| DESCRIPTION |
|
|---|---|
| Language: | Hebrew |
| Medium: | ostracon (pottery) |
| Size: | 20 centimeters high 16.5 centimeters wide |
| Length: | 14 lines of writing |
| Genre: | Letter of Official Petition |
| Approximate Date: | 639–609 BCE |
| Place of Discovery: |
Mesad Hashavyahu (near Yavneh-Yam, on the Mediterranean coast) |
| Date of Discovery: | 1960 |
| Excavator: | Joseph Naveh Israel Dept. of Antiquities (later Hebrew University of Jerusalem) |
| Current Location: | Israel Museum (Jerusalem) |
|
(Adapted from Gibson 1973:28) |
TRANSLATION by K. C. Hanson (Adapted from Albright 1969:320) |
|
| יׂשמע אדני השׁר | Let my lord, the governor, listen | |
|
את דבר עבדה עבדך
|
to the word of his servant. Your servant | |
| קצר היה עבדך בח | is a reaper. Your servant was in | |
| צר אסם ויקצר עבדך | Hasar-'Asam, and your servant reaped, | |
| ויכל ואסם בימם לפני ׂשב | and finished, and stored (the grain) during the days prior to the sabbath. | |
| ת כאׂשר כל עבדך את קצר וא | When your servant had completed the reaping, and | |
| סם כימם ויבא חׂשביהו בן ׂשב | stored (the grain) during these days, Hoshabyahu ben-Shobi arrived, | |
| י ויקחאת בגד עבדך כאׂשר כלת | and he confiscated the garment of your servant when I had completed | |
| את קצרי זה ימם לקח את בגד עבדך | the reaping. It is already days since he took the garment of your servant. | |
| And all my brothers—who are reaping with me—can testify on my behalf, | ||
| [broken off] | ||
|
NOTES My lord (אדני) is a verbal indicator of the social superiority of the one being addressed. Anyone of superior status is a person's “lord.” See, for example, 2 Samuel 9:1-13 in the Bible for a whole sequence of lord/servant relationships. The governor (השׁר) is a rather general term. The Hebrew word can be used of princes or other elites. See, for example, 2 Chronicles 18:25, Nehemiah 7:2, and Esther 1:3 in the Bible for passages where it is often translated “governor.” For passages indicating elites, see 2 Samuel 10:3; Jeremiah 24:1; 2 Chronicles 31:8. Your servant (עבדך) is a verbal indicator of the social inferiority of the speaker. (See note on “my lord” above.) But when David is called “my servant” by God (2 Samuel 3:18) or the apostle Paul calls himself “a servant of Jesus Christ” (e.g., Romans 1:1) it is an indication that they have a direct Lord/servant relationship with no intermediaries. A reaper (קצר) in the ancient Near East was often a day-laborer. In the Bible, see Isaiah 17:5; 2 Kings 4:18; Ruth 2:3-14. Hasar-'Asam (חצר אסם) is the name of an unknown village. Hasar means “fort” or “outpost” and was frequently used in place names; compare, for example, Hazar-addar (Numbers 34:4), Hazar-enon (Ezekiel 47:17-18), Hazar-susim (2 Chronicles 4:31), and Hazar-maveth (Genesis 10:26). 'Asam means “storehouse” or “barn” (see Proverbs 3:10). Hoshabyahu (חׂשביהו) is a theophoric name (a personal name that includes the name of a deity). In this case, the “offender's” name includes yahu, a form of the name of Israel's deity, Yahweh. One can see this form, for example, in the usual Hebrew spellings of Elijah (אליהו) and Jeremiah (ירמיהו). This man's name would mean something like “Yahweh has taken account” or “esteemed by Yahweh.” A certain Hashshub was among those who repaired the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile (Neh 3:11, 23). Shobai (שבי) appears in the Bible as the name of a Jerusalem gatekeeper in Ezra 2:42 and Nehemiah 7:45. |
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| DISCUSSION QUESTIONS |
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1. Summarize the characters involved in this document and the transaction.
2. Discuss how this reaper's petition relates to the situations in each of the following passages: Exodus 22:25-26; Leviticus 6:1-7; Deuteronomy 24:12-17; 2 Kings 4:1-7; Amos 2:8; Proverbs 20:16; 22:7, 26-27; Job 24:3, 9. 3. Why might this have been a persistent problem in the ancient world? Compare the Laws of Hammurabi §§113, 241. 4. What risks might the reaper be taking by appealing to the governor? 5. Read Ahiqar saying #77 (col. xi:171). How does the theology of the Ahiqar saying compare to the theology of Exodus 22:25-26 on pledges? 6. How does this reaper's situation resonate with the complaint of Job in 24:1-12? What sort of society do these documents presuppose? 7. Read the Aramaic loan contracts from Elephantine (Cowley 10 and 11) from about two hundred years later. How did the borrowers and lenders in those documents protect themselves? 8. Compare the sayings of Jesus on confiscation of clothing: Matthew 5:40; Luke 6:29-31. What is Jesus' point? Do you think he is being literal, or is he using hyperbole (exaggeration) to make his point? Compare these with James 5:4. |
| SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY |
| Albright, W. F. “Palestinian Inscriptions.” In Ancient Near Eastern Texts, edited by James B. Pritchard, 568-69. 3d ed. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969.
Borowski, Oded. Agriculture in Iron Age Israel. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1987. Cross, Frank M., Jr. “Epigraphic Notes on Hebrew Documents of the Eighth—Sixth Centuries B.C.: II. The Murabba'at Papyrus and the Letter Found Near Yabneh-Yam.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 165 (1962) 34-36. Gibson, John C. L. Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions. Volume 1: Hebrew and Moabite Inscriptions. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1973. Hopkins, David C. The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the Early Iron Age. Social World of Biblical Antiquity 3. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985. Naveh, Joseph. “A Hebrew Letter from the Seventh Century B.C.” Israel Exploration Journal 10 (1960) 129-39. Naveh, Joseph. “More Hebrew Inscriptions from Mesad Hashavyahu.” Israel Exploration Journal 12 (1962) 27-32. Naveh, Joseph. “Some Notes on the Reading of the Mesad Hashavyahu Letter.” Israel Exploration Journal 14 (1964) 158-59. Pardee, Dennis. “The Juridical Plea from Mesad Hashavyahu (Yavneh-Yam): A New Philological Study.” Maarav 1 (1978) 33-66. Suzuki, Yoshihide. “A Hebrew Ostracon from Mesad Hashavyahu: A Form-Critical Reinvestigation.” Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute, Tokyo 3 (1982) 3-49. Talmon, Shemaryahu. “The New Hebrew Letter from the Seventh Century B.C. in Historical Perspective.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 176 (1964) 29-38. |
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