“Ahikar and his nephew Nadin [var. Nadab] were also present to share Tobit’s joy. With merriment they celebrated Tobias's wedding feast for seven days, and many gifts were given to him”.
Tobit 11:18
‘See, my son, all that Nadin did to Ahiqar, the very one who reared him. Was not Ahiqar brought down alive into the earth? Yet God made Nadin’s disgraceful crime rebound against him. Ahiqar came out again into the light, but Nadin went into the everlasting darkness, for he had tried to kill Ahiqar’.
Tobit 14:10
Introduction
Previously in this series I gave reasons as to why I must now reject, as untenable, the identification of “Holofernes” that I had proposed in my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
as Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib, Great King of Assyria.
And there I also stated that my currently favoured historical choice for “Holofernes” was another son of Sennacherib’s, Ashur-nadin-shumi.
I have since realised that I had already, in my thesis (in Volume One, pp. 168-169), multi-identified Esarhaddon (who was also named as heir: Ashuretil-ilani-mukin-aplu, ‘Ashur, the lord of the gods, has established an heir’), to include Ashur-nadin-shumi:
With Esarhaddon generally considered to have been a younger son of Sennacherib, the eldest being Ashur-nadin-shumi whom Sennacherib made Viceroy of Babylon during his Twelfth Year (Fourth Campaign) (711 BC, revised), the chronology I am trying to develop here would be extremely tight indeed. But Esarhaddon in fact calls himself “the oldest son of [Sennacherib ...”.396 And, whilst this would appear to be contradicted by another statement of his, that Marduk had called him “from among my older brothers”,397 it may indicate that he had become the oldest of Sennacherib’s sons in line for the throne; with his previously older brothers either dead or no longer in contention because of their revolt.
This primary piece of evidence of Esarhaddon as “the oldest son” not only assists my reconstruction, but now makes highly attractive also an identification of Esarhaddon (i.e. Ashur-akhi-iddina) with Ashur-nadin-shumi, Sennacherib’s eldest. The latter’s supposed six years of reign over Babylon (c. 700-694 BC, conventional dating) would thus correspond with Esarhaddon’s reign over that city. And I suggest it was during this early period that Esarhaddon rebuilt, probably magnified, Babylon; but while his father Sennacherib was still alive, and indeed as a servant of the latter. They would have been co-regents of Babylon, given that Sargon’s Year 16 was also his 4th year as king of Babylon (the second time around). See next chapter for a disussion of Sargon II’s/ Sennacherib’s restoration work in Babylon. According to this new scenario, Esarhaddon would have served for six years as ruler of Babylon, from Sennacherib’s Year 12 to Year 18, and his reign would have terminated prior to the end of his father’s own reign.
My proposed identification of Esarhaddon with Ashur-nadin-shumi (and I am not of course claiming a precise name identification here) would not stand up though if the latter had really suffered the fate that Roux has attributed to this Ashur-nadin-shumi:398 “… disappeared, probably murdered” in Iran after the Babylonians had handed him over to the Elamites. However, I have not yet read anywhere that Ashur-nadin-shumi’s death at this stage was more than ‘probable’. There is no certainty attached to it.
[End of quote]
Obviously I had had to engage in a bit of manoeuvring to ‘make’ Esarhaddon, an apparently younger son of Sennacherib’s, the eldest son. Though I did have at hand that seemingly crucial piece of information from D. Luckenbill’s Ancient Records of Assyria & Babylonia (# 6) according to which Esarhaddon claimed to have been “the oldest son of [Sennacherib] …”.
In my thesis I had connected the ‘rival operation’ incident in the Book of Judith - of the demise of “Holofernes” and the salvation of Achior - with Tobit’s information that Nadin (my Ashur-nadin-shumi), who had tried to kill Ahiqar (var. Ahikar = Achior), had been slain instead. More recently I have written on this (with Esarhaddon now excluded from the picture):
“Nadin went into everlasting darkness”
Tobit 14:10 (continued): ‘Because Ahiqar had given alms he escaped from the deadly trap Nadin had set for him. But Nadin fell into the deadly trap himself, and it destroyed him’.
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