Herodotus recounts that he saw the statue of the god with a mouse in the palm of his hand, which was erected in memory of the event.
2 Tractate Shabbat 113b; Sanhedrin 94a; Jerome on Isaiah 10: 16; Ginzberg, Legends, VI, 363.
3Cf. Winckler, Babylonische Kultur (1902), p. 53; Eisler, Welt mantel und Himmelszeti, II, 451
ff.
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Two cities in Egypt claimed the same sacred animal, the shrew-mouse: Panopolis (Akhmim) in the south and Letopolis in the north. Herodotus did not travel to the south of Egypt; thus, he must have seen the statue in Letopolis. Even today many bronze mice, sometimes inscribed with the prayers of pilgrims, are found in the ground of Letopolis.
Both cities with the cult of the sacred mouse were "sacred cities of thunderbolt and meteorites."
* The Egyptian name for Letopolis is indicated by the same hieroglyphic as "thunderbolt."
In a text dating from the New Kingdom and originating in Letopolis, it is said that a festival was established in this city in memory of "the night of fire for the adversaries." This fire was like "the flame before the wind to the end of heaven and the end of earth." ' "I come forth and go in the devouring fire on the day of the repelling of the adversaries," says the text in the name of the god. Thus tha god with the sacred mouse was a god of devouring fire.
However, interpreting the mouse as a symbol of bubonic plague,* the commentators agreed with Josephus that Sennacherib's army must have been destroyed by a plague.
It is peculiar that the numerous commentators of Herodotus and the no less numerous commentators of the Bible did not draw attention to a certain coincidence in these descriptions of the calamity. Hezekiah became gravely ill of some bubonic affection and was near death. Isaiah was called. He told the king that he would die, but soon he returned and offered a remedy—a lump of figs for the boil —and told the king that the Lord would deliver him from immediate death and would also deliver "this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria."
"And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord . . . Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in
4 G. A. Wainwright, "Letopolis," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XVIII (1932).
5 "The devouring fire of Letopolis is reminiscent of 'the flame before the wind to the end of heaven and the end of earth' which is connected with *—>, tho primitive form of the thunderbolt sign such as that of Letopolis." Ibid.
6 Cf. I Samuel 6 : 4.
WORLDS IN COLLISION 233
robin-bobin
the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down." 7
An optical illusion is the common explanation of the meaning of this passage.8 The sundial mentioned together with the name of Ahaz is supposed to have been a dial built by Ahaz, father of Heze-kiah. But the Talmudic tradition explains that the day was shortened by ten degrees on the day when Ahaz was buried, and the day was prolonged by ten degrees when Hezekiah was ill and recovered, and this is the meaning of the "shadow of the degrees which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz." 9
The rabbinical sources state in a definite manner that the disturbance in the movement of the sun happened on the evening of the destruction of Sennacherib's army by a devouring blast.10
Returning to Herodotus, we shall give our attention to the following important fact neglected by the commentators. The famous paragraph of Herodotus which records, in the name of the Egyptian priests, that since Egypt became a kingdom, the sun had repeatedly changed its direction, is inserted in no other place of Herodotus' history, but directly following the story of the destruction of Sennacherib's army.
The destruction of Sennacherib's army and the disturbance in the movement of the sun are also described in two subsequent passages of the Scriptures. Now the two records seem to be in better accord.
7 Isaiah 38 : 6-8; similarly in II Kings 20 : 9 ff.
8 Schiaparelli in Astronomy in the Old Testament, p. 99, points to a whole literature of "curious and eccentric ideas" written on the subject of die "steps of Ahaz" and refers to Winer's Bibl.
Realworterbuch, I, 498-499, where "most remarkable gnomics are reviewed." "None of die explanations can be regarded as well-founded," wrote Winer, "and it will never be possible to establish die factual element that is the basis of this narrative."
9 See the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 96a; Pirkei Rabbi Elieser 52. Other sources are mentioned by Ginzberg, Legends, VI, 367. M. Gaster, The Exempla of the Rabbis (1924), in the Chapter, 'Merodach and the Sun," lists Talmudic references to the described phenomenon.
10 Seder Olam 23. Cf. Eusebius and Jerome on Isaiah 34 : 1. See Ginzberg, Legends, VI, 366.
234
WORLDS IN COLLISION
March 23rd
It was apparently some cosmic cause that was responsible for the sudden destruction of the army of Sennacherib and brought about the perturbation in the rotating movement of the earth.
Gaseous masses reaching the atmosphere could asphyxiate all breath in certain areas.
This explanation requires supporting statements from other sources; disturbances in the movement of the sun could not be confined to the sun over Palestine and Egypt. Also, other circumstances of this catastrophe, like the gaseous masses covering the sky, should have been noticed in other regions of the earth, too.
First, a more exact date for the night of the annihilation of Sennacherib's army should be established. From modern research we know that it was in the year —687 (less probably in the year —686). The Talmud and Midrash give another valuable clue: the destruction occurred during the first night of Passover. The giant host was destroyed when the people began to sing the Hallel prayer of the Passover service.1 Passover was observed about the time of the vernal equinox.2
In the book of Edouard Biot, Catalogue general des etoiles filantes et des autres meteores observes en Chine apres le VIP siicle avant J.C.,3 the register begins with this statement:
"The year 687 B.C., in the summer, in the fourth moon, in the day sin mao (23rd of March) during the night, the fixed stars did not appear, though the night was clear [cloudless]. In the middle of the night stars fell like a rain."
The date, 23rd of March, is Biot's calculation. The statement is based on old Chinese sources ascribed to Confucius. In another
i The Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Pesahim; Seder Olam 23; Tosefta Targum
robin-bobin
II Kings 19 : 35-37; Midrash Rabba, III, 221 (English ed. by H. Freedman and M. Simon).
2 In the last two thousand years or so, the Feast of Passover, bound to the lunar calendar, has been observed between the middle of March and the latter part of April.
* Paris, 1846.
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translation of the text, by Remusat,4 the last part of the passage is rendered as follows: "Though the night was clear, a star fell in the form of rain" (il tomba une etoile en forme de pluie).
The annals of the Bamboo Books obviously refer to the same event when they inform us that in the tenth year of the Emperor Kwei (the seventeenth emperor of the Dynasty Yu, or the eighteenth monarch since Yahou) "the five planets went out of their courses. In the night, stars fell like rain. The earth shook." 5
The words in the annals, "in the night, stars fell like rain," are the same as in the record of Confucius dealing with the cosmic event on the 23rd of March, —687. The annals supply the information that the cause of this phenomenon was a disturbance among the planets. The record of Confucius is a precious entry, because the time of the phenomenon—the day, the month, and the year—is given.
The sky was cloudless, so that the stars should have been visible —but they were not, and this reminds us of the words of the prophets.6