Israel and Judah until the Revolt of Jehu (931–841 B.C.)

in CAH 3.1.445–46; Gershon Galil, The Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah (Leiden: Brill, 1996) 14; McFall, “Translation Guide” 12; Eugene H. Merrill, “Fixed Dates in Patriarchal Chronology,” BSac 137 (1980) 241. [27] Rodger C. Young, “Three Verifications of Thiele’s Date for the Beginning of the Divided Kingdom,” AUSS 45 (Fall 2007), forthcoming. For the Tyrian data, see Barnes, “Studies” 29–55. For more on the verification from the Jubilee and Sabbatical cycles, see below, sec. I.3.d. [28] Young, “Tables of Reign Lengths” 232–33, 239–44. See also the discussion in n. 15 above. [29] Umberto Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961) 52, cited in Wood, “Rise and Fall” 486. Neither Hoffmeier nor Hawkins, in their responses to “Rise and Fall,” deal with the statement that Cassuto’s study shows that the manner in which the 480-year figure in 1 Kgs 6:1 is given shows that it is “to be understood as a precise number according to standard Hebrew usage, not as a schematic or symbolic number as some would have it” (Wood, 486). [30] Young, “Solomon” 599 n. 10. [31] Ibid. 599–603. [32] Steinmann, “Mysterious Numbers of Judges” 491 n. 2. [33]“Tables of Reign Lengths” 246 (Table 2). [34] For the date, see Young, “Jerusalem” 25–28, in which the dates for the fall of Jerusalem in 587 and Ezekiel’s vision in 574 are established by examining all relevant texts, independently of any argument based on the Jubilee cycles. [35] This has been amply demonstrated by historical, textual, and practical considerations. See Young, “The Talmud’s Two Jubilees and their Relevance to the Date of the Exodus,” WTJ 68 (2006) 75–77; idem “Ezekiel 40:1 as a Corrective for Seven Wrong Ideas in biblical Interpretation,” AUSS 44 (2006) 275 n. 15. That the Jubilee was identical to the seventh Sabbatical year is also the conclusion of Jean-François Lefebvre, Le Jubilé Biblique: Lv 25 — Exégèse et Théologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 154–66. Lefebvre’s book is the most thorough analysis of the Jubilee legislation that has yet appeared in print. Prior to this, the two most important publications on the Jubilee were Benedict Zuckermann, A Treatise on the Sabbatical Cycle and the Jubilee (New York: Hermon, 1974; German original Ueber Sabbatjahrcyclus und Jobelperiode [Breslau: W.G. Korn, 1857]), and Robert North, Sociology of the biblical Jubilee (Rome: Pontifical biblical Institute, 1954). Zuckermann and North both concluded that the Jubilee cycle was forty-nine years, although their reasoning in this matter differs somewhat from that of Lefebvre. [36] Young, “Solomon” 601. [37] S. Olam 11; b. Arak. 12a. [38] S. Olam 24; b. Meg. 14b; Young, “Talmud’s Two Jubilees” 71–75. [39] Ibid. 77. [40] Rodger C. Young, “Seder Olam and the Sabbaticals Associated with the Two Destructions of Jerusalem: Part II” Jewish Bible Quarterly 34 (2006) 252–54. [41] S. Olam 30; t. Ta‘anit 3.9; y. Ta‘anit 4.5; b. ‘Arakin 11b; b. ‘Arakin 12a; b. Ta‘anit 29a. Some translations of these passages into English mistranslate the passage to say that the burning of the First and Second Temples occurred in the year after a Sabbatical year. For a discussion of the proper translation of the Hebrew of the Seder ‘Olam and the Aramaic of the Talmud, see Rodger C. Young, “Seder Olam and the Sabbaticals Associated with the Two Destructions of Jerusalem: Part I” Jewish Bible Quarterly 34 (2006) 176–78. [42] Young, “Seder Olam and the Sabbaticals, Part II” 256. [43] For the details, which are complicated by the perennial question of whether there were one or two invasions of Sennacherib, see Young, “Seder Olam and the Sabbaticals, Part II” 256–57. Under the one-invasion theory, the invasion would have ended some time after the fall planting in 701 bc and the “second year” of the prophecy would have started in Tishri of 700 bc. Under the two-invasion theory, the invasion would have ended some time after the fall planting of 687 bc and the “second year” of the prophecy would have started in Tishri of 686 bc. [44] Young, “Three Verifications” forthcoming. In 1869, Ferdinand Hitzig (Geschichte des Volkes Israel [Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1869] 1.9 and 198–99) stated that the occasion for Jehoshaphat’s proclamation was because it was a Jubilee year. [45] In spite of the miraculous deliverance from the Assyrian host, it still would have been a trial of faith for the king and people to believe that, after the difficulties of the siege, they would be able to survive in the following year if there were no sowing or harvest. This would make it very tempting to plant a crop in the coming Sabbatical year. The meaning of the “sign” of Isa 37:30 must be that the people were to keep the Sabbatical year in spite of the perceived difficulty, and their needs would be met. The way the provision was made seems to be indicated in 2 Chr 32:22–23, where the Lord, after the destruction of the Assyrians, “took care of them on every side. Many brought offerings to Jerusalem for the Lord and valuable gifts for Hezekiah king of Judah” (NIV). Those offerings could have included grain and other food from Egypt, because Egypt had not been ravaged by the Assyrians. Egypt would have been very grateful for the defeat of the Assyrians by the God of Israel; their remembrance of the event persisted, in garbled form, until the days of Herodotus (Hist. ii.141). Gifts of monetary value could have been exchanged for foodstuffs during the Sabbatical year, so that God’s people were provided for “on every side.” [46] “Propositions” 33. [47] Ibid. 34. [48] Which Hawkins alludes to (ibid. 37). [49] William G. Dever, “Cultural Continuity, Ethnicity in the Archaeological Record and the Question of Israelite Origins,” EI 24 (1993) 22*–33*. [50] Amihai Mazar, “The Iron Age I,” in The Archaeology of Ancient Israel (ed. Amnon Ben-Tor; New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1992) 295. [51] Volkmar Fritz, “Conquest or Settlement? The Early Iron Age in Palestine,” BA 50 (1987) 97. [52] Judg 6. Steinmann dates the Midianite oppression to 1178–1172 bc (“Mysterious Numbers of Judges” 499), while Ray dates it to 1185–1178 bc (“Another Look” 99). [53] This is the period of the transition from the urbanized Late Bronze Age to the small agricultural villages of the Iron Age I. The collapse of urbanism was experienced throughout the Mediterranean, but its cause is not well understood. For a review of the situation in Greece, see Christos G. Doumas, “Aegeans in the Levant: Myth and Reality,” in Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: Thirteenth to Early Tenth Centuries BCE (eds. Seymour Gitin, Amihai Mazar, and Ephraim Stern; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1998) 129–30. [54] Adam Zertal, “An Early Iron Age Cultic Site on Mount Ebal: Excavation Seasons 1982–1987,” Tel Aviv 13–14 (1986–1987) 157–58; idem, “Has Joshua’s Altar Been Found on Mt. Ebal? BARev 11.1 (1985) 26–43. [55] “Propositions” 37. [56] Adam Zertal, “Ebal, Mount,” OEANE 1.180. [57] Zertal, “Cultic Site” 109–123. [58] “Propositions” 36. [59] Kitchen, for example, dates the exodus to 1260 bc and the conquest to 1220–1210 bc, the end of the Late Bronze Age (On the Reliability 159, 307, 359). James Hoffmeier favors slightly earlier dates, with the exodus at 1270–1260 bc and the entry into Canaan 1230–1220 bc (“Response to Wood” 243). Richard Hess places the entry in the 13th century, sometime prior to 1207 bc (Joshua: An Introduction and Commentary [TOTC; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996] 139. [60] Bryant G. Wood,

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