by
Damien
F. Mackey
King Jehoash of
Israel seems to fit better than his father, Jehoahaz, as the Ia’asu of Samaria referred to in the
Tell Rimah stele of Adad-Nirari III of Assyria.
Despite slight chronological queries, historians now tend
to favour Jehoash over Jehoahaz for the king of Samaria referred to in
Adad-Nirari III’s stele.
Stephanie Page
tells of the discovery of this now famous stele near Mosul (her p. 139) (http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4199848.pdf):
A STELA OF
ADAD-NIRARI III AND NERGAL-ERES FROM TELL AL RIMAH
A STELA of Adad-nirari III was
found during the eventful season of Spring I 1967 at Tell al Rimah. It stood in
position inside the cella of a Late Assyrian shrine, set beside the podium, a
placing that is unparalleled among the find spots of other royal stelae.' It
was inscribed on the face with twenty-one lines, of which nine had been
deliberately erased in antiquity; the writing ran across the skirt of the king,
who was sculptured upon it slightly less than life-size, but not over the frame
or sides of the stone (see Plate XXXVIII). The stela is 1.30 m. high and
measures 0.69 m. in width at the base; it is parabolic in shape. It is made
from a single slab of hard grey, crystalline "Mosul marble", in an
excellent state of preservation. No traces of paint were visible on the surface
as it was unearthed.2 ….
[End of quote]
From a linguistic point of view, I would agree with Page’s
identification of the Ia’asu of Samaria
referred to on this stele with king Jehoash of Israel, rather than Jehoahaz,
who may fit more precisely in terms of the conventional chronology (but see
below).
Following on from my new identification of Shalmaneser III
of Assyria with Tiglath-pileser III/Shalmaneser V, I had, in my article:
Black Obelisk Decoded
identified the Omride, Iaui, of the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III with king Ahaz of
Judah, an Omride through Queen Athaliah, daughter of the Omride king Ahab.
Though, according to http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/athaliah-bible
Athaliah may even have been a daughter of Omri himself: “She is the daughter of
either Omri, king of Israel (2 Kgs 8:26; 2 Chr 22:2), or, more probably, of his
son King Ahab (2 Kgs 8:18; 2 Chr 21:6; the Jewish historian Josephus
cites this in Antiquities)…”.
King Ahaz’s name, as rendered in an inscription of Tiglath-pileser III’s, Iauhazi, accords perfectly with Iaui (Iau-haz-i) (http://libertyparkusafd.org/Burgon/cd-roms/124bible.html):
…. "Iauhazi [Jehoahaz, i.e.,
Ahaz of Judah." Tribute is mentioned as consisting of "gold, silver,
lead, iron, tin, brightly colored woollen garments, linen, the purple garments
of their lands ... all kinds of costly things, the products of the sea and the
dry land ... the royal treasure, horses, mules, broken to the yoke. . . ."
[Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, Vol. I, sec.
801.]
[End of quote]
Similarly,
Shalmaneser III had recorded: “I received from [Iaui]
silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden
tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king [and] spears”.
Now, as Stephanie Page will point out,
the name of the Samarian king on the Tell Rimah stele of Adad-Nirari III, Ia'asu,
fits the Israelite name, Jehoash, better than it does Jehoahaz as known from
the Assyrian inscriptions (op. cit., pp.
148-149):
The discussion of Ia'asu and his identity
is one both of chronology and of phonetics. The first link between Israelite and
Assyrian dating is the battle of Karkar, securely dated (by eponyms from the eclipse
of 763 B.C.) to the year 853, when Ahab opposed Shalmaneser III in the latter's
sixth year of reign. The second link is 841, when Jehu opposed the same king in
the latter's eighteenth year. Between the two, twelve years elapsed; similarly between
Ahab's death and Jehu's accession according to the Old Testament twelve years passed.31 Therefore 841
was the first year of Jehu's reign. Jehu, after twenty-eight years of reign,32 was succeeded
by Jehoahaz, whose reign of seventeen years33 thus dates from 814 to 798. (As E. R.
Thiele has shown, the year of Jehoahaz' death and Joash's accession was counted
twice by contemporary chronologers.34) According to this reckoning, Jehoahaz, son of Jehu,
is to be identified with the Ia-'a-su of the Rimah text, since he was king of Israel
in Samaria in 806 which is the date suggested above for the Rimah stela. But the
conclusion cannot rest without an examination of the phonetic evidence.
Mackey’s comment:
In my recent series on Shalmaneser III at Academia.edu I rejected these
supposed biblico-historical synchronisms between the Assyrian king and, now Ahab,
now Jehu, of Israel:
The supposedly mid-C9th BC Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III, lies at the
heart of one of the revision’s most awkward conundrums, now known as “The
Assuruballit Problem” [TAP].
If Shalmaneser III is to be removed from the mid-C9th BC biblico-historical
scene, then it will be necessary to show that the 'pins' ostensibly fastening
him to that era are insecure.
Shalmaneser III does not actually name his Damascene foe at Qarqar as
Ben-Hadad. And the widely held view that the A-ha-ab-bu Sir-’i-la-a-a of the
Kurkh Monolith inscription is king Ahab of Israel himself is in fact quite a
controversial one.
Shalmaneser III claimed in his Annals (Kurkh Monolith) to have campaigned
in his Year 1 against a Sapalulme the Hattinite, making it a very attractive
proposition-in a revised context-that this latter was none other than the great
Hittite emperor, Suppiluliumas of Hatti, a contemporary of Ben-Hadad I and
Ahab.
If king Jehu of Israel were indeed an Omride, as according to the usual
interpretation of Shalmaneser III’s Black Obelisk from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu),
then what can he be doing wiping out the House of Ahab, who was the very son of
the mighty Omri?
Ben-Hadad I of Syria and Ahab of Israel have been shown to be seriously in
doubt as likely opponents of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III at the Battle of
Qarqar (Karkar) in c. 853 BC (conventional dating), as recorded in the Kurkh
Monolith. And king Jehu of Israel has been shown to be a rather poor fit for
the Omride king mentioned in Shalmaneser III’s Black Obelisk – this Jehu (c.
841 BC, conventional dating) probably having been chosen as that Omride king
for chronological reasons in relation to the presumed activity of Ben-Hadad I
and Ahab some dozen or so years earlier. With these biblico-historical ‘pins’
now greatly loosened, one may consider the merits of prising Shalmaneser III
way from his customary era and vastly re-considering his history.
Here I raise the possibility that Shalmaneser III may belong to an era
about a century later than the mid-C9th BC, close to the time of the
neo-Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser III.
There are reasons to think that Shalmaneser III may sit more comfortably in
the mid-C8th BC. If so, an ideal alter ego for him, to begin with, would be the
same named Shalmaneser V, a king of purportedly great deeds, but so poorly
attested historically.
In order to strengthen my previous suggestion, that a revised Shalmaneser
III could find his alter ego in the same named Shalmaneser V, of the C8th BC,
it would be necessary to accommodate in the later period, not only Shalmaneser
III, but also his fellow dynasts.
Shalmaneser III, now (in this series) moved down to the C8th BC, matches
Shalmaneser V in name, in historical era, and in certain of his deeds-but not
in reign length, with the 35 years attributed to Shalmaneser III far
outweighing the mere 5 years attributed to Shalmaneser V. However, Shalmaneser
V's years and deeds can be-as according to this series-supplemented by those of
his alter ego, Tiglath-pileser III.
Stephanie
Page continues:
When a West Semitic or Hebrew word is written
in cuneiform Akkadian, there are certain consonantal changes that occur regularly.
One of these changes is from Hebrew shin to Akkadian s, as in the following examples, which date
from the ninth to seventh centuries B.C.
Sa-me-ri-na 
A-u-si- 'i 
La-ki-su 
Ur-sa-li-mu 
I cannot find an example where that change does not occur.35
Another regular rule is that the z in a Hebrew word
remains z when it is written in Akkadian, in cases where cuneiform is not
ambiguous. The za sign can also be read ṣa, the az sign
aṣ
A third piece of evidence
is that during Tiglath-Pileser III’s reign, king Jehoahaz of Judah was spelt in
Akkadian Ia-u-ḫa-zi.
These three factors are a strong influence
against identifying Ia-'a-su on the Rimah stele with Jehoahaz son of Jehu,
despite the chronological evidence. [sic]
The
name Jehoash, abbreviated to Joash for both the king of Judah and the king of Israel
who bore that name, is therefore a more convincing candidate for Ia'asu. Not only
does the sibilant behave according to rule, but also the he rightly disappears
in Akkadian, whereas a heth would have stood firm. ….
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