Bible Difficulties (47 page)

It was after Jehu had carried out all these stern measures for the suppression of idolatry in Israel that the commendation came to him from the Lord: "Because you have done well in executing what is right in My eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in My heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel" (2 Kings 10:30, NASB). Jehu had served as God's executioner on behalf of the many hundreds of prophets of the Lord whom Jezebel and Ahab put to death (1 Kings 18:4, 13), and he had taken the most thorough means of suppressing the soul-destroying curse of idolatry. Therefore he would be granted security on his throne, and his descendants after him unto "the fourth generation" (i.e., Jehoahaz 814-798, Jehoash 798-782, Jeroboam II 793-753, and Zechariah, who was assassinated within a few months of his accession in 752).

In the course of his own career, however, Jehu did not enjoy a great deal of success as a ruler or defender of his country. The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III of Assyria depicts Jehu "the son of Omri [
sic
!]" prostrate before the invader and paying him tribute as his vassal (cf. Pritchard, ANET, p. 281), in connection with an expedition against Benhadad of Damascus and the Phoenician cities of Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre. But 2 Kings 10:33

indicates that even before that invasion by Assyria (in the twenty-first year of Shalmaneser, which would have been about 832 B.C.), Jehu had lost all Transjordanian Manasseh, Gad, and Reuben (which later had for the most part been conquered by Moab under King Mesha) to King Hazael of Damascus. His son Jehoahaz (814-798) was reduced to complete vassalage by Hazael and his son Benhadad II (2 Kings 13:1-3). But Jehoash (798-782) was allowed by the Lord to expel the Syrians in three decisive engagements (v.19) and also to crush the pretensions of King Amaziah of Judah in the Battle of Bethshemesh (14:13), with a resultant spoliation of Jerusalem itself. But it was Jehu's great-grandson Jeroboam II who achieved very great success on the battlefield, for he regained possession of the Transjordanian tribal territory and all the area formerly ruled over by Jeroboam I--just as the prophet Jonah had predicted (vv. 25-27).

On what basis, then, did the prophet Hosea proclaim the judgment of the Lord on the dynasty of Jehu (Hos. 1:4-5)? It was because of the impure motive with which Jehu himself had carried out his commission from Yahweh to blot out the race of Ahab.

Although Jehu had only done what God had commanded, he did so out of a carnal zeal that was tainted with protective self-interest. 2 Kings 10:29 says of him: "However, as for the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, [by] which he made Israel sin, from these Jehu did not depart, even the golden calves that were at Bethel and...Dan" (NASB). But v.31 goes on to say: "But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart; he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, [by] which he made Israel sin" (NASB). This same mixture of motives showed up in Jehu's descendants as well, for 208

Jehoahaz "did evil in the sight of the LORD, and followed the sins of Jeroboam....So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and He gave them continually into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael. Then Jehoahaz entreated the favor of the LORD, and the LORD listened to him" (2 Kings 13:1-4, NASB).

Jehoash, Jehoahaz's son, did not do much better; for he followed his father's evil example (2 Kings 13:11), even though he did retain a respectful relationship with the prophet Elisha (vv. 14-19). And even though Jeroboam II enjoyed such remarkable success in war (14:25) and had a long reign of forty-one years (v.23)--i.e., from 793-782

as viceroy under his father, and 782-753 as sole king--yet his relationship toward the LORD was no better than his father's. "He did evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, [with] which he made Israel sin"

(v.24; NASB). The whole prophecy of Amos, especially Amos 2:6-16; 4:1; 5:5-13; 6:1-8, is a commentary on the corruption of government, society, and personal morality that prevailed in the Northern Kingdom during Jeroboam's reign. (Amos's ministry came "two years before the earthquake" [Amos 1:1], in the reign of Uzziah of Judah. This must have been some time between 760 and 755.)

The important principle set forth in Hosea 1:4 was that when blood is shed, even in the service of God and in obedience to His command, blood-guiltiness attaches to God's agent himself if his motive was tainted with carnal self-interest rather than by a sincere concern for the purity of the faith and the preservation of God's truth (such as, for example, animated Elijah when he had the 450 prophets of Baal put to death after the contest with them on Mount Carmel). The "bloodshed of Jezreel" was finally visited on the house of Jehu when his great-great-grandson Zechariah was murdered at his own birthday party by his trusted chariot captain Shallum (2 Kings 15:10).

Did Pekah really rule over Samaria for twenty years?

2 Kings 15:27 states that "Pekah son of Remaliah became king over Israel in Samaria--

twenty years." (NASB inserts "and reigned" in italics before "twenty years.") This raises an apparent difficulty because he did not establish his headquarters in Samaria itself until 739 B.C., when he assassinated King Pekahiah son of Menahem (15:25). Since he in turn was assassinated by Hoshea in 732, Pekah would appear to have reigned only eight years in Samaria rather than twenty.

To understand the basis for the "twenty years," we must go back to the coup d'etat of 752, when Zechariah son of Jeroboam II was murdered by an army commander named Shallum. Shallum, however, lasted for only one month on the throne; for he was defeated by Menahem, who launched an invasion of Samaria from the city of Tirzah (2 Kings 15:8-16). Menahem succeeded in buying off the Assyrian invader Tiglath-pileser III, who came against Israel sometime after 745. After a large tribute was given to Assyria, Tiglath-pileser "confirmed" Menahem in office as his vassal-king (v.19). Possibly he felt he needed Assyrian support because he was facing opposition within his own kingdom.

And indeed he was, for Pekah son of Remaliah had apparently laid claim to the throne of 209

Israel back in 752, the year of Zechariah's assassination; and he established his headquarters in Gilead, ruling over most of the East Bank territory of the Israelite kingdom. Apparently Pekah held out against Menahem until Menahem died in 742. Then he must have entered into a treaty of reconciliation with Menahem's son and successor, Pekahiah, according to the terms of which Pekah received a command in the army headquarters in Samaria. He then conspired with fifty of his trusted supporters from Gilead and murdered Pekahiah in his palace. Then, of course, Pekah had himself proclaimed king.

How then is the interval of "twenty years" to be justified? It was simply the official position of Pekah's government that after Zechariah (or Shallum) was murdered, Pekah became the only lawful king over Israel. To be sure, he was unable to dislodge Menahem from the West Bank; but still, as the only legitimate king of Israel (in his own opinion, at least), his right to Samaria as capital of the kingdom was ipso facto established. He finally took up official residence in Samaria (after the coup d'etat against Pekahiah) from 740 or 739, but his reign in Samaria was theoretically computed from 752, when he first asserted his right to the throne.

Are there not historical inaccuracies in Kings and Chronicles, such as "So, King of
Egypt" and "Zerah the Ethiopian," of whom there is no record in secular sources
(cf. 2 Kings 17; 2 Chron. 14)?

The plainest and shortest answer to this question is that there are no
proven
inaccuracies in any of the historical records in Scripture. The second observation to make is that if a historical statement in the Bible is factually true, it does not require any corroboration from secular sources to become true. This is a basic canon of logic. Undoubtedly there are multitudes of events that have taken place in earlier times that have never been recorded either in sacred or secular written sources. They nevertheless actually took place, even though they were not recorded. And if an event was recorded only in a nonscriptural document, it needs no attestation from Scripture to preserve it from being a non-event. And, of course, the reverse is true. An episode that actually took place became a fact of history whether or not it was recorded in an extrabiblical source.

The only way to justify skepticism of scriptural veracity when it records names or events not found in extant secular accounts is to establish that the Bible is demonstrably inferior to all other ancient sources in the matter of its trustworthiness. To assume that the failure up until now to find a mention of Zerah or So in any pagan document proves that they never existed is to fall into a blatant non sequitur quite unworthy of true scholarship.

Those who follow such a criterion in their handling of scriptural testimony should be reminded that the number of such unverified names and events has been sharply reduced by the archaeological discoveries of the last 150 years. Back in 1850, for example, many learned scholars were confidently denying the historicity of the Hittites and the Horites of Sargon II of Assyria and Belshazzar of Chaldean Babylon, or even of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet all of these have more recently become accepted by the scholarly world because of their appearance in ancient documents discovered within the last fifteen decades of archaeological investigation.

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The skeptical approach toward the historical statements of Scripture has thus been proven to be completely unjustified. This furnishes strong evidence that the cynical suspicion toward the Bible's accuracy is basically unfounded and that a far sounder approach--considering the excellent record of Bible history in the light of archaeological discovery--would be to assume that any biblical notice is accurate and dependable until proven false. Up until now, so far as this writer is aware, there is no biblical record that has ever been proven false by any evidence exhumed by the excavator's spade.

It is not altogether certain that So (
So'
), the king mentioned in 2 Kings 17:4 as a potential ally of Hoshea of Samaria, during the final years of its existence in the 720s B.C., is the name of a king at all. The Hebrew text could be translated as follows: "He

[i.e., `Hoshea'] sent to Sais [the name of the Egyptian capital city at that time], the king of Egypt." During that time the king of Egypt was named Tefnakht (ca. 730-720) and he made his headquarters in Sais. (This is suggested by K.A. Kitchen in his article on "So"

in J.D. Douglas, ed.,
New Bible Dictionary
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962], p. 1201.) It is true that no mention of Zerah the Ethiopian (Heb.,
kusi
) has yet turned up in any ancient text outside the Bible itself (2 Chron. 14:9-15). Apparently he was not a reigning monarch of Egypt during the time of king Asa of Judah (910-869), since none of the Egyptian rulers bore such a name during that period. K.A. Kitchen (
The Third
Intermediate Period in Egypt
[Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1973]) estimates the date of the Battle of Mareshah to be about 897 B.C., which would have been the twenty-eighth year of Pharaoh Osorkon I (who was of a Libyan dynasty rather than a Cushite). But Kitchen (ibid., P. 309) says: "By 897 B.C. Osorkon I was already an old man, and so he may well have sent a general of Nubian [or Cushite] extraction to lead a force into Palestine....However, Zerah proved no match for the Judean king, and so we have no trace of a triumphal relief of Osorkon to adorn anew the temple walls of Egypt"--as Osorkon's father, Sheshonq (Shishak) had done back in the days of Rehoboam.

How could Sennacherib's invasion have occurred in the fourteenth year of
Hezekiah?

2 Kings 18:13 in the Masoretic text states: "Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them." Since Sennacherib's own record in the Taylor Prism establishes 701

B.C. as the date of that invasion, the fourteenth year of Hezekiah would mean that he did not ascend the throne until 715 B.C. Yet 2 Kings 18:1 (the very same chapter, be it noted) states that Hezekiah became king in the third year of Hoshea king of Israel--which comes out to 729 or 728. This would have been the year in which he was crowned as subordinate king, under his father Ahaz (who did not die until 725). The Masoretic text of 2 Kings 18:13 therefore stands in clear contradiction to 18:1, 9, and 10, which confirm that Hezekiah's fourth year was Hoshea's seventh and that Hezekiah's sixth was Hoshea's ninth (i.e., 722 B.C.). We must therefore conclude that the Masoretic text has preserved an early textual error (which also appears in Isa. 36:1--where the error probably originated), in which a mistake was made in the decade column. The word "fourteen" was 211

originally "twenty-four." (for further details, see the articles on 2 Kings 8:24 and Ezra 2

and Nehemiah 7. Compare also my
Survey of Old Testament Introduction
, pp. 291-92, and E.J. Young,
Book of Isaiah
:
New International Commentary
, 2 vols. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969], 2:540-42.)

In 2 Kings 20:8-11 and Isaiah 38:8, how was it possible for the shadow on the
stairway of Ahaz to retreat by ten steps?

Obviously this phenomenon, asked for by Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:10), prayed for by the prophet Isaiah (v.11), and graciously granted by the Lord (Isa. 38:7-8) in answer to his prayer, was intended as a miraculous confirmation of God's promise to heal Hezekiah of his potentially fatal carbuncle or cancer after he had previously been warned that he had not long to live. Had it been some unusual occurrence that could be explained by the laws of astronomy of meteorology, it could hardly have served as a God-given sign of the imminent fulfillment of a difficult promise. Conceivably there might have been some extraordinary intervention of a cool, moisture-laden stratum in the sky that caused an unusual refraction of the sun's rays; but the precise timing of such a condition to coincide with Hezekiah's request and Isaiah's prayer would have itself constituted a miraculous event. Would it really have been difficult, however, for a God who had already created the entire universe of matter out of non-matter to do a thing like this simply by the word of His power? Obviously not!