Shishak

Shishak or Susac (Hebrew: שישק, Tiberian: [ʃiʃaq]) or Shishaq is the biblical Hebrew form of the first ancient Egyptian name of a pharaoh mentioned in the Bible. He is usually identified with the historical pharaoh Shoshenq I.

Biblical narrative

Shishak is best known for a campaign against the Kingdom of Judah, recorded in the Hebrew Bible (1 Kings 14:25, 2 Chronicles 12:1-12) and his supposed sacking of Jerusalem.

According to these books of the Hebrew Bible, Shishak had provided refuge to Jeroboam during the later years of Solomon's reign, and upon Solomon's death, Jeroboam became king of the tribes in the north, which became the Kingdom of Israel. In the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign (commonly dated ca. 926 BCE), Shishak swept through the kingdom of Judah with a powerful army of 60,000 horsemen and 1,200 chariots, in support of his ally. According to 2 Chronicles 12:3, he was supported by the Lubim (Libyans), the Sukkiim, and the Kushites ("Ethiopians" in the Septuagint). Flavius Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews adds to this a contingent of 400,000 infantrymen. That number can be "safely ignored as impossible" on Egyptological grounds; similarly, the numbers of chariots reported in 2 Chronicles is likely exaggerated by a factor ten, leading 60,000 horses through the Sinai and Negev would have been logistically impossible, and no evidence of Egyptian cavalry exists from before the 27th Dynasty.