Natan-Melech of Judah's Seal Found in Jerusalem Parking Lot

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                         

Sacrificing the first born in Baal worship
to bring in a great harvest-and good luck-a Babylonian and Canaanite
belief that spread to the Israelite 12 tribes. 
Baal Peor was a local Canaanite deity worshipped with sexual orgies.
This may be why it was such a popular belief!  People really change very little.  The Baal belief has a lot to do with what was recently found.  

The horse-drawn chariots used to greet the sun

Found in II Kings 23:11 is a section that tells how even the Kohenim were breaking rules in worshipping foreign religions such as Baal right in the Temple.  It happened during king Josiah's reign from 637 BCE to 608 BCE just before the Babylonian attack led by Nebuchadnezzar when the Jews of Judah were kidnapped and taken to Babylonia in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE.  
                                                          

King Josiah learning about Judaism
Prophets Nahum, Zephaniah and Jeremiah no doubt
were educating him as well during his formative years.  

Josiah's father,  King Amon, who ruled only from 638 to 637 BCE , had been murdered when Josiah was but 8 years old so he was crowned king at that early age.  When he reached the age of manhood, probably at 21, he began a program of religious reform and removed the foreign cults which had taken hold in Judah and re-established the pure monotheistic religion of Judaism.  

Do we ever read about this period?  We get so caught up in the many holidays we have with their history and all that somehow we forget how fragile our religion is and that possibly the culture around it with its strange accompaniments to help us remember, have had reasons for their being.  Look how quickly our ancestors forgot and accepted these weird thoughts.

In the course of repairing the First Temple, the high priest Hilkiah announced the discovery of a BOOK OF THE LAW, a scroll,  which so influenced Josiah that he convened  an assembly of the entire people during Passover in 621 BCE at which a solemn covenant was made with G-d.  Many scholars have identified this book with Deuteronomy.  Josiah removed the high places and centralized worship at the Jerusalem Temple.  

Josiah was busy cleaning everything foreign out of the Temple.  First, he read out loud to the crowd of Judeans he had called for from this newly discovered  Book of the Covenant that had been found in the Temple.  To think that it had been in some corner somewhere not used is shocking, but that's what happened with a king who had been murdered which affected the whole community.  Such information stopped with him and his son had not been old enough to know the procedure.  

Manasseh had been king before Amon from 697 to 638 BCE, a long stretch of time.  

The priests during King Josiah's childhood, the Kohens-descendants of Aaron, had been burning offerings to Baal. They were the ones who should have been reading to the king from the Book of Law.    It is indeed shocking to us.  King Josiah (he) also abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had designated for worship of the sun which would race from the entrance to the Temple of Hashem to the office of Netan-melech, the officer in the outlying area of the city.  He burned the chariots of the sun in fire.  (The worship of the sun consisted in racing out towards the east at daybreak in horse-drawn chariots, to "greet" the rising sun).  
                                                       

picture from Wnd, small clay object 

We'll skip ahead in time 2,600 years and see that the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University discovered an ancient bulla seal impression bearing the inscription BELONGING TO NATHAN-MELECH, SERVANT OF THE KING, in the City of David (Jerusalem) just outside the Old City of Jerusalem, according to an announcement on Sunday, April 2019 as read about in the newspaper, The Jerusalem Press of April 5th.  This shows verification of history being true as originally written in Kings II.  Dr. Anat Mendael-Geberovich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Center for the Study of Ancient Jerusalem was the one who deciphered the seal, and said in a statement that "Although it is not possible to determine with complete certainty that the Nathan-Melech, who is mentioned in the Bible, was in fact the owner of the stamp, it is impossible to ignore some of the details that link them together.  

There he is;  Natan-Melech named as an officer in the court of King Josiah.  The bulla was discovered in a 1st Temple period public building that is part of the excavations in the City of David National Park's Givati Parking Lot.  It was  "uncovered by Israeli archaeologist Yuval Gadot’s team during the ongoing Givati Parking Lot Excavation". This does verify, corroborate, substantiate, and confirm that what was written in our OLD TESTAMENT/TANAKH/II KINGS was about real people.  

Melech means king in Hebrew.  He had taken the surname of Melech.  Perhaps it would be read, Natan, of the King, meaning that he served the king.  In that period, people were like, David, son of Moshe which read as David ben Moshe.  So Natan here was not the son of the king.  ( My favorite song learned in Israel was (David, melech Yisrael, chai, chai, .vik ah yeh nu.  )...
                                                                           

Now, back in time to King  Manasseh, who ruled from 692 to 638 BCE.  He had succeeded his father, Hezekiah, at the age of 12 and was one of the worst Jewish monarchs.  Here's where our Judeans slid away from Judaism.  He was the problem.  He canceled his father's reforms, reintroduced PAGAN PRACTICES and so shocked the faithful that the destruction of the Temple was attributed to his wickedness as read in II KINGS 21: 11-17.  He had been forcefully opposed by the loyal monotheists, many of whom he put to death!  Manasseh paid tribute to Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal of Assyria and according to one report, spent some time as a captive in Babylon according to II Chron. 33:11-19.  It has been suggested that his pagan innovations were the result of Assyrian pressure.  

The Assyrians had raided the 10 Northern Tribes of Judah/Israel in 722-721 BCE and took as their slaves the best of the population.  That was only about 30 years previously, so they may have left their impression and beliefs somehow.  
                                                                     

Baal idol 

I can't blame Jezebel, because she was married to the king of Israel, Ahab, who ruled from 876 BCE to 853 BCE.  She's the one who introduced Baal to his Israelites.  She was the introduction of problems before the Assyrians had even attacked.  Maybe that's what made them weak, putting trust into clay statues instead of an unseen G-d that had showed the people strength many times over in the past.   
                                                                              

Worshipping Baal on Mt. Carmel

I think we have seen what happens to a people whose king no longer respects his people's G-dly worship.  Judaism was replaced with Baal and reintroduced whenever there was a weakness in the kingly leadership.  Baal was ugly.  They believed in human sacrifice.   Josiah came along just in time to clean house.  

Resource; Tanakh, The Stone Edition
The Jewish Press, April 5, 2019
https://www.thetrumpet.com/18864-nathan-melech-found
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

   

Egypt-A Country of Our Ancient History of Dealing With a Pharaoh: MOSES-The 1st Deal Closer

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                

Pharaoh Rameses II, played by Yul Brynner in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS of 1956
Lived from 1300-1234 BCE-  or some say Reigned from 1279 to 1213 BCE-
Moses lived from 1391-1271 BCE
It is believed Rameses II  had 50 sons and 50 daughters.  

Our Biblical Jewish history involving Egypt takes place in Egypt's Middle Kingdom in the 18th-16th century BCE.  Some commentators have said it was from the 11th to 17 dynasty of rulers from 2500 to 1587 BCE.   Joseph, 11th son son of Jacob  and Rachel's 1st,. was bought  by Potiphar, chief of Pharaoh's household as the Chief of Pharaoh's bodyguard, . in Egypt as a slave.  .
                                                                             

Buying Joseph from brothers

 Joseph had been  sold to an Ishmaelite camel train heading for Egypt from his jealous older brothers, and so he arrived there earlier than the rest of his family.  He wound up serving one of the Hyksos kings who were invaders or "princes" of the desert, as they called themselves, Bedouins from the Arabian desert.  Their dominion was later described as terrible, but they had restored and enlarged the temples, encouraged learning and could not have destroyed any of the previous Egyptian monuments since we have been able to view them ourselves.
                                       

Joseph must have been 2nd in command.  The Hyksos ruled Egypt, then were expelled by the founder of the 18th dynasty in 1587 BCE.  It happened not long after the death of Joseph when the Hyksos were driven back into Asia.  The Egyptian throne was regained by a native ruler who was the founder of the 18th Dynasty.
                                                                                 

Egypt's Old Kingdom had been made up of the 1st 10 dynasties of pyramid builders, ending in 2500 BCE

Egypt's 3rd period was called the New Kingdom which continued to the end of the 20th dynasty in 1100 BCE.  After that, it came under Lybian, Persian (Iran), Macedonian (Greek) and Roman rule.                                                                

 Cleopatra was queen of Egypt during the Macedonian period. and Roman rule.    "She was the last of the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt from the time of Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE to about 30 BCE. "
                                                                   

The Pharaoh Moses came in contact with has been identified by the majority of scholars as the tyrannical Rameses II who lived between 1300-1234 BCE or 1347-1280 BCE.  Rameses was a vain and boastful character who wished to dazzle posterity by covering the land with constructions so that his name was engraved thousands of times on them.  He prided himself in his inscriptions upon great conquests which he never made.
                                                                               

Prince Khaemwase, a son of Rameses II

The EXODUS is thought to have taken place under his son, Menremptah, who began the decline of Egypt.  Menremptah/Menephtah was an obstinate and vain despot.  He also had the habit of claiming as his own the achievements of others.  He was one of the most unconscionable usurpers and defacers of the monuments of his predecessors, including those of his own father, who had set him the example.  This all comes from the insane desire to perpetuate their own memory.
                                                                       

Parting of Sea with Egyptian soldiers chasing after them

Again, some scholars disagree with this selection of Pharaohs.  They say the EXODUS happened in the century preceding Rameses II and connect it with the religious revolution of Amenophis IV, or Ikhnaton in 1383-1365 BCE.  This man abolished the many deities of the Egyptian Pantheon and devoted himself to just the worship of the Sun.
                                                                           

Pharaoh Ikhnaton

He was called the Heretic King.  He moved his capital from Thebes to the modern Tell-el-Amarna in Middle Egypt.  His reformation was a failure and he died in about 1350 BCE amidst curses from his subjects.  The capital was returned to Thebes, and the place where he had lived was abandoned because it was regarded as haunted by evil demons.  As a result of this belief, the complete royal archives, his own and his father's diplomatic correspondence were preserved in the ruins of Tell-el-Amarna, where they were found 3,200 years later in 1887.

These scholars see a connection between the faith of the Israelites and the solar monotheism of Ikhnaton, and that Israelite influence was partly responsible for this assault on the idolatry of Egypt, which was highly disliked by the multitude.  Ikhnaton was hated by the people as a heretic king.  His son-in-law, Tut-ankhamen, abandoned his idea of a single god who they said was the Sun.
                                                                           

Tutankhamun

  Tut succeeded him as Pharaoh.  The Sun god ideal was uprooted by Haremrab, the last Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty.  The native religion of many gods was restored and that's when the Israelites suffered from persecution and degradation.
                                                                             

Other Egyptologists go back to another century to Thotmes III (1503-1449 BCE) and think he was the Pharaoh.  This is on the basis of the movements of the Israelites from Egypt with the movements of the Habiri people in the Amarna age and believe that the recently discovered inscriptions on the Sinai Peninsula favor this theory.  The Habiri were a nomad people mentioned in the Tell-el-Amarna Tablets as making war upon the Canaanite towns and population.

The name "ISRAEL" is alleged to occur on an inscription of Menremptah, discovered in 1896, and is a song of triumph of Menremptah, describing in grandiloquent language his victories in Canaan; and among other conquests, he boasts that "Canaan is seized with every evil; Ashkelon is carried away;  Gezer is taken;  Yenoam is annihilated;  Ysiraal is desolated, its seed is not."   From this the scholars thought that the Israelites must in those days have been in possession of Canaan; that that, the EXODUS must have taken place long before the time of Menremptah.  The question came up about the  name-Ysiraal and if it meant-Israel.  A Professor Jampel  said that if it meant Israel, then it referred to the settlements in Canaan by Israelites from Egypt before the Exodus.  In Chronicles I, we see that during the generations preceding the 400 years spent as slaves in Egypt , known as THE OPPRESSION,  the Israelites didn't stay confined to Goshen or even to Egypt proper, but spread into the southern Canaan territory, then under Egyptian control, and that they even engaged in skirmishes with the Philistines.

When the 600,000 Israelites had left Egypt and were wandering in the Wilderness, these Israelite settlers had thrown off their Egyptian allegiance.  It is these settlements which Menremptah boasts of having devastated during his Canaantie campaign.  There is no reason for thinking that the Pharaoh of the Oppression was not Rameses II, with his son Menremptah as the Pharaoh of the Exodus.  

Update:  Jacob and his family settled in the city of Rameses or Raamses in the Nile Delta as told in Genesis 47:11, 27.  Their descendants were compelled to build storehouses for the Egyptian king.  Rameses was the point of departure for the Exodus as told in Exodus 12:37 "The Children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth."  There were 600,000 adult males-which, allowing for women, children and elderly men, indicates a total population of about 3 million.  .  It was formerly thought to be the city of Pelusion on the Delta border, but now modern scholars identify it with another site further south.  

Resource: Pentateuch and Haftorahs Volume I, edited by Dr. J.H. Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, published by Oxford University Press, 1929-1936.  , signed march 29, 1941pages 394-395.
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia