Arioch

For the black metal vocalist, see Daniel Rostén.

Not to be confused with Arioch, the king's chief executioner briefly mentioned in the second chapter of the Book of Daniel.

Arioch (Hebrew: אַרְיוֹךְ, romanized: ’Aryōḵ) appears in Genesis 14 as the name of the King of Ellassr (Hebrew: אֶלָּסָר) who participated in the Battle of Siddim. Led by Chedorlaomer, the four kings Amraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer, and Tidal engaged in a punitive expedition against five kings of Canaan who rebelled against Chedorlaomer, Bera of Sodom, Birsha of Gomorrah, Shinab of Admah, Shemeber of Zeboim, and Zoar of Bela. The same story is also mentioned in the Book of Jubilees, where Arioch is called "king of Sellasar".^[2][3] According to Genesis Apocryphon (col. 21), Arioh was king of Cappadocia.

Arioch
King of Ellasar[1](Sellasar)
House	Ellasar

Arioch and Ellasar

Some historians have placed the area where Arioch ruled in Anatolia, but theories as to its specific locations differ, with some claiming it was in Pontus while others cite Cappadocia and Antioch.^[4]

There are also sources which associated Ellasar with the kingdom of Larsa and suggested that Arioch could be one of its kings called Eri-Aku, an epithet of either Warad-Sin or Rim-Sîn I, since both are described as son of Kudur-Mabuk.^[5]

By the 20th century, this theory became popular so that it was common to identify Arioch with Eriaku through the alternative reading of either Rim-Sîn or his brother Warad-Sin, who were both believed to be contemporary with Hammurabi.^[6]

Others identify Ellasar with Ilānṣurā, which is a city known from the second millennium BC Mari archives archives in the vicinity of the north of Mari, Syria, and Arioch with Arriuk, who appears in the Mari archives as a subordinate of Zimri-Lim.^[7][8] The identification of Arioch with the ruler Arriuk mentioned in the Mari archives has been recently supported by the Assyrologists Jean-Marie Durand and Stephanie Dalley.^[9][10]

Some modern scholars consider Arioch as a literary figure, not a historical figure, but in the case of Ellasar, they connect it to the name Alashiya, not Larsa or Cappadocia. Ellasar is related to the name of Elishah in Genesis 10:4, which is why it is presumed to have referred to Alashiya, an ancient kingdom on Cyprus.^[11] The name Arioch could be originated from the foreigner or foreign story that Jewish people learnt from the foreign diaspora community, which included Elamites and many other foreigners, as mentioned in Ezra 4.^[11]

Adaptations by later writers

Arioch was a name for a fictional demon, and also appears as the name of a demon in many grimoires. Arioch is also named in John Milton's Paradise Lost (vi. 371.) as one of the fallen angels under Satan's command.

Arioch is one of the principal lords of Chaos in several of Michael Moorcock's fantasy series.

Arioch is one of the seventeen megatherians mentioned in Gene Wolfe's Briah Cycle.

References

1. "Genesis 14:1 in those days Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim".
2. "Book of Jubilees: The Book of Jubilees: The Campaign of Chedorlaomer (xiii. 22–29)". www.sacred-texts.com. Retrieved 2016-05-07.
3. Paula M. McNutt (1999). Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-664-22265-9.
4. Fitzmyer, Joseph (2004). The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1 (1Q20): A Commentary. Rome: Editrice Pontifico Istituto Biblico. p. 232. ISBN 8876533184.
5. Pinches, Theophilus (1908). The Old Testament In the Light of The Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia (third ed.). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. pp. 218–220.
6. Price, Ira, 1904. Some Literary Remains of Rim-Sin (Arioch), King of Larsa, about 2285 B.C. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 3–4.
7. Walton, John H., and Craig S. Keener. NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture. Zondervan, 2019. p. 39.
8. K.A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament [OROT], William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003. p. 320.
9. Durand, Jean-Marie (2005). "De l'époque amorrite à la Bible: le cas d'Arriyuk". In Kogan, Leonid Efimovich (ed.). Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff. Babel und Bibel (in French). Vol. 2. Eisenbrauns. pp. 59–69. ISBN 978-1-57506-123-8.
10. Dalley, Stephanie (2021). The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC – AD 116. Cambridge University Press. pp. 319–320. ISBN 9781107136274.
11. Gard Granerød (26 March 2010). Abraham and Melchizedek: Scribal Activity of Second Temple Times in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 118–121. ISBN 978-3-11-022346-0.