Shoshenq I
The pharaoh the Bible calls Shishak. He sheltered Jeroboam, invaded Judah in Rehoboam’s fifth year, and recorded a campaign in Palestine on the Bubastite Portal at Karnak.
Shoshenq I founded Egypt’s Twenty-second Dynasty and built the gate at Karnak now called the Bubastite Portal. Kings names him twice: as the king of Egypt with whom Jeroboam I took refuge from Solomon (1 Kings 11:40), and as the invader who took the treasures of the temple in the fifth year of Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:25–26); see Shishak Invades Judah.
His own monuments record a campaign in Palestine. The relief beside the portal lists towns in Israel, Judah and the Negev, among them Megiddo, Beth-shean and Gibeon (Bubastite Portal relief town list, nos. 14–27 (Breasted §712)) and Arad (Bubastite Portal relief town list, nos. 108 and 110 (Breasted §716)), and a stone fragment bearing his name, published as part of a stela, was found at Megiddo (Megiddo stela fragment of Shoshenq I Fisher, pp. 12–13 and 60–61). His highest known regnal year is the twenty-first, when he ordered stone for the court at Karnak (Silsila quarry stela of Shoshenq I Breasted §§706–707). The calendar dates of his reign are not fixed by Egyptian evidence alone.
In the timeline
- about 925 BC, estimated dateShishak Invades Judah
In Rehoboam’s fifth year the Egyptian king Shishak marches on Jerusalem and carries off the treasures of the temple and the palace. Shoshenq I’s relief at Karnak lists towns he claimed in Judah, Israel and the Negev.