The Shishak Redemption

by Damien F. Mackey But it seems that there are problems with every interpretation of the pharaoh’s route. Can pharaoh Thutmose III be saved as “Shishak”? The road to salvation is narrow and difficult to find (Matthew 7:14), and so has been the road to identifying, historically, the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” (2 Kings 14:25). Thutmose III, the mightiest Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, had once opted for a ‘redemption’ type of road, one narrow and most difficult to negotiate. And his military scribe, Tjaneni, marked down this road using the name ‘3-rw-n3 (Aruna). This road’s true identification has been missed by historians, conventional and revisionist alike. I say this because those on both sides who have accepted the typical identification of the Aruna road as the Wãdy ‘Ârah opening out towards Taanach and Megiddo have not been able to explain at all satisfactorily why the Wãdy ‘Ârah’s topography is nothing like that as described in pharaoh Thutmose III’s campaign Annals. Sir Henry Breasted’s prize doctoral student, Harold H. Nelson, had demonstrated beyond all doubt in his thesis, The Battle of Megiddo (1913), that the relatively gentle topography in that northern region did not accord at all with the terrifyingly narrow and steep road described by the Egyptians, that ‘enters into narrowness’ and where ‘horse will have to go after horse’. (References to Harold H. Nelson have been taken from Dr. Eva Danelius’s “Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”, SIS Review, Vol. 2 No. 3, 1977/78). Nor did the name ‘Ârah accord well linguistically with Aruna, as Nelson had rightly observed: “Etymologically, it seems hardly possible to equate (Egyptian) ‘Aruna with (Arab) ‘Ar‘arah”. And, while the young man succeeded in passing his doctorate to the professor’s satisfaction, Nelson later dissociated himself completely from its conclusions. One ought to read Dr. Danelius’s poignant account in her article of Harold H. Nelson and the fate of his doctoral thesis. Dr. Eva Danelius herself was the researcher to have come closest to identifying the Aruna road. According to her, it must have been the narrow Beth-horon pass leading up to the site of Araunah (hence Aruna) the Jebusite, which became the City of David (Zion), Jerusalem. Against the conventional view that Thutmose III’s Mk-t-y was Megiddo, Dr. Danelius would argue, instead, that Mk-t-y was a name for Jerusalem, (Bait-al-) Makdis. and she believed that the Kd-šw of the Egyptian Annals was, not Kadesh in Syria, but the land of “Har Kodsho”, “The Holy Mount”. But it seems that there are problems with every interpretation of the pharaoh’s route. The road chosen by Danelius, for instance, does not go anywhere near Taanach and Megiddo, whose coupling in the Egyptian Annals (with Taanach perfectly transliterated in the Egyptian, T3-‘3-n3-k3) leaves it beyond question that the pharaonic army was bound for the strong fort of Megiddo. Dr. Velikovsky had fully accepted the conventional interpretation here, that pharaoh Thutmose III’s Mk-t-y was Megiddo - but with a twist. Pharaoh, after conquering Megiddo, Velikovsky wrote (Ages in Chaos, I, 1952), had headed southwards in pursuit of Rehoboam, “King of Kd-šw” (Kadesh = ‘the Holy’), that is, Jerusalem. To explain the conventional estimation of the Aruna road to Megiddo, against Dr. Danelius’s very strong topographical argument, Dr. Velikovsky would suggest in his response to her that topography can change markedly over time: “Now as to the approach to Megiddo being a narrow pass – by what it is now, it cannot be judged what it was almost three thousand years ago. There could have been artificial mound-fortifications the length of the pass” (“A Response to Eva Danelius by Immanuel Velikovsky”, SIS Review, Vol. 2 No. 3, 1977/78). That, I find, to be no more compelling a view than was Dr. Danelius’s effort to account for the Egyptian T3-‘3-n3-k3 somewhere in the region of Jerusalem. Velikovsky again (loc. cit.): “Your equation of Taanach with the Tahhunah ridge does not strengthen your thesis”. The conventional view is that the pharaoh, having arrived at Gaza (G3-d3-tw), continued on by a coastal route, ultimately via the Wãdy ‘Ârah, to Megiddo. After that he moved on further northwards, to conquer the troublesome city of Kadesh on the Orontes in Syria. The progression from Megiddo to a northern Kadesh does appear to accord properly with the geography of the Egyptian campaign. On this, see Patrick J. Clarke’s account in his article, “Was Jerusalem the Kadesh of Thutmose III’s 1st Asiatic campaign? – topographic and petrographic evidence” (Journal of Creation, Vol. 23, Issue 3, December 2011, pp. 48-55). The standard identifications of Gaza, Taanach and Megiddo, and Kadesh on the Orontes, seem to me now to be quite secure. Aruna as the Wãdy ‘Ârah, however, does not! And there is another little considered location, a town, or city, Yehem (Egyptian Y-hm), whose identification by convention (e.g., Yemma), and by Dr. Danelius, I find to be not the least bit convincing. “Thutmose marched his troops through the coastal pain as far as Jamnia, then inland to Yehem, a small city near Megiddo …”. The typical view expressed here is just a guess. Dr. Danelius, for her part, thought that Y-hm must be ‘Yamnia (Yabne in Hebrew) – a port about 40 km north of Gaza’. Neither of these two views establishes a convincing linguistic and/or geographical connection. Where, if anywhere, is Jerusalem in all of this? As the disciples on another road, to Emmaus, had lamented: ‘We were hoping …’ (Luke 24:21). And, indeed, those inspired by Dr. Velikovsky’s Ages in Chaos reconstructions have been hopeful that he had been able to pinpoint, in Thutmose III’s First Campaign, his Year 22-23, his immediate march on the glorious City of Jerusalem. Would it not make perfect sense that the mighty pharaoh would firstly head straight for Jerusalem once he had begun his military campaigns into Syro-Palestine? But now we have the Kd-šw (Kadesh) necessarily cancelled out as a candidate for Jerusalem, it surely being Kadesh on the Orontes. As well as this, Mk-t-y is clearly Megiddo, and not Jerusalem. So what is there left to us? As it now seems to me, Dr. Danelius’s Araunah for the Aruna road can be salvaged – though not as to its precise geography, and also her view regarding the road’s most difficult topography can be maintained, but, once again, with geographical modifications. Let us briefly reconstruct anew this part of Thutmose III’s campaign. From Gaza, the pharaoh will do exactly what pharaoh Shoshenq I (conventionally, but wrongly, identified as the biblical “Shishak”) will do in a later period, swing across towards Jerusalem. In the case of Shoshenq I, though, he did not actually go to Jerusalem, but to Gibeon (modern al-Jīb), about six miles NW of Jerusalem. (For a handy map of Shoshenq I’s campaign, see p. 41 of SIS Review, Vol. VIII, 1986). Pharaoh Thutmose III will make his first place of call after Gaza a town not given great consideration by historians, and hopelessly identified by them: namely, Y-hm. This Y-hm was, as I now believe it must be, a shortened version of Jerusalem (Y-erusa-hm), keeping in mind ancient Egyptian’s reluctant use of ‘l’ (actually missing in their alphabet). Y-hm, or as the Annals put it, “Yehem near Aruna”, was obviously an important halting place, where the Egyptian army dallied, organised supplies, and held a conference about how further to proceed. We read an account of it, for instance, as “Yaham”, in The Battle of Megiddo by Jimmy Dunn (aka Troy Fox: www.touregypt.net): [From Gaza the Egyptian army] reached Yaham eleven days later in mid May. Perhaps this [now slower rate of march] indicates fatigue, or simply caution as they travelled through territory that could be considered potentially or actually hostile. In fact, along the way Tuthmosis III detached units commanded by general Djehuty in order to place the stronghold of Jaffa under siege so that his line of communication and possible retreat could be protected, an indication that the Canaanite alliance was significant within southern Canaan. Three possible roads from Yehem to Megiddo lay open to the Egyptians, two of which were relatively easy to negotiate (like the conventionally chosen way through the Wãdy ‘Ârah). One nearby road, however, was a most difficult one, prompting the pharaoh’s officers to question: “Will the vanguard of us be fighting while the rear is waiting here in Aruna unable to fight?” They then provided the alternative suggestions “Now, two other roads are here, one of the roads – behold it is to the east of us, so that it comes out at Taanach. The other – behold, it is to the north side of Djefti, and we will come out to the north of Megiddo”. The Aruna road, the most difficult, but most direct, was the one that the brilliant pharaoh chose, for a surprise assault upon Megiddo. Jimmy Dunn writes regarding pharaoh’s tactic (op. cit.): … the Aruna road was through a narrow and difficult pass over a ridge that was presumed (particularly for the enemy coalition) to be too difficult for any army to use. Taking that route meant that ‘horse must follow horse, and man after man’…. Also, many modern commentators, and perhaps the Canaanite coalition as well, seem to forget the major virtues of the Egyptian Chariots. They were light vehicles, and it was certainly conceivable that many could be carried through the pass, while the horses were led separately …. The pass was named from its beginning at Araunah, near king Rehoboam’s capital, Jerusalem, “Yehem near Aruna”. Dr. Danelius had got the name right, but she had the Egyptian military negotiating it the wrong way around, with Araunah as its destination point, rather than its being their starting point. This road is variously known to us today as the Way of the Patriarchs, the Hill Road, or the Ridge Route, since it included, as we read, “a narrow and difficult pass over a ridge”. It was not a proper road, even as late as the time of Jesus, not one of the international highways then to be found in Palestine. This would have been a most tricky road, indeed, to negotiate, especially for an army that greatly relied upon its chariots. From Gaza (as all agree), pharaoh marched to Jerusalem (Dr. Danelius got the sequence right, but mis-identified Jerusalem), and then by the narrow Aruna road (Dr. Danelius got the name right only, not the direction) on to Megiddo (as per the conventional view and Velikovsky), and then on to Syrian Kadesh (as per the conventional view and Patrick J. Clarke). Friday 1st October 2021