The Context of Genesis 14 is the early Isin-Larsa Period soon after the fall of Ur III.

I understand why the Amraphel=Hammurabi identification is so popular, but here's the thing, Babylon looms so large in The Biblical imagination that is Babylon specifically had been his royal capital that too would have bene specified here.

Some people in their desire to really sell that identification want to treat Shinar and Babel like synonyms because of how they are sometimes paired together, but they are not.  Shinar is a region which multiple cities as we see in Genesis 10:10.  Now the reading of that verse I favor is "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, all they in the land of Shinar.". But even in the KJV reading this still makes Shinar a region with more then one city in it. 

Ellsar is definitely Larsa, "Er-Akhu" is a known Ephates some kins of Larse had, the earliest know example is only a generation before Hammurabi but it certainly could have gone back further.

The Amorites were already invading Sumer during this period. And that is all the main etymological element Amraphel and Hammurabi have in common implies, their Amorite heritage. 

This period is when Elam was the height of it's power, this alone is when Elam leading a coalition to the Western Levant is plausible. At the start of Hammurabi's reign Elam was powerful within Mesopotamia, but still not plausible to each this far west. 

Pharaoh is never a word that means “King of Egypt” in The Bible.

 Most appearances of Pharoah in The Bible use “Pharoah King of Egypt” in a way that perfectly parallels other “King of” formulations like “Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar;” in Genesis 14:9.

The first Pharaoh in The Bible to be identified by a name that most scholars see as a truly specific individual name or epithet is “Shishak king of Egypt” in 1 Kings 11:40. But the grammatical structure is exactly the same as when referring to “Pharaoh king of Egypt” in verse 18 except that Shishak has replaced Pharaoh, not once in Scripture in Shishak ever called Pharaoh. 

I’m not pointing this out to argue anything as fringe as what some other people might argue, like denying that Biblical Mizraim ever refers to Kemet, or for any popular Revised Chronology theory. But it’s an observation I feel we need to stop ignoring. 

Pharoah is an Egyptian word with an Egyptian etymology and meaning, it means Great House, and it has a history that absolutely can explain how The Bible uses it. But The Bible also has its own reasons for not always being consistent with Egyptian usage or its own usage of the word.  So no, the point I made above doesn’t mean I don’t think Shishak was ever called Pharoah in the Egyptian records, he most likely was. 

I have come to agree with those who think some use of certain language in The Pentateuch is anachronistic, that its writing was not entirely made by Moses (only certain parts of what are now the 2nd half of Exodus). That is why Raamses/Rameses and Pithon appearing as place names don’t mean anything, they are identifying the general area of Avaris and On.  And so theoretically every “Pharoah” in Genesis and Exodus could predate when the Egyptians started using it as a title for the King.  It’s the Pharaoh who was contemporary with Solomon who I think is the earliest Biblical Pharaoh who needs to have been called that at the time. 

The other King of Egypt called something else and not Pharoah is “So King of Egypt” and I already argued on a different blog that I think So there is a reference to the city of Sais. 

Tirhakah the only ruler of the Kushite Dynasty mentioned in The Bible is called neither Pharaoh or King of Egypt but just King of Cush. This is something I'm sure is weaponized by the ‘Mizraim wasn't Kemet” theorists but I think as far as The Biblical Author was concerned Egypt was part of Cush at this time so just refer to Cush.  (One of my biggest pet peeves is people calling the Cushits Nubians, they are a distinct people.)

The first King of Egypt to be Biblically called both Pharaoh and some other name is Necho being called “Pharoah-necho King of Egypt”  in 2 Kings 23:29-35, but only Kings does this, 2 Chronicles 35:10-22 and 36:4 calls him only Necho and not Pharoah. Jeremiah uses Pharoah-necho as well as Pharoah-hophra, some think Jeremiah and/or his scribe Baruch helped write the last parts of Kings so him being consistent with Kings on this makes sense. 

In Egyptian records, addressing The King as Pharoah first became a thing in the Eighteenth Dynasty, a disputed example occurred during the reign of Tuthmosis III but it really seems to take off during the time of Akhenaten. But some examples that use Pharoah in the third person could be justified by how it was used going all the way back to the Twelfth Dynasty if it can be read abstractly enough. I'm thinking mainly of the songs from Exodus 15 here. 

Siamon of the 21st Dynasty was the first to have the word Pharaoh attached to his name like The Bible only does in the time of Jeremiah.  If Siamon is the Pharaoh who sacked Gezer in the time of Solomon as mainstream Academia currently believes, it’s a funny coincidence he isn’t referred to this way in The Bible but just as Pharoah. 

I’m not making this post to propose a theory for who either Shishak or the father in-law of Solomon was.  I’m still working on that.

Instead what I think is since both Pharoah and So are in a sense references to locations, and it’s not till Necho any Egyptian King of Egypt is called by an individual name. My theory is Shishak too may refer to a “where” associated with the King rather than a “who”.  In 1 Kings the name Shishak first appears not during the story he’s now most famous for but in reference to Jeroboam living as his guest, “fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt”.

Tanis was the Capital of Egypt for the 21st Dynasty, and we already know what The Bible calls Tanis, Zoan. So the answer can’t be that simple if I’m going to argue for a 21st Dynasty ruler. 

Shishak is different from Pharaoh in that it does have a very plausible Semitic etymology.  In the Masoretic text it is in both spelling and pronunciation different in only its very last letter from Shisha, a name that appears in 1 Kings 4:3. It is derived from Shayish a word translated “marble” in 1 Chronicles 29:2, which is in turn from Shesh (Strong Number H8336) a word translated “Marble”, Linen”, “silk” and “blue” but that last one is odd since it’s not the standard Hebrew word for blue. (This Shesh is spelled and pronounced identically to H8337 which is translated Six, that seems like a coincidence though.) 

Another name derived from this root is Shashai from Ezra 10:40, but also there’s Sheshi one of the Anakim kings of Hebron in Numbers 13:22, Joshua 15:14 and Judges 1:10. But also of note is Sheshan from 1 Chronicles 2 starting in verse 31. And finally Shashak from 1 Chronicles 8:14-25. (The similarity to a cryptogram for Babylon in Jeremiah 25:26 and 51:41 is also interesting but possibly irrelevant.) 

In The Masoretic Hebrew text the difference between Shishak and Shashak is just a single Yot between the two Shins. And we know from comparing the DSS manuscripts to the Masoretic that sometimes extra Yots got added to words they weren’t originally in them to serve as vowels. 

There were grandiose Marble Palaces in Tanis, so maybe that’s what inspired the Shishak designation. 

The main point is, Shishak is a Hebrew name given to this King by the Israelites for some reason, I don’t expect to find it in Egyptian records. 

I’m considering making the case for translating the Shishak reference as “The Marble King of Egypt”.

Another thing about Biblical Shishak is that I don't necessarily think he actually fought any Battles in Canaan/Israel. 2 Chronicles 12 clarifies that there was no siege or pillage of Jerusalem, Rehoboam simply paid him a large tribute, 1 Kings 14:25-26 doesn’t contradict that it’s just less detailed. This is the reason I don’t think The Ark was taken at this time, not any of the usual arguments against a Shishak removal. 

So maybe he did siege or pillage cities elsewhere but not Jerusalem or any other city of Judah. 

Divided Kingdom Chronology

There are a lot of things I no longer agree with the Chronology of Bishop James Ussher on. But I still prefer his timeline for the Divided Kingdom over the more modern reconstructions that move the death of Solomon from 975 to 930 BC. 

One article defending Ussher I am familiar with but can’t entirely endorse their methods is Evidentialism–The Bible and Assyrian Chronology by Larry Pierce for Answers in Genesis from April 2001.  One out of date argument in that article (not really relevant main topic hand but still bugs me) is thinking Nabonidus and Belshazzar were different names for the same person, we definitely now know Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus and I don’t think that was unknown in 2001. 

I also recommend a YouTube video by Caleb Howelis about determining the date of the founding of Carthage using the Kings list of Tyre. His agenda is how Fall of Troy chronology I'm not endorsing but it is relevant to assumptions about when Hiram and thus Solomon lived. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuLW2G7O3Cc

In Ussher’s timeline the three year siege of Samaria began in 724 BC and ended in 721 BC. That timeline for the Biblical dates combined with the modern timeline for the Assyrian kings helps resolve an alleged contradiction between The Bible and Assyrian sources; the siege began under Shalmanezer V but ended under Sargon II. The Bible only mentions the name Shalmanezer at the start of the Siege.

First issue is Historians now date the siege of Jerusalem in the 14th year of Hezekiah  by Sennacherib in 2 Kings 18-19 and 2 Chronicles 32 and Isaiah 36-37 to 701 BC which Ussher’s chronology places in 710 BC when our current understanding of the Assyrian Kings list says Sargon II was still King.

We know from comparing the Tartan verses, 2 Kings 18:17 and Isaiah 20:1, that a Sargon was also King at this time. Wikipedia currently estimates Sennacherib was born in 745 BC meaning he was about 35 in 710 BC. I think this was Sennacherib leading the campaign as Regent under his father just like how Nebuchadnezzar first pops up in Biblical History campaigning under his father at Carchemish, going of The Bible alone you would have no clue his father was still reigning at that time.

Sargon II was in 710 focused on Domestic affairs in recently re-conquered Babylon leaving Sennacherib in charge back in Nineveh. 

The last verses of 2 Kings 10 and Isaiah 37 skip way ahead out of chronological sequence to tell us how Sennacherib eventually died, they are not saying that happened immediately.

Sennacherib may have carried out a campaign in Judah during his own reign not recorded in The Bible, Kings and Chronicles keep reminding us they aren’t recording everything.  A fact very relevant to the reason for much of this discrepancy. 

The Bible doesn’t start talking about Assyria (academically called Neo-Assyria) interacting with Israel till the time of Menachem ben Gadi in 2nd Kings 15. But Assyria clearly started taking note of Israel back in the days of the House of Omri as they kept calling this kingdom the House of Omri and it's ruler Son of Omri even when they destroyed it a few dynasties later. And from the records we currently have that seems to have started with Shalmanezer III, but it could have started earlier. 

Ussher's timeline for Menachem ben Gadi would have to make the Assyrian King called Pul the same as Ashur-Dan III. We currently have no Assyrian accounts of him carrying out campaigns in the western Levant, but the mainstream timeline has the same issue with him being Asshur-Nirari V.  The argument that Pul is the same King as Tiglath-Pileser III can't hold, The Bible consistently distinguishes them. 

Shalanezer III’s reign is currently dated to 859-824 BC or 858-823 BC. 

Assyrian records have some references that have led to a belief he was contemporary with both the later reign of Ahab and early reign of Jehu (and by implication Jehoshaphat and Jehoram in Judah). But the proper Biblical timeline as counted by Ussher has Jehu end his reign by dying in 856 BC in the 23rd year of Joash son of Ahaziah king of Judah and succeeded as king of Israel by his son Jehoahaz according to 2 Kings 10 and 13-14.. 

The two relevant synchronisms are conventionally dated to 853 and 841 BC. The first being the Battle of Qargar. 

Hazael was still ruling as King of Aram-Damascus in 839 BC in Ussher’s chronology, so him being active in 841 BC is not an issue, it’s only the use of the name Jehu in that year that causes the problem. 

The King of Israel in 841 BC in Ussher’s Chronology is still Jehoahaz. Not only is Jehoahaz the son of Jehu, but the entire Hebrew spelling of Jehu is the first four letters of Jehoahaz. Jehoahaz being called Jehu isn’t just possible, I’d dare call it inevitable. 

Jehu (and by extension his sons and grandsons) being called “Son of Omri” is only treated as in conflict with what The Bible says by the most extreme of obsessed secularists, but usually just for the reason that clearly the Assyrian records did not know or care if that usage was literally genealogically accurate, and I don’t disagree.  But I do want to add that Jehu being an actual grandson or great-grandson of Omri isn’t as Biblically implausible as people assume. We are never told all Omri’s descendants are wiped out, only that Ahab has no male-line descendants left by the time Jehu finishes killing his sons as Jezreel. Ahab had a daughter who became an ancestor to future Kings of Judah including Jesus. But more importantly a sibling of Ahab could have been a parent or grand parent or Jehu. Still once we're dealing with the Dynasties after Jehu's own ends the Assyrian still consistently just call this Kingdom the House of Omri, it's a Exonym the same as use using Greek for the Hellens. 

The Kurkh Stele does not say Hadadezer was a king of Damascus, he alone seems to have where he ruled exactly left blank.  Biblically there is no Hadadadezer in the time of Omri, Ahab or Jehu, Aram-Damascus was ruled in this era by first a Ben-hadad and then Hazael who will be relevant later. Biblically the name Hadadezer is never linked to Aram-Damascus but to Aram-Zobah in 2 Samuel 8 and 1 Kings 11:23. in the time of David.  Zobah is modern Homs very near Hamath, and it’s a leader of Hamath listed on the Kurkh stele between Hadadezer and Ahab.

I had leaned toward “Israel” actually reading “Jezreel” here (like with the Merneptah Stele), that is irrelevant to if this Ahab is king Ahab son of Omri as he did rule from Jezreel for much of his reign. the I learned some scholar dispute either Israel or Jezreel like George Smith, Daniel Henry Haigh, Werner Gugler and Adam wan der Woude. The first two argue it should read Suhala and that it refers to Samhala or Savhala.  Actually now that I see the Cuneiform begins with an S I'm feeling dumb about ever conceding a Hebrew name that begins with a Yot. The Cuneiform is Sir-ila-a-a, I could see that easily being a reference to Serjilla.

Even in The Bible Ahab is not a name only one person ever had, there is also a False Prophet named Ahab mentioned in Jeremiah. 

Ahab is also not the only name mentioned here which happens to have been the name of a King of Israel from an earlier period.  There is also Basha  son of Ruhubi of the land of Ammon. 

The smoking gun proof this isn't Ahab king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel is that he isn't called Son of Omri or House of Omri. We just established how consistently the Assyrians used that for the Northern Kingdom. So the insistence that the actual literal direct son and successor of Omri was the one time a King of Assyria didn't in some way identify them by the name of Omri is absurd. In this case the same King of Assyria who called a later King of the same Kingdom "Son of Omri" just 12 years later.  I'm so compelled by this that I would still reject that this could be referring to Ahab Son of Omri even if reading it that way didn't create chronological issues.

So why weren’t Hazael and Jehoahaz at Qarqar?  IDK the then King of Judah isn’t mentioned either no one wants to explain that in the mainstream view? (No one is named a King of Tyre or Sidon either?)  It sounds to me like this alliance was not actually the entire Levant. Hazael is the only one of these three we know was in conflict with Shalmanezer III later, but that was later. 

One pillar of Ussher’s argument for 390 years from the death of Solomon to the Fall of Jerusalem in 588 BC was his interpretation of Ezekiel 4:9-5.  

But I also did the math myself on all the reign lengths of Judah’s Kings and it came to a totally of 393 years and 6 months (plus 10 days in Chronicles), and there is wiggle room for those extra three and half years regarding these reigns not being years to the day no doubt, as well as that some date the Fall of Jerusalem to 586 BC.

Rehoboam reigned 17 years based on 1 Kings 14:21 and 2 Chronicles 12:13

Abijam/Abijah reigned 3 years based on 1 Kings 15:2 2 Chronicles 13:2

Asa reigned 41 years based on 1 Kings 15:10 

Jehoshaphat reigned 25 years based on 1 Kings 22:42 and 2 Chronicles 20:31

Jehoram/Joram reigned 8 years based on 2 Kings 8:17 and 2 Chronicles 21:5-20

Ahaziah reigned 1 year? based on 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2

Athaliah reigned 6 years according to 1 Kings 11:3 and 2 Chronicles 22:12

Jehoash/Joash reigned 40 years based on 2 Kings 12:1 and 2 Chronicles 24:1 

Amaziah reigned 29 years based on 2 Kings 14:2 and 2 Chronicles 25:1

Uzziah/Azariah reigned 52 years based on 2 Kings 15:2 and 2 Chronicles 26:3

Jotham reigned 16 years based on 2 Kings 15:32-33 and 2 Chronicles 27:1

Ahaz reigned 16 years based on 2 Kings 16:2 and 2 Chronicles 28:1 

Hezekiah reigned 29 years based on 2 Kings 18:2 and 2 Chronicles 29:1

Manasseh reigned 55 years based on 2 Kings 21:1 and 2 Chronicles 33:1

Amon reigned 2 years based on 2 Kings 21:19 and 2 Chronicles 33:21

Josiah reigned 31 years based on 2 Kings 22:1 and 2 Chronicles 34:1

Jehoahaz reigned three months based on 2 Kings 23:31 and 2 Chronicles 36:2

Jehoiakim reigned 11 years based on 2 Kings 23:36 and 2 Chronicles 36:5

Jehoiachin reigned three months based on 2 Kings 24:8 and three months and ten days in 2 Chronicles 36:9

Zedekiah reigned 11 years based on 2 Kings 24:18 and 2 Chronicles 36:11

The way many scholars who claim to be conservative Evangelical Bible Inerrancy Believing Christians justify supporting the reduced Chronology is theories about Father-Son co-regencies where a father were reigning at the same time. Things like that did happen in the Ancient Near, I referred to examples with Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar. But in the case of every one of the Bible verses quoted above each King's reign length is defined as beginning with the death of the predecessor, there is no room for interpretation on this. The only time in the history of the Davidic Monarchy we see a Son being Crowned while the father still lived was before the time period I'm discussing here Solomon's Coronation in the opening chapters of 1st Kings, and in that case David still seems to have died a matter months later at most. 

Going back to what interested Caleb Howelis. One popular date for the founding of Carthage is 826 BC which in Ussher's chronology is coincidentally the same year Joash/Jehoash King of Israel invaded Judah under King Amaziah temporarily took him prisoner and pillaged The Temple. Maybe that had some butterfly effect influence on things going on in Lebanon.  813 BC was during the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel and Amaziah still reigning in Judah. 

Solomon Reigned more then 40 years.

[Update: I'm kind of abandoning this theory for now but may return to it.]

There is no good argument for The Amarna Letters being before The Conquest.

A lot of people don't understand how complex the Biblical picture of the Judges period is which is why so many people have trouble buying that the Amarna Letters are any period after Joshua.  

All the Authors of those letters are Pagan Canaanites and that's what I'd expect from The Biblical depiction.  The major players are all among cities Judges 1 and other passages (Like Joshua  16:10 and 17:11-12) tell us were still Canaanite at least till the time of David (unless they are arguably outside the range of what was allotted to Israel entirely) Gezer, Megiddo, Jebus/Jerusalem, Sidon and her daughter Tyre.  And it could be more cities were Canaanite then just the ones The Bible specified, Pella in the Trans-Jordan does not seem to be directly mentioned in Scripture at all, but most of the Roman era Decapolis cities were ones that had stayed Canaanite. Gibeon is a uniquely complicated situation.

Jericho was a very important Canaanite city until it was destroyed in Joshua, and their most ancient. It's complete absence from the Amarna Letters is a huge problem for any model that places the Conquest of Canaan later. The only destruction of Jericho in the archeological record big enough to match what Joshua describes is the one from the 16th Century BC. 

The Israelites entered Canaan as primarily a pastoral nomadic people, for all of the Judges Period a good percentage of them, maybe even the majority, probably didn't even live in cities but preferred the rural life.  Judges 1 clarifies how The Israelites initially mainly took over in the most mountainous regions while the Canaanites held out in the plain. 

But the main cities we know were Israelite cities during this period do not have Kings or Mayors who wrote letters to Pharaoh at Amarna.  Lachish, Bethlehem, Kirathjearim and Bethgader in Judah, Gibea in Benjamin, Bethel. Shiloh, Shechem and Tirzah in the House of Joseph's allotment. Japhia and the other Bethlehem in Zebulun, Kedesh-Naphtali and so on.  Some of these cities are mentioned in the letters, some Canaanite Kings claimed sovereignty over them, but Kings do love to claim to be King of more then what they actually controlled in practice.

Labaya is the enigma, he's not really linked to a specific city the way the others are, he's been called the King of Shechem by modern scholars but that's actually a city he claims is in his domain and is not depicted as his capital at all.  David Rohl argues for him being Saul and other revised chronologies have tried almsot every major Northern Kingdom monarch.  But again Gezer shows that the post Solomon period can be ruled out for Amarna.  And I really don't see Saul writing these kinds of letters to Pharaoh, even during his darker final years.

Labaya could just be a King of one of the Judges 1 Canaanite cities who's Amarna era King isn't specifically known, probably one of the Jezreel Valley ones disputed between Issachar and Manasseh in Joshua 17:11 and Judges 1:27.  Taanach is seemingly missing from the Amarna records, and it's far enough south to be in the West Bank on a modern Map of Israel, since Labaya's fall was at the hands of nearby Gina/Jenin it fits well.  The name of Labaya however is believed to come from a word for Lion, and a famous Stele at Bethshean depicts a Lion and Lioness.  Another Semitic word for Lion is Gur often translated "whelp" as in a baby lion, and Gur is also a place name connected to Ibleam in 1 Kings 9:27.  Dor is also missing from the Amarna records, Labaya could have ruled an alliance of everyone in those verses but Megiddo.

In my current mindset I'm trying really hard NOT to resort to Revised Chronology, to come up with an Exodus model compatible with convention mainstream Egyptology (but probably not a typical reading of Biblical Chronology).

But I certainly can't support what is within that framework called a Late Date for the Exodus, which I honestly think is just motivated by a desire for The Ten Commandments film to still be correct. In fact even most are calling an Early Date for the Exodus I consider too late. That's stuff I'll get into elsewhere. 

I agree however with popular late dater Dr. David A. Falk that Habiru does have a connection to the Biblical term Hebrew but isn't always a 1 to 1 equivocation. However where I disagree is concluding no one would have called the Israelite Hapiru anymore once the Conquest of Joshua was "complete", to the Canaanite living in those cities and plains the Israelites were still outcasts living among them.  The Hebrew Bible is just an account of that history from the POV of those outcasts. 

The notion that the Conquest ever was "complete" in Joshua lifetime is a misunderstanding caused by some of The Bible's hyperbole.  It was a process that took centuries.

So the Hapiru of the Amarna Letters I believe includes the Israelites, but the Israelites may not be the only people being called that. Another designating I believe the Israelites were apart of but not a 1 to 1 exuviation is the Shasu. 

Also The Tribe of Dan are explicitly mentioned in the Amarna letters, the Danuna, neighbors to Tyre like The Bible says they became. Yes the King of Tyre mistakenly calls their Tribal leaders "King" but that's a mistake I'd expect.  

The only reason people hesitate to make this identification is all the confusing "Sea Peoples' discourse which sees this Danuna as the same as the Denyen of later Egyptian records. How all the different Dans of the Bronze Age do or do not relate is not something I have settled on a final opinion on. What matters here is EA 151 read on it's own without assumptions implies nothing about a Sea Faring people coming from the Mediterranean. He's just talking about a people near him, in a way that sounds like they are among those being call Hapiru.

Tyre being the only King who mentioned them, fits in well with the unique relationship between Dan and the Sidonian Biblically. 

Zsolt Simon did a good job arguing against this Danuna being Anatolian, but may still in my view may be placing them too far north by placing them in Hatay.  I agree that Danuna is in Canaan, I disagree then anything north of Jebel Aqra still counts as Canaan.

What was going on when Peleg was born?

 Peleg was born 101 years after The Flood according to the Masoretic Text’s version of Genesis 11, but 401 years after The Flood according to Samaritan Pentateuch version and 531 years after The Flood according to the Septuagint/LXX version.

I consider the Septuagint version the least likely to be the original for a number of reasons. I've talked about my opposition to the Septuagint primacy cultists before. In the case of Genesis 11 the addition of Cainan is obviously Christian copyists forcing him in to reconcile with Luke 3, the numbers given to him being just a copy/past of Salah/Selah’s make that obvious.  Cainan’s inclusion isn’t the only difference between the LXX and the Samaritan versions of Genesis 11 but it is the only one relevant to the question of when Peleg was born. 

Many make Peleg’s birth year also their year for the division of languages after the Tower of Babel project was stopped because of what Genesis 10:25 says about why Peleg was named Peleg. 

“And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.”

But the Hebrew word for “divided” used here is palag Strong Number H6385 which is distinct from parad H6504 used in Genesis 10:5 and 32 in reference to the division of languages. 

The other use of palag is Job 38:25 which talked about a watercourse being divided. In fact other Hebrew words clearly cognate with palag and Peleg are words translated river or stream like H3688 and H3690. These Hebrew words are likely cognate with the Assyrian Palgu which refers to the dividing up of lands by canals and irrigation systems. An Akkadian city called Phalgu was located at the conjunction of the Eurphates and Chebar rivers. 

Classical Greek was influenced by Semitic languages via its iron age contact with Phoenician sea traders, so it may be worth adding that Pelagos is an ancient Greek word for “sea”.  Its contrast with Thelassa or Pontos seems to be in part about being enclosed by islands rather than having only one straight connecting it to other seas. But it also looks to me like seas called a Pelagos are generally shallower and not as deep, like they could be places that were once dry land when sea levels were lower.

I think it’s possible there was a slow rising of sea levels during the early Post Flood centuries caused by waters frozen at the icecaps during The Flood slowly melting.

Genesis 10:25 says the Earth was divided while the verses using parad and Genesis 11 are the people being divided. And in Biblical Hebrew eretz didn’t mean a planet but dry land in contrast to the seas and oceans as we see in Genesis 1:10.

There is another interpretation of what kind of division palag refers to here which is that it’s just about borders between being cemented. That and the water level thing could go together. 

This makes it highly likely that what happened around when Peleg was born was later than the Tower of Babel incident rather than before. Which is a circumstantial argument for the Samaritan version being more correct then the Masoretic since I think it likely took over a century for there to be enough people to do the Tower of Babel in the first place. 

The Cleansing of The Temple didn’t actually happen in The Temple (depending what you mean by The Temple)

There is more than one Greek Word for Temple (same with Hebrew), most New Testament references use one of two main ones.

Naos is a word that arguably strictly speaking would for The Jerusalem Temple refer only to the Building that contains The Holy Place and Holy of Holies, but maybe could extend to include the Inner Court where the Brazen Altar is. Which is the entirety of what most modern Christians are usually thinking of when they say simply "The Temple".

Heiron however is a much broader term, it could refer to a very large religious complex, and in The context of The Jerusalem Temple I strongly suspect was applied to the entire Temple Mount, Haram Al Sharif.

Every reference to the location of The Cleansing of The Temple uses Hieron, Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, John 2:14, each use Hieron. The only use of Naos in any of these Chapters is when John 2 later refers to the Body of Jesus. 

This is important because when you know the details of how this whole area worked in The First Century, the context of what Jesus is doing makes clear he is nowhere near The Inner Court. 

The place where these kinds of financial transactions went on, exchanging currencies to then buy Animals to be Sacrificed, was at the Royal Stoa (Not to be confused with Solomon’s Porch) which was part of Herod's southern expansion of The Temple Mount.  

Where this was on the modern Map of Jerusalem is the Silver Domed Al Aqsa Mosque. Muslim Usage did and sometimes still does use Al Aqsa for the entire Temple Mount and specifically The Dome of The Rock, but function wise the Golden Domed building is a Shrine while the proper Mosque is the Silver Domed structure on the Southern End of the Mount.

Now I have come to agree that the Dome of The Rock is where The Temple was at least in terms of Latitude. So it’s notable here that the Royal Stoa wasn’t just south of that but very far south, one alternate Temple location theory suggests you could rebuild The Temple between the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of The Rock without touching either and with plenty of extra space in between. 

Because the whole point of needing those Money Changes was that the regular Roman Currency with Caesar's Image on it wasn't allowed anywhere near the actual Temple.

This distinction is lost on the way many weaponize this narrative for modern purposes.  I’m a Leftist who fully supported the Minnesota Protestors, but no, interrupting an actual Church Service is not equivalent to what Jesus did when he cleansed The Temple. The Cleansing of The Temple is more equivalent to disturbing a business venture a Church is doing on land it owns on a different block. 

But I’m not really offended by Leftists trying to make that point. The use of it to justify Antizionists disrupting Synagogues is much more dangerous. 

What’s also troublesome is when a Conspiracy Theorist tries to use the fact that Jesus wasn’t arrested immediately to prove He must have been working for The Romans or something. 

Even if what Jesus did was a direct disruption of the main operations of The Temple, the simple fact that He was popular with the people, had large crowds of supporters, was enough reason for the authorities to be hesitant to take action right away, especially since this was during a Pilgrimage festival.  There is text in The Gospels (chiefly Matthew 26) telling us they even later in the week they still wanted to wait till after the Festival was over, but Jesus forced their hand when He revealed to Judas that He knew what they were planning.

But on top of that based on what I just showed this was definitely still a very big deal, even viewed as sacrilegious by many, but it likely didn’t actually disrupt the overall business that much, once Jesus was done they set the tables back up and got right back to business. 

So it wasn’t worth making the commotion worse by arresting one of the most popular people in the Province while the city is at its most crowded.