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ESCAPE FROM PLANET EGYPT

Part XIV

In our last installment, we showed how the ancient letters found at Tell El Amarna between Pharaoh Amenhotep IV and the king of Israel indicated that king was Ahab, and his correspondence with the Pharaoh coincided with the time of several of Israel's many wars with Syria.

The Amarna letters (as well as numerous stone monuments), tell us that Amenhotep IV was the Pharaoh who changed his allegiance from the historic Egyptian deity Amon, to another god that he called Aton. This was illustrated by the fact that he changed his name from Amenhotep (which was a compound name that included Amon's name) to the infamous name of Akhnaton (a compound named which incorporated the name of Aton).  

In this regard, it is certain there was an affinity between Ahab (who  departed from the historic worship of Yahweh in Israel, and turned to the worship of Baal), and Akhnaton. Ahab was the noteworthy Israelite king who set an unholy example for Israel, as he prominently sought to shift Israelite religion away from Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the Mesopotamian Baal.

The context of at least one of the letters showed that Aman Appa, who had been posted to Samaria as an official of Israel's Egyptian overlords, had already been recalled to the city of Akhet Aton. In the Scriptural narrative where this "Aman Appa" was mentioned, our last installment noted a sequence wherein Ahab sent one of the prophets of the LORD to this Egyptian governor, to be detained in his custody.

"Then the king of Israel said, Take ye Micaiah, and carry him back to Amon the governor of the city" (II Chronicles 18:25).

In examining the Amarna documents, although the names in the Egyptian inscriptions are periodically similar to the Scriptural names, on other occasions the name is so dissimilar the connection is only deduced by the context. For instance, the name Urusalem (which is seen in the Egyptian letters), is easily identified, whereas other names are more mysterious as they are among the multiple monikers of many of the places and the people.

Among the scholars who deciphered the Amarna letters, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky deduced that a frequently mentioned city called Gubla, had multiple names, including Batruna , Byblos, and Botrys. Internal evidence indicated this place was toward the coast of Northern Israel, and since it was frequently mentioned in the Amarna letters, it was clearly important.  

Toward the time of the New Testament, the historian Flavius Josephus mentioned that Botrys (one of the many names of Gubla) was founded by Ethbaal, who the Scriptures tell us was the King of Sidon, and the father of Queen Jezebel.

At this point, a little background concerning the ancient twin cities of Tyre and Sidon, is in order.  

The Sidonians were the coastal people of Tyre and Sidon, to the Northwest  of Israel, and they were skilled in building with Lebanon's legendary forests (see "the cedars of Lebanon," for example, in Psalm 104:16).

This people group was related to the Israelites, and the man appointed to manage the interaction between Tyre/Sidon and Solomon for the massive temple building project was descended from the tribe of Dan.

"[The king of the Sidonians] sent a cunning man…the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber" (II Chronicles 2:14).

The portion of the promised land given to the Israelite tribe of Dan was coastal, and it bordered the town of Joppa – the very Mediterranean port where the massive timbers were off-loaded from the ships of the Tyrians and the Sidonians.

"[The Sidonians] will cut wood out of Lebanon…and we will bring it to [Solomon] in floats by sea to Joppa" (II Chronicles 2:16).

As a result of the enormous temple building project, the entire population of Tyre and Sidon were virtually acquired by Solomon, when he embarked on the decades long building of the great temple.

The Scriptures repeatedly mention Hiram, the leader of Tyre (and a friend of King David), who contracted with the Israelite king to build David a great house. 

"And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons: and they built David an house" (II Samuel 5:11).

When Solomon came to power, he was acutely aware of the prophecy issued to David that he was not to build the temple he had envisioned, but his son would be the person that God would raise up to build the temple. The prophet Nathan, speaking for the LORD, specifically told David he was not to build the LORD a house.

"Thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not build me an house to dwell in. Furthermore I tell thee that the Lord will build thee an house…I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever" (I Chronicles 17:4, 10, 11,12).

The New Testament conclusively establishes that JESUS CHRIST, who was a direct descendant of King David in the flesh, "builds" the temple of the LORD, in the Spiritual realm. Multiple Scriptures tell us that because of Christ's sacrifice on the cross (and subsequent resurrection), it is the Christian's bodies, which are the "temple" that hosts the Spirit of the LORD.

"The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. Ye also, as [living stones], are built up a spiritual house" (I Corinthians 3:17, I Peter 2:5).

As Solomon was the flesh and blood seed of David, he erroneously assumed that he was the one who would fulfill the prophecy that David's "son" would build the house of the LORD. Undoubtedly, Solomon also coveted the fact that the prophecy also said that "son" would reign forever.

Thus, when Solomon sought to construct the great temple, he recruited Hiram, the King of Tyre, who had previously built a great house for David.

"Thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians" (I Kings 5:6).

The massive wealth of Solomon had provided long term employment for the naval capabilities of Hiram's people as well, for the process of transporting the huge timbers to Jerusalem for building the temple was no small feat.

The Word of God tells us that significant numbers of Israelites were deployed to live in Lebanon for years, while timbering for the vast construction of the temple.

"And [Solomon] set threescore and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens, and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred overseers to set the people a work" (II Chronicles 2:18).

During the temple construction period, extensive naval resources of Solomon and the Tyrians were developed to explore foreign lands, in the search for the gold and silver required for the great project. Thus, after the temple was completed, these maritime projects continued, in order to sustain trade with foreign lands.

During this period, following his marriage to Hatshepsut, the daughter of Egypt's Pharaoh, Solomon married hundreds of princesses from the nations adjacent to Jerusalem, so it is inconceivable that he would have slighted the hereditary royal house of the Sidonians. The result was that Israel completely absorbed the coastal nation, and the offspring of the mingled people in the region became known as the Phoenicians.

The distinction between Solomon's Sidonian wife and Ahab's wife Jezebel, was in the fact that Jezebel was the premiere wife of Ahab, whereas Solomon's first wife was the Queen of Sheba. Although Solomon foolishly allowed the construction of high places and a priesthood for the gods of his many Gentile wives (which would have facilitated religious writings extolling the supposed virtues of the foreign deities), it wasn't until Ahab that the kings of Israel brazenly and prominently chose to serve Baal, and not the LORD.

"But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up" (I Kings 21:25).

A century after Solomon, as Ahab repeatedly warred with the Syrians, there was a time when the capital city of Samaria had been taken, as Ahab had surrendered it to the king of Syria.

"And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have" (I Kings 20:4).

In one of the Amarna letters from the king of Samaria to the Pharaoh, the correspondence confirms that the king of Syria had taken Samaria.

"When Abdi-Ashrati [Ben Hadad the Syrian] conquered Sumurri, I protected the city by my own hand. I had no garrison" (Amarna letter #138).

As Samaria was taken in at least one of the Syrian wars, letters came to the Egyptian king from the king in the aforementioned "Gubla" – and it appears that it was Ahab corresponding with Pharaoh Akhnaton from a retreat position.  

In what amounts to an ancient change of address notification, Ahab asked Akhnaton to re-route any Egyptian assistance to his alternative headquarters. 

"What was formerly given [to] Sumura should now be given [to] Gubla" (Amarna letter #85).

This answers a question plaguing the scholars for many years, who have never been able to explain the many Scriptural references indicating that Ahab and Jezebel were no longer located in the capital of Samaria, but reigned from a second capital named Jezreel.

We've already noted the Israelites considered the Sidonians the world's best builders (I Kings 5:6), and the place/name Gubla has been identified as having been constructed by the King of Sidon, so it's hardly a stretch to see this city was renamed Jezreel when Ahab and Jezebel moved there from the compromised capital of Samaria.

It's even conceivable that Jezreel/Gubla was given as a present (or even as a  dowry) to Ahab from Jezebel's father, the king of the Sidonians. In fact, it may have actually been part of a tradition, as a century earlier, the Pharaoh had given an entire city to his daughter, who married the king of Israel.

"For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon's wife" (I Kings 9:16).

As previously noted, this "Gubla," which we've connected to Jezreel, was also known as Byblos. As Tyre and Sidon were within the region of ancient Lebanon, it is no surprise that Byblos/Gubla has been located in the coastal region of Lebanon, and it has the revealing modern name of Jbail, or Jbayl!

Amazingly, there is even a temple in this modern city which is dedicated to Baalat Gubal, or the Lady of Gubla, which references a famous female who once had a presence there. We know her from the Scriptures where she is plainly identified as Jezebel.  

In other words, the ancient capital of Ahab and Jezebel, then known as Jezreel, is actually named after Jezebel in our time. Further, archaeologists who are searching for Jezreel in their excavations of Northern Israel have not connected Jezreel with the "Gubla" of the Amarna letters, because they place "Gubla" in the 14^th century BC, 600 years before Jezebel lived there in the time of Ahab and Akhnaton.

To put it another way, the stones and bones people will never find Jezreel in their many efforts to excavate Northern Israel, because the scholars have misled them to the degree that they're looking in the wrong country. Christian Media, on the other hand, is still using the Holy Bible as a repository of the light of the LORD, which allows us to peer through the surrounding Spiritual darkness, as we continue our walk through the treacherous times in which we live.

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105).

– James Lloyd

To Be Continued

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