Prophet Nahum did not live to hear of the fall of Thebes, but only of Memphis

 

by

Damien F. Mackey

  

To sum up: Our Simeonite family was from southern Judah,

but once had to identify as Galilean (Book of Jonah), and, another time,

as resident in the environs of Assyrian Nineveh (Book of Nahum).

  

Extent of Nahum’s prophetic career

 

            His alter egos

 

Nahum we need to multi-identify, before we can provide him with a full chronology and geography.

 

From these variations on Tobit 14:4:

 

‘Go to Media, my son, for I fully believe what Jonah the prophet said about Nineveh, that it will be overthrown’ (RSV).

 

‘My son, take your children and hasten to Media, for I believe the word of God that Nahum spoke about Nineveh. It will all take place’ (NCB),

 

we learn that Nahum was Jonah.

 

Now, according to pseudo-Epiphanius (De Vitis Proph. in Opp. 2:247), Nahum was of the tribe of Simeon.

 

Whereas the Book of Nahum does not provide a patronymic - does not name his father, or ancestor - the Book of Jonah does.

The prophet was a “son of Amittai” (Jonah 1:1; cf. 2 Kings 14:25).

 

The great prophet, Amoz (Amos), father of Isaiah, immediately suggests himself for the Simeonite “Amittai”. For one, Amoz was the patriarch of an enormously influential Simeonite prophetic family: 

 

God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon

 

(3) God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon

 

And, secondly, Amoz, or Amaziah, is a name compatible with the unusual “Amittai”.

 

Amoz I also believe to have been the prophet Micah, his very mirror-image, in fact, known to biblical commentators as “Amos redivivus”.

We find Isaiah and his father, Amos-Micah, in the Simeonite coupling, in Judith 6:15, of “Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon”.

 

There may be just one more addition to make to our composite Simeonite prophet.

If he is also Isaiah, then our prophet may connect with Hosea - Isaiah’s son Immanuel being, according to what I have written, the same boy as Hosea’s son, Lo-ammi:

 

Was Hosea’s boy-child, Lo-Ammi, Isaiah’s famous son, Immanuel?

 

(3) Was Hosea's boy-child, Lo-Ammi, Isaiah's famous son, Immanuel?

 

To sum up: Amoz (Amittai)/Micah was the Simeonite father of Isaiah (Hosea, Uzziah)/Nahum-Jonah.

 

His geography

 

This takes us far and wide, because our prophet, as Uzziah of the Book of Judith, was, according to Judith 8:34; 13:23 (Douay): “… the prince of Juda[h]” and “the prince of the people of Israel”.

 

Added to that, he, as Jonah-Nahum, would travel to Assyrian Nineveh.

 

The Simeonite family was apparently from Moresheth (Mareshah) in southern Judah (Micah 1:1).

 

Awkward complications arise, however, when we learn that Nahum was an “Elkoshite” (Nahum 1:1), and that Jonah was “the prophet from Gath-hepher” (2 Kings 14:25; cf.  Joshua 19:13), a location presumed to be firmly fixed in the land of Galilee.

In my recent article:

 

Were any Old Testament prophets from Galilee?

 

(5) Were any Old Testament prophets from Galilee?

 

I concluded (on the side of the Pharisees, John 7:52) that no Old Testament prophet arose from Galilee. My story was, based on Charles Boutflower, that Isaiah, having to flee the wrath of King Ahaz of Judah, went northwards for a time to Galilee, to what would come to be known as Capernaum, Kfar Naḥum (כְּפַר נַחוּם), literally, ‘Nahum’s village’, due to his presence there, as Nahum:

 

Isaiah took his family north to escape the wrath of king Ahaz

 

(5) Isaiah took his family north to escape the wrath of king Ahaz

 

The ancient name of the place, though, was Gath-hepher. Indeed, it was situated in Galilee, but our Simeonite prophetic family did not originally hail from there.

 

No Old Testament prophet arose from Galilee!

 

The other complication is with Nahum’s Elkosh (or Ali Qosh, or AlQush), thought by some to have been a Simeonite town (of uncertain location) in southern Judah, but, by others, to have been the well-known Alqosh (Al Qūsh, near Nineveh).

 

Now, it would make perfect sense for the prophet, Nahum-Jonah, to have - during his Assyrian mission - spent some time amongst the exiled Israelites in Nineveh, such as Tobit (who references him as we have read), and his family.

There, he may have taken notes for his graphic (“eye-witness”, as some have described it) account of the city and the Assyrians in the Book of Nahum.

 

To sum up: Our Simeonite family was from southern Judah, but once had to identify as Galilean (Book of Jonah), and, another time, as resident in the environs of Assyrian Nineveh (Book of Nahum).

 

That, at last, brings us to the main focus of this article, the chronology, and how this affects what our prophet could have lived to see regarding the fall of Memphis, and that of Thebes, and of Nineveh.

 

The long-lived Tobias (= Job), son of Tobit - who most likely met Nahum-Jonah during the latter’s mission to Nineveh - would live to see and hear of the Fall of Nineveh (Tobit 14:15):

 

“But before he died, [Tobias] saw and heard of the destruction of Nineveh.

He saw the inhabitants of the city being led captive into Media by Cyaxares,

the king of Media. Tobias blessed God for all that he had done against the Ninevites and Assyrians. Before dying he rejoiced over Nineveh,

and he blessed the Lord God forever and ever”.

 

His chronology

 

We can know, from a comparison of Isaiah and Hosea, that our Simeonite prophet likewise lived a very long life, his prophetic floruit extending from King Jeroboam II of Israel (Hosea 1:1) all the way down to King Hezekiah of Judah.

 

However, the necessary (my view) recognition of the reforming king Hezekiah as being the same as the reforming king Josiah, and Hezekiah’s wicked son, Manasseh, as Josiah’s wicked son, Jehoiakim (see e.g.):

 

Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses

 

(6) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses

 

takes our prophet, now as “Asaiah” (2 Kings 22:12), into the reign of king Josiah, and beyond that, to be martyred, as Uriah (Urijah) in the reign of the wicked son-successor, Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 26:20-23).

 

But thanks to this, our folding of the era of King Josiah into the era of King Hezekiah, we can now identify this incident as being the very martyrdom of the prophet Isaiah traditionally occurring at the hands of King Manasseh – an incident that so far (I think) has been unidentifiable in biblical texts.

 

Of course, with our folding, into one, of supposedly two Judean eras, there must come a corresponding folding of the Assyro-Babylonian history that accompanies this Hezekian-Josian period. What this entails, relevant to the destruction of Egypt’s old capital city of Memphis, is that great Assyro-Babylonian conquerors (supposedly) of this city must now all be fused into the one mighty king. I speak of:

 

Esarhaddon

Ashurbanipal

Nebuchednezzar

Cambyses

On this, see e.g. my articles:

 

Esarhaddon, Cambyses, and the Fall of Egypt’s Memphis capital

 

(7) Esarhaddon, Cambyses, and the Fall of Egypt’s Memphis capital

 

Chaldean armies come to Egypt

 

(7) Chaldean armies come to Egypt

 

What all of this boils down to is that, if our Simeonite prophet lived only into the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, very early in the reign of King Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’ (cf. Jeremiah 25:1) – when I believe that Jonah came to Nineveh:

 

The ‘Jonah incident’ historically identified

 

(18) The ‘Jonah incident’ historically identified

 

then he did not live long enough to hear of the Fall of Thebes at the hands of Ashurbanipal-Nebuchedezzar, nor, a fortiori, of the Fall of Nineveh some years after the passing of that mighty Assyro-Chaldean king.

 

So Nahum, when he tells of the Fall of No (Noth), as a preview of what will later befall Nineveh (Nahum 3:8):

 

“Art thou better than populous No [Noth], that was situated among the rivers,

that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea,

and her wall was from the sea?”

 

cannot be referring to Thebes, whose demise was yet in the future, but must have been referring to Memphis, Hebrew Moph (מֹף), which Esarhaddon took early in his reign – possibly while Nahum was yet residing in Assyrian Alqosh.

 

Biblical commentators, who generally have taken Nahum 3:8 to be referring to Thebes, not Memphis, have trouble fitting the prophet’s description to ancient Thebes.

 

John R. Huddlestun, for instance, though aware of the difficulties, will nevertheless argue for Nahum 3:8 intending Thebes:

 

“Nahum, Nineveh, and the Nile: The Description of Thebes in Nahum 3:8–9”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 62, No. 2 (April 2003), pp. 97-110:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/376364

 

He tells of the difficulties associated with this in his Introduction:

 

I.                   INTRODUCTION

 

WELL before the advent of modern biblical criticism, translators and interpreters of the Hebrew text puzzled over the identification of nō^ɔ-^ɔāmōn in Nahum 3:8–9. In the Septuagint, confusion over how to translate the opening words of verse 8 (hatēt´tbī minnō^ɔ-^ɔāmōn) is evident in what appear to be multiple renderings, some of which may have originated as glosses. …. In rabbinic tradition, No-Amon is interpreted as the Delta city Alexandria, a rendering adopted and defended by Jerome in the Vulgate. …. With one or two exceptions, modern scholarship has associated the toponym, and the event referred to in 3:8–9, with the Egyptian Thebes of Upper or southern Egypt and its sack by the Assyrians in ca. 663 B.C.E. …. Yet, as many have noted, this identification is not entirely consistent with the biblical text’s portrait of that city as one encircled by water and protected by the sea. Thebes is far removed from the Mediterranean Sea, and, although situated on the banks of the Nile, one could hardly characterize the city as surrounded by water. The problematic description has occupied both Egyptologists and biblical scholars, who have offered various solutions—geographical, grammatical, and mythological—to reconcile the biblical portrait with the layout of the city.

 

[End of quote]

 

I suggest that the prophet Nahum was referring to Memphis, instead.

 

Though it, too, may not have seemed to fit Nahum’s description of being surrounded by water, new evidence has come to light that might suggest otherwise:

 

Dried-up branch of the Nile ran alongside ancient pyramids and capital of Memphis

 

(20) Dried-up branch of the Nile ran alongside ancient pyramids and capital of Memphis

 

 

Esarhaddon, Cambyses, and the Fall of Egypt’s Memphis capital

 

by

Damien F. Mackey

  

This catastrophic (for Egypt and the Ramessides) event

has been repeated again and again in the history books.

  

Abridging the ‘Bridge Too Far’ conventional system

 

The fall of the old Egyptian capital of Memphis, now to Esarhaddon (c. 670 BC), now to Ashurbanipal, now (potentially) to Nebuchednezzar, and now to Cambyses (c. 525 BC), is startlingly, in fact, just the one historical event, though spread out by conventional historians over a period of roughly (670-525 =) 150 years.

 

The connecting factor (indeed, there are many of them), from the point of view of Egypt, is the common presence of the Egyptian commander-son of pharaoh Tirhakah (Taharqa), Nes-Anhuret, for Esarhaddon, Usanahuru for Ashurbanipal, and, again, Udjahorresne[t] for Cambyses (and ‘Darius’) – the designated heir and successor of pharaoh Tirhakah and Commander of the Egyptian Fleet.

 

Esarhaddon and Nes-Anhuret, Ashurbanipal and Usanahuru

 

(DOC) Esarhaddon and Nes-Anhuret, Ashurbanipal and Usanahuru

 

He, as Udjahorresne[t], served - but also mentored - Cambyses in Egypt and gave him his royal Egyptian name, Mesuti-Ra:

Udjahorresnet and the Royal Name of Cambyses: The “Derivative Sacrality” of Achaemenids in Egypt - Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections

 

Ivan Ladynin

 

The article deals with a well-known fragment of Udjahorresnet’s autobiography describing his compiling an Egyptian royal titulary for Cambyses after his appearance in Egypt and Udjahorresnet’s elevation at his court. A comparison of Cambyses’ and Darius’ I solar prenomina (Mswty-RꜤ and Stwt-RꜤ, which can be understood as “the image of Re” and “the likeness of Re”) and an interpretation of the Fayum stela Berlin ÄS 7493 depicting Darius I in the image of the falcon Horus leads one to suspect that the theory finding an excuse to the rule of Achaemenids in Egypt postulated their “deriving” their qualities of sacral ritual rulers from gods incorporated in them. This theory must have been forwarded in Udjahorresnet’s time by his party loyal to the Persian rule.

 

 

 

Cartouche of Cambyses (“Mesuti-Ra Cambyses”)

Stated differently, Udjahorresne helped Cambyses behave

like a true Egyptian king.

 

Then, typically, the Greeks (Plutarch) got hold of Udjahorresne/Usanahuru and turned him into a Spartan admiral, the famous – though quite fictitious – Lysander:

 

Lysander and Usanhuru

 

(6) Lysander and Usanhuru

 

The radical shortening of the conventional Assyro-Babylonian-Medo-Persian history undertaken here must necessitate a similar condensing of Egyptian dynastic history.

 

That is achieved, in part, by recognising pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’ as, all at once, Tirhakah (for Esarhaddon-Ashurbanipal) and Amasis (for Cambyses).

 

See e.g. my article:

 

The Complete Ramses II

 

(6) The Complete Ramses II

 

But there is also an amazing Psammetichus connection, as discussed in my article:

 

Chaldean armies come to Egypt

 

(7) Chaldean armies come to Egypt

 

There I wrote:

 

Psammetichus and other links

 

Psammetichus coincidences

 

We are told that:

 

·       Ashurbanipal invaded Egypt at the time of Psammetichus I (c. 664 BC);

·       Nebuchednezzar invaded Egypt at the time of Psammetichus II (c. 595-589 BC);

·       Cambyses invaded Egypt at the time of Psammetichus III (c. 526-525 BC).

….

 

Memphis taken

 

This catastrophic (for Egypt and the Ramessides) event has been repeated again and again in the history books.

 

Commencing with Esarhaddon, and working our way through to Cambyses, let us take Nebuchednezzar here as our common denominator. 

Esarhaddon, who was Nebuchednezzar in his building of Babylon and in his paranoïc madness, and who failed in his first assault on Egypt and was driven back – just as was the case with Nebuchednezzar:

Esarhaddon | Assyrian King, Neo-Assyrian Empire Ruler | Britannica

“When Egypt inspired a revolt of the Phoenician city of Tyre, Esarhaddon attacked Egypt (675); he had little success until 671, when he seized Memphis and defeated the Egyptian king Taharqa, who fled south, leaving the entire country to Esarhaddon. For the first time a Mesopotamian ruler included “king of Egypt” among his royal titles”. 

 

Likewise, Nebuchednezzar initially had little success with invading Egypt:

Nebuchadnezzar Fails to Conquer Egypt So Jeremiah’s Prophecy Was Updated - TheTorah.com

Nebuchadnezzar attacked Egypt in his fourth regnal year (601/600 B.C.E.). Pharaoh Necho II, in anticipation of this attack, had spent considerable resources massively fortifying the eastern entrances to Egypt at Tell el Qedwa and Tell el-Ghaba on the Pelusiac estuary of the Nile, as well as the gate and fortifications of his capital city, Tanis (biblical Zoan). He thus succeeded in stopping the invasion cold, forcing Nebuchadnezzar’s army to retreat. Even the Babylonian Chronicle—which tends to avoid explicitly mentioning a defeat—has trouble spinning this campaign as a success:

 

In the month Kislev he (Nebuchadnezzar) took his army's lead and marched to Egypt. (When) the king of Egypt heard (the news) he m[ustered] his army. They fought one another in the battlefield and both sides suffered severe losses (lit. they inflicted a major defeat upon one another). The king of Akkad and his army turned and [went back] to Babylon.^[7] ….

[End of quote]

 

Esarhaddon, later, brilliantly conquered Memphis:

Esarhaddon and the Limits of Empire: From Memphis to Arabia and the Question of a Southern Campaign - Nineveh News

 

The Conquest of Egypt: A Turning Point in Near Eastern History

Esarhaddon’s Egyptian campaign marks one of the most extraordinary military achievements of the ancient world. After an initial invasion in 673 BC, he reorganized and launched a second campaign in 671 BC, culminating in the capture of Memphis, the heart of Egyptian political power.

 

This victory had several profound implications:

 

• First Assyrian Conquest of Egypt: No previous Assyrian ruler had successfully subdued Egypt. Esarhaddon accomplished what Tiglath-Pileser III and Sennacherib had not.
• Defeat of Taharqa: The Kushite pharaoh Taharqa was driven south, and his royal family was captured and deported to Nineveh.
• Imperial Integration: Esarhaddon reorganized Egypt into a vassal system, installing local rulers such as Necho I under Assyrian oversight.
• Symbolic Domination: His victory stelae, such as those at Zincirli and Nahr el-Kalb, visually proclaimed Assyria’s supremacy over Egypt, even juxtaposing Assyrian and earlier Egyptian imperial legacies.

[End of quote]

 

Ashurbanipal, who was Nebuchednezzar in his (same) 43-year reign, and having a burning fiery furnace, and in his definitive conquest of Egypt (cf. Jeremiah 43:10-13;  Ezekiel 29:19-20), provides for us the entire account of the conquest of Egypt that we do not have from Nebuchednezzar’s (under that name) records.

 

Ashurbanipal brilliantly conquered Memphis:

Assyrian Army Attacking Memphis - World History Encyclopedia

 

Gypsum panel showing the Assyrian army attacking the Egyptian city of Memphis and commemorating the final victory of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal II over the Egyptian king Taharqa in 667 BCE. Panel 17, Room M of the North Palace at Nineveh, Northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, Neo-Assyrian Period, 645-635 BCE.

 

This wall slab was originally painted for the interior walls of Ashurbanipal's palace at Nineveh. At the top, the overwhelming wave of the Assyrian army storms the Egyptian fortress, tries to set fire to the gate, and undermines the walls. The Nubian soldiers, recognizable by the single upright feathers on their heads, are being marched off as prisoners. Egyptian civilian prisoners are shown as a group with two children on a donkey. Below is the River Nile with fish and crabs.

 

Cambyses, who was Nebuchednezzar in his name,

 

Cambyses also named Nebuchadnezzar

 

(8) Cambyses also named Nebuchadnezzar

 

in his madness, and in his definitive conquest of Egypt, famously conquered Memphis:

How to cite this article: Rickard, J (18 February 2015), Siege of Memphis, early 525 BC , https://www.historyofwar.org/articles/siege_memphis_525.html

 

The siege of Memphis (early 525 BC) was the last recorded resistance to Cambyses II of Persia's invasion of Egypt, and came after the main Egyptian army had been defeated at Pelusium.

Early in 525 Cambyses led his army across the Sinai and defeated the armies of Pharaoh Psamtik III at Pelusium. In the aftermath of the battle the Pharaoh retreated to Memphis, and prepared to defend the city.

Cambyses sent a Persian herald on a Mytilenean ship up the Nile to Memphis to suggest a truce. The defenders of Memphis reacted by attacking the ship, killing the crew and bringing the smashed remains of the ship into the city.

Cambyses reacted by laying siege to Memphis. Herodotus doesn’t say how long the siege lasted, but implies that it was long enough for the Libyans and the Greeks of Cyrene to sent tribute to him.

Eventually the city fell and Psamtik III was captured. Herodotus records a story about Cambyses's attempts to humiliate the former Pharaoh by forcing his daughter to carry out menial tasks and killing his son. As is typical in this sort of story Psamtik impressed Cambyses with his responses, and was taken into honourable captivity instead of being executed. He committed suicide a few years later, after being caught in a plot against the Persians.

Cambyses established a new 27th Dynasty, and appears to have been accepted in Egypt. Herodotus claimed that he was an unpopular ruler, but contemporary Egyptian records suggest otherwise. He remained in Egypt for most of the rest of his reign, only setting off for home when a revolt broke out in the heart of the Persian Empire.