Amraphel

Am´raphel, king of Shinar, one of the four kings who invaded Palestine in the time of Abraham (Gen 14:1-2, seq.) [ABRAHAM; CHEDORLAOMER].

King of Shinar in the time of Abraham. With three other petty kings, he made war upon the tribes around the Dead Sea, and the cities of the plain, Gen 14:1 .\par

Am’raphel. (keeper of the gods). Perhaps a Hamite king of Shinar or Babylonia, who joined the victorious incursion of the Elamite, Chedorlaomer, against the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. Genesis 14. (B.C. 1898).

One of the four invading kings (Gen 14:9). Shinar, his kingdom, or Babylonia, was subordinate to the great Elanrite king, (See CHEDORLAOMER.) The Assyrian monuments attest that an Elamite king invaded and plundered Babylonia in 2386 B.C.; and Babylonian remains bear traces of Elamitic influence.

(Heb., Amraphel’, אִמְרָפֶל, apparently the Sanscrit amarapala, “keeper of the gods;” Sept. Α᾿μαρφάλ, Josephus Α᾿μράφηλος, Ant. 1, 9, 1), a king (perhaps Hamite, comp. Rawlinson’s Herodotus, 1, 446) of Shinar (i.e. Babylonia), confederated with Chedorlaomer (q.v.), king of Elam, and two other kings, to make war against the kings of Pentapolis, viz., Sodom, Gomorrah, and the three neighboring cities, which they plundered; among the captives whom they carried off was Lot, Abrahami’s nephew; but Abraham (q.v.) pursued them, retook Lot, and recovered the spoil (Gen 14:1; Gen 14:4), B.C. cir. 2080.

Amraphel (ăm’ra-fĕl), keeper, or highest of the gods. Perhaps a Hamite king of Shinar or Babylonia, who joined the victorious incursion of the Elamite Chedorlaomer against the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. Gen 14:1.

[Am’raphel]

King of Shinar, in the time of Abram. Gen 14:1; Gen 14:9.

By: Robert W. Rogers, Kaufmann Kohler, Marcus Jastrow

—Biblical Data:

A king of Shinar (Gen. xiv. 1, 9), who invaded the West in conjunction with Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and others, and destroyed Sodom. The identity of the name has long been a subject of controversy among Assyriologists, and is not even yet established to the satisfaction of all scholars. Schrader was the first to suggest ("Cunciform Inscriptions and the Old Testament," ii. 299 et seq.) that Amraphel was Hammurabi, king of Babylon, the sixth king in the first dynasty of Babylon. This is now the prevailing view among both Assyriologists and Old Testament scholars. The transformation of the name Hammurabi into the Hebrew form Amraphel is difficult of explanation, though a partial clue is perhaps furnished by theexplanation of the name in a cuneiform letter as equivalent to Kimta-rapashtu (great people or family). On this basis "'am" = "Kimta" and "raphel" = "rapaltu" = "rapashtu."

Hammurabi was the founder of the centralized kingdom of Babylonia, with the capital at the city of Babylon. The length of his reign is given in the native list of kings as fifty-five years, but this long period is not perfectly certain, as a recently discovered chronicle throws doubt upon some figures in the king-list from which the number fifty-five is obtained, and puts the length of his reign at forty-three years. The period at which Hammurabi reigned is also the subject of much dispute. Sayce locates his reign at 2376-33 B.C. ("Early Israel," p. 281), on the basis of the native sources, and counting the second dynasty with its long reigns (for example, sixty, fifty-six, fifty-five, fifty years) as of equal historical character with the first. Lehmann ("Zwei Hauptprobleme der Altorientalischen Chronologie") prefers the figures 2248-2194, while Hommel would still further reduce them. The higher the figures the more difficult is the identification with Amraphel, or with the period to which the narrative of Gen. xiv. is usually supposed to refer.

Hammurabi began to reign in Babylon when the Elamites were in possession of the kingdom of Sumer and Akkad. They were driven out and the whole country was united under his rule. The dominion thus set up was strengthened by great works of peace, the chief of which were the digging of a canal at Babylon and the erection of a great granary there; the building of temples in Larsa and Sippara, and the construction of the walls of the latter city, "like a great mountain." The union of Babylonia accomplished by this monarch endured until the scepter passed from the Semites to the Persians in 538 B.C. Hammurabi himself was honored and imitated, even to the copying of his inscriptions, by kings of the latest period, such as Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar (Rogers, "Outlines of History of Early Babylon," pp. 27-30). A conqueror so great as he may well have penetrated and conquered as far west as Syria and Palestine.

Bibliography:

Tiele, Babylonisch-Assyrische Gesch. pp. 125, 126;

Winckler, Gesch. Babyloniens und Assyriens, pp. 60-65;

idem, Gesch. Israels, i. 130, 131;

Rogers, History of Babylonia and Assyria, i. 388-393;

Driver, in Authority and Archœology, ed. by D. G. Hogarth, pp. 39, 40.

R. W. R.—In Rabbinical Literature:

According to Rab and Samuel, Amraphel is identical with Nimrod. Some say Amraphel was his real name, and he was called Nimrod, "the chief rebel," as leader of the tower-builders, "who led the world unto rebellion" () against heaven's Ruler; others again say Nimrod was his real name, and he was called Amraphel as the one who "commanded them to cast Abraham into the fire" () ('Er. 53a and Targ. Yer. to Gen. xiv. 1). Among other fanciful etymologies the name is explained as that of one whose "commands brought darkness [destruction] on the world" (), or of one who "provoked and made sport of the world" () (see Gen. R. xlii.; Midr. LeḳaḦ Ṭob to Gen. xiv. 1, ed. Buber, i. 63, note 4; also Beer, "Leben Abrahams," pp.130, 131). See also Abraham, Nimrod.

AMRAPHEL.—The king of Shinar (Gen 14:1). He has been identified (by Schrader and usually) with Hammurabi, king of Babylonia, but apart from the difficulties due to differences of spelling, there is no evidence that Hammurabi was ever allied with a king of Elam and a king of Larsa to invade the West. Boscawen suggests Amar-Pal, the ideographic writing of Sinmuhallit, the father of Hammurabi, for whom such an alliance is more likely. See Chedorlaomer.

C. H. W. Johns.

King of Sennaar, or Babylonia, one of the Mesopotamian kings mentioned in Genesis; now believed to be identical with Hammurabi (2250 B.C.).

King of Sennaar (Shinar), or Babylonia, one of the four Mesopotamian kings–the other three being Arioch, King of Pontus (Ellasar); Chodorlahomor, King of Elam, and Thadal (Tedal), King of Nations (Goyim)–who, according to the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, jointly invaded Chanaan and defeated the five kings of the Plains, capturing Lot and his family, together with a rich booty. On their way home they were assailed and routed in a single night by Abraham and his 318 men in the vale of Sava (Siddim), near the Dead Sea. Among the rescued prisoners were Lot and his family. Abraham, furthermore, while on his way back from his victorious attack, was met by Melchisedech, the High­Priest of El­Elion, at Jerusalem, who celebrated Abraham’s victory by a thanksgiving offering of bread and wine, taking from him, as his sacerdotal share, the tenth part of the booty. To Biblical scholars and theologians the personality of Amraphel is of considerable interest, owing to the fact that he has been long ago identified by the majority of Assyriologists and Biblical critics with the great Babylonian king, Hammurabi, the sixth monarch of the first Babylonian dynasty, who reigned about 2250 B. C.. This ruler’s famous Code of Laws, the oldest code of laws in the world, was discovered in 1901-2, in Susa, the ancient capital of Elam, by the French archæological expedition, and was for the first time deciphered and translated by the French Dominican scholar, Father Scheil, of ParisThe identity of Amraphel and Hammurabi is now unanimously accepted by Assyriologists and Biblical critics. Phonetically, the two names are identical. The variants of the second form are Ammi­rabi, Ammurapi, and Hammum­rabi, etc. Hammu, or Ammu, was in all probability the name of a god, as it is found in many compound names such as Sumu­hammu, Jasdi­hammu, and Zimri­hammu. The element rabi is very common in Babylonia, and it means "great"; the full name, consequently, means "The god Ammu is great", on the same analogy as names like Sin­rabi, Samas­rabi, and many others. According to Dr. Lindle, followed by Sayce and others, the name was also pronounced Ammurabi, and, so Dr. Pinches was the first to point out, the form Ammu­rapi is also met with by the side of Hammurabi, and like many of the Babylonian kings of that period, he was deified, being addressed as ilu­Ammurabi or Ammurabi­ilu, i.e. "Ammurabi the god", ilu being the equivalent of the Hebrew El, which means "god". Now Ammurabi­ilu or Ammurapilu is letter for letter the Amraphel, or Amrapel, of Genesis. According to another hypothesis, suggested by Dr. Husing, the l at the end of the form "Amraphel" is superfluous, for he would join it to the next word, and read: "And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel, as Arioch king of Ellasar was over Shinar, that Chodorlahomer . . ." Another, and according to Dr. Pinches perhaps more likely, explanation is that this additional letter l is due to a faulty reading of a variant writing of the name, with a polyphonous character having the value of pil, as well as bi, which form may, in fact, still be found. But whichever hypothesis we adopt, the identity of Amraphel and Hammurabi is phonetically beyond dispute.The political situation presupposed in Gen., xiv, reflects, furthermore, with a remarkable degreee of probability, the condition of the times of Hammurabi’s reign. The leader of the force and the suzerain to whom the Chanaanitish princes were subject, was a king of Elam. Elam, therefore, must have been the predominant power at the time, and the Babylonian king must have been its vassal. The narrative, nevertheless, is dated in the reign of the Babylonian king, and not in that of the King of Elam, and it is to the reign of the Babylonian king that the events described in it are attached. Babylonia, however, was not a united country; there was another king, Arioch of Ellasar, who divided with the Amraphel of Sennaar the government of it, and like Amraphel, acknowledged the supremacy of Elam. Finally, the "nations" (goyim), whoever they were, were also subject to Elam, as well as the distant province of Chanaan. If we turn our glance to the political condition of Hammurabi’s times and period, we shall find that the contemporary monuments of Babylonia are in perfect accord with the situation presupposed by Gen., xiv.-----------------------------------OUSSANI in New York Review (Aug.-Sept., 1906), 204-243, with full bibliography.GABRIEL OUSSANI Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

am´ra-fel, am-rā´fel (אמרפל, ’amrāphel, or, perhaps better, ’am^erāphel).

1. The Expedition Against Sodom and Gomorrah

This name, which is identified with that of the renowned Babylonian king H̬ammurabi (which see), is only found in Gen 14:1, Gen 14:9, where he is mentioned as the king of Shinar (Babylonia), who fought against the cities of the plain, in alliance with Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Nations (the Revised Version (British and American) GOIIM). The narrative which follows is very circumstantial. From it we learn, that Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela or Zoar, had served Chedorlaomer for 12 years, rebelled in the 13th, and in the 14th year Chedorlaomer, with the kings enumerated, fought with and defeated them in the vale of Siddim, which is described as being the Salt Sea. Previous to this engagement, however, the Elamites and their allies had attacked the Rephaim (Onkelos: “giants”) in Ashtaroth-karnaim, the Zuzim (O: “mighty ones,” “heroes”) in Ham (O: Ḥamtā’), the Emim (O: “terrible ones”) in Shaveh-kiriathaim, and the Horites in their Mount Seir, by the Desert. These having been rendered powerless to aid the revolted vassals, they returned and came to Enmishpat, or Kadesh, attacked the country of the Amalekites, and the Amorites dwelling in Hazazontamar (Gen 14:2-7).

2. The Preparation and the Attack

At this juncture the kings of the cities of the plain came out against them, and opposed them with their battle-array in the vale of Siddim. The result of the fight was, that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, with their allies, fled, and fell among the bitumen-pits of which the place was full, whilst those who got away took refuge in the mountain. All the goods and food (the camp-equipment and supplies) of the kings of the plain were captured by Chedorlaomer and his allies, who then continued their march (to their own lands) (Gen 14:8-11).

3. Abraham’s Rescue of Lot

Among the captives, however, was Lot, Abram’s nephew, who dwelt in Sodom. A fugitive, having escaped, went and announced the result of the engagement to Abram, who was at that time living by Mamre’s oak plantation. The patriarch immediately marched forth with his trained men, and pursued them to Dan, where he divided his forces, attacked the Elamite-Babylonian army by night, and having put them to flight, pursued them again to Hobah, on the left (or North) of Damascus. The result of this sudden onslaught was that he rescued Lot, with the women and people, and recaptured Lot’s goods, which the allies of Amraphel had carried off (Gen 14:12-16).

4. Difficulties of the Identification of Amraphel

There is no doubt that the identification of Amraphel with the H̬ammurabi of the Babylonian inscriptions is the best that has yet been proposed, and though there are certain difficulties therein, these may turn out to be apparent rather than real, when we know more of Babylonian history. The “l” at the end of Amraphel (which has also “ph” instead of “p” or “b”) as well as the fact that the expedition itself has not yet been recognized among the campaigns of H̬ammurabi, must be acknowledged as two points hard to explain, though they may ultimately be solved by further research.

5. Historical Agreements

It is noteworthy, however, that in the first verse of Gen 14 Amraphel is mentioned first, which, if he be really the Babylonian H̬ammurabi, is easily comprehensible, for his renown to all appearance exceeded that of Chedorlaomer, his suzerain. In Gen 14:4 and Gen 14:5, however, it is Chedorlaomer alone who is referred to, and he heads the list of eastern kings in Gen 14:9, where Tidal comes next (a quite natural order, if Goiim be the Babylonian Gutê, i.e. the Medes). Next in order comes Amraphel, king of Babylonia and suzerain of Arioch of Ellasar (Êri-Aku of Larsa), whose name closes the list. It may also be suggested, that Amraphel led a Babylonian force against Sodom, as the ally of Chedorlaomer, before he became king, and was simply crown prince. In that case, like Belshazzar, he was called “king” by anticipation. For further details see ARIOCH and CHEDORLAOMER, and compare ERI-AKU and H̬AMMURABI; for the history of Babylonia during H̬ammurabi’s period, see that article.