Damien F. Mackey
Part One:
Jabin 3 of Hazor
If Hammurabi is to be re-dated to the era of David and Solomon, why is
the city of Hazor,
at this time, in the hands of one Jabin, a long-standing name for
Canaanite rulers of Hazor?
Whilst the conventional placement of Hammurabi of
Babylon and Zimri-Lim of Mari in the early-to-mid C18th BC is to be rejected, as
far as I am concerned, the relocation of these two kings to the time of Joshua
(C15th BC) would seem to be, in the case of the contemporaneous Jabin of Hazor,
at least, more appropriate than the era of David and Solomon (c. C10th BC) that
I have adopted following Dean Hickman (“The Dating of
Hammurabi”, Proc. 3rd Seminar of Catastrophism and Ancient
History, Uni. of Toronto, 1985, 13-28).
The reason for this is that there is evidence in the Mari
tablets at this time of a Jabin of Hazor, a third king of this name, following
on from the one at the time of Joshua (11:1) - let us call him Jabin (1) - and
a second one at the time of Deborah and Barak (Judges 4:2) - Jabin (2).
Jabin (3) now
emerges as Ibni-Addu (Akkadian) of
Hazor at the time of kings Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim.
That name (Ibni-Addu) would be, in Hebrew: Yabni-el. The very name emerges some
time later in the El Amarna [EA] records, variously as Yabniel and as Yapa-addu
(EA #97 and #98).
At first glance,
this situation (of a Jabin ruling over Hazor at this time) seems to be highly
problematical for Dean Hickman’s thesis – which, however, I have found to have
worked so well until now. See for example my article:
Hammurabi
and Zimri-Lim as Contemporaries of Solomon
Since the
‘destruction’ of Jabin of Hazor at the time of Deborah and Barak (Judges
4:23-24), the site should have fallen under the jurisdiction of Israel. And
that situation would have continued until, and including, the time of David and
Solomon – which is the era I consider (following Dean Hickman) to synchronise
with Hammurabi, Zimri-Lim, and the Mari archive.
So I must conclude
that the only hope of salvaging D. Hickman’s thesis is to identify Jabin (3) of
Hazor with King Solomon himself. And that would not seem to be immediately
promising, considering that the two predecessors of Jabin (3) of Hazor were
both hostile to Israel.
What would King
Solomon be doing adopting a name like Jabin, or Yabni?
To my own surprise,
there is a name amongst the seven legendary names of King Solomon:
“Midrashic Tradition tells us that King Solomon
appears in the Bible under several different names. His parents, King David and
Batsheba, named him Shlomo, while the prophet Natan named him Yedidyah (see II
Sam. 12:24-25). Actually, the name Shlomo was already given to him before his
birth in a prophecy to King David (see I Chron. 22:9). Two of the twenty-four
books in the Bible open by explicitly ascribing their authorship to Shlomo: Shir
HaShirim (Song of Songs) and Mishlei (Proverbs). A third book, Kohelet
(Ecclesiastes), ascribes itself to somebody named Kohelet, son of
David, king of Jerusalem. According to tradition, Kohelet is another
name for Solomon. So far, we have three names for King Solomon.
The early Amora, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi adds
another four names to this list. …” [,]
that can serve to bring a completely new perspective - and in favour of
Dean Hickman’s thesis - to the conventional view that Mari’s Jabin of Hazor
belonged to the C18th BC, and also to Dr. Courville’s view that this Jabin was
the one at the time of Joshua.
Part Two:
Solomon was also named Jabin
Could
King Solomon be the Ibni-Addu [or Jabin] king of Hazor
as
referred to in the Akkadian tablet ARM VI, 236?
To suggest that would seem to be a very long stretch
indeed, given that the Mari tablets are conventionally dated to c. 1800 BC, and
given also that the kings Jabin of Hazor were Canaanite kings inimical to the
Hebrews, whether of the Joshuan or the Judges eras.
What, however, makes far more plausible a connection
between the Solomonic era and a king referred to in the Mari tablets is Dean
Hickman’s thesis - previously considered - that the Mari archives, Zimri-Lim,
and king Hammurabi of Babylon, must be re-dated to the actual time of King
Solomon.
What makes even more possible a connection between
King Solomon and King Ibni (Yabni) of Hazor at this particular time
is the fact that Solomon had built up the important city of Hazor (I Kings 9:15):
“Here is the account of the forced labour King
Solomon conscripted to build the Lord’s Temple …
Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer”.
But, if Solomon were this Yabni, or Jabin, why would he not be mentioned as “of Jerusalem”?
Well, geographically the Mari tablets do not go
further SW than Hazor, which is in fact “the only Canaanite site mentioned in
the archive discovered in Mari …”:
Similarly, the foremost king of the
Syro-Mesopotamian region, the Amorite king, Iarim-Lim,
is connected with Aleppo. He, I have argued, was David and Solomon’s loyal
friend, referred to in the Bible as “Hiram king of Tyre” (e.g. I Chronicles
14:1).
It seems that kings of wide-ranging geographical
rule were referred to by fellow monarchs in relation to the closest of their
cities.
Hazor was, even as early as Joshua’s day, a city
of immense importance (Joshua 11:10): “The Head of
all those Kingdoms" (Joshua
11:10).
At a later time: “The Mari documents clearly
demonstrate the importance, wealth and far-reaching commercial ties of Hazor”. http://www1.chapman.edu/~bidmead/G-Haz.htm
There is a lot to recommend the impressive Late
Bronze Age Hazor as that which Solomon rebuilt: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:142088/FULLTEXT01.pdf
“Hazor’s role in an international Late Bronze
Age context has long been indicated but never thoroughly investigated. This
role, I believe, was more crucial than previously stressed. My assumption is
based on the very large size of this flourishing city which, according to
documents, possessed ancient traditions of diplomatic connections and trade
with Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age. Its strategic position along the
most important N-S and E-W main trade routes, which connected Egypt with
SyriaMesopotamia and the Mediterranean Sea with the city and beyond, promoted
contacts. Hazor was a city-state in Canaan, a province under Egyptian
domination [sic] and exploitation during this period, a position that also
influenced the city’s international relations. Methodologically the thesis
examines areas of the earlier and the renewed excavations at Hazor, with the
aim of discussing the city’s interregional relations and cultural belonging
based on external influences in architectural structures (mainly temples), imported
pottery and artistic expressions in small finds, supported by written evidence.
Cultic influences are also considered. Various origin and find contexts of the
imported and culturally influenced material can be recognized, which imply
three concepts in the field of interaction studies found within the framework
of a modified World Systems Theory and also according to C. Renfrew’s Peer
Polity Interaction model: 1) The northern influenced material at Hazor should
be understood in the context of cultural identity. It continues from earlier
periods and is maintained through external trade and the regional interaction
between Canaanite city-states in the north, resulting in certain cultural
homogeneity. 2) A centre-periphery approach is used to explain the special
unequal relation between Canaan and Egypt, in which Hazor might have possessed
an integrating semi-peripheral role, a kind of diplomatic position between
Egypt and its northern enemies. The city’s loyalty to Egypt is hinted at in
documents and in the increasing evidences of emulation in elite contexts
appearing on the site. 3)
A model of ‘interregional interaction networks’
describes the organization of the trade which provided certain consumers at
Hazor with the Aegean and Cypriote pottery and its desirable content.
The cargo of the Ulu Burun and Cape Gelidonya ships
and documents show that luxury items were transited from afar through Canaan.
Such long-distance trade / exchange require professional traders that
established networks along the main trade route …”.
King Solomon, like Ibni-Addu (Jabin) of Hazor had great need of tin, which had become
scarce in the Mediterranean at that time. Much has been written on this. For
example:
Did British-Israeli Tin
Trade Supply Solomon’s Temple?
Dr
James E. Patrick - 28 November 2019
Scientists
recently found evidence suggesting that Solomon’s Temple may have been built
with bronze made from British tin. Late Bronze Age tin ingots found in Israel
have been analysed and shown to have originated in the tin mines of Cornwall
and Devon.
The Bible
records Solomon sending trading ships to Tarshish, returning along the African
coast (1Kings 10:22). Jonah fled on such a ship away from Nineveh, confirming
that Tarshish was far to the west of Israel (Jonah 1:1-3). Ezekiel 27:12 later
tells us that the wealth of Tarshish was ‘silver, iron, tin and lead’. The
mineral-rich kingdom of Tartessos did exist in south-west Spain, but the tin it
traded was not indigenous, coming instead by sea from Cornwall. Britain had supplied
tin for bronze-making to all of Europe for centuries, hence its prosperity
during the Bronze Age. As such, Britain would have traded tin with Israel using
‘ships of Tarshish’.
But that
biblical detective work has now been confirmed with hard evidence. In the
second-millennium BC, known as the Bronze Age, the name itself illustrates how
widespread and important bronze was to societies all across Europe and the
Middle East. Bronze is made from copper and tin, but tin is very rare in Europe
and Asia, giving it a value and strategic importance in those times similar to
oil today. ….
Traditionally, one of King Solomon’s seven names was Bin, thought to indicate:
“Bin = "he who built the Temple".”
A thirteenth century AD scholar translated this Bin as Yabni, which is our Jabin.
Whatever reason had prompted Solomon to take (or be given)
this name - and it may have been simply because this had become the traditional
name for a ruler of the city of Hazor - the choice of name is a most fortuitous
one, for it perfectly describes the wise and discerning Solomon:
The
name Jabin comes from the verb בין (bin) meaning to
understand or have insight:
Jabin (Hebrew: יָבִין Yāḇîn) is a Biblical
name meaning 'discerner', or 'the wise'.
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