Difference between revisions of "Adrammelech"

<p> <strong> [[Adrammelech]] </strong> . <strong> 1 </strong> . Adrammelech and [[Anammelech]] (wh. see), the gods of [[Sepharvaim]] to whom the colonists, brought to [[Samaria]] from Sepharvaim, burnt their children in the fire (&nbsp; 2 Kings 17:31 ). There is no good explanation of the name: it was once supposed to be for <em> Adar-malik </em> , ‘Adar the prince.’ But [[Adar]] is not known to be a [[Babylonian]] god, and compound [[Divine]] names are practically unknown, nor were human sacrifices offered to Babylonian gods. </p> <p> <strong> 2 </strong> . Adrammelech and [[Sharezer]] (wh. see) are given in &nbsp; 2 Kings 19:37 as the sons of [[Sennacherib]] who murdered their father. [The <em> [[Kethibh]] </em> of Kings omits ‘his sons’]. The Babylonian Chronicle says: ‘On the 20th of Tebet, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was killed by his son in an insurrection’; and all other native sources agree in ascribing the murder to one son, but do not name him. Adrammelech is impossible as an [[Assyrian]] personal name, and probably arises here from some corruption of the text. The sons of Sennacherib known to us are Ashur-nâdin-shum, king of Babylon, b.c. 700 694; Esarhaddon, who succeeded his father, b.c. 681; Ardi-Bçlit, Crown Prince, b.c. 694; Ashur-shum-ushabshi, for whom Sennacherib built a palace in Tarbisi; Ashur-ilu-muballitsu, for whom Sennacherib built a palace in Asshur; and Shar-etir-Ashur. Possibly Ardi-Bçlit is intended. </p> <p> C. H. W. Johns. </p>

<p> 1. Son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, &nbsp;Isaiah 37:38; &nbsp;2 Kings 19:37 , who, upon returning to [[Nineveh]] after his fatal expedition against Hezekiah, was killed by his two sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, through fear, according to [[Jewish]] tradition, of being sacrificed to his idol Nisroch. They then fled to the mountains of Armenia, B. C. 713. </p> <p> 2. One of the gods adored by the inhabitants of Sepharvaim, who settled in Samaria, in the stead of those [[Israelites]] who were carried beyond the Euphrates. They made their children pass through fire, in honor of this false deity, and of another called Anammelech, &nbsp;2 Kings 17:31 . Some think that Adrammelech represented the sun, and Anammelech the moon. </p>

<p> [[Adrammelech]] (''A-Drăm'Me-L'' ''Ĕk'' ), ''Splendor Of The King,'' or ''Fire King.'' 1. One of the idols adored by the Sepharvaim, who were settled in Samaria. They made their children pass through the fire in honor of this deity, and of another called Anammelech, "image of the king." Rawlinson supposes the sun and his wife Anunit—perhaps the moon-to be referred to. &nbsp;2 Kings 17:31. 2. A son of Sennacherib, who aided in slaying his father. &nbsp;2 Kings 19:37; &nbsp;Isaiah 37:38. </p>

<p> (Heb. Adramme’ lek, אִדְרִמֶּלֶךְ '','' prob. for, אֶדֶר הִמֶּלֶךְ, ''Glory Of The King,'' i.e., of Moloch; Sept. Ἀδραμέλεχ )'','' the name of a deity, and also of a man. (See [[Cuneiform]] Inscriptions). </p> <p> '''1.''' An idol worshipped by the sacrifice of children in the fire, in connection with Anammelech, by the inhabitants of Sepharvaim, who were transported to Samaria by the king of Assyria (&nbsp;2 Kings 17:31). Selden ''(De Diis Syris,'' 2, 9) has confounded the two idols, being misled by a corrupt reading of the text (אֵֹלהִ, ''God,'' instead of 1.אֵֹלהֵי, ''Gods Of,'' as in the margin). The above etymology (making the name equivalent to the splendid king), first proposed by Jurien (Hist. des cultes, 4, 653) favors the reference of this divinity to the sun, the moon perhaps being denoted by the associated Anammelech (as the female companion of the sun, comp. Rawlinson’ s Herodotus, 1, 611), in general accordance with the astrological character of Assyrian idolatry (Gesenius, Comment. ub. Jesaias, 2, 327 sq.), and seems preferable to the [[Persian]] derivation (i. q. adar or azar, fire) proposed by Reland (De vet. ling. Pers. 9). The kind of sacrifice has led to the conjecture (Lette, De idolo Adrammelech, in the Bibl. Bremens. nov. — fasc. 1, p. 41 sq.) that [[Saturn]] is meant; but Selden (De Diis Syris, 1, 6) and others have identified him with Moloch, chiefly on the ground that the sacrifice of children by fire, and the general signification of the name, are the same in both (see Gregorius, Feuergotzen d. Samaritaner, Lauban, 1754). Little credit is due to the rabbinical statements of the Bab. Talmud, that this idol was worshipped under the form of a peacock, or, according to Kimchi, that of a mule (Carpzov, Apparatus, p. 516); but it is probable that the former notion may have arisen from a confusion with some other ancient idol of the [[Assyrians]] of that form. The Yezidees, or so-called devil-worshippers of the same region, appear to retain a striking vestige of such a species of idolatry in their sacred symbol called Melek Taus, or king peacock, a name by which they personify Satan, the chief object of their reverence (Layard’ s Nineveh, 1st ser. 1, 245; 2d ser. p. 47). </p> <p> '''2.''' A son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Both he and Sharezar were probably the children of slaves, and had therefore no right to the throne. Sennacherib, some time after his return to Nineveh, from his disastrous expedition against Hezekiah, was put to death by them while worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch; having accomplished this crime, they fled for safety to the mountains of Armenia, and their brother [[Esarhaddon]] succeeded to the throne (&nbsp;2 Kings 19:37; &nbsp;Isaiah 37:38; comp. &nbsp;2 Chronicles 32:21), B.C. 680. See SENNACHERIB. Moses Chorensis (p. 60) calls him Adramelus; so, also, [[Abydenus]] (in Euseb. Chron. Armen. 1, 53), who makes him the son and murderer of Nergal, Sennacherib’ s immediate successor (see Hitzig, Begriff d. Kritik, p. 194 sq.); while, according to [[Alexander]] Polyhistor (in Euseb. Chron. Arm. 1, 43), Sennacherib was assassinated by his son Ardumusanus. Colossians Rawlinson (Outlines of Assyrian History, also in the Lond. Athenaeum, March 18 and April 15, 1854) thinks he has deciphered the names of two Assyrian kings called Adrammelech, one about 300 and the other 15 years anterior to Sennacherib; but neither of them can be the one referred to in Scripture. </p>