by
Damien F. Mackey
Introduction
Neriglissar was a King of Babylon who reigned for some years (Flavius Josephus
gives an incredible “40 years”) after the demise of Nebuchednezzar’s evil son,
Amēl-Marduk.
Yet there do not appear to be any statues or depictions of Neriglissar qua
Neriglissar.
Thus he joins my growing list of those whom I have called ‘camera-shy’
rulers:
More ‘camera-shy’ ancient potentates
(9) More
'camera-shy' ancient potentates
in
need of one or more alter egos.
In
this article I shall be suggesting a few such alternative identities for King Neriglissar.
That King Amēl-Marduk of Babylon
was the same as King Belshazzar of Babylon has hopefully become fully apparent
from certain compelling parallels that I have been able to draw in this connection
in my recent article:
Sixty-two
years of Darius, who was Cyrus ‘the Great’
(9) Sixty-two
years of Darius, who was Cyrus 'the Great'
in
which I also re-state my view that Darius the Mede, so relevant to this present
paper, was the same as King Cyrus ‘the Great’.
Now we know from Daniel
5:30-31 that Darius the Mede directly replaced – {the biblical text does not go
so far as to say that Darius personally killed him} - the assassinated Chaldean
king, Belshazzar, son-successor of Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’.
That would mean that
Neriglissar, who replaced (killed?) Amēl-Marduk, was Darius, and must therefore have
been by birth a Mede (cf. Daniel 5:31).
How does that work?
Median influence
at court of Babylon?
The Medes and their kingdom
have been very difficult to pin down.
One reason why is because:
Medo-Persian history has no adequate archaeology
(4) Medo-Persian history has no
adequate archaeology
Not entirely surprising, that,
because we have been looking for Medo-Persia in quite the wrong part of the
ancient world.
We should actually have been
scouring Anatolia for the right location of Media, according to Richard
Erickson (2020):
A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY
(4) A PROBLEM IN CHALDAEAN AND
ELAMITE GEOGRAPHY
Figure 8 – Elamite Regions and Associated States
and not east of the Tigris
River where we have been accustomed to looking for Media.
The Book of Tobit precisifies for
us where lay the land of Media:
Geography of the Book of Tobit presents a
fascinating challenge
(4) Geography of the Book of
Tobit presents a fascinating challenge
The Book of Daniel, for its
part, introduces us to one “Ashpenaz, who was in charge of [King
Nebuchednezzar’s] court officials”, and who figures prominently in Daniel 1. According
to the following explanation, Ashpenaz may have been an “Iranian” name –
meaning Medo-Persian, but see the above geographical corrections.
(2) An Iranian in the Court of King Nebuchadnezzar | Alan Millard –
Academia.edu
“In his essay, ‘Achaemenid History and the Book Of Daniel … Terence
commented on the man to whom Nebuchadnezzar entrusted Daniel and his
friends after they were deported from Jerusalem. This man bore the title rab
sārîsîm, traditionally rendered ‘chief eunuch’, by most English
translations, but now to be understood as ‘chief of court officials’ (rab ša
rēši) from the evidence of extensive Babylonian sources. …. In the ‘ration
lists’ from Nebuchadnezzar’s palace … a ša rēši is responsible for
issues to foreigners, while among the recipients are foreign ša rēšis.
The highest officer was given the responsibility for the selected Hebrew
youths.
Daniel 1B gives the officer’s name as Ashpenaz. That, Terence wrote,
‘seems to be an Iranian name, which would be unusual in the sixth century
BC’.”
We read about this Ashpenaz as
follows (Daniel 1:3-20):
The
king commanded Ashpenaz, who was in charge of his court
officials, to choose some of the Israelites who were of royal and
noble descent— young men in whom there was no physical defect and who were
handsome, well versed in all kinds of wisdom, well educated and
having keen insight, and who were capable of entering the king’s
royal service—and to teach them the literature and language of the
Babylonians. So the king assigned them a daily
ration from his royal delicacies and from the wine he himself drank.
They were to be trained for the next three years. At the end of that time
they were to enter the king’s service. As it turned out, among these
young men were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and
Azariah. But the overseer of the court officials renamed them.
He
gave Daniel the name Belteshazzar, Hananiah he named Shadrach, Mishael he
named Meshach, and Azariah he named Abednego.
But
Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the
royal delicacies or the royal wine. He therefore asked the overseer of the
court officials for permission not to defile himself. Then God made the
overseer of the court officials sympathetic to Daniel. But
he responded to Daniel, ‘I fear my master the king. He is the one who has
decided your food and drink. What would happen if he saw that you looked
malnourished in comparison to the other young men your age? If that
happened, you would endanger my life with the king!’ Daniel then
spoke to the warden whom the overseer of the court officials had appointed
over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: ‘Please test your servants
for ten days by providing us with some vegetables to eat and water to
drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men
who are eating the royal delicacies; deal with us in light of what
you see’. So the warden agreed to their proposal and tested them
for ten days.
At
the end of the ten days their appearance was better and their bodies were
healthier than all the young men who had been eating the royal
delicacies. So the warden removed the delicacies and the wine from
their diet and gave them a diet of vegetables instead. Now as for
these four young men, God endowed them with knowledge and skill in all sorts of
literature and wisdom—and Daniel had insight into all kinds of visions and
dreams.
When
the time appointed by the king arrived, the overseer of the court
officials brought them into Nebuchadnezzar’s presence. When the king spoke
with them, he did not find among the entire group anyone like Daniel,
Hananiah, Mishael, or Azariah. So they entered the king’s service. In
every matter of wisdom and insight the king asked them about, he found
them to be ten times better than any of the magicians and astrologers that
were in his entire empire.
The name Ashpenaz is very much
like, I would suggest, the name of the Urartian king, and foe of the Assyrians,
Ishpuinas (or Ishpuini), who must have been a contemporary of Sargon II
(Sennacherib), who was also, as I have argued, Shamsi-Adad IV/V:
The C8th BC Shamsi-Adad
Biography of Ishpuini of Urartu
“Who is Ishpuini of Urartu?
Ishpuini was king of Urartu.
He succeeded his
father, Sarduri I, who moved the capital to Tushpa. Ishpuini conquered the Mannaean city
of Musasir, which was then
made the religious center of the
empire. The main temple for the war god Haldi was in Musasir. Ishpuinis and his nation were then attacked by the forces Assyrian King Shamshi-Adad
V. Ishpuinis fought and defeated Shamshi-Adad. Ishpuini was so confident in his power that he began using names meaning everlasting glory,
including, "King of the land of Nairi", "Glorious King",
and "King of the Universe".
Ishpuini was succeeded by his son, Menua”.
Brock Heathcotte may have cleverly
succeeded in connecting the Urartians with the Mitannians:
Mitanni and Urartu the same place: Heathcotte
(2) Mitanni and Urartu the same
place: Heathcotte
It remains to be determined
whether or not these - especially the Mitannians whom some revisionists have
identified with the Medes - can be fused together, and Ishpuinas (Ashpenaz?) be
found to have been a Mitannian/Median name.
It is most unlikely, though,
that Daniel 1’s Ashpenaz could be another name for our foreign (in Babylonia)
Darius the Mede, because, estimating from my article (above), “Sixty-two years
…”, Darius (Neriglissar) would have been only a teenager at the time, and so
hardly old enough, one would think, for King Nebuchednezzar to have entrusted him
with the responsibility of being “in charge of his court officials”.
Another thought is that
Ashpenaz was Astyages, the Median predecessor of (Darius) Cyrus according to Daniel
14:1 (Bel and the Dragon). Possible – though it would not appear to
accord with what tradition tells us about Astyages as King of the Medes.
Neriglissar
serving King Nebuchednezzar
Thanks to - presuming that it
is accurate - my recent article:
Adding Adad Nirari to Shalmaneser as Assyrian kings
needing to be re shuffled
(2) Adding Adad Nirari to
Shalmaneser as Assyrian kings needing to be re shuffled
we have now yet another alter
ego for the mighty Chaldean king, Nebuchednezzar, as Adad-Nirari, and,
thereby, another potential opportunity for identifying the king’s understudy,
Neriglissar.
He emerges there, I think, in
the records of Adad-Nirari so called III, as Nergal-ēreš.
Karen Radner refers to this
Nergal-ēreš in relation to:
The Stele of Adad-nērārī III and Nergal-ēreš from Dūr-Katlimmu (Tell Šaiḫ Ḥamad)
The Stele of
Adad-nērārī III and Nergal-ēreš from Dūr-Katlimmu
(Tell Šaiḫ Ḥamad)
December 2012
Altorientalische Forschungen 39(2):265-277
“A Neo-Assyrian royal stele from Dūr-Katlimmu, modern Tell Šaiḫ Ḥamad in Syria, bears two
cuneiform inscriptions, one in the name of Adad-nērārī III of Assyria (r. 810–783 BC), the
other in the name of Nergal-ēreš, governor of the Assyrian province of Raṣappa. Both inscriptions concern the god Salmānu and his temple at Dūr-Katlimmu
for whose reconstruction and refurbishment Adad-nērārī and Nergal-ēreš take credit”.
Here, Nergal-ēreš is called the “governor of the Assyrian province of Raṣappa”, generally considered to be the biblical Rezeph (Isaiah 37:12),
the present day Reṣāfa/ Ruṣāfa.
This, apparently, was a
substantial territory:
According to Simo Parpola, “The Location of
Raṣappa”
((1) The Location of Raṣappa) (p. 398): “Nergal-ereš”
identifes himself as “governor of Raṣappa, Lāqê,
Ḫindānu,
Anat, Sūḫu
and Aššur-aṣbat, and then lists a total of
331 towns and settlements founded by him at the behest of Adad-nerari III in
middle Euphrates, lower Khabur and Sinjar”.
Now, switching to the
historical Old Testament, and to the bureaucracy of Nebuchednezzar, we most
likely find the highly influential Nergal-ēreš in Nebuchednezzar’s governor,
Nergal-sharezer.
He is designated there, in
Jeremiah 39:3, as “governor of Sinmagir”:
Julius A. Bewer wrote on this
for Union Theological Seminary, NY, in 1907:
Nergalsharezer
Samgar in Jer. 39:3 on JSTOR
NERGALSHAREZER SAMGAR IN JER. 39:3
In the inscription of Nebuchadrezzar II, published
by Eckhard Unger in the Theologische Literaturzeitung 50, No. 21 (Oct.
17, 1925), we find the name of the Babylonian general Nebuzaradan who carried
the Jews into captivity in 586 B.C.
(Jer. 39:9, 11, 40:1; II Kings 25:8, 10ff.) = Nabuzêriddinam with his title rab
nuḫtimmu, “chief baker”, corresponding to רַב־ טַבָּחִ֛ים in the
Bible at the head of the list of the high-court officials (mašennum).
This is in itself an item of such
historical importance that it makes the inscription very valuable for the Old
Testament student.
There is,
however, another name mentioned in the list which not only authenticates an Old
Testament name but solves an old crux interpretum in Jer 39:3. Nergalšarriuṣur,
one of the rabûti šar mât Akkadim, “the great ones of the land of
Akkad”, is the same as the Nergalsharezer in Jer. 39:3 who is there described
as one of the שָׂרֵי
מֶלֶךְ-בָּבֶל,
“the princes of the king of Babylon”.
After his name the Hebrew text reads סַמְגַּר-נְבוּ שַׂר-סְכִים רַב-סָרִיס. The
first word סַמְגַּר
has hitherto been quite unknown.
Giesebrecht1 saw that it did not belong to the following name, which
is to be corrected in accordance with Jer. 39:13 to נְבוּשַׁזְבָּן, but
to the preceding
נֵרְגַל שַׂרְאֶצֶר.
He assumed that there was a textual corruption in סַמְגַּר and
changed it to רַב-מָג, because
he regarded Nergalsharezer rab mag, who follows immediately upon
Nabushazban in Jer. 39:3 (as restored) and 39:13 as a parallel reading of
Nergalsharezer samgar.
We now know that סַמְגַּר is
quite correct, it is Sinmagir, the name of the city of Akkad of which
Nergalsharezer was governor, for the Nebuchadrezzar inscription has in the list
of the rabûti šar mât Akkadim as the second official: Nergal-šarri-uṣur
amêlu
Sinmagir. סַמְגַּר is
clearly the Hebrew equivalent of Sinmagir. The vowels are, of course, to
be disregarded, because the later Jews did not know how to pronounce the name
….
Are
Nergalsharezer of Sinmagir and Nergalsharezer rab mag the same or
different persons? Since only one Nergalsharezer is mentioned in Jer. 39:13, it
seems most reasonable to assume that there was originally only one in Jer. 39:3
also, i.e., Nergalsharezer of Sinmagir, who was rab mag at this time.
The original reading was then נֵרְגַל שַׂרְאֶצֶר
סַמְגַּר
to which the parallel reading intended to attach the title
רַב-מָג ….
[End of
article]
Whether or not Sinmagir is
compatible with the province of Rasappa cannot, at this stage, be determined,
because the location of Sinmagir does not appear to be clearly known.
Neriglissar as
king
A typical account of King
Neriglissar would go as follows:
“Neriglissar (akk-x-neobabyl|{{cuneiform|12| or,
meaning "Nergal, protect the
king") was the fourth [sic] king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from his usurpation of the throne in 560
BC to his death in 556 BC. Though unrelated to previous Babylonian kings,
possibly being of Aramean ancestry, Neriglissar
was a prominent official and general in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562
BC) and became even more influential through marrying one of Nebuchadnezzar's
daughters, possibly Kashshaya.
Nebuchadnezzar was initially
succeeded by his son, Amel-Marduk, but
Amel-Marduk's reign only lasted for two years before Neriglissar usurped the
Babylonian throne and put him to death.
Through his marriage to
Nebuchadnezzar's daughter, possibly significantly older than any of the old
king's sons, Neriglissar might have represented a less legitimate but more
wealthy and well-established faction of the royal family, even if he himself was
not part of this family.
The most well documented event
of Neriglissar's reign is his successful 557–556 BC campaign in Anatolia against
Appuwashu, king of a small kingdom in Cilicia. Neriglissar
successfully captured Appuwashu's capital, Ura, as well as
another city, Kirshu,
before conducting an amphibious attack against a nearby island and then laying
waste to mountain passes on the western border to Lydia. Shortly after
returning home to Babylonia victorious, Neriglissar died in April 556 BC. He
was succeeded as king by his son, Labashi-Marduk,
whose reign would only last for two or three months before being deposed and
killed in favour of Nabonidus”.
After the passing of the
Chaldean dynasty constituting Nebuchednezzar and Amēl-Marduk (Belshazzar), assassinated,
Darius the Mede (Cyrus ‘the Great’) - who can now only be the Neriglissar who
succeeded the assassinated Chaldean king, Amēl-Marduk - took the throne at the age of
62 (Daniel 5:30, 31).
Neriglissar is somewhat poorly
known in his capacity as King of Babylon, and it took me a long time to work out
how he fitted in to the whole scheme of things.
He fits in perfectly, I would
now suggest, as Darius the Mede.
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