అధ్యాయం 10: యుద్ధం మరియు మనుగడ మధ్య

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[ 10 ] Between War and Survival

(705–639 BCE)

King Hezekiah’s decision to rebel against the Assyrian empire was surely one of the most fateful decisions taken in the kingdom of Judah. To declare independence from the region’s brutal imperial overlord—which had just two decades before violently dismantled the kingdom of Israel—required the political power and state organization to make far-reaching economic and military preparations. It also required a clear religious reassurance that despite the awesome might of the Assyrian empire, YHWH would ensure Judah’s eventual military success. According to the Bible all of the terrible misfortunes of the kingdom of Israel were ascribed to the idolatrous ways of its people. Now, a purification of the cult of YHWH was the only way to ensure the victory of Judah and save its people from the fate of destruction and exile that had befallen the people of the sinful north. And so, after the death of Sargon in 705 BCE, when the ability of the empire to control its faraway territories looked questionable, Judah entered an anti-Assyrian coalition, which was backed by Egypt (2 Kings 18:21; 19:9), and raised the banner of rebellion—with far-reaching, unanticipated effects. Four years later, in 701 BCE, the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib, came to Judah with a formidable army. The books of Kings put a brave face on the outcome: Hezekiah was a great hero, an ideal king comparable only to David. He followed in the footsteps of Moses and cleansed Judah from all the transgressions of the past. Thanks to his piety, the Assyrians retreated from Judah without being able to conquer Jerusalem. As we will see, that is not the whole story, nor is the entire story provided in the Bible’s subsequent account of the fifty-five-year reign of Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son. In contrast to the ideal King Hezekiah, the books of Kings make Manasseh out to be the ultimate apostate, who spends his long career on the throne bringing back all the terrible abominations of the past. Had we only the biblical materials to depend on, we would have no reason to

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question this black-and-white picture of Hezekiah’s righteousness and Manasseh’s apostasy. However, contemporary Assyrian sources and modern archaeology show that the Bible’s theological interpretation of Judah’s rebellion against Assyria hides quite a different historical reality. A Great Miracle and Its Betrayal The second book of Kings narrates the story of Hezekiah’s great gamble in a set- piece drama in which a small cast of characters declaims formalized speeches on readily recognizable theological themes. This style of soliloquies performed for the benefit of the biblical reader is one of the hallmarks of the Deuteronomistic history. The use of religious rhetoric is transparent: the point of the biblical story is to show how the mere force of arms or balance of power has no effect on the outcome of nations at war. Behind it all is the guiding force of YHWH, who uses armies and battles to reward those who jealously and exclusively worship him—and to punish those who do not. After the description of Hezekiah’s religious behavior, the second book of Kings inserts a brief digression, in fact a repetition, on the fall of the northern kingdom and the deportation of its people because of their sins. It is meant to remind the reader of the contrast between the fates of sinful Israel and of righteous Judah. The situations are similar, the results are the opposite: Israel rebelled, Shalmaneser V laid siege to Samaria, the northern kingdom was destroyed, and its people deported; because of their sins, YHWH was not there to help them. Judah also rebelled, Sennacherib laid siege to Jerusalem, but Hezekiah was a righteous king, so Jerusalem was delivered and Sennacherib’s army destroyed. The moral is clear even when the fearsome Assyrian forces invade the kingdom and conquer all its outlying fortified cities. Reliance on the power of YHWH is the only key to salvation. The Assyrian commanders laying siege to Jerusalem challenged the bewildered defenders on the walls of the city, taunting the citizens and trying to break their spirit by questioning the wisdom of King Hezekiah and ridiculing his faith: “Hear the word of the great king, king of Assyria! Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. Do not let Hezekiah make you to rely on the LORD by saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me; then every one of you will eat of his own vine, and every one of his own fig tree, and every one of you will drink the water of his own cistern; until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, The LORD will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the

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king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of the countries have delivered their countries out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ” (2

KINGS 18:28–35)

Hezekiah is deeply shaken but the prophet Isaiah reassures him with a divine oracle: “Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. . . . Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria. He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return. . . . For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” (2 KINGS 19:6–7,32–34) And indeed, a miraculous deliverance comes that very night: And that night the angel of the LORD went forth, and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went home, and dwelt at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, slew him with the sword. (2 KINGS 19:35–37) The independence of Judah—and its fervent belief in the saving power of YHWH against all enemies—was thus miraculously preserved. But soon afterward, the story takes a bizarre turn with the assumption of Hezekiah’s son Manasseh to the Davidic throne. At a time when the power of YHWH should have been evident to the people of Judah, the new king Manasseh makes a sharp theological about-face: And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he erected altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem will I put my name.” And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. And he burned his son as an offering, and practiced soothsaying and augury, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. (2 KINGS 21:2–6) Despite the belief that a sanctified Jerusalem now was—and had always implicitly been—YHWH’s seat on earth and that its purity guaranteed the well-being of the people of Israel, Manasseh reportedly seduced his subjects “to do more evil than the nations had done whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel” (2 Kings 21:9).

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What was going on here? What caused these dramatic reversals? Was Hezekiah really so righteous and Manasseh so bad? Preparing to Defy a World Empire The books of Kings offer only the briefest background to the rebellion of Hezekiah, reporting that he “rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him” (2 Kings 18:7). The books of Chronicles, written several centuries later and generally considered to be a less reliable historical source than the books of Kings, nevertheless offer more detailed information on the preparations that Hezekiah ordered in the months and weeks before the Assyrian attack. In this case, as we will see later, archaeology suggests that Chronicles may preserve reliable historical information that was not included in the books of Kings. In addition to creating storehouses for grain, oil, and wine, and stalls for flocks and cattle throughout the kingdom (2 Chronicles 32:27–29), Hezekiah expended great effort to ensure Jerusalem’s water supply during a time of siege: When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and intended to fight against Jerusalem, he planned with his officers and his mighty men to stop the water of the springs that were outside the city; and they helped him. A great many people were gathered, and they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?” He set to work resolutely and built up all the wall that was broken down, and raised towers upon it, and outside it he built another wall; and he strengthened the Millo in the city of David. He also made weapons and shields in abundance. And he set combat commanders over the people, and gathered them together to him in the square at the gate of the city and spoke encouragingly to them, saying, “Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid or dismayed before the king of Assyria and all the horde that is with him; for there is one greater with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the LORD our God, to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people took confidence from the words of Hezekiah king of Judah. (2

CHRONICLES 32:2–8)

While there are only meager and disputed archaeological indications for Hezekiah’s religious reforms throughout his kingdom, there is abundant evidence for both the planning and the ghastly outcome of his revolt against Assyria. Jerusalem was naturally a focus of operations. Defensive preparations are most clearly seen in excavations in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, where a fortification wall, more than twenty feet thick, was built to protect the recently established neighborhoods on the western hill. This defensive wall was apparently built at a time of national emergency; the western hill was already thickly settled and the private houses that lay along the planned course of the city fortifications had to be razed. The construction of this wall is apparently mentioned in the Bible, in Isaiah’s remonstrance to the king that he coldheartedly “broke down the houses to fortify

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the wall” (Isaiah 22:10). Another important mission was to provide the city with a secure supply of water in the case of a siege. The only perennial spring in Jerusalem—the Gihon—was located at the bottom of the Kidron valley, apparently outside the line of the city wall (Figure 26, p. 244). This was an old problem in Jerusalem, and there were earlier attempts to solve it by cutting a tunnel in the rock to give access to the spring from within the fortified town. Hezekiah had a much more ambitious idea: instead of providing means to go down to the water, he planned to bring the water inside. Indeed, we have a precious contemporary description of this extraordinary engineering project—originally hewn on the walls of the water tunnel itself. First discovered in the late nineteenth century near the southern end of the tunnel, this unique monumental inscription in Hebrew relates how a long subterranean tunnel was cut through bedrock to bring water from the Gihon spring to a protected pool within the city walls. Almost a third of a mile in length, and wide and high enough for a person to walk through, it was cut in such a precise way that the difference in elevation between the spring and the pool is just over one foot in height. Indeed, the ancient text commemorating the work, now known as the Siloam inscription, captures the drama of the project as it neared completion, describing how the tunnel was cut by two teams hewing their way toward each other from opposite ends of the tunnel: . . . when the tunnel was driven through. And this was the way in which it was cut through: While [ . . . ] were still [ . . . ] axe[s], each man toward his fellow, and while there were still three cubits to be cut through, [there was heard] the voice of a man calling to his fellow, for there was an overlap in the rock on the right [and on the left]. And when the tunnel was driven through, the quarrymen hewed [the rock], each man toward his fellow, axe against axe; and the water flowed from the spring toward the reservoir for 1,200 cubits, and the height of the rock above the head[s] of the quarrymen was 100 cubits. How they managed to meet despite the fact that the tunnel is curved is a matter of debate. It was probably a combination of technical skills and intimate knowledge of the geology of the hill. Such an extraordinary achievement did not escape the attention of the biblical historians and represents one of the rare instances when a specific project of a Hebrew king can safely be identified archaeologically: “The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?” (2 Kings 20:20). Outside Jerusalem, Hezekiah apparently took full advantage of the institutions of the state to make sure that his entire kingdom was prepared for war (Figure 27). The city of Lachish in the Shephelah was surrounded by a formidable fortification

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system consisting of a sloping stone revetment halfway down the slope of the mound and a massive brick wall at its crest. A huge bastion protected a six- chambered gate to the city and a large elevated podium inside the walls probably supported a palace, or a residency, for the royal commander of the city. In addition, a complex of buildings, similar to the Megiddo stables, was built near the palace to serve as stables or storehouses. A large shaft cut in the rock may have served as the upper part of a water system. Though some of these elements may have been built before Hezekiah, they were all there and reinforced by his time, ready to face the army of Sennacherib. Never before had a Judahite king devoted so much energy and expertise and so many resources in preparations for war.1 Archaeological finds suggest that the organization of provisions in Judah was centralized for the first time. The clearest evidence of this is a well-known class of large store jars found throughout the territory of Hezekiah’s kingdom, mass produced in similar shape and size. Their most important and unique feature is the seal impressions stamped into the still wet clay of their handles before they were fired. The impressions bear an emblem in the shape of a winged sun disc or scarab beetle, which is believed to be a royal Judahite insignia, and a short Hebrew inscription reading lmlk (“belonging to the king”). The royal reference is combined with the name of one of four cities: Hebron, Socoh, Ziph, and a still unidentified place designated by the letters MMST. The first three are known from other sources, while the last, enigmatic site may have been a title for Jerusalem or an unknown Judahite town.

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Figure 27: Main sites of late-monarchic Judah. The line marks the heartland of the kingdom in the late seventh century—the days of Josiah.

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Scholars have suggested several alternative explanations for the function of these jars: that they contained the products of royal estates; that they were used as official containers for tax collection and distribution of commodities; or that the seal impressions were merely the identifying marks of pottery workshops where official royal storage jars were manufactured. In any event, it is quite clear that they were associated with the organization of Judah before the rebellion against Assyria. We cannot be sure of the geographical extent of Hezekiah’s preparations for rebellion. The second book of Chronicles notes that he sent emissaries to Ephraim and Manasseh, that is, to the highland territory of the vanquished northern kingdom, to call the Israelites there to join him in Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover (2 Chronicles 30:1,10,18). Most of this account is hardly historical; it was written from the point of view of an anonymous fifth or fourth century BCE writer, who presented Hezekiah as a second Solomon, uniting all Israel around the Temple in Jerusalem. But the hint of Hezekiah’s interest in the territories of the former kingdom of Israel may not be a total invention, for Judah could now claim its leadership over the entire land of Israel. Even if so, however, claims are one thing and achievable goals are quite another. In the event, Hezekiah’s revolt against Assyria proved to be a disastrous decision. Though untested, Sennacherib, at the head of a massive Assyrian invasion force, more than adequately proved his battlefield talents. King Hezekiah of Judah was no match for him. What Really Happened? Sennacherib’s Violent Revenge Despite the biblical report of the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem, contemporary Assyrian records provide a very different picture of the outcome of Hezekiah’s revolt. The Assyrian account of Sennacherib’s devastation of the Judahite countryside is presented concisely and coldly: As to Hezekiah, the Judahite, he did not submit to my yoke. I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered them by means of well-stamped earth ramps, and battering rams brought thus near to the walls combined with the attack by foot soldiers, using mines, breeches as well as sapper work. I drove out of them 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered them booty. Himself, I made prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were leaving his city’s gate. His towns which I had plundered, I took away from his country and gave them over to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and Sillibel, king of Gaza. Thus I reduced his country, but I still increased the tribute. Though the stated number of captives may be a major exaggeration, the combined information from the Assyrian records and archaeological excavations in

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Judah adequately confirm the intensity of the systematic campaign of siege and pillage—first through Judah’s richest agricultural areas in the Shephelah foothills and then up toward the highland capital. The devastation of the Judahite cities can be seen in almost every mound excavated in the Judean hinterland. The grim archaeological remains mesh perfectly with Assyrian texts recounting, for example, the conquest of the prominent Judahite city of Azekah, which was described as being “located on a mountain ridge, like pointed iron daggers without number reaching high to heaven.” It was taken by storm, pillaged, and then ravaged. This was not haphazard violence, meant only to terrify the Judahites into submission. It was also a calculated campaign of economic destruction, in which the sources of wealth of the rebellious kingdom would be taken away. The city of Lachish, located in Judah’s most fertile agricultural area, was the single most important regional center of royal Judahite rule. It was the second most important city in the kingdom after Jerusalem. The pivotal role it played in the events of 701 BCE is hinted at in the biblical text (2 Kings 18:14,17; 19:8). Sennacherib’s attack was meant to bring about its utter destruction. A vivid illustration of the Assyrian siege of this city is preserved in extraordinary detail on a large wall relief that once decorated the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, in northern Iraq (Figure 28). This relief, about sixty feet long and nine feet high, was discovered in the 1840s by the British explorer Austen Henry Layard and was subsequently shipped to London, where it remains on display in the British Museum. Its original location on the wall of an inner chamber of Sennacherib’s palace indicates the importance of the events it depicts. A short inscription reveals its subject: “Sennacherib, king of all, king of Assyria, sitting on his throne while the spoil from the city of Lachish passed before him.”

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Figure 28: An Assyrian relief from the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, depicting the Conquest of the City of Lachish. Drawn by Judith Dekel; courtesy of Professor David Ussishkin, Tel Aviv University. This impressive Lachish relief narrates the whole horrible course of events in a single frame. It shows Lachish as an extremely well fortified city. A ferocious battle is being fought near the walls. The Assyrians constructed a siege ramp, on which they advance their heavily armored battering rams toward the fortification walls. The defenders of Lachish fight back desperately, trying to prevent the battering rams from approaching the wall. They hurl torches in an attempt to set the war machines on fire, while the Assyrians pour water on the battering rams. Assyrian archers standing behind the battering rams barrage the walls with arrows while the Judahite defenders shoot back. But all of the city’s defensive preparations—and all the defenders’ heroic fighting—are in vain. Captives are taken out of the gate, some of them dead, their lifeless bodies hoisted on spears. Booty is taken from the city, including the sacred vessels of its religious rituals. All the while Sennacherib sits with impassive majesty on a throne in front of his royal tent, not far from the Assyrian camp, overseeing the procession of captives and plunder taken from the houses and public buildings of the rebellious community. Some scholars have questioned the accuracy of the details of this relief and have argued that this is self-serving imperial propaganda, not a reliable record of what happened in Lachish. But there is hardly a doubt that the relief deals with the

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specific city of Lachish and with the specific events of 701 BCE. Not only are the topography of the city and the local vegetation represented accurately; it is even possible to identify the precise vantage point of the artist who made the sketch for the relief. Furthermore, the archaeological excavations at Lachish have provided details about the location of the gate and the nature of the fortifications and the siege system that confirm the accuracy of the relief. The British excavations at Lachish in the 1930s and the renewed dig of David Ussishkin on behalf of Tel Aviv University in the 1970s revealed independent dramatic evidence for the last hours of this great Judahite fortress. The Assyrian siege ramp, which is depicted in the relief, was identified and excavated. It is the only surviving example of such a siege structure from anywhere in the former lands of the Assyrian empire. It is not surprising that it was built on the most vulnerable side of the mound, where it is connected to a ridge; on all other sides the slopes are too steep to allow the construction of a ramp and the deployment of battering rams. The archaeological finds from inside the city offer evidence for the desperate actions of the defenders. They erected a huge counter–ramp directly opposite the Assyrian ramp, but this last attempt by the defenders to prevent the Assyrians from breaching the wall was a failure. The city was burnt to the ground. Other finds provide evidence for the fierceness of the battle. Hundreds of arrowheads were found at the foot of the city wall. Perforated boulders, some of them with remains of burnt ropes in the holes—apparently flung from the ramparts by the defenders in an attempt to destroy the siege machines—were retrieved near the point of the assault on the wall. A mass burial of about fifteen hundred people—men, women, and children—was uncovered in the caves on the western slopes of the mound, mixed with late eighth century pottery. Another Biblical Perspective Though the second book of Kings concentrates on the saving power of YHWH over Jerusalem and only laconically mentions the capture of “all the fortified cities of Judah” (2 Kings 18:13), other biblical texts disclose the horrors of the Assyrian campaign for those Judahites unfortunate enough to have been victims of Sennacherib’s rampage in the countryside. These passages are to be found not in the Deuteronomistic History but in the prophetic works. Two contemporary witnesses —the prophets Isaiah and Micah—speak of the fear and grief that paralyzed Judah in the wake of the Assyrian advance. Isaiah, who was in Jerusalem at the time of the siege, vividly describes a military campaign that hit the area north of Jerusalem

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(10:28–32). And Micah, who was a native of the Shephelah from a town not far from Lachish, describes the numbed shock of the homeless survivors, blaming their misfortune on their own idolatry: Tell it not in Gath, weep not at all; in Beth-le-aphrah roll yourselves in the dust. Pass on your way, inhabitants of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame; the inhabitants of Zaanan do not come forth; the wailing of Beth-ezel shall take away from you its standing place. For the inhabitants of Maroth wait anxiously for good, because evil has come down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem. Harness the steeds to the chariots, inhabitants of Lachish; you were the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel. (MICAH 1:10–13) The blow suffered by the Shephelah is also made abundantly clear in the results of archaeological surveys, which show that the region never recovered from Sennacherib’s campaign. Even in the following decades, after the partial revival of Judah, the Shephelah was still sparsely inhabited. Both the number of sites and the built-up area—on which all population estimates are based—shrank to about a third of what they were in the late eighth century. Some of the main towns were rebuilt, but many small towns, villages, and farmhouses were left in ruins. This fact is particularly significant when we remember that in the eighth century, prior to the Assyrian assault, the population of the Shephelah numbered about fifty thousand, almost half the population of the entire kingdom. Faith in YHWH alone did not save Hezekiah’s territory against the wrath of the Assyrians. Large parts of Judah were devastated and valuable agricultural land in the Shephelah was given by the Assyrian victors to the city-states of Philistia. Judah’s territory shrank dramatically, Hezekiah was forced to pay a heavy tribute to Assyria, and a significant number of Judahites were deported to Assyria. Only Jerusalem and the Judean hills immediately to the south of the capital were spared. For all the Bible’s talk of Hezekiah’s piety and YHWH’s saving intervention, Assyria was the only victor. Sennacherib fully achieved his goals: he broke the resistance of Judah and subjugated it. Hezekiah had inherited a prosperous state, and Sennacherib destroyed it. Picking Up the Pieces In the aftermath of the failed rebellion against Assyria, Hezekiah’s policy of religious purification and confrontation with Assyria must have seemed to many to have been a terrible, reckless mistake. Some of the rural priesthood may even have argued that it was, in fact, Hezekiah’s blasphemous destruction of the venerated high places and his prohibition against worshiping Asherah, the stars, moon, and other deities along

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with YHWH that had brought such misfortune on the land. Having mainly the literature of the YHWH-alone camp, we do not know what their opponents might have claimed. What we know is that in 698 BCE, three years after Sennacherib’s invasion, when Hezekiah died and his twelve-year-old son Manasseh came to the throne, the religious pluralism in the (now considerably shrunken) countryside of Judah was restored. The second book of Kings reports it in great denunciatory outrage. For the Deuteronomistic historian, Manasseh was more than a run-of-the- mill apostate. He was described as the most sinful monarch that the kingdom of Judah had ever seen (2 Kings 21:3–7). In fact, the book of Kings puts the blame for the “future” destruction of Jerusalem on his head (2 Kings 21:11–15). There was obviously something more than theological considerations behind this switch in official religious policy. The kingdom’s survival was in the hands of Manasseh and his closest advisers, and they were determined to revive Judah. That necessitated restoring a certain measure of economic autonomy to the countryside —still the greatest potential source of the kingdom’s wealth. The revival of the once devastated rural areas could not be achieved without the cooperation of the networks of village elders and clans—and that meant allowing the worship at long- venerated local high places to resume. In a word, the cults of Baal, Asherah, and the host of heaven returned. Even as he was compelled to be an obedient vassal, Manasseh apparently calculated correctly that the economic recuperation of Judah could be seen to be in the interest of Assyria. A prosperous Judah would be loyal to the empire and serve as an effective buffer against Egypt—Assyria’s archenemy in the south. And the Assyrians may even have granted a contrite Judah most-favored-vassal status: a seventh century text reporting tribute given by south Levantine states to the Assyrian king indicates that Judah’s tribute was considerably smaller than that paid by the neighboring, poorer Assyrian vassals Ammon and Moab. Manasseh seems to have justified his Assyrian overlords’ faith in him. A document from the time of Esarhaddon, who replaced Sennacherib on the throne in Assyria, mentions Manasseh among a group of twenty-two kings who were ordered to send building materials for a royal project at Nineveh. The next Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, listed Manasseh among the kings who gave him gifts and helped him to conquer Egypt. Though the second book of Chronicles informs us that at a certain moment in his reign Manasseh was imprisoned by the Assyrians in Babylon (2 Chronicles 33:11), the circumstances and even historical reliability of that reported imprisonment are the subject of continuing debate. What is clear is that his long reign—fifty-five years—was a peaceful time for Judah. The cities and

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settlements established during his reign survived until the final destruction of Judah in the following century. Archaeologically, it is not easy to distinguish the finds of the early seventh century from those of the second half of that century (see Appendix E). Yet we know enough to argue that with the widespread devastation in the Shephelah (and the annexation of large tracts by the Philistine cities), the population of the Judean highlands grew. This was almost certainly due to the arrival of displaced Judahite refugees who fled from the desolated regions of the Shephelah. Agricultural production intensified around the capital. A dense system of farmsteads was built around Jerusalem and south of it, near Bethlehem, in the seventh century BCE. They were probably aimed at feeding the growing population of the metropolis. But the most fascinating development in Judah during the seventh century is the demographic expansion of Judahite settlements into the arid zones to the east and south (Figure 27, p. 258). In the Judean desert, which was empty of permanent settlement during the eighth century, something extraordinary happened in the following decades. In the seventh century, groups of small sites were established in every ecological niche that was slightly better suited for cultivation than the rest of the desert: in the Buqeah valley halfway between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, near Jericho, and along the western coast of the Dead Sea. In the Beersheba valley the number of sites grew far beyond that of the previous period. Between the eighth and the seventh centuries the built-up area and thus the population in this region grew by ten times. Could this development be related to Manasseh’s policies? That seems very likely. It is clear that until Sennacherib’s campaign, the economy of the Judahite kingdom was well balanced by the different ecological niches of its territory: olive and vine orchards were grown mainly in the hill country, grain was grown primarily in the Shephelah, and animal husbandry was practiced mostly in the desert fringe in the south and east. When the Shephelah was handed over to the Philistine city-states, Judah lost its rich grain-producing lands in the west. At the same time the population that had to be fed in the remaining parts of the kingdom grew significantly. These pressures probably drove part of the population of Judah to the marginal areas of the kingdom, in a desperate attempt to compensate for the loss of the rich farmland of the Shephelah. Indeed, the exploitation of the arid zones could solve the problem. Estimates of the agricultural potential of the Beersheba valley in antiquity suggest that if production there was well organized, it alone could have supplied up to one quarter of the overall grain needs of Judah. But this could not have been done on such a large scale without the assistance of the state. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the expansion into

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the arid zones was inspired if not actually directed by Manasseh’s new political and economic policies. Arabian Caravans and Olive Oil Manasseh’s program went far beyond subsistence. He was intent on integrating Judah into the Assyrian world economy. The two main economic activities of Assyria in and around the region of Judah were trade in exotic luxury goods and incense from Arabia and the mass production and distribution of olive oil. The Arabian trade was one of the main economic interests of Assyria and there is hardly a doubt that from the late eighth century it provided the empire with significant revenues. Assyria accordingly had a strong interest in the security of the desert roads leading northward from the Arabian peninsula to their termini on the Mediterranean coast. The Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III counted Gaza, the traditional terminus of the desert roads, in one of his triumphal inscriptions “as the custom-house of Assyria” and he set his officials there to collect duties from the harbor, which served as an outlet for the overland caravan routes. Sargon II declared that he opened the border of Egypt to trade and mingled Assyrians and Egyptians. A number of Assyrian forts and administrative centers have indeed been uncovered in different places in the southern coastal plain, and a large fortified site, with remains of storehouses, has been excavated on the coast south of Gaza. The assemblage of animal bones excavated from Tell Jemmeh, another site near Gaza, shows a dramatic increase in the number of camels in the seventh century. A study of the bones by archaeozoologist Paula Wapnish suggests that these camels—all of mature age and therefore not part of a natural, locally raised flock—were probably used in the caravan trade. The southernmost territories still controlled by the kingdom of Judah in the Beersheba valley, the Edomite highlands, and the southern coastal plain contained some of the most important caravan routes. They were areas that experienced unprecedented demographic growth in the seventh century. The first widespread occupation of the Edomite plateau took place at this time, under Assyrian domination. In fact, Edom emerged only then as a fully developed state, as a result of these developments. The rich and varied archaeological finds from the vast area between Edom and Philistia indicate that Assyrians, Arabs, Phoenicians, and Edomites were involved in this thriving commercial activity. Judah under Manasseh was also a prominent participant. The wave of settlement in the Beersheba valley should be understood

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on this background. Judah may have been expanded even farther south along the trade routes. Two large seventh century forts have been excavated in the deep desert. The first is Kadesh-barnea on the western margin of the Negev highlands, about fifty miles to the southwest of Beersheba. The site commands the largest oasis on the important trade road from southern Palestine to the head of the Gulf of Aqaba and onward to Arabia. The second fort has recently been excavated in Haseva, a site located about twenty miles to the south of the Dead Sea on another route to the south. The finds at the two forts led the biblical historian Nadav Naaman to suggest that both were built in the early seventh century BCE under Assyrian auspices with the assistance of the local vassal states—and were manned by troops from Judah and Edom. South Arabian inscriptions found in several sites in Judah supply conclusive evidence for the strong connections with Arabia at that time. This kind of evidence also comes from Jerusalem. Three ostraca with south Arabian script were uncovered in the city of David. Since they were carved on typical Judahite vessels—rather than on imported types—they probably attest to a resident Arabian population in Judah. And an otherwise typical seventh century Hebrew seal seems to carry a south Arabian name. In this connection several scholars have argued that Manasseh’s wife Meshullemeth was an Arabian woman. Could this have been a diplomatic marriage aimed at strengthening Judah’s commercial interests in the south? Could the Deuteronomistic tale of the queen of Sheba visiting Solomon in Jerusalem be inspired by the cultural contacts and economic ambitions of another Davidic king in the seventh century? Arabian contact was not the only widened economic horizon. The Assyrians also monopolized and developed Levantine olive oil production. Evidence for this comes from Tel Miqne, a site in the western Shephelah that is the location of ancient Ekron, one of the main cities of Philistia. A modest site in the centuries before the Assyrian takeover of the region, Ekron grew to be a huge olive oil production center in the early seventh century. Over a hundred olive oil presses were found there— more than in any other site in the history of the country. In fact, this is the most impressive olive oil production center known anywhere in the ancient Near East. The industrial zone covered about one-fifth of the area of the city. The annual capacity has been estimated at about a thousand tons. The Ekron oil was apparently transported to both Assyria and Egypt—the two lands lacking the environment to grow olive orchards and to produce their own oil. But Ekron itself is not located in the classical olive-growing country in the hills. In fact, it is situated in typical, flat grain-growing land. It was apparently chosen as the

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center of production because of its location on the main road network of the southern coastal plain, halfway between the olive regions of the hill country and the main distribution centers on the coast to the west. The groves that supplied the olives to the Ekron industry must have been located in the hill country of Judah and possibly also in the Assyrian province of Samaria to the north. As we have already mentioned, the seventh century marked the real industrialization of olive production in Judah and it was probably the major supplier of olives to the Ekron industry. The excavators of the site of Ekron—Trude Dothan, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Seymour Gitin of the Albright Institute—noting the significant numbers of typical Israelite horned incense altars in the buildings of the oil presses, have suggested that large numbers of Judahites might have been resettled in Philistia by Sennacherib as forced laborers. Thus another barrier—in however cruel and coldhearted a fashion—was broken between Judah and the outside world. All these active, centrally planned economic initiatives required a further centralization of the Judahite state. Large-scale cultivation of olives and grapes and their industrial products required facilities for storage, transport, and efficient distribution. Moreover, extensive settlement and cultivation in arid areas required long-range planning. It was necessary to store large quantities of surplus grain in good years and to distribute them from the centers in years of severe drought. The archaeological evidence supports the assumption of heightened government involvement in all phases of life in Judah—to the extent that the number of seals, seal impressions, administrative ostraca, and official weights in seventh century Judahite levels far exceed the quantities found before. Changing Fortunes The Assyrian century—from the last years of the rule of Ahaz to the days of Hezekiah and Manasseh—is a fascinating case of dramatic policy swings in Judah. The three kings—grandfather, father, and son—flip-flopped between defiance and engagement with the Assyrian authorities and between syncretistic and puritan religious policies. Their treatment by the biblical historian also reflects these changes, but from an entirely different perspective. Ahaz was described as an idolater who cooperated with the Assyrians. Hezekiah is the complete reverse. There were no mistakes in his reign, only merits. He was an ideal king, who cleansed Judah from all the transgressions of the past. And unlike his sinful father, who willingly subjected Judah to Assyria, Hezekiah fought bravely and threw off the

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yoke of Assyria. The Assyrians threatened Jerusalem, but YHWH delivered the city miraculously. The story ends with no hint of future subjugation to Assyria, and except for one verse, there is no word on the catastrophic results of the Assyrian campaign in the Judahite countryside. Manasseh is also a mirror image of his father, but this time a negative one. He is the ultimate apostate, who wiped out the reforms and brought back all the abominations of the past. What we get from the external sources and from archaeology is very different. The collapse of the northern kingdom raised dreams in Jerusalem of uniting the entire Israelite population under one capital, one Temple, and one dynasty. But in the face of the mighty Assyrians, there were only two options: forget the dream and cooperate with Assyria, or push for nationalistic policy and wait for the right moment to throw off the yoke of Assyria. High stakes call for extreme measures; the Assyrian century witnessed dramatic shifts between these two options. Ahaz was a cautious and pragmatic king who saved Judah from the terrible fate of Israel and led it to prosperity. He understood that the only way to survive was to ally with Assyria, and as a loyal vassal he gained economic concessions from his overlords, and incorporated Judah into the Assyrian regional economy. Ahaz reigned over a period of unprecedented prosperity in Judah, when it first reached the stage of fully developed statehood. But by allowing traditional religious practices to flourish, he gained the wrath of the Deuteronomistic historian. In his first years in power, Hezekiah had no choice but to follow in the footsteps of his father. But when the great Sargon died on the battlefield and Sennacherib came to power, Assyria faced rebellion in various parts of the empire. All of a sudden, the “restoration” of a Pan-Israelite state looked realistic, especially with the expected assistance from Egypt. Hezekiah launched a religious reform that served to justify the uprising and rouse the population to support it. But the revolt against Assyria proved to be a reckless decision that resulted in disaster. When Manasseh came to the throne, power in Jerusalem returned to the moderate camp. Since he was only twelve years old at that time, there can hardly be a doubt that the coup in Jerusalem was preplanned. Manasseh turned the wheel back to the days of Ahaz. His long rule marks a complete triumph of the pragmatic, syncretistic camp. He opted for cooperation with Assyria and reintegrated Judah into the Assyrian regional economy. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Judah started to recover from the trauma of Sennacherib’s campaign. The prophets and sages of the YHWH-alone movement must have been terribly frustrated at this turn of events. All the former achievements of their hero Hezekiah in destroying the sin of idolatry and challenging the foreign empire were wiped out

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—first by Sennacherib’s brutal armies and then by Hezekiah’s own son. If Hezekiah might have been considered Israel’s potential savior, his son Manasseh was the devil for them. There are indications in the biblical narrative that civil unrest occasionally flared up in Judah. The specific incidents behind the report that Manasseh “shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another” (2 Kings 21:16), are unknown, but we can imagine that the king’s opponents might have tried to seize power. Little wonder, then, that when the Deuteronomists won over the power in Judah a short while after Manasseh’s death and set out to write the history of the kingdom, they settled the account. They portrayed Manasseh as the wickedest of all kings and the father of all apostates.

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TABLE SEVEN

JUDAHITE KINGS FROM HEZEKIAH TO JOSIAH

KING:

Hezekiah

DATES*

727–698

BIBLICAL EVALUATION:

Righteous

BIBLICAL TESTIMONY:

Religious reform; rebels against Assyria; Jerusalem delivered

EXTRABIBLICAL EVIDENCE:

Sennacherib devastates Judah—annals and the Lachish relief in Nineveh

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE:

Jerusalem grows dramatically; a new wall in Jerusalem; the Siloam Tunnel; the Siloam cemetery; fortifications at Lachish; prosperity in the Beersheba valley; destruction in Lachish and other sites; evidence for literacy

KING:

Manasseh

DATES*

698–642

BIBLICAL EVALUATION:

Most wicked

BIBLICAL TESTIMONY:

Great apostate; sheds lots of innocent blood

EXTRABIBLICAL EVIDENCE:

Pays tribute to Assyria

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE:

Demographic growth in the Beersheba valley and Judean desert; construction of the KadeshKadeshbarnea fort? Judah takes part in olive oil production at Ekron; growing evidence of literacy

KING:

Amon

DATES*

641–640

BIBLICAL EVALUATION:

Bad

BIBLICAL TESTIMONY:

Killed in a coup

KING:

Josiah

DATES*

639–609

BIBLICAL EVALUATION:

Most righteous

BIBLICAL TESTIMONY:

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Great religious reform; takes Bethel; killed by Pharaoh Necho

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE:

Continuous prosperity in Beersheba valley; recovery in the Shephelah; aniconism in seals and seal impressions * According to the Anchor Bible Dictionary

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Nearing the Climax Manasseh’s success in transforming Judah from the wasteland left by Sennacherib into a highly developed state in the Assyrian empire brought great wealth to some and social dislocation and uncertainty to many. As Baruch Halpern first pointed out, with the influx of refugees from the north after the fall of Samaria, the reorganization of the countryside under Hezekiah, and the second torrent of refugees from the desolation of the Shephelah by Sennacherib, many of the traditional clan attachments to particular territories had been forever destroyed. In the countryside, economies of scale—needed to produce the enormous quantities of olives for pressing and grain for distribution—benefited those who could organize the machinery of trade and agricultural production far more than those who labored in the fields. To whatever extent the surviving clans could claim an unbroken chain of inheritance on their fields, villages, and hilltops, the effects of war, population change, and intensified royal economic planning may have encouraged many to dream of a past golden age—real or imagined—when their ancestors were settled securely in well-defined territories and enjoyed the divine promise of eternal peace and prosperity on their land. Soon will come the climax of the story. Manasseh died in the year 642 BCE and was succeeded by his son Amon. According to the second book of Kings, Amon “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, as Manasseh his father had done” (2 Kings 21:20). Within two years a coup d’état broke out in Jerusalem, during which Amon was assassinated. In horror, the “people of the land”—apparently the social and economic elite of Judah—slew the conspirators and placed Amon’s eight-year- old son Josiah on the throne. Josiah would reign in Jerusalem for thirty-one years and be praised as the most righteous king in the history of Judah, rivaling the reputation of even David himself. And during his reign the “YHWH-alone” camp would once more come into power. This time, too, their passionate religious convictions and single-minded vision of the power of YHWH to protect Judah and the Davidic dynasty against all earthly opponents would founder on the hard realities of history. But this time they would leave behind them a brilliant testament that would keep their ideas alive. Their great monument would be a timeless collection of Hebrew texts expressing their view of history and their hopes for the future. That collective saga would be the unshakable foundation for the Hebrew Bible we know today.