Shishak’s Raid

The Bible records that, under David’s grandson Rehoboam, Pharaoh Shishak (or Sheshonq) took enormous wealth from the temple (2 Chr 12:2–12; 1 Kgs 14:25–26). This is perhaps the earliest biblical event that is confirmed in extrabiblical materials, including an inscription at Karnak and a stele fragment discovered at Megiddo (Levin, “Did Pharaoh Sheshonq”). This account and the extrabiblical materials that confirm it seem to suggest that Jerusalem was indeed a powerful and wealthy city in the 10th century bc.

However, the Karnak inscription, which lists the places that the pharaoh conquered and subdued, fails to mention Jerusalem as well as much of the surrounding region, including northern Samaria (Finkelstein, The Forgotten Kingdom, 43). Some have suggested that the lack of reference to Judah and Israel in the Karnak inscription provides evidence that Rehoboam successfully bribed Shishak (Knoppers, “The Vanishing Solomon,” 33; Mazar, “The Search”). Others interpret the stele’s lack of mentioning either Judah or Israel as an indication that Judah and Israel were not yet kingdoms at this time (Thompson, Early History, 306; Davies, In Search of “Ancient Israel,” 42–73). Finkelstein points out that ancient Near Eastern inscriptions like the one from Karnak tend to be quite dramatic and that even if the pharaoh had only accepted the submission of Jerusalem it is likely that this would have been commemorated on the stele (Finkelstein, The Forgotten Kingdom, 43). It is also possible that Jerusalem and Judah were mentioned on a portion of the stele that has been lost or rendered unreadable, though it seems that the part of the stele dedicated to the region in question is intact (Finkelstein, “Campaign,” 111).