by
Damien F. Mackey
“… the Assyrian
text inverts the common sequence of heaven and earth to ground and sky. The
Hebrew scribe changed the sequence to heaven and earth, but kept the comparison
of sky with bronze and ground with iron”.
H. U. Steymans
Introduction
The following comparisons between the Hebrew texts and the Mesopotamian
ones are taken from H. U. Steymans ‘Deuteronomy 28 and Tell Tayinat’, Verbum et Ecclesia 34(2), Art. #870, 13
pages: https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/870/1867
Regarding
the conventional BC dates that Steymans employs, these would now be greatly
affected by my recent radical revision of late neo-Assyrian history, as
outlined in:
Book of Daniel - merging Assyrians and Chaldeans
Moreover, by no means can I accept Steymans’ suggestion of very late
authorship of the Deuteronomic texts, “… these Hebrew verses came to existence
between 672 BC and 622 BC, the year in which a Torah scroll was found in the
temple of Jerusalem, causing Josiah to swear a loyalty oath in the presence of
Yhwh”.
My own suggestion would be that the laws of the ancient Book of Deuteronomy
became accessible to king Esarhaddon through the influence of his wise ummanu, or Vizier, the biblical Ahikar (or
Achior), who is, in turn, a possible candidate for
Book of Jonah's 'King of Nineveh'
Steymans writes:
….
The discovery of Esarhaddon’s
Succession Treaty (EST) at Tell Tayinat confirms the Assyrian application of
this text on western vassals and suggests that the oath tablet was given to
Manasseh of Judah in 672 BC, the year in which the king of Assyria had all his
empire and vassals swear an oath or treaty promising to adhere to the
regulations set for his succession, and that this cuneiform tablet was set up for
formal display somewhere inside the temple of Jerusalem. The finding of the
Tell Tayinat tablet and its elaborate curses of §§ 53–55 that invoke deities
from Palestine, back up the claim of the 1995 doctoral thesis of the author of
this article that the impressive similarities between Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and
curses from § 56 of the EST are due to direct borrowing from the EST. This
implies that these Hebrew verses came to existence between 672 BC and 622 BC,
the year in which a Torah scroll was found in the temple of Jerusalem, causing
Josiah to swear a loyalty oath in the presence of Yhwh. This article aimed to
highlight the similarities between EST § 56 and Deuteronomy 28 as regards
syntax and vocabulary, interpret the previously unknown curses that astoundingly
invoke deities from Palestine, and conclude with a hypothesis of the
composition of the book of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and Esarhaddon’s
Succession Treaties § 56
This section highlights the
parallels between Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, the curse of the great
gods. Although lists comparing curse motifs in extra biblical texts with
Deuteronomy 28 present a lot of motif parallels, a careful look at such lists
shows that the paralleling of motifs destroys the sequence of elements in one
text in order to fit it to the sequence of the other (eds. Kitchen and Lawrence
2012:244,
Dt 1–32 being number 83 in
their counting of ANE treaties). In Deuteronomy 28:20–44 and EST § 56, however,
the sequence of motifs is identical. In only two cases does a topic appear at a
slightly different position, and in both these cases one can explain the
difference as a deliberate scribal arrangement.
Apart from the identical
sequence of topics in both curses, there is an astounding parallel regarding
the syntax. Curses invoking Yhwh or the gods as subjects causing calamity,
alternate with curses in which natural forces are the subjects, or sentences
that just describe the result of the preceding curse. In Deuteronomy 28:20–44
and EST § 56, these alternations occur at parallel positions.
There is still another
syntactical parallel between the Assyrian and the Hebrew text. The curses
invoking the divinity are optative sentences. In Assyrian, precative verbal
forms mark the optative. In Hebrew, yiqtol-x formations mark the
optative. Although most English translations render Deuteronomy 28:20–44 as
indicative, the Hebrew text alternates between invocations of Yhwh that concede
to him the option of punishing in optative yiqtol-x, and sections in
the indicative dealing with the consequences of Yhwh’s punishments or the
harmful effect of natural forces. The following translation will indicate an
optative sentence by using ‘may’. A similar comparison has previously been
published (Steymans 1995). The comparison presented here has been amended to
highlight vocabulary and syntactical features common to both texts.
There is not much need for the
diachronic separation in Deuteronomy 28:20–44. Three verses show elements of
later elaboration.
Deuteronomy 28:20c
Deuteronomy 28: 20c: ‘[because
of your evildoing] in forsaking Me’.
This ending of the first curse
reads in Hebrew: mippenê rōac macalelê-kā
’ašer cazabtā-nî. The three words at the beginning
do not appear elsewhere in Deuteronomy, however, they appear in Jeremiah three
times (Jr 4:4; 21:12; 44:22). Since the curse section following in Deuteronomy
28:45–62 has a lot of links to Jeremiah, it is safe to suggest that the scribe
who added the curses after verse 45 also added mippenê rōac
macalelê-kā in order to point to the prophetic language (cf. Is
1:16; Hs 9:15) right at the beginning and prepare for the following links with
Jeremiah. Nowhere else does the relative clause ’ašer cazabtā-nî
follow rōac macalelê-kā in the Hebrew Bible.
There is ’ašer cazābû-nî in Jeremiah 1:16 and ka’ašer
cazabtem ’ôtî in Jeremiah 5:19. The relative clause in Jeremiah
expressing that the people leave (forsake) Yhwh differs from the one in
Deuteronomy 28:20. In addition, it does not occur in context with mippenê
rōac macalelê-kā in Jeremiah. In Deuteronomy, the
verb c.z.b is linked to the Levites in Deuteronomy 12:19
and 14:27.
Deuteronomy 29:25 quotes the
statements of people passing by giving the reason for the disaster that befell
Israel: ‘Because they forsook the covenant of Yhwh, the God of their fathers’ (cal
’ašer cāzebû ’et berît Yhwh ’ælōhê
’abōtām). Deuteronomy 31 quotes the words of God, predicting
that his people:
… will begin to prostitue
themselves to the foreign gods in their midst, the gods of the land into which
they are going; they will forsake me [wa-cazāba-nî], and
break my covenant, which I have made with them. (Dt 31:16)
It is important to notice that
Deuteronomy 28:20 is the first occurrence in Deuteronomy where the verb c.z.b
means ‘leaving or forsaking Yhwh’, and that this meaning is taken up in
Deuteronomy 29 and 31. Further use of the verb c.z.b speaks
about Yhwh leaving or abandoning his people (Dt 31:6, 8, 16, 17; 32:26). Hence,
c.z.b only means leaving Yhwh as a form of disobedience in
Deuteronomy 28:20, the first verse of the curse section, and then in two
quotations, namely in the words of other people (Dt 29:25) and of Yhwh (Dt
31:16). Prophetic language uses the verb in a similar sense, however, never in
the context of rōac macalelê-kā.
The verb ezābu, the
Assyrian equivalent of Hebrew c.z.b, occurs in line 479 of
§ 56 with food and water as subjects. The only other occurrence of the verb in
the EST is in line 172 of § 14, a stipulation closely linked to the whole
treaty’s ‘first commandment’ in § 4 through the word repetition of a.šà ‘field’
(l. 49, l. 165), naṣāru ‘protect’ (l. 50, l. 168), uru ‘city’
(l. 49, l. 166), gammurtu ‘totality’ (l. 53, l. 169), libbu
‘heart’ (l. 51, 53, l. 169). The treaty’s addressees must protect Assurbanipal
in country (field) and town (city), and advise him in total truth of their
heart according to § 4. Then § 14, demanding them to protect Assurbanibal,
repeats this order in case of a rebellion. The stipulation ends: ‘You shall
Assurbanibal […] let escape [leave]’ [the dangerous situation tušezabā-ni-ni,
ezābu-causative Š-stem].
Without claiming to be able to
prove it, the verb c.z.b in verse 20c may have been
inspired by the EST. The verb is rare in Deuteronomy and the EST, but it is
existent in § 56 and the important stipulation of § 14 – and in Deuteronomy 28,
it may be the relict of the conditional clause that opened the curse section in
the Judean loyalty oath. The Judean scribe reversed the main offence against
the overlord, using the same verb. As regards Assurbanibal, the main offence is
not to let him leave (= rescue him from) any dangerous situation. As regards
Yhwh, the main offence is to leave (= forsake) him in disobedience. Thus, the
curse section of the Judean loyalty oath might have begun with something like:
‘If you leave [forsake] him [kî tacazbennû; cf.
Dt 14:27], Yhwh may send on you curse’, picking up the conjunction kî
of most conditional laws in Deuteronomy. When DtrL, a pre-exilic scribe
(Braulik 2011; Lohfink 1997, 2000), added the blessing of Deuteronomy 28 to his
account of a covenant in Moab and the conquest of the land – starting with the bārûk-formulas
(Dt 28:3–5) together with the corresponding ’ārûr-formulas (Dt
28:16–19) and the alternative introductions of blessing and curse in
Deuteronomy 28:1f. and 15 – the conditional clause kî tacazbennû
was transferred to the end of verse 20 and the verb changed into perfect kî
cazabtô (cf. Dt 13:11; 22:2, i.e. the taw moved from
the front of the verbal form to its end and the nun energicum was
deleted). A later scribe inserted the allusion to Jeremiah mippenê
rōac macalelê-kā and replaced kî by ’ašer.
The first person pronoun present in the Masoretic text today may be a technical
mistake made by one scribe during the transmission process confusing waw
with nun, letters that look similar in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet as
they do in the Hebrew ‘square script’, because he knew Deuteronomy by heart and
was influenced by the first person pronouns in Deuteronomy 29:15 and 31:16. One
Septuagint manuscript has the third person pronoun, and Old Latin has ‘because
you have forsaken the Lord’.
Deuteronomy 28:21a
Deuteronomy 28:21aI: ‘until he
has put an end to you [on the soil, 21aR you are entering to possess]’.
The phrase mēcal
hā-’adāmâ ’ašer ’attâ bā’ šāmmâ le-rišt-āh
appears similarly in Deuteronomy 12:1, 21:1, 30:18, 31:13 and 32:47. However,
it appears absolutely identically in Deuteronomy 28:63. Verse 63 starts with a
small poem later inserted in the curse section (Steymans 1995). The scribe who
added the poem also added the phrase in verse 21 in order to bracket his
addition in Deuteronomy 28:63–65 with the section Deuteronomy 28:20–44. Since a
previous scribe already added to verse 20, the first verse of the oldest part
of the curse section, this later scribe added to the second verse of this
section, namely verse 21.
Deuteronomy 28:36b
Deuteronomy 28:36b: ‘There you
will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. [37a] You will become
a horror, a proverb and a byword among all the peoples, [aR] where the
Lord will drive you’.
Verses 36b and 37 assess
worshipping of other gods as punishment, and not as sin. The same idea is
present in Deuteronomy 4:28, 28:64 and 29:17. Thus, this passage may be an
addition by the same scribe who added his poem in Deuteronomy 28:63–65.
Italics mark the common
vocabulary and syntactical parallels in Deuteronomy 28 and the EST. The
Assyrian and Hebrew language only sometimes use common Semitic roots in exactly
the same meaning. Identical or semantically corresponding Semitic roots are put
in parentheses. Every sentence starts a new line. The Bible text indicates main
and subordinate clauses according to Richter (1991): ‘I’ meaning infinitive and
‘R’ meaning relative clause. The Assyrian text follows Parpola and Watanabe
(1988).
Since both texts are rather
long, they are divided into sections for convenience. The texts are arranged in
tables (Tables 2–9) with three columns. Two columns parallel Deuteronomy 28:
20–44 with EST § 56, model for the sequential arrangement of topics. The third
column gives the text of other inserted curse paragraphs, because the scribe
composing Deuteronomy 28:20–44 considered their topic fitting to the topic
indicated by § 56.
Both curse sequences begin
with the divinity as subject of the clause and the keyword curse taken
from the Semitic root ’.r.r. (Table 2). The predicate of line 474 maḫāṣu
[to strike] may have been the inspiration for the series of curses using the
predicate n.k.h-Hiphil [to strike] in Deuteronomy 28:22, 27, 28 and 35
(Table 4, 7f.).
TABLE 2:
Divine curse using the semitic root ’.r.r.
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The
divinities are the subject of the syntax of the curse. The ending of life is
the common topic, in Hebrew it is expressed with an infinitive of k.l.h,
and in Akkadian with the Mesopotamian vegetable metaphor of ‘rooting out’
(Table 3).
TABLE 3:
The deity brings existance to a termination.
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TABLE 4:
Natural forces chase the cursed humans.
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Pestilence
is the concluding illness in EST, line 480 of the following section of § 56
(Table 5). This section is marked in line 479 by a shift of the subject from
divinity to natural entities. The Hebrew scribe transferred the topic of
pestilence to verse 21, as the beginning of a series of illnesses unfolded in
verse 22 (Table 4). Thus, he makes pestilence a heading, whereas it was a
conclusion in the Assyrian text. The Hebrew scribe did not adopt the
Mesopotamian concern for the ghost of the dead in accordance to the general
reluctance of the Hebrew Bible in dealing with the afterlife.
TABLE 5:
Lack of food due to the impossibility of agriculture.
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The
Judean scribe took up the verb ‘to strike’ from the first curse of § 56
together with the divine subject. Then he followed the shift from divine
subject to natural entity by making the diseases the actors of the chasing, as
are shade and daylight in § 56 (Table 4).
The headwords ‘food’ and
‘water’, as well as ‘want’, ‘famine’ and ‘hunger’ in § 56 provide the topic for
this section. The Assyrian curse of § 56 starts with entities (food and water)
as subject of the sentence. The Judean scribe follows this by making sky and
ground the subjects of the Hebrew sentences. He elaborates on the topic by
inserting a curse from § 63. His attention was called to this curse whilst
reading the EST through the co-occurrence of ‘ground’ and ‘sky’ together with
‘the great gods […] who are mentioned by name in this tablet’, which is similar
to the beginning of § 56. The word kaqquru [ground, earth] is written
in syllables in § 63, indicating the Assyrian pronunciation of the logogram
ki.tim in § 56 (Parpola and Watanabe 1988:92, sub kaqquru). Hence,
when read aloud there is a link (Table 5).
Only one exemplar from Calhu
has a dividing line between lines 529 and 530, thus counting a § 63 and a § 64,
as do the modern editions. All other manuscripts from Calhu, as well as the
tablet from Tell Tayinat, present lines 526–533 (= § 63 + 64) as one single
paragraph (Lauinger 2012:120). It is one single curse and the Judean scribe was
right in taking it up completely. However, he changed the sequence of the
similes. The EST lists the metals in a sequence of decreasing hardness – from
iron to lead – in the following § 65. By doing so, the Assyrian text inverts
the common sequence of heaven and earth to ground and sky. The Hebrew scribe
changed the sequence to heaven and earth, but kept the comparison of sky with
bronze and ground with iron. Both curses change their subjects. EST § 63 starts
with the gods who turn the ground into iron. The subjects of the next sentence
are natural entities, namely rain, dew and burning coals. Mixing both Assyrian
syntactical structures, the one with divine subject in lines 526–529 and those
with natural elements as subject in line 530 (§ 63) and lines 479 and 480 (§
56), the Hebrew text starts with sky and ground as subjects, following the
vocabulary of lines 526–529 and the syntax of lines 479 and 480. Then Yhwh is
the subject causing harmful rain, following the syntax of lines 526–529, where
the gods are the subject. Military defeat is the topic of § 65, a curse using
the simile of lead in order to denote military weakness. The sons and daughters
taken by the hand by their fleeing parents link this paragraph to the young
women and young men of § 56, whose bodies are mutilated in the squares of Assur
before the eyes of their parents, relatives and neighbours.
EST § 56 does not describe
military defeat, however, the scene of line 481f. presupposes deportation because
the mutilation of bodies takes place in the city of Assur. This might be the
finale of a triumphal procession in which captives of rebellious countries were
carried through the streets of Assur. Thus, the topic of military defeat only
alluded to in § 56 and the topic of corpses being food for animals then
expressed in § 56, probably has lead the eye of the Judean scribe to § 41: the
curse invoking Ninurta, which clearly speaks of defeat. He conflated § 41 and §
56 in order to create verse 25f. He began his curse by invoking Yhwh instead of
Ninurta and expressing defeat. He kept the Semitic root ’.k.l present
as verbal form in the Š-stem in § 41 (feed) in form of the noun expressing the
effect of the curse in verse 26a (food). In addition, he changed the subject.
The addressees of the curse are the subject of verse 26, as are the addressees’
young women and men in § 56. The Hebrew curse continues to have the corpses
being the subject of verse 26, whereas the Assyrian one of § 56 has the earth
as subject. Both curses share the topic of refused burial. Both curses have an
international flavour by becoming a horror to foreign kingdoms, as well as a
spectacle in the capital of the multi-ethnic Assyrian empire. The combination
of birds and beasts in verse 26 conflates the birds (eagle and vulture) of § 41
and the beasts (dog and pig) of § 56 (Table 6).
TABLE 6:
The results of military defeat using the semitic root ’.k.l.
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It
has long been noticed that Deuteronomy 28:27–29 parallel the Sin and Shamash
curses of Assyrian treaties. However, being aware of the topic indicated by §
56 line 485, one realises that the Judean scribe rearranged the complete
sequence of Anu-Venus curses, that is §§ 38A–42, in order to elaborate on the
topics he found in § 56. The headwords ‘sighing’ and ‘sleeplessness’ link § 56
with the Anu-curse in § 38A, and the skin disease rendered ‘leprosy’ links the
Sin-curse § 39 with the skin disease translated ‘scurvy’ in Deuteronomy 28:27.
Loss of eyesight (blindness), as well as darkness, link Deuteronomy 28:29 with
§ 56 and the Shamash-curse in § 40 (Table 7).
TABLE 7:
The curse motifs of Anu, Sin, and Šamaš.
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The
subjects change. Verse 27 starts with the divinity as subject, as do §§ 38A–40.
Verse 29 shifts to the addressees as subject, as do the Sin-curse (roam in the
desert) and the Shamash-curse (walk about). Both the biblical and the Assyrian
curses focus on the desperate way the people move (grope about).
Having elaborated on the topic
of military defeat by using imagery of § 41 to create Deuteronomy 28:25, the
Judean scribe now elaborates on § 42. This curse invokes Venus, a manifestation
of Ishtar, and offers the headwords ‘eyes’ taken up in verses 32 and 34,
‘lying’ as a metaphor for sexual intercourse and rape taken up in verse 30,
‘sons’ taken up in verse 32, and ‘enemy’ taken up in verse 31. The loss of
possession to spoiling soldiers is the common topic. The metaphor of an
irresistible flood in § 56 also denotes military defeat. The Biblical text is
enriched by futility curses that add the topics house and vineyard, as well as
curses that focus on cattle. It is not before Deuteronomy 28:31e and 32a that
the Assyrian headwords are taken up again. The Venus curse focuses on the
impossibility of transferring property as a heritage to the next generation.
There is no deportation from the land. However, the enemy is in the land and
takes all goods. The biblical curse goes one step further in making the sons
themselves a chattel to be taken by the spoiling army. Their parents remain in
their land, consumed by the yearning for their children (Table 8).
TABLE 8:
The motif of plundering enemies followed by baleful wishes.
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There is no curse in EST that
deals with deportation. Deportation, however, is the topic of § 25, an
admonition that the oath-takers must enounce. Thus, Judeans who were bound by
the EST had to say this to their children. Any Judean scribe must have been
aware of this admonition. The headword ‘son’ links it to the topic of several
curses of the EST. The most striking correspondence between Deuteronomy 28:36
and EST § 25 is the combination of setting a king over oneself and deportation
(Table 9).
TABLE 9:
Deportation and appointment of a king.
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After
the topic ‘lack of food’ in verse 26 in correspondence to line 479, the fact
that the topic reappears with the root ’.k.l ‘to eat’ in verse 39 and
line 490 is a further indication of the common structure of both curse
sections. Another identical root connects both texts, namely c.l.h
[to come up, rise]. In § 56, the root occurs in line 489 with the metaphor of a
flood that symbolises enemies. In Deuteronomy 28, the root occurs three times
in verse 43, turning the stranger (a person to be cared for according to the
biblical law) into an enemy. The Judean scribe elaborated on the topics given
in § 56 by creating futility curses. He kept the sequence of food, drink, and
then ointment. However, he discarded clothing and repeated deportation of sons
and daughters instead. The last line of § 56 lists three types of spirits that
haunt the dwelling places. The Assyrian verb ḫīaru means ‘to choose,
to select’, and exists also in the noun ḫā’iru/ḫāmiru/ḫāwiru [spouse].
The verb can mean ‘to marry’. The spirits are not evil per se – they may even
have protective power (Wiggermann 1992:69, 96, 218f., 221). The point being
made in both the Assyrian and the biblical curse is that entities that are not
harmful in general and must be protected (as the stranger in the Bible) or may
be protecting forces (as the spirits in ANE belief) turn out to be harmful and
threaten the intimate space where one dwells (‘in your midst, your houses’)
(Table 10). ….
