The identity of Shishak is uncertain but has often been idendified with Shoshenq I (or Sheshonk), the founder of the 22nd Dynasty, and as king who ruled Egypt 945-924, during a time that is now known as the Third Intermediate Period of Egyptian chronology.
Shoshenq traced his ancestry to the captured Libyan soldiers who had been resettled in Egypt by Rameses III during the beginning of the 20th Dynasty. When the last king of Tanis died, Shoshenq ascended to the throne peacefully and by associating himself with the religious establishment at Thebes, was able to found a dynasty of Libyan kings who ruled Egypt for nearly a century afterwards.
Shishak appeared on two occasions in the history of Israel. The first occurred within the context of Solomon's reign when Ahijah, the prophet, had gone to Jeroboam son of Nebat and announced to him Yahweh's intention to "tear the kingdom out of Solomon's hand and give you ten tribes" because of the king's sin of idolatry (1 Ki 11:28-39). The account does not report if Jeroboam actually attempted to do anything on his part to fulfil the prophesy, for v40 immediately reports that "Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon's death.
The second occasion came five years into the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon's son, when the nation had already split into the northern kingdom of Israel under the rule of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and Rehoboam was left with Judah:
In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made. So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. Whenever the king went to the Lord's temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom. (1 Ki 14:25-28)
Despite Judah's weakened state, Shoshenq did not march against her again. Egyptologists K. A. Kitchen and D. B. Redford have interpreted this to suggest that Shoshenq's aim was not territorial conquest but rather to weaken the powers as well as the commercial monopoly of Egypt's neighbours.
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