by
Damien
F. Mackey
Explores the possibility that the biblical Huram-abi was King Hammurabi.
Abrahamic
Connection
Hammurabi’s possible Amorite ancestry, tracing back
to Abraham, might account for why we have been finding that the great king had
been so influenced by Hebrew Law and protocol.
Herb Storck has shown, in an important
article “The Early Assyrian King List ... and the ‘Greater Amorite’ Tradition”
(Proc. of the 3rd Seminar of
Catastrophism & Ancient History, C & AH Press, Toronto, 1986, p.
43), that there is a genealogical link among:
(i) Abraham;
(ii) the genealogy of king Hammurabi; and
(iii) the Assyrian King List.
Storck commences his article with the
following explanation:
The Assyrian Kinglist (AKL) is one of the most important chronographic texts
ever uncovered. Initially it was thought to represent a long unbroken tradition
of rulership over Assyria. A closer look at the AKL by Benno Landsberger
(1890-1968) ... however, dispelled this somewhat facile approach to AKL
tradition. Subsequent studies by Kraus ... and Finkelstein ... have
demonstrated a common underlying Amorite tradition between parts of the AKL and
the Genealogy of Hammurapi (GHD). Portions of this section of the AKL
containing 17 tent-dwelling kings have also been compared to biblical ... and
Ugaritic ... Amorite traditions.
Storck’s purpose will be “to take a closer look at the 17
Assyrian tent dwellers and the greater Amorite tradition, as evidenced
primarily in the genealogy of the Hammurapi [Hammurabi] Dynasty and other minor
traditions”. The names of all 17 tent-dwelling kings are preserved in various
lists. What is striking is that many of these names can be linked with names in
the GHD, which gives the names in couplet form. Thus, for example, names 3 and 4,
Janqi (Janqu) and Sahlamu are given in GHD as Ya-am-qu-us-ha-lam-ma. Name 11,
Zuabu, may be connected with Sumuabi, an ancestor of Hammurabi. Thus Storck:
Poebel sought to connect the name with Su-mu-a-bi, the name of the first king
of the first dynasty of Babylon, even though in our list it is written with the
sign ZU. .... Kraus, however, expressed his personal doubts as to whether this
would work .... But in a recently published fragment of this portion of the AKL
(E) this name was indeed written with an initial SU for ZU, thus supporting
Poebel's contention somewhat. “Nevertheless, the genealogy edited by J.J.
Finkelstein has Zu-um-ma-bu in the apparently parallel line, hinting that the
reverse may be the case. The presence of ma as restored eases the
interpretation of the name Sumu-abu” ....
Storck concluded the first part of his study by claiming
that: “Nine of the 17 tent-dwelling AKL kings can reasonably be identified with
GHD ancestors of Hammurapi. This would appear to be sufficient to establish
that these two genealogies drew upon a common ‘Amorite’ tradition”.
That there was still that nomadic inclination within the
kings of the Hammurabic era may perhaps be gleaned from the fact that
Shamsi-Adad I of that time had no really fixed capital, but moved from place to
place.
And we have found that Iarim-Lim (Hiram), though stationed
in the west, had a political reach that extended all the way to Elam.
Who Was Hammurabi?
Who, then, was this Hammurabi, likely a non-indigenous
ruler of Babylon, of Amorite, or northern Canaanite background, who had deepy
absorbed Hebrew traditions and culture, and who was contemporaneous with the
biblical King Hiram (Iarim-Lim) and,
hence, with David and Solomon of Israel?
The most likely candidate for Hammurabi, I now think,
would be that famous biblical artisan of very similar name, Huram-abi
(Hiram-abi) - the fabled Hiram Abiff of the Freemasons - who was probably
somewhat younger than King David, but older than King Solomon.
King Hiram had told Solomon (2 Chronicles 2:13-14):
‘I am
sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill, whose mother was from Dan and
whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze
and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine
linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design
given to him. He will work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord,
David your father’.
From I Kings 7:13, it appears that Huram-abi was located
in Tyre at the time: “King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought
Huram …”. Tyre would, of course, be a geographical problem obstructing an
identification of Huram-abi with Hammurabi the king of Babylon.
Could
he have become king of Babylon later? That is only surmise. But also see
comments above re Shamsi-Adad I’s nomadic tendencies and Iarim-Lim’s power. Plus, our knowledge of Hammurabi’s Babylon is
seriously disadvantaged by the high water table in Babylon at that
archaeological level, preventing excavation.
I
Kings 7:14 gives a variation on 2 Chronicles’ account of Huram-abi’s mother, “from Dan”, by telling
us that his “mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali”.
That Huram-abi was a man with the technical skills
necessary to assist King Solomon is abundantly apparent from the continuing
narrative of I Kings 14:14-50:
Huram was
filled with wisdom, with understanding and with knowledge to do all kinds of
bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all the work assigned to him.
He cast two
bronze pillars, each eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference.
He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of
the pillars; each capital was five cubits high. A
network of interwoven chains adorned the capitals on top of the pillars, seven
for each capital. He made pomegranates in two rows
encircling each network to decorate the capitals on top of the pillars. He did
the same for each capital. The capitals on top of the
pillars in the portico were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. On the capitals of both pillars, above the bowl-shaped part next to
the network, were the two hundred pomegranates in rows all around. He erected the pillars at the portico of the Temple. The pillar to
the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz. The capitals
on top were in the shape of lilies. And so the work on the pillars was
completed.
He made the
Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and
five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. Below the rim, gourds encircled it—ten to a cubit. The gourds were
cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.
The Sea stood
on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and
three facing east. The Sea rested on top of them, and their hindquarters were
toward the center. It was a handbreadth in thickness,
and its rim was like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two
thousand baths.
He also made
ten movable stands of bronze; each was four cubits long, four wide and three
high. This is how the stands were made: They had side panels attached
to uprights. On the panels between the uprights were
lions, bulls and cherubim—and on the uprights as well. Above and below the
lions and bulls were wreaths of hammered work. Each
stand had four bronze wheels with bronze axles, and each had a basin resting on
four supports, cast with wreaths on each side. On the
inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame one cubit
deep. This opening was round, and with its basework it measured a cubit and a
half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were
square, not round. The four wheels were under the
panels, and the axles of the wheels were attached to the stand. The diameter of
each wheel was a cubit and a half. The wheels were made
like chariot wheels; the axles, rims, spokes and hubs were all of cast metal. Each
stand had four handles, one on each corner, projecting from the stand. At the top of the stand there was a circular band half a cubit deep.
The supports and panels were attached to the top of the stand. He engraved cherubim, lions and palm trees on the surfaces of the
supports and on the panels, in every available space, with wreaths all around.
This is the way he made the ten stands. They were all cast in
the same molds and were identical in size and shape.
He then made
ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across,
one basin to go on each of the ten stands. He placed
five of the stands on the south side of the Temple and five on the north. He
placed the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner of the Temple.
He also made the pots and shovels and sprinkling bowls.
So Huram
finished all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon in the Temple of the Lord:
the
two pillars;
the
two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars;
the
two sets of network decorating the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the
pillars;
the
four hundred pomegranates for the two sets of network (two rows of pomegranates
for each network decorating the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars);
the
ten stands with their ten basins;
the
Sea and the twelve bulls under it;
the
pots, shovels and sprinkling bowls.
All
these objects that Huram made for King Solomon for the Temple of the Lord were of burnished bronze. The king had them
cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Sukkoth and Zarethan.
Solomon left all these things unweighed, because there were so
many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.
Solomon also
made all the furnishings that were in the Lord’s Temple:
the
golden altar;
the
golden table on which was the bread of the Presence;
the
lampstands of pure gold (five on the right and five on the left, in front of
the inner sanctuary);
the
gold floral work and lamps and tongs;
the
pure gold basins, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and censers;
and
the gold sockets for the doors of the innermost room, the Most Holy Place, and
also for the doors of the main hall of the Temple.
If Hammurabi were Huram-abi, then it would be no wonder
that he dealt in bonze and that he favoured artisans and craftsmen, and that he
imported his wood from Lebanon (http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch03-ham.htm):
Babylon was
a city where trade routes crossed. Under Hammurabi it became a bronze-age city
of commerce and agriculture. It was a city with skilled artisans, architects,
bricklayers and businessmen, with an efficient secular administration and a
chain of command. The city was at the hub of an intricate network of canals. It
was surrounded by great fields of barley, melons, fruit trees and the wheat the
Babylonians used in making unleavened, pancake-like bread. From their barley,
the Babylonians made beer. They sheared wool from their flocks of sheep. And
they imported wood from Lebanon and metals from Persia.
188. If an artisan take a son for adoption and teach him his handicraft,
one may not bring claim for him.
189. If he do not teach him his handicraft, that adopted son may return
to his father's house.
274. If a man hire an artisan, the wage of a … is 5 SE of
silver; the wage of a brickmaker (?) is 5 SE of silver; the wage of a tailor is
5 SE of silver; the wage of a … is … SE of silver; the wage of a … is … SE of
silver; the wage of a … is … SE of silver; the wage of a carpenter is 4 SE of
silver; the wage of a (?) is 4 SE of silver; the wage of a (?) is … SE of
silver; the wage of a mason is … SE of silver; so much per day shall he pay.
The
Code contemplates the whole population as falling into three classes, the
amelu, the muskinu and the ardu. The amelu was a patrician, the man of family,
whose birth, marriage and death were registered, of ancestral estates and full
civil rights. He had aristocratic privileges and responsibilities, the right to
exact retaliation for corporal injuries, and liability to heavier punishment
for crimes and misdemeanours, higher fees and fines to pay. To this class
belonged the king and court, the higher officials, the professions and
craftsmen.
M. van de Mieroop (The Ancient Mesopotamian City, p. 179) writes of ‘most craftsmen
being employed by palaces and temples’ (reminiscent of the case of Solomon and
Huram-abi):
The specialized class of artisans needed to be exempt from the tasks of
primary food production, and this was only possible in an urban economy.
It is clear
that craft specialization
took place in the early stages of the development of urban society, and that
the sustainable size of the class of craftsmen was directly related to the
size
of the urban economy. It is
often stated in current literature that, at least until the late second
millennium Bc [sic], most craftsmen were employed by the central
institutions of
palace and temples, as only these rich organizations were able to
support them ….
