Dr. Platypus

Having examined the evidence—what little there is—for military tactics in the Old Testament and comparing it to Robert Drews’ thesis in The End of the Bronze Age (Princeton University Press, 1995) that the shift from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age was marked in a radical transformation from chariotry to infantry as the basic offensive unit of ancient armies, we are ready to take stock of what we have found.

Remember, my point in this exercise has been to see whether the depictions of armed conflict in the Bible might serve either to verify or falsify certain revisionist theories about ancient chronology. According to the conventional chronology, the transition from Late Bronze to Iron Age tactics occurred circa 1200 BC, but there are several challenges to this chronology. Most famously, David Rohl has proposed a circa 300-year downdating which would place this transition some time shortly after 900 BC. Most recently, Pierce Furlong’s dissertation (“Aspects of Ancient Near Eastern Chronology [c. 1600-700 BC],” University of Melbourne, 2007) has argued for a downdating of nearly 200 years. Other theories gravitate between relatively modest adjustments to the standard chronology and sweeping revisions of the magnitude proposed by Rohl and Furlong.

So, where does the biblical evidence leave us? It seems clear that the campaigns against Judah launched by “Shishak” of Egypt (2 Chr 12:3-4) and “Zerah the Ethiopian” (2 Chr 14:10) take place in an Iron Age milieu. Since these expeditions are dated to the closing years of the 10th century BC (ca. 927 and 901 respectively by my estimation), Rohl’s 300-plus-year revision is ruled out as untenable. Ramesses III, representing the end of the era of Late Bronze Age chariotry, cannot have invaded Judah fifty or more years after the Iron Age transition!

Furthermore, the army the (frustratingly) unnamed Pharaoh sent against Israel during the Exodus (Exod 14–15) seems clearly to be a Late Bronze Age chariot force. Whether one prefers a thirteenth-century Exodus or a fifteenth-century one, this establishes a date after which the Iron Age transition occurred. A Late Bronze Exodus is to be expected in anyone’s chronology.

Between these two points, however, the evidence seems far more ambiguous than it should be on standard chronological assumptions.

Early in the period of the Judges, Deborah and Barak’s confrontation with Sisera’s chariot force in Judges 4–5 is described in ways that strongly suggest a Late Bronze Age milieu. When did this battle take place? Biblical chronology offers two possible answers, depending on whether one is calculating from an early Exodus (15th century) or a late one (13th century). On an early Exodus model, a date some time in the 1200’s BC is not out of the question, and once again is perfectly in line with conventional assumptions about the chronology of the ancient world, as this would still be prior to the Iron Age transition. On a late Exodus model, however, circa 1200 BC is probably the earliest possible date. “Twelfth century” is usually as accurate a claim as scholars are willing to make, although I’ve seen specific dates as low as 1120 BC for the judgeship of Deborah. Did those who passed on the oral tradition of this conflict preserve genuine memories of a Bronze-Age battle, or did they insert anachronistic details that would be alien to their own Iron-Age setting? On the theory of a thirteenth-century Exodus, the story of Deborah and Barak at least raises the possibility of downdating the end of the Bronze Age by perhaps 50-100 years.

Finally, the period of the United Monarchy seems to be a tangle of conflicting data. Both Saul and David operated militarily in a setting that seems at one point Iron Age and at another Bronze Age. At the dawn of this period, the prophet Samuel makes reference to (Late Bronze Age) chariot runners and implies that these are standard issue for the prosperous, “civilized” kingdoms Israel wishes to imitate. The presence of large infantry units and armored infantry, seeming hallmarks of the Iron Age, actually made their debut a century or so beforehand, leaving much of the evidence for Saul’s reign subject to varied interpretations. Likewise with David, a case can be made for either an Iron Age or a Late Bronze Age setting. Finally, Solomon—the last king of the United Monarchy period—seems to have a thoroughly Late Bronze chariot force!

The simplest explanation for this ambiguity is that the United Monarchy in fact overlaps with the time of the Iron Age transition in the Ancient Near East. If this transition took place in the decades around 1000 BC rather than 1200 BC, the descriptions of Saul and David’s battles would count as evidence of the contemporary state of flux in military tactics and technology. Samuel can envision his chariot runners, Ammonites can hire mercenary chariot soldiers from Mesopotamia, and Solomon can build his “chariot cities” at the same time the Philistines can field their armored infantry and mounted cavalry can appear on the battlefield for the first time in history.

By this hypothesis, Solomon’s (unused!) chariot force is at worst only slightly behind the geopolitical learning curve. Furthermore, the depiction of Sisera’s chariotry can fit comfortably even on a thirteenth-century Exodus model, since with a circa 200-year downdating of ancient chronology, the entire judges period is within the scope of the Late Bronze Age from beginning to end.

This conclusion enhances my estimation of the work of Jeremy Goldberg and Pierce Furlong, who have independently argued for chronological revisions of similar magnitude, and whose theories—insofar as they intersect with biblical history—I have summarized in the posts linked below.

Related:

• Ancient Chronology: The Goldberg Variations
• The Shoshenq Redemption

We’re continuing to look at military tactics described in biblical texts as an indicator for the end of the Bronze Age and thus a test for or against various proposals to revise the chronology of the ancient world. There are two biblical passages that seem unquestionably to describe Late Bronze Age military expeditions as Robert Drews conceives them in The End of the Bronze Age. We’ll look briefly at each one.

The Exodus

Exodus 14-15 describe Pharaoh sending a chariot force against the Israelites after his change of heart regarding letting them leave Egypt:

So he had his chariot made ready, and took his army with him; he took six hundred picked chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued the Israelites, who were going out boldly. The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his chariot drivers and his army; they overtook them camped by the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon. (Exod 14:6-9)

The emphasis is clearly‚ if not exclusively‚ on Pharaoh’s chariotry. In fact, verses 6-7 seem to equate the army with the chariot force. At any rate, if any foot soldiers were involved in this expedition, they were an afterthought in the mind of the biblical writer. What really mattered was the 600 chariot teams Pharaoh put on the field; the “army” (if we are to understand these as the infantry) is not numbered and may well have comprised runners or skirmishers meant to follow after the chariots and finish off any Israelites who didn’t fall to the chariot-mounted archers’ arrows.

By the way, Kevin Edgecomb has proposed a (mostly) consistent way of emending the text with respect to many of the numbers one finds in the Old Testament. I think his suggestions are largely spot on and I intend to shamelessly make make use of them when I think they’re right and emend his emendations when it serves my purpose to do so. He is probably correct that Pharaoh had sixty elite chariot teams rather than 600, and that 600 is a likely number for the total number of Pharaoh’s chariots.

At any rate, and regardless of the size of Pharaoh’s chariot forces, the Exodus occurred in the Bronze Age by virtually any chronological scheme, and the depiction of Pharoah’s expedition to the Sea of Reeds confirms this. The widespread scholarly consensus links the Exodus to the time of Ramesses II, the Egyptian pharaoh at the Battle of Kadesh (considered the pinnacle of Late Bronze Age chariot warfare). Some conservative Christians prefer a face-value reading of the chronological notices in 1 Kings 6:1 and Judges 11:26, which would set the Exodus some 200 years earlier during the reign (in the conventional chronology) of Thutmose III, who inaugurated his sole reign by facing a Canaanite uprising at the Battle of Megiddo‚ another key chariot battle.

Jabin and Sisera

The next battle described in the Bible involving chariots occurs during the judgeship of Deborah a few generations after the Israelite conquest/settlement of Canaan. At this time, Israel’s oppressor was Jabin, a Canaanite king whose capital was Hazor. The commander of Jabin’s army was Sisera, whose name has been interpreted to be either Hittite or Hurrian in origin‚ fitting for a man who lived in the “woodland of the gentiles” (Harosheth-ha-goyim).

Both Hittites and Hurrians were noted innovators in chariotry. The Hittites, in fact, seem to have been the first nation to capitalize on the military potential of chariot-mounted archers as early as the Middle Bronze Age (Robert Drews, The Coming of the Greeks [Princeton University Press, 1994] 105-106). The Hurrians were noted charioteers who, evidently led by an Indo-Aryan ruling class, had established the kingdom of Mitanni in northern Mesopotamia. Kikkuli, a Hurrian, wrote an important manual for training chariot horses.

It may be, then, that Sisera was a foreigner hired by Jabin for his expertise in chariot warfare. Such chariot warriors dominated many Ancient Near Eastern societies and were collectively known as maryan(n)u. Sisera is said to have commanded 900 chariot teams, although once again I think Edgecomb is correct to read ninety (and only 1,000 foot soldiers for the Israelites). Either way, once again the chariots are numbered and clearly described as being the principal threat an enemy brought to bear against Israel:

Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help; for [Sisera] had nine hundred chariots of iron, and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly twenty years. (Jdg 4:3)

Unlike the exodus story, here we can actually read some of the details of how the battle unfolded:

When Sisera was told that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, Sisera called out all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the troops who were with him, from Harosheth-ha-goiim to the Wadi Kishon. Then Deobrah said to Barak, “Up! For this is the day on which the LORD has given Sisera into your hand. The LORD is indeed going out before you.” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand warriors following him. And the LORD threw Sisera and all his chariots and all his army into a panic before Barak; Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot, while Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-ha-goiim. All the army of Sisera fell by the sword; no one was left. (Jdg 4:12-16)

The chariots proved ineffective against Israel’s infantry, but this was not because of Barak’s superior tactics. According to the poetic retelling of the story in chapter 5, an unexpected storm flooded the wadi:

LORD, when you went out from Seir,
when you marched from the region of Edom,
the earth trembled,
and the heavens poured,
the clouds indeed poured water….

The torrent Kishon swept them away,
the onrushing torrent, the torrent of Kishon.
March on, my soul, with might? (Jdg 5:4, 21)

The biblical writer clearly wants us to see the storm and resulting flash flood as providential. A sudden onrush of water stymied Sisera’s chariot force. Some of it was “swept away”; others would have been bogged down in the mud, forcing them to flee on foot, just as Judges 4 describes. Although Sisera commanded a group of foot soldiers (whose numbers are never provided‚ an indication of their relative unimportance), they seem to have been ineffective against the Israelites. Sisera and his men had expected his chariotry to take the central role in the battle, and when the weather made this impossible, they panicked and fled.

We still seem to be firmly planted in the Late Bronze Age in this episode, although in the mainstream scholarly chronology, we should have entered the Iron Age by now. With a conquest/settlement late in the reign of Ramesses II or perhaps in the reign of one of his successors, it is a tight squeeze to get to Deborah and Barak’s era before the “Sea Peoples” invasion in year 8 of Ramesses III, and a date several decades after would seem to be the norm. If, however, one opts for a mid-15th century exodus, there is still plenty of time to fit this battle in before the “catastrophe” at the end of the Bronze Age, even with a conventional understanding of Egyptian chronology.