Sassabasar

SASSABASAR (Heb. Šēlbašsar). - A figure who played an important part in the first return of the Jews exiled from Babylonia to the land of Israel: he received from Cyrus the sacred vessels restored for the Temple of Jerusalem and was at the head of the first caravan that returned to the homeland (Ezra 1:11; 5:14-16). The close interferences in the biblical narrative between S. and Zerubbabel (v.) have given rise to the question whether they are two distinct figures or one and the same person, as Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Jud., XI, 1, 3) seems to have held and as the majority of exegetes still hold today.

S. would be another Chaldean or Assyrian name (probably Šamaš-bal-uzur, "Šamaš protect the son," or Sin-bal-uzur, "Sin [the moon god] protect the son") of Zerubbabel. The supposed identity is based on the following data: S. is called "prince of Judah," a title that also belongs to Zerubbabel, son of a son of King Jehoiachin (1 Chron. 3:17-19); S. is appointed by Cyrus pehāh, that is, "governor" (Ezra 5:14), and Zerubbabel bears the title of "governor of Judah" in the 2nd year of Darius (Hag. 1:11); to the one and to the other are attributed almost identical directive roles in the return of the exiles (Ezra 1:8-11 and 2:2; 3:2; 4:2); S. lays the foundations of the Temple of Jerusalem (ibid. 5:16), and Zerubbabel too undertakes its reconstruction a first and a second time (ibid. 3:8 ff.; 5:2 ff.; Hag. 1:14; Zech. 4:9). Against the identification, however, there are difficulties: first of all, in the documents it is never expressly stated that S. and Zerubbabel are the same person; moreover, both names are of plainly Babylonian origin: it is indeed a frequent case that Jews in Babylonia had a double name (cf. Dan. 1:7), but it is surprising that a Jew should have had two names both Babylonian. The identification, therefore, although very probable, is not beyond all doubt; and some (F. Kaulen, J. Nikel, Meyer, A. Vaccari) hold that S. was the predecessor of Zerubbabel, that is, the one who at first had the directive roles in the action of the return of the Jews. But the opinion of P. Riessler, who identifies both of them with Nehemiah (Bibl. Zeitschrift, 2 [1904], p. 15 ff.), is absolutely groundless.

Gaetano Stano