BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY
Generation 17: Hebrew years 1920-2040 (1840-1720 BCE)
Introduction
This generation is marked by the return to God's involvement in His creation through His act to disperse the human race and build an alliance with a man called Abram.
Year 1948 – 1812 BCE – Birth of Abram
Terach, son of Nachor, was 70 years when he begot Abram, Nachor and Haran, in year 1948.
And here are the generations of Terach. Terach begot Abram, Nachor and Haran, and Haran begot Lot. (Genesis 10:27)
Abram was the oldest of the three sons. Nachor was named after Terach’s father, Nachor (the elder), who was to live a short life of 147 years (to read previous generation, click here). At the time of Abram’s birth, Nachor the elder was 100 years old and just had a few more years to live because, possibly, he got already ill, a condition unknown to mankind before but that would the result of God’s intent to reduce human lifetime to 120 years after the Flood. Terach named his second son, Nachor (the younger), after his father to influence fate and prolong his name, if not his life. Then Terach begot Haran who will be the first of the three sons to marry and have a child, Lot.
Abram was the 20th human generation from Adam:
1-Adam > 2-Seth > 3-Enosh > 4-Kenan > 5-Mahalalel > 6-Jared > 7-Hanoch > 8- Methuselah > 9- Lemech > 10- Noach > 11- Sem > 12- Arpachshad > 13- Shelah > 14- Eber > 15- Peleg > 16- Reu’ > 17- Sherug > 18- Nachor > 19- Terach > 20- Abram
Year 1968 – 1792 BCE – Nimrod
At the time, the city of Ur and the whole region were under the rule of the first powerful post-Flood conqueror. He built a kingdom in the valley of Shinaar, with his capital which he called Babel:
And Cush [son of Cham] begot Nimrod; he started to be a ruler (גבר) on earth. He was a ruler (גבר) hunting in the face of God, and so it is said: "Like Nimrod a hero (גבור) hunter in the face of God." And the start of his kingdom was Babel, then Erekh, then Akkad, then Chalneh in the land of Shinaar. From that land, Ashur [son of Shem] came forth and built Nineveh and Rehovoth-Yir, and then Resen between Nineveh and Calah’, the big city. (Genesis 10:8-12)
Like his predecessors, in the same region than the one established before the Flood, Nimrod created new religious beliefs based on idolatry, as it obviously served his purpose to rule over the minds and the people by presenting himself as guided by these gods. It may be about Nimrod, a grandson from Cham who was cursed to be “a slave to his brothers” (to read it in document C15, click here) that the author of the Proverbs mentioned:
For three things the earth does quake, and for four it cannot endure:
For a slave when he reigns, etc. (Proverbs, 30:21-22)
In Babylonian history, one of the greatest rulers of these times was called Hammurabi. He is remembered in History as the one who vastly expanded the kingdom of Babylon (Babel) for the first time. This Hammurabi was most certainly the Biblical Nimrod. He started to reign in the year 1792 BCE and reigned for a long period of 42 years, until 1750 BCE.
Year 1996 – 1764 BCE – The Code of Hammurabi
In the year 1764 BCE, Hammurabi succeeded in repelling the threat from the neighboring Elam kingdom in the East, thanks to an alliance he made with the states of Southern Mesopotamia. He then turned against them and absorbed these allied states to his kingdom, conquering the city-states of Ur, Larsa and more. He established a central power from his capital city of Babylon, the Babel of the Bible.
Hammurabi is also recorded in Ancient History as the ruler who first created a new set of laws known as the Hammurabi’s Code. This policy became a necessity to unify his kingdom despite the confusion of languages and customs. His Code was however borrowed from Ur, a city-state that he had conquered like the rest of the regions. It is in Ur that the parents of Terach had settled, and Hammurabi probably involved their family in priesthood for his new cult. Terach was the high priest of Ur and the maker of idol statues for the city cult. His name, Terach (תֶרַח), is reminiscent of the Hebrew word yareach (יָרֵחַ) which means 'moon' probably as a hint to his high-priest status of a cult related to the Moon. His son, Abram (אַבְרָם), was surely aimed to become his successor in the city priesthood as his name is made of Av-ram (אַב-רָם) which means 'high-father'. Abram's promised wife, his family member Sarai, is reminiscent of the goddess’ name 'Astarte'. Another family member, Laban (לָבָּן), who will be introduced later, had his name derived from Lavan (לָבָן), which means 'white', is also a reminder of the Moon which is also called Levana (לְבָנָה) in Hebrew. All these details concur to show the priesthood role of Abram's family in the city of Ur (source: Salo W. Baron, History and Jewish Historians, Philadelphia, 1964, pp. 25-26).
It is from this family of local rulers and priests that Hammurabi borrowed the concept of codification of laws. Indeed, the oldest recorded code of laws came from Ur, not from Babylon, and is called the Code of Ur-Nammu. It was created around 2100 BCE by the founder of the Dynasty of Ur which started after the Flood.
Hammurabi surely thought that this idea of a code would greatly help him consolidate his newly conquered and vast kingdom with a unified set of laws. But where did this idea of codifying laws come from? According to Jewish tradition, Noah established them first, dictated by God, for his sons and descendants to follow after the Flood, before they scattered on earth. These so-called the Seven Noachide Laws (for more information, click here) included the divine command not to murder a man:
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. (Genesis 9:6)
And it happens that this divine commandment to the post-Flood generations is the very first rule within the Code of Ur-Nammu. At the time of this code of Ur, composed around 2100 BCE, the living patriarch was Arpachshad, son of Shem. He was the one who founded the post-Flood Ur and established this code for the new city. He had learned these rules first-hand from his father Sem and grandfather Noah. His family followed the Noachide Laws that they sealed as a code.
As Hammurabi/Nimrod wanted to show himself as the greatest ruler of all times, even above the gods (and God), and make a name for himself, he did create his own code of laws. And he did so by impressing his contemporaries by asserting that God dictated his laws. Indeed, in the prologue, Hammurabi declares himself appointed by Enlil, to establish a justice that will prevail over the land. The reader could notice that the word is actually Ellil in the original text, not the translated Enlil, and that Ellil sounds close to the Biblical name Elohim, the God of Creation (Genesis 1).
Below is the prologue from Hammurabi's Code, translated by Prof. Martha Roth, 1995(to see it online, click here).
The ancient codes of Mesopotamia extended the Noachide Laws by punishing a transgressor for the same act that he did. Indeed, the code of Hammurabi contains the concept of an eye for an eye and of a tooth for a tooth (in articles 196 and 200 of the code, respectively), a concept which also guided the Noachide Laws. This type of law was known in Canaan too, as a recent discovery in the ancient city of Hazor, Northern Israel, has demonstrated (Israel National News, Tablet Discovered by Hebrew University Matches Code of Hammurabi, 26 July 2010; to read the article, click here).
Year 1996 – 1764 BCE – The Tower of Babel
Then Hammurabi went too far in his quest for grandeur. In Babel (Babylon), he decided to erect a tower high up to reach the sky:
And it was that all the earth was one language and unified matters. And it was that they travelled from where they were and found a valley in the land of Shinaar. They settled there. And one man said to another: “Come, let us make bricks and burn them in fire.” And the bricks served them as stones, and the bitumen served them as mortar. And they said: “Come; let us build a city and a tower with its head in the sky. And this will make us a name, lest we would be dispersed on the face of the earth.”
God came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of Adam had built. God said: “Behold, they are one people with one language for all of them, and this is what they started to do. And now, they will not fortify from all what they have initiated to do. Come, let us descend and let us confuse there their language, so that one would not understand the language from another.”
And God dispersed them from there on the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city. This is why it was called Babel (בבל) because there God confused (בבל) the language of the whole earth and from there God scattered them on the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11:1-9)
The unified matters (דְבָרִים אֲחָדִים) of the text may refer to the Code imposed by Hammurabi to unify the rules of the world. In the same effort of centralized power, rulers of this generation feared that God will punish them and they would be dispersed on the face of the earth.
The confusion of the languages has been recorded by ancient civilizations, not just by the Bible. For example, the Epic of Enmerkar, a legendary ruler who reigned or lived for 900 years (this is probably to say that the composition of the epic probably spread over this long period of time), mentions the various languages and expressed the wish to return to one common one:
At such a time, may the lands of Šubur and Ḫamazi, the many-tongued, and Sumer, the great mountain of the me of magnificence, and Akkad, the land possessing all that is befitting, and the Martu land [Amorites], resting in security -- the whole universe, the well-guarded people -- may they all address Enlil together in a single language! For at that time, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings, Enki, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings -- Enki, the lord of abundance and of steadfast decisions, the wise and knowing lord of the Land, the expert of the gods, chosen for wisdom, the lord of Eridug, shall change the speech in their mouths, as many as he had placed there, and so the speech of mankind is truly one."" (Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, lines 134-155) (to read the full text online, click here)
This generation was evil but wiser than the generation of the Flood. They feared that God will use fire this time against mankind, after having used water. This led a Jewish rabbi from Medieval Spain around 1300 CE to comment:
There is a wise explanation to it: people of tower generation were villains versed in wisdom. They built a city and a tower to save from fire flood as they had already seen the ruin of the world from water flood and were afraid. They decided to build a tower to rescue with its help; if He brings fire flood and burns the world down, the fire won’t get close to them. This is what is meant in midrash telling us about the war against heaven – they have audaciously opposed the will of the Blessed [Be He]. They decided to tie up a part of fire so that it could not get to the city. In our generation, we also know some wise men who know the power, which ties up a portion of lightning so that it could be exhibited only within a certain scope. (Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa, Commentary of the Torah)
What Bahya meant is that, if God would send to them fire to burn down their city, the tower would serve as a giant lightning rod that would protect the city from destruction and its people from dispersion. Thus, this commentator suggests that the Ancients had knowledge of the lightning rod as protection of the buildings against the fire coming from heavens (this knowledge was ultimately "discovered" by Benjamin Franklin in 1752 when he flew a kite in a thundering storm).
Year 1996 – 1764 BCE – The sacrifice of Haran
The event of the Tower of Babel and the subsequent dispersion took place in the year 1996, the year when Peleg died in Ur. He was soon followed by Nachor the elder who died there in 1997. Lot, son of Haran, was probably born at that time. What happened with this family?
Nachor the Elder, like his father Sherug, were important men of the city-state of Ur, probably priests for the city gods. His son Terach was probably asked by the ruler Nimrod (Hammurabi) to sacrifice his new-born grandson Lot in order to please the gods after these unexpected deaths of the elders (Nachor and Sherug) at a time when men lived much longer lives (such as Arpachshad, the probable founder of Ur, being still alive). Their early deaths were perceived as a bad omen from this family, and a punishment from the gods. It required sacrifice to appease them. Sherug, Terach’s grand-father, was still alive and demanded this sacrifice from his own family, after the deaths of both his father and his son and maybe out of the fear that death will also come after him soon.
But Lot’s father, Haran, the younger brother of Abram, preferred to give his life instead of offering his son, and accepted the sacrifice in his place. This is why the biblical text says:
And Haran died in front of his father Terach in the land where he was born, in Ur-Kasdim. (Genesis 11:28)
The specific mention in front of his father Terach means that he died by the hands of his father, thus necessarily in a sacrificial event that was forced upon him.
Year 2000 – 1760 BCE – Start of a new era for mankind
Two millennia had passed since Adam. These millennia were devoted to the emergence of mankind, made at the image of God. But most of it was failure as people turned away from God.
Yet there was hope. Abram came to the world, and, at the turn of the new millennium, he was now 52 years old: this age represents twice the numerical value of God's name (the tetragram has a value of 26). The next two millennia will witness the emergence of a new era where the "path of God" will emerge after the first dark ages of mankind. The Jewish Sages generally considered that Abram started to teach the Torah (or rather its principles) at that time. The sacrificial death of Haran must have been this trigger, to correct the path of pagan ill-doing.
And indeed, Terach must have felt guilty for sacrificing his youngest son Haran who was the only one of his three sons to have had a wife and children, and who himself preferred to spare the life of his own son Nachor. So, he decided to correct the matters and to leave the land of his fathers:
And he [Terach] took women for Abram and Nachor [the younger]; Abram’s wife was called Sarai, and Nachor’s wife was called Milca, daughter of Haran, father of Milca and father of Yisca. And Sarai was sterile, and she did not have a child. And Terach took his son Abram, and his grandson Lot, son of Haran, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, wife of his son Abram, and they left Ur-Kasdim together to go to the land of Canaan; and they arrived at Charan and settled there. (Genesis 11:29-31)
So just before his departure from the city of Ur, Terach took wives for his two remaining sons, Abram and Nachor. Concerning Milca, the Biblical text explains that she was the daughter of Haran, brother of Abram and Nachor. So Nachor was given his niece, who was the sister of Lot.
As of Sarai, she was a daughter of Terach from another wife, so was a half-sister of Abram, as he later stated the following:
And moreover, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and so, she became my wife. (Genesis 20:12)
It is interesting to note that the argument advanced by Abram is backed by Genetics... Abram' gender gene was of the kind X1-Y, X1 from his mother and Y from his father. Sarai was of gender gene X2-X, X2 from her mother and X from Abram's common father Terach; but since Abram was a boy, he inherited gene Y from his father, while Sarai inherited gene X from the same father; so there would be no possible genetic issues for Abram and Sarai's children, with an association of parents X1-Y and X2-X.Terach had the intent to go to Canaan because, presumably, he wanted to return to the tradition and religion of his ancestor, Sem, who was still alive and living in that land. But he stopped on his way, in the northern region of Mesopotamia, in a place where he decided to settle: he named this place Charan, after the name of his sacrificed son Haran. The ancient city of Charran is located in today's Harran, on the Turkish side near the border with Syria, at coordinates 37oN 39oE. It is a very large fertile plain, the first one that travelers would come across when coming from the dryer Mesopotamian region.
The two names are written as follows in Hebrew: הָרָן for Haran the son, and חָרָן for Charan the place. The difference is in one letter, ה and ח, which is the same difference of letter for Chametz (חמצ) and Matzah (מצה), the two different breads mentioned during the Jewish festival of Passover: the former (Chametz) represents the corrupted Nature and the second (Matzah) the pure Nature. The clear message is that, although he started with good intent, Terach stopped on his way to redemption, and remained in the sin.
These 2 millennia also covered the 20 human generations from Adam to Abram. The first 10 generations from Adam to Noah were: 1- Adam > 2- Seth > 3- Enosh > 4- Kenan > 5- Mehalalel > 6- Jared > 7- Hanoch > 8- Methuselah > 9- Lemech > 10- Noah. The next 10 generations from Noah to Abram were: 11- Shem > 12- Arpachshad > 13- Shelah > 14- Eber > 15- Peleg > 16- Reu’ > 17- Sherug > 18- Nachor > 19- Terach > 20- Abram.
Year 2006 – 1754 BCE – Death of Noah
Noah died 350 years after the Flood: this was the Hebrew year 2006. He enjoyed greater longevity than people who came after him as he died at the age of 950. In Canaan, Sem was still alive and will remain alive until he would be able to pass the knowledge of God onto a spiritual heir, who will be Abram.
Year 2010 – 1750 BCE – Death of Hammurabi
After Hammurabi’s death in 1750 BCE (Hebrew year 2010), his son Samsu-Iluna succeeded him. But the powerful kingdom of Babylon started to show signs of weakness when several city-states started to rebel against the central power in the course of the years. Some large regions, such as Elam and Assur, managed to obtain relative independence, with their own king, but remained vassals and allies of Babylon.
Year 2022 – 1737 BCE – God speaks to Abram
At the end of the Hebrew year 2022, in Charan, God spoke to Abram, the first man He spoke to since He had instructed Noah and his sons to populate the earth after the Flood and when He gave them the basic laws of human behavior, so-called the Noahide laws (to see document C14, click here):
God said to Abram: "Go for yourself, from your land, from your relatives, and from the house of your father to the land I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make a great name of you, and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who will bless you, and those who will curse you, I will curse; and all the families of mankind will be blessed through you."
And Abram went when God spoke to him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Charan. And Abram took with him his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all their properties that they acquired and the soul that they made in Charan.
And they left to go to the land of Canaan, and they arrived at the land of Canaan. Abram passed in the land to the site of Shechem until Elon Moreh, and the Canaanite was then in the land.
And God appeared to Abram and said: "To your offspring I will give this land." And he built there an altar for God who appeared to him. (Genesis 12:1-7)
Abram was ready to receive God’s word because, there in Charan, he had made a step to a belief, thus a soul, different from the house of his pagan father. This is why God told him Go for yourself because Abram was eager to find answers about being and existence, that he was asking to himself. Then God talked to him, to guide him.
Abram made immediate preparation to leave as God had commanded him. And he left Charan with his wife and nephew Lot, when he was 75 years old, thus in year 2023. The difference of year is because, according to Tradition and confirmed by this text, Abram was born on a 1st Tishri, so the beginning of a New Year. So, he left Charan when he was 75 years old means he left on the 1st of Tishri 2023. God spoke to him a few days previously, in the last days of the month of Elul 2022. This pattern is also found in the Creation, when God created the world in Six Days, the six last days of Elul, and made Adam on the 7th, which was counted as the first day of Tishri. There is a parallel in both births, of Adam and Abram, on the same day of Tishri. They are also buried in the same place, as shall be seen later.
God spoke to Abram in the last days of Elul 2022, precisely 26 years from the Dispersion (Tower of Babel) in Hebrew year 1996. We already know that the number of 26 is indicative of God's influence on events as it is the numerical value of the tetragram (His name). Both Hebrew years, end of 2022 and beginning of 2023, correspond to 1737 BCE.
Abram and his wife had settled in the south of the land of Canaan, at the edge of the desert of the Negev:
And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South. (Genesis 12:9)
The desertic region was a good choice because it was (and still is) less populated than the rest of the land, so it was a way for Abram and his followers to keep away from the Canaanite neighbors who may otherwise have caused them trouble.
Year 2024 – 1736 BCE – Abram's "exodus" from Egypt and the Ipuwer Papyrus
A famine soon desolated the land of Canaan. It started in the hot summer of Hebrew year 2023, and it was a trial for Abram, because he and his wife moved down to Egypt to sojourn there (Genesis 12:10). However, this was a failure to prove his faith because God had extracted Abram with the wish for him to settle in the land I will show you. The day when he entered Egypt was probably on 10 Tishri 2024, because that day is later chosen as a day of repentance (Yom Kippur) from the sins of the year that just completed. But within the year of his arrival, Abram had already left Egypt!
But can one human defy God's designs? The famine that havocked the land of Canaan also affected Egypt which was weakened by reductions in the Nile levels at the time. In addition, the country passed through political instability at the end of the 12th Dynasty which left no heir.
A new Dynasty, the 13th, started during a period of decline and instability in Egypt called the Second Intermediate Period. Historians know little about this period of transition, except that some rulers were Semitic foreigners who invaded the Nile delta. The first of them is known in History as Khendjer but his real name was written HNZR, equivalent to the Semitic word for Ha-NaZiR (הנצר): it means “the scion”, but not the boar or pig as others have stated which would be quite derogatory for a name. This ruler came as an invader because, maybe, the famine also affected his native land at the time, and he sought to invade another region where his followers could settle.
The valley of the Nile offered a huge pool of water that was a regional refuge during severe draughts. This is confirmed by the decoration of the tomb of an official called Khnumhotep II during the 12th Dynasty. His tomb, in Beni Hasan, shows immigrants of Semitic character called the Aamu. The Egyptian official on the right side is a superintendent who holds a papyrus roll on which is written that the number of Aamu of Shu amounts to 37 (source: Newberry Percy E., Beni Hasan, Part I, in "Archaeological Survey of Egypt", Paul, K., Trench, Trubner & Company, London, 1893):
In another text, the Tale of Sinuhe, which pre-dates this period, there is also mention of the Aamu: they are referred as the Asiatic people who lived in hill lands, thus probably any people east from Egypt, such as Canaan. One passage of this text is interesting because it compares the method of burial in Egypt (mummy making for important deceased people) with the rudimentary burial in Canaan:
You will never die in a foreign land and Aamu [aAmw, Asiatics] will not bury you. You shall not be placed in a sheep-skin, where your [stone] mound is made. (Tale of Sinuhe, decree of Pharaoh for Sinuhe's return to Egypt)
In Northern Canaan (where are today the Golan Heights and Lebanon), in the times from the end of Early Bronze (EB) to the beginning of Middle Bronze (EB-MB transition), they used to bury people under a mound of stone, called tumulus. So, the text of Sinuhe is correct on this point, of the burial practice in Canaan compared to Egypt.
It is interesting to note the richness of the clothing of these immigrants depicted in the Beni Hasan tomb, with very elaborated weaved robes as compared to the plain white ones from Egyptians. To be accepted in Egypt, they surely had to bring with them products or techniques that were unknown or rare to Egyptians. One of these techniques may have been glass making. According to experts, this technique was particularly used in Asia and in the Levant and was brought down to Egypt. The Egyptians learned the technique and started to use glass in the making of tools, utensils, jewelry and so on. Most of antique glass found today comes from Egypt, because of the good preservation that was there, but it didn't originate from Egypt. This is why, maybe, the tomb of Beni Hasan also features these new techniques, or wool weaving and glass smelting, because it was new to Egyptians in these times of the Medium Bronze (MB) period.
When he went down to Egypt, Abram had his wife Sarai taken from him because of her beauty. The court of a semitic Pharaoh probably thought that he would like to have her as a wife because she was from the same ethnicity as him. But God intervened, caused great plagues (Genesis 12:17) among the court of Egypt and even in Pharaoh's own house. Pharaoh called up onto Abram and expelled him with his wife and his followers out of Egypt, and with all his riches. In total, Abram had remained several months in Egypt before returning to Canaan in Hebrew year 2024 (1736 BC). He left Egypt on 15 Nisan 2024.
According to historical chronologies of Egypt, the ruling Pharaoh at that time was Sobekhotep IV, who reigned for 10 years and, because of his attitude towards Abram and Sarai, he may have been blessed in his endeavors as he is considered to have been the most powerful king of the 13th Dynasty.
There is an historical proof of these great plagues on Egypt in that period: the Ipuwer Papyrus, titled the Dialogue between Ipuwer and the God of All... Nobody knows for sure the date of this document because the only sample, preserved in Leiden (Netherlands), is a copy made during the 18th or 19th Dynasty of Egypt. It is generally assumed by Egyptologists that the document dates back from the Second Intermediate Period, so about 1850-1600 BCE: this would be contemporary with the passage of Abram in Egypt in 1736 BCE.
Year 2024 – 1736 BCE – The Hyksos and the Ipuwer Papyrus
Historians also consider that the Ipuwer Papyrus relates the invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos. They were a foreign people, being described as "pale faced", who came to rule over the Nile Delta, the most northern part of Egypt. The term “Hyksos” is their name in Greek, and they have been described as foreign invaders, and at times, invaders from the desert.
But their name in Ancient Egyptian is Heqa Khasheshet whose name, if derived from a Semitic root, would relate to the word keshet which means bow. The Hyksos were probably skilled bowmen, and, in addition, they brought to Egypt the usage of chariot in warfare. No doubt such technological advantages would have enabled them to defeat the previous local dynasty and invade part of the Egyptian land.
The Ipuwer Papyrus is full of references of the catastrophes that fell upon Egypt during the time of Abram's passage but also catastrophes that fell upon Egypt at subsequent periods of these troubled times. This is probably because Egyptian chroniclers of later generation looked upon that period of their history as one bad period, one catastrophe leading to another, and so they combined all these natural and supernatural ordeals into a single tale within one papyrus as if they had one unique cause: the invasion by the Hyksos. Here is an example of the text (to read the full text online, click here.):
I. [Hyksos invasion?] The tribes of the desert have become Egyptians everywhere. Indeed, the face is pale [...] the bowman is ready [...] Indeed, the women are barren, and none conceive. [...]
II. [Plagues at the time of Abram in Egypt?] Indeed, [hearts] are violent, pestilence is throughout the land, blood is everywhere, death is not lacking, and the mummy-cloth speaks even before one comes near it. [...] Indeed, the river is blood, yet men drink of it. Men shrink from human beings and thirst after water. towns are destroyed and Upper Egypt [under control of the Egyptians, unlike Lower Egypt controlled by Hyksos] has become an empty waste. (Extracts from the Admonition of Ipuwer, Section I)
Let’s notice that the calamity of barren women may also be relevant to the time of Abraham in Egypt because of the parallel between two verses: in Genesis 12:17 it is said that God plagued Pharaoh and his house because of Sarai, Abram's wife, whereas in Genesis 20:18 it is said: For God closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham's wife. So, the plague that struck the houses of both Pharaoh and Abimelech was that the women became barren.
Year 2024 – 1736 BCE – Rebellion against Babylon
After his return from Egypt, much wealthier than when he had left Canaan, Abram settled in the place he was before, a hilly country of today's Samaria, between Beth-El and Ai. But his nephew Lot, also wealthy, opted to settle in the Jordan valley, where the Dead Sea is today, because of the abundance of water in this area before it was destroyed with Sodom.
In Babylon, at the beginning of the reign of Samsu-Iluna which started in 1750 BCE after Hammurabi's death, a rebellion spread to some remote parts of the empire. In the land of Canaan, all the city-states rejected their prior allegiance to the king of Elam, vassal of Babylon, named Kedar-LaOmer in the Bible (Genesis 14:1), who was historically recorded as Kudur-Lagamar in the Elamite chronicles. This king of Elam called upon the king of Babylon, Amraphel in the Bible, for military support. The king of Assyria and the king of Goyim joined them in what was the campaign of four powerful kings against five small kings who had rebelled in the land of Canaan.
In Hebrew, this king of Assyria is called Arioch and this name may be identified as Erishum II from the Old Assyrian Period; this dynasty was earlier founded by Erishum I, son of Ilu-shuma, a name which sounds similar to the name of the dynasty mentioned in the Biblical text: Arioch king of Ellasar (Genesis 14:1). As of Goyim, the word in Hebrew generally means Nations, but it may refer here to the Gutians who were one of the people of Southern Mesopotamia under the control of Babylon, in the region where Sumer used to be before the Flood.
The four Asiatic kings obviously defeated the five Canaanite kings in the Valley of Siddim, which used to be where the city of Sodom was located, where the Southern part of the Dead Sea is today. This battle took place in the 14th year after the death of Hammurabi, so in 1736 BCE, Hebrew year 3020, as mentioned in the Bible:
Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, […] (Genesis 14:4-5)
After defeating the rebellious city-states, the four kings started their return north. Lot, Abram’s nephew, was among the many captives. But Abram and his 318 trained men born in his house (Genesis 14:14), intervened at night and attacked successfully the large enemy camp to free the captives, and then they pursued their enemies even further north (Genesis 14:15-16). This success would not have happened without God's intervention, because of the big difference in number between Abram's small party and the combined forces of four powerful kings who just defeated the alliance of five Canaanite kings. Indeed, the expression trained men born in his house refers to disciples who were more spiritually raised by Abram to walk in the path of God rather than combat-trained men.
Abram was greeted upon his return and the Canaanite kings paid tribute to him. Another king to pay tribute, but who was not in the coalition, was Melchi-Zedek:
And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine; and he was priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said: 'Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' And he gave him a tenth of all. (Genesis 14:18-20)
Melchi-Zedek is stated in the Biblical text as being the king of Salem (the location of the future city of Jeru-Salem), and that a high priest to the god almighty (Genesis 14:18). Presumably this Melki-Zedek was Sem who, at the time of these events, was still alive in the land of Canaan, and was about 450 years old. He was one of the last ancestors still alive and had been a guide to Abram: he was the sole surviving witness of the Flood. Sem was the righteous son of Noah. The above verse mentions wine, and the previous mention of this man-made drink was in the story of Noah, after the Flood (Genesis 9:21). Presumably Sem had learned from his father how to make wine. But there is a difference: as Noah made wine for his own pleasure and got drunk, Shem made wine and bread as a purpose to bless the divine Creator.
The knowledge of wine making continued to exist in the holy land. In fact, the two oldest places (at this time) of wine production are in Armenia and in Egypt: Armenia is where Noah himself or his son Japhet had established after the Flood, whereas Egypt is said to have obtained the technique of wine production from Canaan, presumably from Sem in Salem.
The name of the city called Salem is recorded in ancient Egyptian tablets called the Execration texts. These are curses against Canaanite cities, because the Hittites controlled the Canaanite city-states at the time of Abraham. These curses were written on clay pottery and broken as a ritual. A first publication of these texts was done by German archaeologist K. Sethe in 1926. More such texts were discovered again in 1963. These are important findings because they give names of Canaanite cities of the MB (Middle Bronze) period. Some names are easily identified such as Rehob, Ashkelon (a mighty EB-era city before it was conquered by the Sea People), Hatzor, and so on. And the city of Salem is also mentioned as ȥwšȥmm, which has been correctly transcribed by Sethe as Jerusalem (line f 18). It is the oldest mention of the name Jerusalem found by archaeology thus far ! Interestingly the name of its king is also mentioned in the Egyptian text as Yaqir-hammu. The word hammu commonly refers to Asiatic people in early Egyptian sources (written Aamu in Beni Hasan tomb), whereas Yaqir is rooted in the word meaning knowledge or wisdom. In the Bible the king of Salem is Melchi-Zedek which means King of Righteousness. We can see the connection between righteousness and knowledge/wisdom!
With this victory of Abram and his small number of disciples compared to the vast army of enemies, Sem (Melchi-Zedek king of Salem) could acknowledge that Abram was protected and guided by God and thus was the spiritual heir he had been longing for.
About Year 2025 – 1735 BCE – God makes a covenant with Abram
In a vision, God appeared to Abram and spoke to him 8 times (to read about the Jewish symbolism of the numbers, click here). When did it happen? The Biblical text doesn't mention it, for example by stating how old was Abram at the time. There are two schools of thought: some believe that this vision happened in Hebrew year 2023 and others in year 2018. But this vision is narrated in the Bible after these things, i.e. after the war against the kings:
After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying: 'Fear not, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be exceedingly great.' (Genesis 15:1)
So, the vision took place no earlier than the Hebrew year 2024, a consideration that voids both schools of thought!
The importance of this vision is that it sets the covenant that God made with Abram, traditionally called the Brit Bein Habetarim (the Covenant of the Pieces). This vision is comparable to the one that Prophet Daniel will have much later in the time during the captivity in Babylon (see it in future document C27). The most important part is the following promise about the land:
And He said unto him: 'I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.' (Genesis 15:7)
But why did God mention that He brought Abram out of Ur? Previously, the Bible mentioned the family’s departure as follows:
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan. (Genesis 11:31)
So, God's statement to Abram surely means that He had been the designer behind his family’s departure from Ur. The initial plan was to head to Canaan, where some of Terach’s ancestors such as Sem still lived. In fact, God may have first addressed Himself to the father of Abram, in a dream, to leave Ur and go to Canaan. But Terah stopped on his way in Charan and, later, God revealed Himself to Abram to continue the journey to Canaan.
Because of the expression I brought you out, we can also understand this sentence as a direct reference to the future, when God will bring out of Egypt the descendants of Abraham, for example in the following statement:
'I am the Lord your God who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God.' (Leviticus 25:28)
So, this vision seems to make a parallel between God who brought out Abram out of Ur and God who will bring out his descendance out of Egypt. The two events can be seen as directly connected and are meant to bring our attention to their parallel. And the connection does not stop just at this mention but through many other details: Abram heads down to Egypt because of a famine in Canaan like Jacob will do, God stroke Egypt with plagues at the time of Abram like in the Ten Plagues, Abram was given a lot of wealth when he was sent off from Egypt and so did the Hebrews, and so on. We can thus say that the year of the Exodus is not to be derived from the imprecise year of the Brit Bein Habetarim but from the year when Abram left Egypt (more details will be provided in document C21).
In this vision, God also told Abram that his offspring will form a big nation but that they will go through some ordeal first:
And it came to pass, that, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, a dread, even a great darkness, fell upon him. And He said to Abram: "Know for certainty that your offspring will be strangers in a land that will not belong to them; and they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.
And also, the nation that will make them work, I will judge it. And then they will go out, with great wealth. And you, you will join your fathers in peace and will be buried in a good old age. And the fourth generation will return here, because the iniquity of the Amorite will not be full until then." (Genesis 15:12-16)
The vision above points to a transition from slavery to becoming a free nation. But this day will not come before a period of 400 years, as God had announced. The number 400 is generally a mark of darkness or bad omen for the Hebrew people across their History, as we shall see later in this work. But it is also a necessary ordeal before redemption may arrive. The other prophecy is that it will be the fourth generation of Hebrews who will return to Canaan after the Exodus from Egypt, as we shall see it confirmed later in this study (see document C21).
To comfort Abram after this somehow negative vision, God made an alliance with him and repeated His promise:
In that day, God made an alliance with Abram by saying: "To your offspring I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River." (Genesis 15:18)
Year 2034 – 1726 BCE – Birth of Ishmael
This important Biblical text is immediately followed by the story of Ishmael, the son born to Agar the Egyptian maidservant: Sarai pushed her onto her husband to give him an offspring. It occurred 10 years after Abram came to dwell in the land of Canaan, after his return from Egypt (Genesis 16:3). He had brought Agar from there.
Ishmael was born when Abram was 86 years old (Genesis 16:16), so it was the Hebrew year 2034 (1726 BCE). As he was a son of Abram, he benefited from the blessing that God gave to his offspring and, to this day, his descendants indeed dwell in the region that God promised to Abram, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River.
But after the birth of Ishmael, the servant Agar lost respect for Sarai, because the latter was still barren. So, Abram's wife had to make her leave. In the wilderness, water came to an end and Agar thought her child would die. An angel appeared to Agar and convinced her to come back to Abram and Sarai and told her about her son:
"He will be a wild person, his arm against all, and everyone’s arm against his, and he shall dwell in the face of all his brothers." (Genesis 16:12)
There is a place in the Negev, in Israel, south-east from Beer-Sheva, which is called by the Bedouins “the well of Agar”. Because, according to their tradition, it is the spot where the angel saved Agar and Ishmael by bringing forth a water source in the desert. And water indeed flows there to this day, in the middle of the Negev desert.
To return to the list of chronological generations from Seder Olam Revisited, click here.
Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
Adar 5785 - March 2025