(556) |
Nabonidus |
(555-539) |
ASSYRIA AND ISRAEL. At the beginning of the ninth century B.C.E., after a period of weakness, as Assyria was reduced to an insignificant north Mesopotamian city-state, Ashurnasirpal of Assyria initiated a new period of Assyrian greatness that led to an expansion of Assyrian territory to the west, to the borders of the Mediterranean. The first phase of the Assyrian expansion did not affect Israel. However, in 853 B.C.E. at Qarqar in Syria, direct contact was made when King Ahab joined an Aramaean coalition to fight off the threat from Assyria. For a moment the Assyrian onslaught was impeded. After the fall of the dynasty of Omri, the coalition was dissolved and replaced by prolonged fighting between the former allies, not least Damascus and Israel, an opportunity not to be missed by the Assyrians who continued their advance toward the west. Already in 843 B.C.E., Jehu of Israel was forced to submit to the might of Assyria.
None of these events have been recorded by the Old Testament historiographers. They show more interest in the events that followed the ascension of Tiglath-pileser III to the throne of Assyria in 745 B.C.E., when the final phase in the history of the Assyrian Empire began. Over a period of just a few years, Tiglath-pileser received tribute from King Menahem of Israel and pushed his armies to the border of Palestine. Here he and his successor, Shalmanaser V, succeeded in connection with the so-called “Syro-Ephraimite” war to reduce the states of Palestine into either Assyrian provinces or Assyrian puppets. Israel was limited to only its capital and the territory of the city itself. In 722 B.C.E. Samaria also fell to the soldiers of Sargon, and parts of the Israelite population were sent into exile in Mesopotamia. Judah had little to do with this event. Already before the fall of Samaria it had accepted the Assyrians as its overlords. Only when Hezekiah rebelled against Assyria, disaster struck, and Judah was almost totally destroyed by Sennacherib, while the king was forced behind the walls of Jerusalem. For unknown reasons Sennacherib did not conquer Jerusalem but left after having received an impressive tribute from the Judean king, including—according to his own royal annals—the daughters of Hezekiah. Only a small city-state with Jerusalem as its center remained as an Assyrian puppet state. From the middle of the seventh century B.C.E., the grasp of the Assyrians diminished in force and made some kind of independence possible for the local powers of Palestine. In the time of King Josiah, Judah seems to have regained its independence from Assyria.
It is difficult to find evidence of a direct Assyrian influence on the civilization of Palestine during its hegemony over the territory. Instead, one should think of an immense indirect influence, not least on religion. Scholars have generally understood the references pertaining to this period to astral religion in the Old Testament as a reflection of this influence.
ATHALIAH. (Meaning of name contested). Queen of Judah 842-837. Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab of Israel (2 Kgs 8:18), or of Omri of Israel (2 Kgs 8:26: The text probably means that she was a princess of the royal house of Omri), and the mother of King Ahaziah of Judah. After the murder of her son, she liquidated the house of David and assumed royal power for herself. Only an infant son of the king was saved by the priests of the temple in Jerusalem. After a seven-year period, Athaliah was removed and killed by a putsch that reinstated Joash, the infant, as the true successor of the Davidic line of kings of Judah (2 Kgs 11).
AZARIAH. The name of several persons in the Old Testament. The only Azariah of historical importance is Azariah, king of Judah 769-741 B.C.E. Better known as Uzziah.
AZEKAH. A city and fortress in the Judean Shephelah, overlooking the Elah Valley. In the Old Testament Azekah is mentioned a couple of times in connection with early warfare, in Josh 10:10-11 as the end place of the Israelite pursuit of the five Amorite kings, and in 1 Sam 17:1 as part of the description of the site for the duel between David and Goliath. Rehoboam is said to have fortified the place (2 Chron 11:9). Azekah turns up in some extra-biblical inscriptions, thus in Assyrian texts relating to campaigns in Palestine. It and Lachish were the last surviving localities of Judah during Nebuchadnezzar’s campaign against Jerusalem (Jer 34:7); information often compared to the famous text of Lachish letter No. 4: “Let him also know that we are watching for the beacons of Lachish, in accordance with all the code-signals that my lord has given; but we do not see Azekah” (transi. Gibson). Excavations were carried out at the usual place of identification, Tell Zakariya, in 1898-99. Remains were found which according to a modern archaeological estimate can be dated to at least the eighth century B.C.E.