by
Damien F. Mackey
‘I’ve never read a King Hezekiah of Judah like that before’.
Professor Rifaat Ebied
Such was basically the comment made by professor Rifaat Ebied of the Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies (University of Sydney), upon having read the draft of my doctoral thesis (2007):
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf
However, as often occurred to me whilst writing that thesis, King Hezekiah of Judah, though presumably the focal point of the thesis, remained for the most part a largely obscure figure, unlike some of his contemporaries whom I was able to develop in far more detail.
But, firstly, how did this thesis come about?
Providentially, I would suggest (appropriately writing this early in the Holy Jubilee Year of 2025).
In the (Holy) Year 2000 AD, professor Ebied asked me if I would like to do a doctoral thesis, and he gave me the choice of the era of King Hezekiah of Judah, or the era of King Josiah of Judah.
I, having at that stage absolutely no clear-cut ideas about the era of king Josiah, jumped at the chance to write about the era of King Hezekiah. The reason for this was that I had already spent almost two decades trying to ascertain an historical locus for the Book of Judith and had finally come to, what was all along the obvious conclusion, that the Judith drama was all about the destruction of Sennacherib of Assyria’s 185,000-strong army during the reign of Hezekiah.
Let us pause for a moment, though, to consider the historicity of King Hezekiah of Judah, as affirmed by archaeological finds.
Bryan Windle has written on this (2019 – I do not necessarily accept his BC dates):
https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/10/04/king-hezekiah-an-archaeological-biography/
King Hezekiah: An Archaeological Biography
….
Hezekiah reigned as King of Judah from 716 to 687 BC, after having ruled for approximately 13 years in a co-regency with his father Ahaz. …. In 2 Chronicles 29:1-2 we read, “Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done.” He is, perhaps, best known for this religious reforms and for his stand against the Assyrian invasion of Judah by Sennacherib in 701 BC.
Hezekiah Bulla
Multiple bullae (clay seal impressions) of King Hezekiah have been found. While most have come via the antiquities market, in 2015 Dr. Eilat Mazar announced that another Hezekiah bulla had been discovered while wet-sifting material excavated from a refuse dump in a Royal Building at the Ophel. …. The bulla is about one centimeter in diameter bears an ancient Hebrew inscription:
“לחזקיהו [בן] אחז מלך יהדה”
“Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz king of Judah”
The seal impression also depicts a two-winged sun and ankh symbols. Scholars at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explained the iconography this way:
“The symbols on the seal impression from the Ophel suggest that they were made late in his life, when both the Royal administrative authority and the King’s personal symbols changed from the winged scarab (dung beetle)—the symbol of power and rule that had been familiar throughout the Ancient Near East, to that of the winged sun—a motif that proclaimed God’s protection, which gave the regime its legitimacy and power, also widespread throughout the Ancient Near East and used by the Assyrian Kings.”….
The Hezekiah bulla affirms not only Hezekiah’s historicity, but his lineage as well, affirming these biblical details about his life.
Evidence of Religious Reforms
Hezekiah was instrumental in leading the people of Judah away from idolatry and back to the worship of Yahweh. In 2 Kings 18:4 we read, “He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).”
Evidence of Hezekiah’s religious reforms have been discovered at Arad, Beer-Sheba, Lachish, Tell Motza, and Tell Lahif. …. For example, the famous four-horned alter at Beer-Sheba was dismantled during Hezekiah’s reign and three of its four horns were found in secondary use in a wall, indicating the structure was no longer considered sacred. At Lachish, a gate-shrine was unearthed in 2016. Two small horned alters were discovered, whose horns had been broken off, and a toilet had been placed in the shrine as a symbolic act of desecration (2 Kings 10:27). ….
Hezekiah’s Tunnel and Broad Wall
Perhaps the defining moment in King Hezekiah’s life occurred when Sennacherib, King of Assyria came to attack Jerusalem. Hezekiah received word prior to the impending invasion, giving him enough time to improve the city’s fortifications and build a tunnel to bring water into the city.
In 2 Chron. 32:2-4, 30 we read:
“When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he intended to make war on Jerusalem, he consulted with his officials and military staff about blocking off the water from the springs outside the city, and they helped him. A large force of men assembled, and they blocked all the springs and the stream that flowed through the land. “Why should the kings of Assyria come and find plenty of water?” they said …. It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David.”
2 Kings 20:20 further summarizes Hezekiah’s life: “As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?”
An ancient aqueduct, dating to the time of King Hezekiah, was discovered by Edwin Robinson in 1838. Several years later an inscription was discovered in the tunnel which recorded how it had been built. Written in ancient Paleo-Hebrew and dated to the 8th century BC, the inscription reads,
And this was the way in which it was cut through: While [the quarrymen were] still […] axes, 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 towards 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 heads of the quarrymen was a hundred cubits…..
Within the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, archaeologists unearthed further evidence of Hezekiah’s preparation for war.
The Broad Wall, as it is known today, is a 7m thick defensive fortification that still stands 3.3 m tall in some places. It was built by Hezekiah to enclose the Western Hill and it increased the defensive walls of the city five-fold. ….
Sennacherib’s Attack
Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah is recorded in 2 Kings 18:13 “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.” This was in response to Hezekiah’s rebellion against the Assyrian king, refusing to serve him as a vassal (2 Kings 18:7).
The Bible isn’t the only ancient text that describes this attack, however; multiple copies of the Annals of Sennacerib [sic] have been unearthed. The Taylor Prism, the Oriental Institute Prism and the Jerusalem prism are three clay prisms that contain the same text describing events from the reign of Sennacherib. The Taylor Prism was discovered in 1830 by Colonol [sic] Robert Taylor while excavating the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh. On it, Sennacherib boasts:
“As for Hezekiah the Judahite who had not submitted to my yoke, I surrounded 46 of his strong walled towns, and innumerable small places around them, and conquered them by means of earth ramps and siege engines, attack by infantrymen, mining, breaching, and scaling. 200,150 people of all ranks, men and women, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, cattle and sheep without number I brought out and counted as spoil. He himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city, like a bird in a cage. I put watch-posts around him, and made it impossible for anyone to go out of his city.” ….
Sennacherib also states, “Now the fear of my lordly splendor overwhelmed that Hezekiah” … and he confirms that the Judahite King did indeed pay him tribute (2 Kings 18:14).
It is interesting to note that Sennacherib does not boast of destroying Jerusalem, but merely shutting Hezekiah up in his royal city “like a bird in a cage.” This would be consistent with the biblical description of God’s rescue of his people and Sennacherib’s return to Assyria without conquering Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:35-36).
Mackey’s comment: But Sennacherib had conquered Jerusalem in this his 9th Campaign.
The miraculous deliverance of the city would occur some years later, during a second Assyrian invasion.
Bryan Windle concludes:
Summary
The account in the Bible of Hezekiah’s life, his religious reforms and his stand against Sennacherib, King of Assyria, align with what is known about him from the archaeological record. He was one of the greatest kings Judah had ever had. In Scripture, his life is summarized this way: “He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him.” (2 Kings 18:5).
King Hezekiah of Judah
King Hezekiah, quite a formidable historical figure, whom his neo-Assyrian opponent King Sennacherib described as “the strong, proud Hezekiah” (Sennacherib’s Bull Inscriptions), and who reigned for almost three decades (2 Kings 18:2), tends to disappear from the scene of conflict after about his 14th year, the year of his sickness.
Yet this was well before the confrontation with the ill-fated army of Sennacherib.
More recently, though, I have managed to enlarge Hezekiah considerably, by identifying him with the similarly good and pious king of Judah, Josiah (one of professor Ebied’s two points of reference).
For my arguments on this, and for my radical revision of the later kings of Judah, see e.g. my articles:
Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses
(4) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
and:
Necessary fusion of Hezekiah and Josiah
(4) Necessary fusion of Hezekiah and Josiah | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
I have also enlarged King Hezekiah scripturally by proposing that:
“Lemuel” of Proverbs could be Hezekiah rather than Solomon
(3) "Lemuel" of Proverbs could be Hezekiah rather than Solomon by | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
and, too, with my most radical identification of him with two supposedly very ancient rulers of Lagash in Sumer (my Lachish in Judah):
Called Sumerian History, but isn’t
(6) Called Sumerian History, but isn’t.
and:
Hezekiah withstands Assyria - Lumma withstands Umma
(3) Hezekiah withstands Assyria - Lumma withstands Umma | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
King Sennacherib of Assyria
This notorious king of Assyria I had already enlarged in my thesis by multi-identifying him, especially in Volume One, Chapter 6.
His chief alter ego, I had concluded, was the potent Sargon II.
I have since written further articles on this fusion of supposedly two Assyrian mega-kings, along the lines of e.g:
Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known As Sennacherib
https://www.academia.edu/6708474/Assyrian_King_Sargon_II_Otherwise_Known_As_Sennacherib
My other move on Sennacherib at that time involved the necessary (in terms of the revision) folding of so-called ‘Middle’ Assyro-Babylonian history with ‘Neo’ Assyro-Babylonian history.
Revised attempts at this so far do not seem to have been very successful.
I thought that I had found the perfect solution with my folding of the mighty Middle Babylonian king, Nebuchednezzar so-called I, conventionally dated to the C12th BC - he, I then declared to have been ‘the Babylonian face’ of Sargon II/Sennacherib.
Such an identification, which seemed to have massive support from the succession of Shutrukid-Elamite kings of the time having names virtually identical to the succession of Elamite kings at the time of Sargon II/Sennacherib (see Table 1 below), had the further advantage of providing Sargon II/Sennacherib with the name, “Nebuchednezzar”, just as the Assyrian king is named in the Book of Judith (“Nebuchadnezzar”).
My more recent collapsing of the late neo-Assyrian era into the early neo-Babylonian era has caused me to drop the identification of Nebuchednezzar I with Sargon II/ Sennacherib.
Aligning Neo Babylonia with Book of Daniel
(4) Aligning Neo-Babylonia with the Book of Daniel | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
More appropriately, now, Nebuchednezzar I might be found to have been Nebuchednezzar so-called II.
Fortunately though, with this tightened chronology, the impressive Shutrukid-Elamite parallels that I had established in my thesis might still remain viable.
Having rejected my former folding of Nebuchednezzar so-called I with Sargon II/ Sennacherib the question must be asked, ‘At what point does Middle fold with Neo?’
Hopefully, I had identified that very point of fusion in my thesis (see next).
King Merodach-baladan of Babylonia
Here, I shall simply reproduce part of what I wrote about the best point of folding in my thesis (Chapter 7, beginning on p. 180):
So, with what ‘Middle’ Babylonian period are we to merge the ‘Neo’ Babylonian Merodach-baladan [II], in order to show that VLTF [Velikovsky’s Lowering on Timescale by 500 Years] is convincing for this part of the world as well at this particular time?
Actually, there is a perfect opportunity for such a merger with one who is considered - perhaps rightly - to have been one of the last Kassite kings: namely, Merodach-baladan [I] (c. 1173-1161 BC, conventional dates).
Now, as I have emphasized in the course of this thesis, identical names do not mean identical persons. However, there is more similarity between Merodach-baladan I and II than just the name I would suggest. For instance:
• There is the (perhaps suspicious?) difficulty in distinguishing between the building efforts of Merodach-baladan [I] and Merodach-baladan [II]:
Four kudurrus ..., taken together with evidence of his building activity in Borsippa ... show Merodach-baladan I still master in his own domain. The bricks recording the building of the temple of Eanna in Uruk ..., assigned to Merodach-baladan I by the British Museum’s A Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities ... cannot now be readily located in the Museum for consultation; it is highly probable, however, that these bricks belong to Merodach-baladan II (see Studies Oppenheim, p. 42 ...).
Further:
• Wiseman contends that Merodach-baladan I was in fact a king of the Second Isin Dynasty which is thought to have succeeded the Kassites. Brinkman, whilst calling this view “erroneous”, has conceded that: “The beginnings of [the Second Dynasty of Isin] ... are relatively obscure”.
• There is the same approximate length of reign over Babylonia for Merodach-baladan [I] and [II]. Twelve years as king of Babylon for Merodach-baladan II, as we have already discussed. And virtually the same in the case of Merodach-baladan I:
The Kassite Dynasty, then, continued relatively vigorous down through the next two reigns, including that of Merodach-baladan I, the thirty-fourth and third-last king of the dynasty, who reigned some thirteen years .... Up through this time, kudurrus show the king in control of the land in Babylonia.
• Merodach-baladan I was approximately contemporaneous with the Elamite succession called Shutrukids. Whilst there is some doubt as to the actual sequence of events - Shutruk-Nahhunte is said to have been the father of Kudur-Nahhunte - the names of three of these kings are identical to those of Sargon II’s/ Sennacherib’s Elamite foes, supposedly about four centuries later.
Now, consider further these striking parallels between the C12th BC and the neo-Assyrian period, to be developed below:
Table 1: Comparison of the C12th BC (conventional) and C8th BC
C12th BC
• Some time before Nebuchednezzar I, there reigned in Babylon a Merodach-baladan [I].
• The Elamite kings of this era carried names such as Shutruk-Nahhunte and his son, Kudur-Nahhunte.
• Nebuchednezzar I fought a hard battle with a ‘Hulteludish’ (Hultelutush-Inshushinak). C8th BC
• The Babylonian ruler for king Sargon II’s first twelve years was a Merodach-baladan [II].
• SargonII/Sennacherib fought against the Elamites, Shutur-Nakhkhunte & Kutir-Nakhkhunte.
• Sennacherib had trouble also with a ‘Hallushu’ (Halutush-Inshushinak).
Too spectacular I think to be mere coincidence!
[End of quotes]
Who of Hezekiah and his contemporaries
re-emerge in Judith?
Interfacing the era of King Hezekiah of Judah with the drama of the Book of Judith.
The historical event [in Judith 1] … is Sargon II of Assyria’s Year 12 campaign
against the troublesome Merodach-baladan and his Elamite allies.
About half a dozen of King Hezekiah’s contemporaries may be found, I believe, amongst the rather small cast of the drama of the Book of Judith.
Four of these characters have names that are nicely compatible the one with the other, whilst the rest have ‘dud’ names in accordance with what I wrote in my article:
Book of Judith: confusion of names
https://www.academia.edu/36599434/Book_of_Judith_confusion_of_names
The Book of Judith opens with a major war (Judith 1:1-6):
While King Nebuchadnezzar was ruling over the Assyrians from his capital city of Nineveh, King Arphaxad ruled over the Medes from his capital city of Ecbatana. Around Ecbatana King Arphaxad built a wall 105 feet high and 75 feet thick of cut stones; each stone was 4 1/2 feet thick and 9 feet long. At each gate he built a tower 150 feet high, with a foundation 90 feet thick. Each gateway was 105 feet high and 60 feet wide—wide enough for his whole army to march through, with the infantry in formation.
In the twelfth year of his reign King Nebuchadnezzar went to war against King Arphaxad in the large plain around the city of Rages.
Many nations joined forces with King Arphaxad—all the people who lived in the mountains, those who lived along the Tigris, Euphrates, and Hydaspes rivers, as well as those who lived in the plain ruled by King Arioch of Elam. Many nations joined this Chelodite alliance.
This is describing, as I have argued, an actual historical war.
However, owing to the insertion of those ‘dud’ names as mentioned above, it is now extremely difficult to identify which historical event it is. The historical event that it is, is Sargon II of Assyria’s Year 12 campaign against the troublesome Merodach-baladan the Chaldean (“Chelodite” above) and his Elamite allies.
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/history/sargon-ii-the-assyrian-king-history-essay.php
After [Sargon II] secured his empire, he began his military activity against the Elamites in Babylon who were allies of Merodach-Baladan king of Babylon.
…. in his 12th year in 710 he defeats and gets rid of Merodach-Baladan king of Babylon. For the first time ever Sargon makes himself the official king of Babylon in 710 B.C …. After the defeat of Merodach-Baladan he devotes most of 710 B.C campaigning against the Aramean tribes. The Arameans are known as the bandits to the Assyrian people and had always been their enemies. ….
“Nebuchadnezzar” here is Sargon II, who is also Sennacherib.
It was common in antiquity for King Sennacherib to be confused with King Nebuchednezzar (see “confusion of names” article above).
“Arphaxad” here can only be Merodach-baladan, a biblical king who figures e.g. in Isaiah 39:1.
The king doing the city building may actually be Sargon, not Merodach-baladan (“Arphaxad”), the Assyrian king building his fabulous new city of Dur Sharrukin, not “Ecbatana”:
A Description of the Building of Sargon II's City in the Book of Judith
https://www.academia.edu/3704934/A_Description_of_the_Building_of_Sargon_IIs_City_in_the_Book_of_Judith
“King Arioch of Elam” here is Tobit’s nephew, Ahikar, who governed Elam for the Assyrians. Judith 1:6, though, is a gloss, because Ahikar was not then governing the Elamites, but only later. See e.g. my article:
“Arioch, King of the Elymeans” (Judith 1:6)
https://www.academia.edu/28190921/_Arioch_King_of_the_Elymeans_Judith_1_6_
Later in the Book of Judith (5:1) he will be referred to as “Achior, the leader of all the Ammonites”, leading commentators naturally to conclude that Achior was an Ammonite, who converted to Yahwism, which is highly controversial in relation to Deuteronomic Law.
But he was in reality a northern Israelite, as more properly described in Judith 6:2: “And who art thou, Achior, and the hirelings of Ephraim, that thou hast prophesied against us as to day …?”
As “Arioch”, Achior may re-emerge in the Book of Daniel - according to my tightened chronology - as “Arioch” the high official of King Nebuchednezzar (Daniel 2:14-23).
Ahikar-Achior is a most famous historical character, a revered sage down through the ages, known in the Assyrian records as Aba-enil-dari.
Achior is the first of our Hezekian-Judith interface characters to bear a consistent name, he, Ahikar, actually being called “Achior” in the Vulgate version of the Book of Tobit.
The other recognisable names are Eliakim (Eliachim) the high priest in the Vulgate Judith 4:5: Sacerdos etiam Eliachim scripsit ad universos qui erant contra Esdrelon, quae est contra faciem campi magni juxta Dothain …. elsewhere named as “Joakim”.
He is King Hezekiah’s chief official, Eliakim:
Hezekiah’s Chief Official Eliakim was High Priest
https://www.academia.edu/31701765/Hezekiahs_Chief_Official_Eliakim_was_High_Priest
In Judith 6:15 we first encounter “Uzziah son of Micah”.
These names represent two famous prophets of the era of King Hezekiah, namely Isaiah and his father Amos, or Micah:
Prophet Micah as Amos
https://www.academia.edu/27351718/Prophet_Micah_as_Amos
Isaiah must have accompanied his father Amos to the northern Bethel (Amos 7:10-14) where we know Isaiah as the prophet Hosea.
By the time of Judith, he, now named Uzziah, had become chief official of the town of Bethel, which was Judith’s city of Bethulia, or Shechem:
Judith’s City of ‘Bethulia’. Part Two (ii): Shechem
https://www.academia.edu/34737759/Judiths_City_of_Bethulia._Part_Two_ii_Shechem
“Holofernes” and Bagoas”
“Holofernes” and “Bagoas” are further ‘dud’ names, they being non-Assyrian,
that have found their way into the Book of Judith.
The correct name for the Assyrian military leader, “Holofernes”, in the Book of Judith, is to be found in the Book of Tobit 14:10. It is “Nadin” (var. “Nadab”). Tobit, now near death, recalls the incident in which Nadin (“Holofernes”) had double-crossed his apparently former mentor and his uncle, Ahikar (“Achior”):
‘Remember what Nadin did to Ahikar his own uncle who had brought him up. He tried to kill Ahikar and forced him to go into hiding in a tomb. Ahikar came back into the light of day, but God sent Nadin down into everlasting darkness for what he had done. Ahikar escaped the deadly trap which Nadin had set for him, because Ahikar had given generously to the poor. But Nadin fell into that fatal trap and it destroyed him.
The “deadly trap” laid by “Holofernes” was this (Judith 6:7-9): ‘Now my men will take you into the mountains and leave you in one of the Israelite towns, and you will die with the people there. Why look so worried, Achior? Don't you think the town can stand against me? I [Holofernes] will carry out all my threats; you can be sure of that!’
But the heroine Judith would turn all of that on its head, so to speak, so that it would be ‘Nadin [who] fell into that fatal trap and it destroyed him’. For more on this, see:
“Nadin” (Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes” of Judith
https://www.academia.edu/36576110/_Nadin_Nadab_of_Tobit_is_the_Holofernes_of_Judith
This Nadin (“Holofernes”) was Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi, known to have been slain in enemy territory – but wrongly thought to have been killed in Elam.
Ben Dewar, writing of Ashur-nadin-shumi in his article:
Rebellion, Sargon II's “Punishment” and the Death of Aššur-nādin-šumi in the Inscriptions of Sennacherib
https://www.academia.edu/36189988/Rebellion_Sargon_IIs_Punishment_and_the_Death_of_A%C5%A1%C5%A1ur-n%C4%81din-%C5%A1umi_in_the_Inscriptions_of_Sennacherib
will have this to say in his Abstract:
…. A second instance of a death in Sennacherib’s family affecting the content of his inscriptions is also identified. His son Aššur-nādin-šumi’s death followed a pair of campaigns to the borders of Tabal, the location of Sargon’s death [sic]. Because of this it was viewed as a “punishment” for undertaking these campaigns to regions tainted by association with Sargon. After his death, Aššur-nādin-šumi is never mentioned in the same inscription as these campaigns.
Although Sennacherib generally avoids mentioning rebellion, overcoming such events was an important facet of Assyrian royal ideology. Because of this, events in some ideologically or historically significant regions are explicitly stated to be rebellions in the annals. Sennacherib’s inscriptions therefore demonstrate, perhaps better than those of any other Assyrian king, the two sides of rebellion’s ideological importance as both an obstacle overcome by a heroic king, and as a punishment for a poor one.
His attempts to obscure some occurrences of rebellion demonstrate a fear of the more negative ideological aspect of rebellion which is not usually present in the inscriptions of other kings. This provides new insight into the factors which influenced the composition of Sennacherib’s inscriptions.
What I wrote in my university thesis on King Hezekiah of Judah (2007) about this situation was as follows:
Another seemingly compelling evidence in favour of the conventional chronology, but one that has required heavy restoration work by the Assyriologists, is in regard to Sennacherib’s supposed accession. According to the usual interpretation of the eponym for Nashur(a)-bel, 705 BC, conventional dating, known as Eponym Cb6, Sargon was killed and Sennacherib then sat on the throne: “The king [against Tabal….] against Ešpai the Kulummaean. [……] The king was killed. The camp of the king of Assyria [was taken……]. On the 12th of Abu, Sennacherib, son of [Sargon took his seat on the throne]”. Tadmor informs us about this passage that: “Winckler and Delitzsch restored: [MU 16 Šarru-ki]n; ana Ta-ba-lu [illik]”.
That is, these scholars took the liberty of adding Sargon’s name here.
Jonsson, who note has included Sargon’s name in his version of the text, gives it more heavily bracketted than had Tadmor: … “[Year 17] Sargon [went] against Tabal [was killed in the war”. On the 12th of Abu Sennacherib, son of Sargon, sat on the throne]”.
[End of quote]
The incorrect (non-Assyrian) name, “Holofernes”, and also, “Bagoas”, must be late insertions into the Book of Judith, based on the very unreliable Diodorus Siculus, C1st BC (conventional dating), who told of an “Orophernes” and a “Bagoas” among the commanders of a campaign of Artaxerxes III ‘Ochus’ (c. 359-338 BC, conventional dating).
See Ida Fröhlich, Time and Times and Half a Time (p. 118).
For historical uncertainties surrounding Artaxerxes III ‘Ochus’ see e.g. my articles:
Artaxerxes III and the Book of Judith
(8) Artaxerxes III and the Book of Judith
and:
Medo-Persian history has nor adequate archaeology
(8) Medo-Persian history has no adequate archaeology
According to the above, the “Holofernes” of the Book of Judith was King Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi (the “Nadin” of Tobit 14:10), who was - like his father, Sennacherib - a contemporary of King Hezekiah.
That being the case, which Assyrian contemporary of King Hezekiah was Assyria’s second-in-command on this campaign against Israel, “Bagoas”?
Well, basing myself on a Jewish tradition that the future Nebuchednezzar himself was on this ill-fated campaign, and also on my crunching of neo-Assyrian into neo-Babylonian history, I have suggested that a possible candidate for “Bagoas” was that very Nebuchednezzar (= my Esarhaddon), another son of Sennacherib.
See e.g. my article:
An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar?
(4) An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
