Judean auxiliaries in Egypt's wars against Kush.

AuthorKahn, Dan'el

During the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, mercenaries and foreign soldiers served as combatants in the Egyptian army. They were first attested during the reign of Psammetichus I and their presence increased constantly. They came from mainland Greece, the Aegean Islands, Caria, Lydia, Libya, Kush, Phoenicia, Aram, Israel, and Judah. They are mentioned on private stelae, and in administrative and legal papyri, biblical books, classical sources, Egyptian and Assyrian royal inscriptions, and their presence is also demonstrated by archaeological finds.

THE LETTER OF ARISTEAS AND JUDEAN SOLDIERS TO THE AID OF PSAMMETICHUS

According to the Letter of Aristeas to Philokrates 1.13 (ca. second century B.C.E.), Judean soldiers were sent to fight with Psammetichus' armies against the king of Kush:

Previously many (Jews) had come into the country (Egypt) along with the Persian, and even before this others had been sent out as auxiliaries to fight in the army of Psammetichus against the king of the Ethiopians, but these were not so numerous a body as Ptolemy son of Lagus transported. (Hadas 1973: 101) The letter of Aristeas to his brother Philocrates is an account of the translation of the Pentateuch into Greek under the sponsorship of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The identity of the author and date of writing are contested (Rappaport 1970: 36-50; Hadas 1973: 1-54; Schmidt 1986: 111-43), as are also the reasons for its composition (see recently Hacham 2005: 1-14), as well as the veracity and credibility of the account. However, no scholar known to me has questioned the veracity of the information concerning the sending of Judean mercenaries to aid Psammetichus in his war against the Ethiopian (= Kushite) king.

Because this information can relate to either Psammetichus I or II (in the reign of Psammetichus III, ca. 525 B.C.E., the Kingdom of Judah no longer existed), scholarly opinion is divided regarding the identity of the relevant Egyptian pharaoh. Sauneron and Yoyotte (1952a: 131-36), De Meulenaere (1965: 29), and Burstein (1984: 31-34) opted for Psammetichus I, while Alt (1910: 295-96), Kienitz (1953: 39ff.), Greenberg (1957: 307), Freedy and Redford (1979: 476-77, n. 69), Malamat (1983: 275, n. 74), and Schipper (1999: 242, n. 274) opted for Psammetichus II.

THE LETTER OF ARISTEAS IN REFERENCE TO THE CAMPAIGN OF PSAMMETICHUS II

In his third regnal year (593 B.C.E.) Psammetichus II (595-589) campaigned against Kush. (1) The Egyptian army destroyed Kerma (Pnoubs) (Bonnet and Valbelle 2005: 164-71) and probably reached Napata at the Fourth Cataract and burned the Kushite king in his palace (Kendall 1991: 308; Der Manuelian 1994: 367, 371, n. 284).

Alt (1910: 295-96) and scholars following him considered the Letter of Aristeas to be evidence of Judah's alliance with Egypt in the days of Psammetichus II for the following reasons:

  1. Greek and Phoenician warriors appear in graffiti from Abu Simbel dated to the reign of Psammetichus II (Alt 1910: 294). Several scholars connect Judean warriors as well to this campaign. See Schlouschz 1942: 62ff.; Hadas 1973: 99-100, n. 13; Malamat 1983: 275, n. 74; Hauben 2001: 65, n. 63.

  2. Zedekiah was hostile to Babylon and allied himself with Egypt (Ezekiel 17:13).

  3. The Twenty-sixth Dynasty was not in conflict with Kush in the days of Psammetichus I. The first attestation of hostilities between Egypt and Kush after the expulsion of Tanutamun, king of Kush, was in the days of Psammetichus II (Alt 1910: 294-95).

    However, these assertions raise the following problems.

    THE GRAFFITI OF FOREIGN MERCENARIES AND THE ABSENCE OF JUDEAN GRAFFITI AT ABU SIMBEL

    Psammetichus II's army was indeed composed of Egyptian (FHN I, 287-88; Chevreau 1985: 313) and foreign (Carian, Ionian, Dorian, and Phoenician) troops. (2) Upon their return from battle, these soldiers incised at Abu Simbel 38 graffiti (some of them written by the same individual). (3) It seems that the Greek soldiers were mercenaries, but the status of the ordinary Phoenician soldiers cannot be ascertained. The commanders, however, Greek as well as Phoenician, were certainly senior mercenaries who had probably resided in Egypt for some time and bore names with Egyptian elements (Sauneron and Yoyotte 1952a: 132). From the number of graffiti at Abu Simbel and the number of Kushite captives (4200) (FHN I, 282) and dead (Breyer 2002: 53-56) mentioned in the Shellal Stela (11. 9-10), it is clear that the graffiti represent only a very small sample of those who participated in the campaign.

    Nothing can be said, however, about the identity or number of auxiliaries, nor whether they were sent by vassal rulers (Judean or others) to participate in this campaign.

    RELATIONS BETWEEN ZEDEKIAH, KING OF JUDAH (597-586) AND BABYLONIA IN 593

    Relations between Babylonia and Judah should be reconsidered from the perspective of Judean history as described in Jeremiah 27-28. In the fourth regnal year of Zedekiah (Tadmor 1956: 230; Galil 1991; cf. Malamat 2001: 312), in the fifth month (Jeremiah 28:1), between 25.8 and 24.9.593 (Parker and Duberstein 1956: 28), an anti-Babylonian conference was held in Jerusalem, hosting envoys of the kings of Transjordan, Tyre, and Sidon. It appears that the conference dealt with the possibility of throwing off the Babylonian yoke (Jeremiah 27: 1-11). According to Jeremiah, Egypt did not participate in the conference, not is it mentioned in Jeremiah's debate with the false prophets or anywhere else in his chapters 27 and 28. Precisely at the time of the conference, Egypt was campaigning against Kush in the south. (4)

    If King Zedekiah had sent soldiers to participate in Psammetichus II's campaign against Kush in 593, a shift in his alliance with Egypt would have had to precede the campaign and therefore also the anti-Babylonian conference in Judah. This would mean that Egypt would have taken action in the Levant before 593. A Judean king would not have sent his forces to aid the enemy of his Babylonian overlord without being convinced that the adventure was worth the risk or having no other choice (cf. Greenberg 1957: 307 and n. 16). (5) However, this was not the case. It was Babylonia that controlled the Levant, even though the prophet Hananiah, son of Azzur, believed that its supremacy would end within two years (Jeremiah 28:1-4, 10-11). In Jeremiah 27-29, where the events of 593 are described, Egypt is not mentioned at all. News of the success of Psammetichus II's forces in Kush could not yet have reached the Levantine kings when they convened in Jerusalem to determine their policy towards Babylonia. Zedekiah defected from Babylonia and became a vassal of Egypt only a year later, during Psammetichus II's campaign to Kharu in his fourth regnal year (592) (Kahn 2008).

    THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY AND KUSH

    According to Alt (1910), no conflict is known between the Twenty-sixth Dynasty and the Kingdom of Kush until the reign of Psammetichus II. However, as Sauneron and Yoyotte have shown, an undated fragmentary text from Edfu bearing the cartouche of Psammetichus I describes a war in Lower Nubia (Wawat), which proves that relations between Egypt and Kush were not peaceful during Psammetichus I's reign (Sauneron and Yoyotte 1952b: 201; Habachi 1974: 325-26; Kahn 2006: 263-67). (6) Furthermore, a statue of an Egyptian official by the name of Djed-Ptah-iouf-ankh (De Meulenaere 1965: 23, 29-30) might also relate to an action against Kush during Psammetichus I's reign.

    Although most scholars accept it at face value, it thus seems that none of the reasons adduced by scholars to...

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