Monday, October 30, 2017

The Golden Sword of Marian Apocalypse (continued 12)


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Part Twenty Nine: “Elisha will kill” 
 (i)        An introductory Setting





by
Damien F. Mackey

When Elijah was hidden by the whirlwind, Elisha was filled with his spirit. As long as he lived, he was not afraid of rulers, and they could not make him do as they wished. Nothing was too hard for him. Even when he was dead, his body worked a miracle.
In life and in death he performed amazing miracles”.

Sirach 48:12-14




Era of Reform


Syro-Palestine has now emerged from the rampant Baalistic era of the House of Ahab, and Jezebel - when Ben-Hadad I was worshipping the Syrian god, Rimmon, a form of Baal-Hadad - and, more lately, from the Atonism of Egypt, to embrace a phase of reform and a return to traditional values. This turnaround was largely due to the heroic efforts of the fiery prophet Elijah, leading to the ‘Sinai Commission’ with its zealous triumvirate of Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha.
In historical records, Hazael is El Amarna’s (EA’s) Aziru - and also, I think, the Aziru of the Great Papyrus Harris. He would form a powerful alliance with the Hittite emperor, Suppiluliumas. Egypt’s dying Eighteenth Dynasty would also seek out the assistance of Suppiluliumas, asking him for one of his sons in marriage. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica’s account of it: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Suppiluliumas-I
“Suppiluliumas’ preeminent international reputation is shown by an event that occurred during his siege of Carchemish. Ankhesenamen, daughter of the Egyptian king Akhenaton and childless widow of his successor Tutankhamen, wrote to the Hittite king and asked for one of his sons in marriage. Under Egypt’s matrilinear succession laws, the new husband was to be the pharaoh. Suppiluliumas agreed and sent one of his sons, who on his way to Egypt was murdered by adversaries of the Queen’s plans. This outrage was probably never completely avenged, for Suppiluliumas soon died in a plague brought into central Anatolia by Egyptian prisoners of war”.
In Assyria, Assuruballit I was the “Great King”. He, though frowned upon by the contemporaray Kassite ruler of Babylon, Burnaburiash II, would turn out to be more than a handful for the Babylonians: http://enc.tfode.com/Assuruballit_I
“With Assyrian power firmly established, Ashur-uballit started to make contacts with other great nations. His messages to the Egyptians angered his Babylonian neighbour Burnaburiash II, who himself wrote to the Pharaoh: “with regard to my Assyrian vassals, it was not I who sent them to you. Why did they go to your country without proper authority? If you are loyal to me they will not negotiate any business. Send them to me empty-handed!”[1]
Yet the new Assyrian power could not be denied, and Burnaburiash even married the daughter of the Assyrian king. He was succeeded by his son from the Assyrian wife, prince Kara-hardash, but a revolt soon broke out that showed the unpopularity of the Assyrians. Asshur-uballit would not allow his grandson to be cast aside, and duly invaded Babylon. Because Kara-Hardash was killed in the rebellion, the Assyrians placed on the Babylonian throne a certain Kurigalzu, who may have been Burnaburiash's son or grandson. But this new puppet king did not remain loyal to his master, and soon invaded Assyria. Ashur-uballit stopped the Babylonian army at Sugagu, not far south from the capital Assur.[2]
However, Ashur-uballit I then counterattacked, and invaded Babylonia, appropriating hitherto Babylonian territory in central Mesopotamia, and forcing a treaty in Assyria's favour upon Karigalzu.[3]
Obviously, Assuruballit I of Assyria must have enjoyed quite a lengthy floruit, c. 1365-1330 BC in conventional terms.
Equally obvious, now, is that there is no room whatsoever in Assyria, in this revised era of history, for the similarly long-reigning Shalmaneser III (c. 859-824 BC, conventional dating).
The rise of king Jehu of Israel, who had killed king Jehoram of Judah’s son and successor, Ahaziah, had corresponded with the throne of Jerusalem’s falling into the hands of an evil  woman, Athaliah. But thanks to another woman, Athaliah’s sister, Jehosheba, the royal line of Judah would be saved (2 Kings 11:1-3):
“When Athaliah, the mother of King Ahaziah of Judah, learned that her son was dead, she began to destroy the rest of the royal family. But Ahaziah’s sister Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram, took Ahaziah’s infant son, Joash, and stole him away from among the rest of the king’s children, who were about to be killed. She put Joash and his nurse in a bedroom, and they hid him from Athaliah, so the child was not murdered. Joash remained hidden in the Temple of the Lord for six years while Athaliah ruled over the land”.
Since Queen Athaliah had Omride-Ahabic blood connections, then the ‘Sinai Commission’ still had its work cut out in the kingdom of Judah. For Queen Athaliah was as if ‘a second Jezebel’. She was “Jezebel revisited”, according to Robin Gallaher Branch, who considers Athaliah to have been Jezebel’s daughter: http://indieskriflig.org.za/index.php/skriflig/article/viewFile/448/341
“Does the adage “like mother, like daughter” hold for the queen of Israel and the queen of Judah? Is Athaliah Jezebel revisited? The texts invite a study of their similarities and differences. First, like her mentor or mother, Athaliah is a foreigner in Judah from Israel; Jezebel is a foreigner in Israel from Tyre. Both led their countries in the worship of Baal. Both fought openly with the followers of Yahweh”.
“Queen Athaliah is the only woman in the Hebrew Bible reported as having reigned as a monarch within Israel/Judah. 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), who ruled from 873 to 852 b.c.e. There is no evidence that she was the daughter of Ahab’s chief wife, Jezebel. Athaliah married Jehoram (reigned 851–843 b.c.e.) of Judah (2 Kgs 8:18; 2 Chr 21:6). After Jehoram’s death, their son Ahaziah reigned for one year, and “his mother was his counselor in doing wickedly” (2 Chr 22:3)”.
Although the work of reform in Judah would lag behind that being done in Syro-Israel by those bloody kings Hazael and Jehu, it would - when it occurred with the overthrow of Queen Athaliah - still precede by some decades the sweeping reforms of Horemheb in Egypt with the fall of Atonism. For Jehu and Athaliah would have come to their respective thrones (Israel and Judah) still during the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III ‘the Magnificent’ (at least as I have calculated it). That pharaoh’s long reign would see out the short “six-year” reign of Queen Athaliah in Jerusalem.
Akhnaton, if his reign had overlapped with that of his father, may have begun to reign at about the time of the fall of Queen Athaliah. If there was little or no co-regency, then Akhnaton’s presumed 17 years of reign would have outlasted that of Jehu, who reigned for 28 years (2 Kings 10:36). 



Part Twenty Nine: “Elisha will kill”

(ii) Was Elisha a Rechabite?






And [Elisha] said unto [Gehazi]: 'Went not my heart [with thee], when the man turned back from his chariot to meet thee? Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and men-servants and maid-servants?’.

2 Kings 5:26


Tracing Elisha

Before my attempting to identify further the prophet Elisha in my university thesis:

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background


I had finished off with this account of King Jehu’s slaughterings (Volume One, pp. 115-116):

Jehoram [king of Judah], who had initially slain his own brothers, was fortunate enough to have died before the fiery wrath that was Jehu was unleashed upon the House of Ahab and the worshippers of Baal. The dark era of Ahab and Jezebel, wrote Mauro with reference to 2
Kings: ….

... was brought to a bloody end by a ministry of judgment executed by the hand of Jehu. He made a thorough work of it, slaying Joram (Jehoram) and his mother Jezebel (2 Kings 9:21-37), and the seventy sons of Ahab (10:1-7) and “all that remained of the house of Ahab … until he left him none remaining” (10:11).

Moreover, when Jehu came to Samaria: “… he slew all that remained unto Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him, according to the saying of the Lord which He spake to Elijah” (10:17). And finally, he executed the vengeance of God upon the priests and worshippers of Baal (10:19-27)”.
Jezebel mentioned above by Mauro … I identified in her EA guise in the previous chapter as Baalat-neše (Sumerian: NIN.UR.MAH.MESH) …
….
This was how Jehu fulfilled his part of the Sinai commission. ….
…. But what were Hazael and Elisha doing while Jehu was so busy bloodying his chariot?
Well Hazael was doing exactly what Jehu was doing. Though the Bible, by way of narration, attributes the extermination of the House of Ahab entirely to Jehu, Hazael himself claimed the credit for it in the Tell Dan inscription, at least according to Finkelstein and Silberman: ….

… the “House of David” inscription, part of a black basalt monument, found broken and reused in a later stratum as a building stone. Written in Aramaic, the language of the Aramean kingdoms of Syria, it related the details of an invasion of Israel by an Aramean king whose name is not mentioned on the fragments that have so far been discovered. But there is hardly a question that it tells the story of the assault of Hazael, king of Damascus, on the northern kingdom of Israel around 835 BCE. … The most important part of the inscription is Hazael’s boasting description of his enemies: “[I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab] king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahaz]jahu son of [Jehoram kin]g of the House of David. And I set [their towns into ruins and turned] their land into [desolation]”.

Elisha the patriot had lived to see the fulfilment of his prophecy that Hazael would set on fire Israel’s strongholds (2 Kings 8:12).
Yet, in the biblical narration, the annihilation of the royal house is attributed entirely to Jehu. This is yet another example of ‘biblical perspective’ and selectivity. But it is all one and the same thing, as Jehu was the subordinate of Hazael; the former doing the dirty work whilst the latter gave the orders and gained the credit for it. ….
….
Finally, what about Elisha, who was commissioned to “kill” (יָמִ֥ית) those who would manage to escape the carnage wrought by Hazael and Jehu? Actually Elisha, as I believe, will also have a huge part to play, though generally later chronologically. In Chapter 10 (and beginning on p. 237) I shall be identifying the famous prophet in quite a new guise, as a law-enforcing … reformer-priest. Here as briefly as possible, to conclude this chapter, I should like to lay a foundation for this novel idea. ….

Having written this, I then went on to explore the possibility that Elisha may have been a Rechabite - which suggestion would seem to make more sense, now, in light of my recent consideration of Elisha’s mentor, Elijah (same as the prophet Micaiah), as having Rechabite or Nazirite characteristics, and being the leader, or “father”, of a prophetic brotherhood.
That these prophets were unusual types may be gleaned from Jehu’s and his military colleague’s comments about “the young prophet” who belonged to “the company of prophets” whom Elisha had sent to anoint Jehu as king of Israel (2 Kings 9:11):

When Jehu went out to his fellow officers, one of them asked him, ‘Is everything all right? Why did this maniac come to you?’
‘You know the man and the sort of things he says’, Jehu replied”.

“Maniac”, eccentric type!
According to Jewish traditions, this “young prophet” was Jonah himself {and: “It is believed by some of the Jewish Rabbins that Jonah is to be identified with the dead son of a widow from Zarephath who was raised to life by Elijah”: www.zianet.com/maxey/Proph8.htm} – all of this being a chronological impossibility, though, in my system.

This was what I previously wrote about what I considered to be Rechabite tendencies in Elisha, and about who else in the Bible I thought that he might be. And I am still inclined to stick with this one (op. cit., pp. 116-118):

Elisha the Rechabite

If one cares to read through the sequences of incidents in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles in which Elisha (when going under the name of ‘Elisha’) is involved, one will find that the multi-miracle-working prophet is never reported as having raised a sword in anger (as e.g. Samuel did against Agag, king of the Amalekites, 1 Samuel 15:33).
Was Elisha perhaps a pacifist, who despised violence?
One might think that that would not have been in keeping with the mentality of the age in which he lived. …. I am going to argue that the prophet Elisha had actually joined up with Jehu ….
….
Jehu, we later read, was on his way to Samaria, after his having just overseen (at Betheked of the Shepherds) the slaughter of forty-two relatives of king Ahaziah of Judah, whom he had previously slain (cf. 2 Kings 9:27 & 10:12-14). It was then that this meeting occurred (10:15-17):

When [Jehu] left there, he met Jehonadab son of Rechab coming to meet him; he greeted him, and said to him, ‘Is your heart as true to mine as mine is to yours?’  Jehonadab answered, ‘It is’. Jehu said, ‘If it is, give me your hand’. So he gave him his hand. Jehu took him up with him into the chariot. He said, ‘Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord’. So he had him ride in his chariot. When he came to Samaria, he killed all who were left to Ahab in Samaria, until he had wiped them out, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to Elijah.

Since this ‘Jehonadab son of Rechab’ is the only person actually named as a willing supporter of Jehu’s purge, then he stands as the most likely person to be Elisha, son of Shaphat, in Elisha’s rôle as terminator of Baalism. ….
Though this Jehonadab comes across in 2 Kings as being a very obscure figure, the Book of Jeremiah fortunately provides some important further detail about him. His loyalty and example were apparently still, about 250 years later in the days of Nebuchednezzar’s siege of Jerusalem, ruling the lives of those known as ‘Rechabites’. Thus the ‘Rechabites’ tell Jeremiah and those accompanying the prophet (Jeremiah 35:6-7):

‘We will drink no wine, for our ancestor Jonadab [Jehonadab] son of Rechab commanded us, ‘You shall never drink wine, neither you nor your children; nor shall you ever build a house, or sow seed; nor shall you plant a vineyard, or even own one; but you shall live in tents all your days, that you may live many days in the land where you reside’.’

The Rechabites then added (vv. 8-11):

‘We have obeyed the charge of our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, or our daughters, and not to build houses to live in. We have no vineyard, or field or seed but we have lived in tents, and have obeyed and done all that out ancestor Jonadab commanded us. But when king Nebuchedrezzar [Nebuchednezzar] of Babylon came up against the land, we said, ‘Come, let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and the army of the Arameans’. That is why we are living in Jerusalem’.

This explanation by the Rechabites accounts fully I suggest for a statement made by Elisha to his servant Gehazi, when severely reprimanding Gehazi for his having accepted presents from the willing Naaman, recently cured of his leprosy. Whilst Gehazi had received from Naaman only silver and clothing (2 talents of the former and two changes of the latter) (2 Kings 5:23), Elisha had taken the matter further, to include cultivated land, livestock and servants; none of which Gehazi - as far as we know - had actually received from Naaman (v. 26): ‘Is this a time to accept money and to accept clothing, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves?’
….
Elisha was apparently thus seriously reminding Gehazi of his ‘Rechabite’ calling.
Gehazi’s punishment for his infidelity was to be struck leprous, he and his descendants for ever (v. 27). No wonder the ‘Rechabites’ continued to hold firm down through the centuries!
So Jehonadab accompanied Jehu to Samaria where Jehu, by a ruse, killed all the Baal worshippers in their temple. Jehu and his men also burned the pillar of Baal and his temple, turning it into a latrine (2 Kings 10:18-27). But in all this there is no mention whatsoever of any actual physical involvement by Jehonadab himself. He was taken along by Jehu to witness the destruction of which he obviously approved, given that ‘his heart was true’ to Jehu’s. ….
Later Elisha, perhaps due to his having had the opportunity of observing at close hand the tactics of the brilliant Jehu, will himself assume a very positive rôle, to complete the Sinai commission. But even then he will act entirely as a leader giving orders, rather than as one personally involved in the slaughter. ….

Elisha, residing at Abel-meholah, would have lived in close proximity to Elijah at Jabesh-gilead (as discussed previously), and Elisha, too, like Elijah, may have been from (as also discussed) the large clan of Rechabiah (Rechab), a part-Kenite descendant of Moses himself.


As Joshua was to Moses, so was Elisha to Elijah, according to some commentators.
David J. Zucker has written along such lines:

Elijah and Elisha: Part I Moses and Joshua

Four hundred years after the time of Moses, Elijah the Tishbite (mid-ninth-century BCE) serves as the greatest religious leader and prophet of his generation, often patterning his acts on the deeds of Moses. Moses had mentored Joshua, who then succeeded him. Joshua replicated some of Moses' miracles. Elijah mentors Elisha ben Shaphat, who then succeeds him. Elisha in turn replicates some of the acts of Elijah, and by extension, some of the acts of Moses and Joshua.
ELIJAH AND MOSES
Although Elijah in the overall scheme of things is less significant than Moses, the relevant narratives in the Book of Kings reflect events in the life of the earlier leader. (1)
"The cumulative impact of these extensive Mosaic allusions is to present Elijah as a Moses redivivus. Both appear at crucial moments in the religious and political history of the people. Through Moses, [God] rescued the Israelites from Egyptian oppression and formed [them] as his people; through Elijah, [God] preserves the faithful members of his people amid paganism and persecution. Both are significant figures in the history of prophetism as well. [The] long line of [God's] intermediaries in Israel [began with Moses]; in Elijah that line produces its quintessential hero." (2)
Elijah, as Moses, is an important leader in his day. Each is a powerful figure, commanding respect from his peers. Each hears directly from God. Each spends significant time in the wilderness. Each has a distinctive appearance (Ex. 34:2935; II Kgs. 1:8).
There are many other parallels between Elijah and Moses.



Part Twenty Nine: “Elisha will kill”
(iii) Reform in Jerusalem





Jehoiada is left strangely without an introduction.


He would appear to be the chief of police,


but turns out to be a high priest in v. 8 (= 2 Kgs 11:9)”.



R. North


   


With the prophet Elisha’s identity extended to include the Rechabite patriarch, Jehonadab, I then continued on to take the matter even further in my university thesis:


 


A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah


and its Background




 


now focussing upon an extra biblical alter ego for the holy man-thaumaturgist.


Firstly, I wrote this introductory lead-up to it (Volume One, pp. 236-237):


 


Elisha’s Rôle in the Sinai Commission


 


I had previously, in Chapter 4 (section: “Elisha the Rechabite”, beginning on p. 116), proposed an identification of Elisha with Jehonadab the Rechabite, who had supported Jehu in his initial campaign against the worshippers of Baal; though seemingly as an onlooker.


….


All this had led me to ponder the biblical statement according to which ‘… Elisha shall kill’.


Who[m] in fact did he ‘kill’?


My suggestion is that, whilst it befell Jehu and Hazael to wipe out Baalism from Israel … it befell Elisha to eradicate Baalism from Judah. And his target would be queen Athaliah and her murderous régime (2 Chronicles 22:10); that other unsavoury woman at the time, according to the Bible, and possibly also a daughter of the notorious Jezebel …. Queen Athaliah had succeeded to the throne of Jerusalem at the same time as Jehu had become king of Israel (cf. 2 Kings 11 & 2 Chronicles 22:10-11; 23:1-21). It is with Athaliah that we can finish our account of the prophet Elisha.


The bloody Jehu had looked to make a start towards reforming the kingdom of Judah by his assassination of king Ahaziah and his relatives (2 Kings 10). But this violence would actually cause a backlash; for it now brought the vengeful Athaliah to the throne for six years. Thus Elisha, like Jehu, would have to contend with a fiery Baal-worshipping queen. For Jehu, she would be queen Jezebel …. For Elisha, she would be Jezebel’s daughter (or a near kinswoman of Jezebel’s), Athaliah; a veritable ‘clone’ of queen Jezebel.


Athaliah was also the mother of the slain king Ahaziah (2 Kings 11:1).


According to Liel, this Athaliah was actually the sole female EA correspondent, NIN.UR.MAH.MESH, whom I had identified instead with Jezebel: ….


 


What is UR.MAH? One attested meaning is “lion.” This is the source of the “Lady of Lions” reading. But MAH is the sumerogram for “holy”. The compound Sumerogram LU.MAH means “high priest,” where LU means “man”. UR means “city”. Thus, UR.MAH would be the city parallel of “high priest”. Since we don’t know whether the MESH applies to UR.MAH or only to MAH, this name could mean “Lady of the Holy Cities,” or “Lady of the City of Holies”. Do we know of a woman who ruled from a city that was considered holy around the same time as the two Jehorams and Jehu? Of course we do: the usurper Athaliah.


 


…. I am retaining my original view, though, that the only female EA correspondent was queen Jezebel ….


It would take Elisha some half a dozen years before he could even make a start. But he would finally triumph in Judah, I think, as the priest, Jehoiada - the very Jehonadab who had seen first-hand how the tactical genius Jehu had negotiated the Baal problem.


(Though I am not claiming a perfect name correspondence here, Jehoiada = Jehonadab).


The narrative of 2 Kings 11:1-3 tells that when queen Athaliah saw that her son Ahaziah was dead, “she set about to destroy all the royal family”. But Jehoshabeath (var. Jehosheba 2 Kings 11:2), Ahaziah’s sister and king Jehoram’s daughter – who we learn was also the wife of the priest, Jehoaida (2 Chronicles 22:11) - took the king’s son, the infant Joash (Jehoash), and hid him with his nurse in a bedroom (2 Kings 11:2), where “he remained with her for six years, hidden in the House of the Lord” (v. 3). “For a sixyear reign of terror, Athaliah held all the power in Judah”, according to North. ….


 


Jehoiada is, as already noted, something of a mystery.


He, though a priest - apparently even a high priest - does not appear to have been a Zadokite as would be expected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehoiada


 


“Jehoiada's name does not appear in the list of the Zadokite dynasty in 1 Chronicles 5:30-40 (6:4-15 in other translations).


Josephus mentions Jehoiada as "high priest in his Jewish Antiquites Book 9, Chapter 7,"[2] "How Athaliah reigned over Jerusalem for five [six] years, when Jehoiada the high priest slew her." However, Josephus does not mention a Jehoiada in his list of High Priests (Antiquities of the Jews 10:151-153).


According to the medieval chronicle Seder Olam Zutta (804 CE), Jehoiada was a High priest”.


 


This would suit my view (albeit tentative) that Jehoiada was, in fact, a priest-descendant of Moses, in the Kenite line of Rechabiah.



The Targum to 1 Chronicles 2:55 tells of, according to Beatrice Lawrence, a “Kenaz” connection with “the Levite families who came from the descendants of Moses” (Jethro and the Jews: Jewish Biblical Interpretation and the Question of Identity, pp. 147-148):



 


“[These are] the families of Rechabiah son of Eliezer son of Moses, the students of Jabez who is Othniel son of Kenaz. He was called Jabez because by his counsel an academy was set up for the students. They were called Tir'atim because their voices when they sang praises were like the trumpet blast. They were called Shim'atim for they were favorable to traditional law. …. They were called Sukkatim for they spoke with the spirit of prophecy. These are the Shalmaites, the descendants of Zipporah, who were connected with the Levite families who came from the descendants of Moses, the leader of Israel, whose merit was worth more to them than horseman and chariots”.


 


The prophet Elisha himself is first introduced as “Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him” (I Kings 19:19). Not unreasonably - considering an occupation with cattle - commentators identify this “Shaphat” with a commissioner, or overseer of “cattle”, who was a contemporary of King David’s, hence well before the time of the prophet Elisha (I Chronicles 27:29): “Shaphat son of Adlai [or Adli] was responsible for the cattle in the valleys”.


 


Some factors that I think might stand in favour of my extension of Elisha-Jehonadab into the high priest Jehoiada are that:


 


- it would account for whom Elisha (who so far had not killed anyone) might have killed as according to the “Sinai Commission”;


- it might explain also the emergence of a High priest, who was not actually a Zadokite (but a descendant of the great Moses himself);


- it might also explain why R. North, for instance, regards the priest Jehoiada as like “the chief of police” - an effect, I would suggest, of the “Sinai Commission”;


- it might connect in importance Elisha, descended from a king’s commissioner, “Shaphat” - and not in the least fazed by captain Na’aman’s status (2 Kings 5:1, 11): “Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. … ‘I thought, He will surely come out to me …’.” For (Sirach 48:12): “As long as [Elisha] lived, he was not afraid of rulers, and they could not make him do as they wished” - with a High Priest (Jehoiada) who was married to the daughter of a king of Judah;


- it would explain why Jehoiada’s son, Zechariah, was ranked among “the prophets” (Luke 11:50-51).


 


Added to all that, Elisha and Jehoiada were (i) contemporaneous and (ii) very long-living.


Elisha’s prophetic career ran from, say, “… four years before the death of Israel's King Ahab(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha) all the way down to the reign of king Jehoash of Israel: “Elisha's story is related in the Book of Kings in the Hebrew Bible (in Judaism, part of the Nevi'im). According to this story, he was a prophet and a wonder-worker of the Northern Kingdom of Israel who was active during the reign of Joram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Jehoash (Joash).[4


This span of time (following P. Mauro’s spacings in The Wonders of Bible Chronology) covers approximately six decades.


Correspondingly, “… Jehoiada was old and full of years, and he died at the age of a hundred and thirty” (2 Chronicles 24:15).


 


With all of the above in mind, I continue on with what I wrote in my thesis of this new identification (pp. 237-238):
 


The Priest Jehoiada
 


Elisha as the priest Jehoiada (therefore a Levite) - as I see it - who must have been just as much in fear for his life as had been his predecessor Elijah, when faced with the wrath of queen Jezebel, eventually became emboldened to act. And act he did, with Jehu-like decisiveness (2 Chronicles 23:1). “But in the seventh year Jehoiada took courage, and entered into a compact with the commanders of the hundreds …”; men who had probably also served general Jehu. According to 2 Kings 11:4, Jehoiada also employed Carite … mercenaries for the task. ….


Jehoiada’s plan apparently was to surround the palace and Temple, and to guard the young Joash in his comings and goings, and to proclaim the boy as king of Jerusalem (vv. 5-11). And so we read (v. 12): “Then [Jehoiada] brought out the king’s son, put the crown on him, and gave him the covenant; they proclaimed him king and anointed him; they clapped their hands and shouted, ‘Long live the king!’.”


The narrative goes on to recount the death of Athaliah, who met her end with the same courage and defiance as had her mother (or kinswoman), Jezebel. Jehoiada ordered the queen to be slain by the sword outside the Temple ‘Let her not be killed in the House of the Lord’ (v. 15). …. Notice that once again … Jehoiada gave the order rather than wielded the sword by which the queen was dispatched.


So, what was Jehoiada’s actual status here? Well, that has caused commentators to scratch their heads a bit. Thus North has written, with reference to 2 Chronicles 23: …. “Jehoiada is left strangely without an introduction [sic]. He would appear to be the chief of police, but turns out to be a high priest in v. 8 (= 2 Kgs 11:9)”.


So this, the story of Jehoiada, is how, I suggest, the prophet Elisha himself became involved in the Sinai-commanded reform action: as a priest, and, in Judah.


The people of Jerusalem, and the king, all of whom Jehoiada had now bound to a covenant with the Lord, then did as Jehu had previously done in Samaria. They went to the temple of Baal and tore it down, “his altar and his images they broke in pieces, and they killed Mattan, the priest of Baal, before the altars” (vv. 17-18). The rest of Jehoiada’s glorious career as priest in Jerusalem can be read in some detail in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles.


One of his most notable achievements was the massive repair work done under his supervision on the Temple of the Lord – no doubt a necessary reconstruction after the ravages of Baalism. As long as Jehoiada lived, king Joash (who reigned for 40 years in Jerusalem) whom Jehoiada instructed in Yahwism, was kept in check as a servant of the Lord (though with some ambivalence). But immediately after Jehoiada’s death, at age 130 (2 Chronicles 24:15), king Joash took counsel with his Judaean officials and the kingdom reverted to its former idolatry. Jehoiada’s son, Zechariah, having boldly denounced his compatriots for their apostasy, was stoned to death upon the orders of the king. As he was dying, Zechariah cried out: ‘May the Lord see and avenge!’ (vv. 20-22).


Commentators have stumbled over Matthew’s reference to the same Zechariah as a ‘son of Barachiah’. Thus North again: …. “This Zechariah is doubtless that of Luke 11:51, called son of Barachiah in Mt 23:35 by assimilation to Is 8:2”. Whether or not there is in fact any connection with the person intended by Isaiah, could Matthew’s name, Barachiah - the priest Jehoiada, according to my reconstruction - have a connection (albeit linguistically imprecise) with ‘son of Rechab’ (thus Bar-rachiah)? I have ventured an identification between Jehoiada and Jehonadab, son of Rechab ….


….




The Prophet’s Death and Burial


…. Elisha … left everything to follow Elijah, who was undoubtedly the prototypal ‘Rechabite’ in his poverty and nomadic style of existence.


…. A blessing of the ascetical, nomadic lifestyle that Elisha came to embrace in following Elijah was, according to the Rechabites to ‘live many days in the land’. That blessing was certainly bestowed upon Elisha in abundance; for he, as the priest Jehoiada, lived to be 130 years of age. And apparently the blessing was bestowed upon his descendants too, inasmuch as they were still faithful to that lifestyle even in Jeremiah’s time.


Had Elisha been buried in Samaria, then this alone would have been sufficient to shatter my proposed identification of him with Jehoiada, because the aged Jehoiada was buried in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 24:16): “And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, and for God and his House”. When we turn to read about the end of Elisha - who incidentally died (strikingly like Jehoiada), in the very last few years of Joash of Judah’s long reign (with Jehu’s grandson Jehoash now reigning in Israel) - we simply read: “So Elisha died, and they buried him” (2 Kings 13:20).


 


Sirach 48: 12, 13: “Elisha …. Even when he was dead, his body worked a miracle”.


Cf. 2 Kings 13:20, 21: “Elisha died and was buried. …. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet”.

Continued at next post:



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