The Book Of Annals Of The Kings Of Judah

[Helen Drewski]

2Chronicles 33 is the thirty-third chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or of the second part of the Books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible.[1][2] The book is compiled from older sources by an unknown person or group, designated by modern scholars as "the Chronicler", and had the final shape established in late fifth or fourth century BCE.[3] This chapter belongs to the section focusing on the kingdom of Judah until its destruction by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar and the beginning of restoration under Cyrus the Great of Persia (2 Chronicles 10 to 36).[1] It contains the regnal accounts of Manasseh and Amon, the kings of Judah.[4]

Manasseh was thought to have joined a widespread rebellion (or at least been suspected of having supported it) led by Shamash-shum-ukin, the king of Babylon, against his brother, the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, in an attempt to take the empire for himself, in 652-648 BCE.[33]

The assassination of Amon is thought to be related to the rise of an extensive anti-Assyrian rebellion (recorded in Assyrian sources) organized in ʻEber ha-Nahar, the region between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean Sea, against the rule of Ashurbanipal, and at the same time, an attempt of Egypt under Psamtik I to conquer Assyrian territories in the southern Palestine. The faction in Jerusalem that wanted to throw off the yoke of Assyrian, succeeded in killing Amon who was pro-Assyrian, even as worshipping Assyrian gods. However, Assyrian army soon arrived in Syria and Palestine and suppressed the revolt with 'all the usual severity' (all inhabitants were killed or exiled to Assyria'), so the forces in Judah, who wanted to prevent a military clash with Assyria, exterminated the anti-Assyrian nobles.[38]

In rabbinic literature on "Isaiah" and Christian pseudepigrapha "Ascension of Isaiah", Manasseh is accused of executing the prophet Isaiah, who was identified as the maternal grandfather of Manasseh.[39][40][41]

Manasseh is listed in annals of Esarhaddon as one of the 22 vassal kings from the area of the Levant and the islands whom the Assyrian king conscripted to deliver timber and stone for the rebuilding of his palace at Nineveh.[44]

Esarhaddon's son and successor, Ashurbanipal, mentions "Manasseh, King of Judah" in his annals, which are recorded on the "Rassam cylinder" (or "Rassam Prism", now in the British Museum), named after Hormuzd Rassam, who discovered it in the North Palace of Nineveh in 1854.[17] The ten-faced, cuneiform cylinder contains a record of Ashurbanipal's campaigns against Egypt and the Levant, that involved 22 kings "from the seashore, the islands and the mainland", who are called "servants who belong to me," clearly denoting them as Assyrian vassals.[45] Manasseh was one of the kings who 'brought tribute to Ashurbanipal and kissed his feet'.[17]

3a8082e126