The Political Structure in Judah from Cyrus to Nehemiah

SEAN E. McEVENUE Lonergan University College, Concordia University 7141 Sherbrooke Street West Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6

THE PROFOUND RELATIONSHIP between ethnic self-awareness and politics, on the one hand, and religious community, on the other, raises important questions both for the theologian and for the historian of religion. In the history of Judaism a decisive turning-point was reached when governing authority was separated from religious authority. In the northern kingdom this happened when Sargon II imposed a foreign ruling class after the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C. In Judah this began to happen in 597 when Nebuchadnez­ zar reduced the reigning monarch Jehoiachin to the status of exiled nobility, while establishing another Davidic line on the throne. Ten years later he completed the separation when he extirpated this line outright. He also razed the royal city and its temple; and placed Judah under the foreign governor of Samaria. During the subsequent exilic and restoration periods, Israel began to establish a normative self-definition which has in some degree formed Jewish thought and institutions ever since. Relation to political authorities during these periods must have been an important factor. The obscurity and the confusion about authority in Jerusalem during these periods hamper attempts to reconstruct the process of self-definition and introduce an unpleasant measure of uncertainty in all conclusions about it. The present study will attempt to reduce this historical uncertainty.1

1 This study restricts itself to questions of secular history. Ramifications in the area of religious history, or the history of ideas, would require research of another sort beginning with

353 354 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 43, 1981

Position of Alt Albrecht Alt, followed by Kurt Galling and others, argued that the Babylonians and subsequently the Persians merely annexed Judah to the province of Samaria and placed it under the authority ofthat foreign gover­ norship. Its status remained unchanged for nearly a century and a half, until 445 B.C. when Artaxerxes commissioned his Jewish cupbearer Nehemiah as governor of Judah.2 The main lines of Alt's argument may be presented as follows. When Nehemiah started to construct a wall around Jerusalem in 445-444 B.C., he was not pursuing a purely cultural or antiquarian purpose; he was setting up a military installation such as one would need in a provincial capital. It was viewed by surrounding peoples as an act of aggression and interpreted as rebellion against the king (Neh 2:19). The opponents were all non-Judeans: Sanballat, governor of Samaria, and his servant Tobiah; Geshem, governor of the province of Arabia; the Ammonites and Ashdodites.3 Clearly there was no Persian-appointed governor in Jerusalem apart from Nehemiah, and clearly neighboring provinces understood that something new was happening here. The most likely explanation is that Sanballat was losing a segment of his province, and that he is allied with neighboring governors who fear changes in the status quo. Whatever authorities preceded Nehemiah in Jerusalem (Neh 5:15), they did not build a city on the old ruins or succeed in restoring the fortifications (Neh 1:3). Back in the time of Cyrus, Sheshbazzar had failed to begin construction even on the temple.4 Twenty years later, in the time of Darius, did construct a temple which he finished in 515 B.C. However, subsequent attempts by the to rebuild the city walls of Jerusa­ lem were unauthorized and successfully stopped during the reigns of Xerxes (485-465) and Artaxerxes I (465-424).5 There was no city capable of being capital of the province of Judah until 445, precisely because the authorities in Samaria prevented it.6 arguments such as those presented by Otto Ploger in Theokratie und Eschatologie (WM ANT 2, 3d ed , Neukirchen Neukirchener-V , 1968), Paul D Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Phila­ delphia Fortress, 1975), Michael E Stone, Scriptures, Sects, and Visions A Profile of Judaism from Ezra to the Jewish Revolts (New York Collins, 1980) 2 "Die Rolle Samarías bei der Entstehung des Judentums," Festschrift Procksch (Leip­ zig Deichert und Hinnchs, 1934) 5-28, reprinted, Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel (2d ed , Munich Beck, 1959), 2 316-37 Cf Kurt Galling, Studien zur Geschichte Israels im persischen Zeitalter (Tubingen Mohr [Siebeck], 1964) 3 See Neh 2 19, 3 33-35, 4 1 (Engl 4 1-3, 7), and the commentary of W Rudolph, Esra und Nehemia samt 3 Esra (HAT 20, Tübingen Mohr [Siebeck], 1949) 4 See .16, Hag 1 4, Zech 4 9 5 See 6,7-23 6 See Ezra 4 9-10 THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE IN JUDAH 355

Furthermore, there is a very revealing glimpse of life given in the Aramaic source of Ezra 5-6, where we see Tattenai, the governor of Beyond-the-River, along with Sethar his secretary,7 and a group of district-governors of Beyond- the-River, come to Jerusalem to investigate the building of the temple shortly before its completion in 515. Clearly this group feels it has Persian authority over Jerusalem, and it acts in accordance with commands from Darius. Tattenai does not deal with, or later refer to, a governor of Judah or Jerusa­ lem. Rather he deals only with religious leaders: with Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the prophets of God as with one authority (5:2-3), and the elders as a group-authority (5:9). Moreover, no governor in Jerusalem appeals directly to Darius. Rather the elders argue upon the basis of an edict of Cyrus empowering Sheshbazzar to build a temple. Tattenai writes up the case, and he alone refers the matter to Darius. There is no indication given that Shesh­ bazzar had had any political authority, or that, when he was gone, there had been any form of Persian-appointed replacement, as one would certainly expect if Judah were constituted as a province. The authority of Zerubbabel is not even mentioned, evidently because, in the eyes of Tattenai, Zerubbabel had no authority. It follows that Judah was not a province before Nehemiah, and that Jerusalem could in no way be compared with Gilead, Megiddo, Samaria, Dor, or Ashdod.8 Nebuchadnezzar annexed Judah to Samaria in 587, and this arrangement was unchanged until Artaxerxes appointed Nehe­ miah in 445 B.C. Kurt Galling simply accepted this conclusion of Alt, and without hesita­ tion used it to support further conclusions of his own.9 His own studies, however, add independent clarification and confirmation of Alt's thesis. He provides a lengthy analysis of the authorship and context of the Cyrus edict in :1-7, of the list of temple-furnishings at the end ofthat chapter, and of the list of those who returned from exile in and Nehemiah 7.10 From this analysis one can conclude, first, that under Cyrus nothing was done to set up a government in Jerusalem. Sheshbazzar returned to Jerusalem with a small group of people, and with the temple-treasure which Nebuchadnezzar had stolen. Secondly, nothing was done under Cambyses. Thirdly, at the end of the sixth century, under Darius I, there was a return of 40,000 exiled Jews

7 Cf. the commentaries of W. Rudolph, Esra und Nehemia; and L. W. Batten, A Criti­ cal and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (ICC; Edinburgh: Clark, 1913). 8 See A. Alt, "Das System der assyrischen Provinzen auf dem Boden des Reiches Israel," ZDPV 52 (1929) 220-42; "Neue assyrische Nachrichten über Palästina," ZDPV 67 (1945) 128- 46; both reprinted, Kleine Schriften, 2. 188-205 and 226-41 respectively. 9 Studien, 92 n. 3. "> Ibid., 61-108. 356 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 43, 1981 under Zerubbabel. This group returned in 520 B.C. and began seriously building a temple in 518, completing it in 515. Now this must have been thoroughly negotiated and organized with the satrap of "Babylon and Beyond-the-River." This man was doubtless a close ally of Darius, since he replaced Bogryas as satrap during the turmoil sur­ rounding Darius' usurpation of power.11 His name was Ushtani, and he doubtless had his seat in Babylon. It is inconceivable that Ushtani had failed to inform and instruct his subaltern who governed in Samaria, Tattenai, and who is given the title of governor of Beyond-the-River in the Aramaic chroni­ cle which we have in Ezra 4:6 to 6:9. Now in Ezra 5 we have Tattenai showing up astonished about the attempt to build a temple; he demands to know who authorized this and just who are involved. In answer to the first question, the elders refer Tattenai to an edict of Cyrus of 20 years earlier. In answer to the second, they draw up the list of returnees preserved in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7. We have to wonder about Tattenai's astonishment. How come he did not know? How come the "gover­ nor of Beyond-the-River," who had to know in detail about this massive immigration of Jews, did not know about their permission to build a temple? More precisely, it must have been Ushtani, rather than Darius, who actually worked out the details of a Jewish migration from Babylon. What did he understand about it? The mode of government employed in the Persian empire, right from the time of Cyrus, involved two separate lines of authority: first, a line authority going from emperor to satrap to local governor; and, second, another group of officials who reported directly to the emperor, and in this way assured the emperor about the loyalty and obedience of satrap and governor.12 This second group of officials included high army-officers, scribes, and treasury-officials. Now it is clear that, if Zerubbabel had been given authority as a governor over Judah, then Tattenai would have been notified. And this is so, whether the supposed province of Judah were conceived as being subordinate to Tattenai and his large domain, Beyond-the-River, or subordinate to Ushtani and his larger satrapy of "Babylon and Beyond-the- River," or even directly subordinate to Darius. But Tattenai was not so informed. Therefore, it follows that Zerubbabel was not a governor but rather an official with ad hoc authority to organize a migration and oversee the resettlement of Jews in their former lands. It is extremely important to note, in imagining this ad hoc authority, that it extended to what we might consider a civil matter, i.e., family land-claims, but did not extend to the point of his claiming the land for himself as governor,

11 Cf. A. T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948) 115-16. 12 Ibid., 59. THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE IN JUDAH 357 to distribute it in the name of Darius. If it had done so, the Chronicler would certainly have pointed out this moment of Davidic triumph! The Chronicler, writing around 350 B.C., and establishing the Davidic origin of Jerusalem by every possible insinuation, has taken the name Shealtiel, whose only notoriety is that he was the father of Zerubbabel (Hag 1:1,12; 2:3,4, 21,23; :2,8; 5:2; Neh 12:1), and lists him as a son of King Jehoiachin in exile (1 Chr 3:17-19).13 Having gone so far, had he one shred of evidence that Zerubbabel had governing power in Jerusalem, he could not have failed to celebrate it; David had founded the cult, his son had built the temple, and now his successor was building the second temple! I must conclude that Chronicler did not have such evidence. As we shall see, the land-claims depended on family membership and were traced back to the Solomonic era. They must have caused bitter conflict as grandchildren of the exiles returned to claim their farms! Zerubbabel was authorized, no doubt, to plead and to mitigate. He was not authorized to set up a Jewish state. This status of Zerubbabel involved his reporting directly either to Ush­ tani, or Darius. Tattenai had been notified of this. But there seems to have been a further clause in Zerubbabel's contract which had not been explained to Tattenai, viz., the responsibility to build a temple. If Darius had not agreed to this before Zerubbabel left Babylon, he would not have been so aggressive in defending Zerubbabel and the temple-building in his rather brutal answer to Tattenai (Ezra 5:6-12). One can only speculate on the details of the deal which Zerubbabel made, but he must have pointed out to Darius the edict of Cyrus which justified his desire (and Darius the Usurper was in need of every legal support he could find). He could have argued further that the Jews had grown sufficiently wealthy now to finance this building on their own (and that is the point of Ezra 2:68-69/ Neh 7:70-72); and finally he could have promised Darius a group of loyal supporters in the province Beyond-the-River—with potential advantages, should opposition develop in Egypt. All of this makes sense, as long as the mandate given Zerubbabel by Darius I went no further than building a temple. In fact, we wait one or even two generations before we have evidence of Jews resident in Jerusalem and surrounding towns attempting to rebuild the city of Jerusalem under Xerxes and Artaxerxes I during the first half of the fifth century (Ezra 4:6-23). Because this was still illegal, those early-day anti-Zionists in Samaria had no trouble in preventing this development. Ezra 4:6 gives a hint of an attempt under Xerxes; Ezra 4:7-23 tells of a successor to Tattenai, now with a Jewish

13 Had Zerubbabel truly been a grandson of Jehoiachin, it is unthinkable that Darius would have taken the risk of giving him authority in Jerusalem in the first place; and incredible that this extraordinary return to Davidic power found no mention in Haggai, Zechariah, the sources of Ezra and Nehemiah, and finally only this furtive hint in the Chronicler. 358 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 43, 1981 name, Rehum, who successfully appeals to Artaxerxes against such attempts. Not until 445 B.C. did a Jewish cup-bearer, on the basis of arguments which again could be speculated about, persuade the emperor to allow a real pro­ vince of Judah to be set up and an appropriate fortification around the city of Jerusalem to be built.

Opposition to Alt Morton Smith, in a somewhat rhetorical passage, cites Neh 5:15: "The former governor who was before me." He argues that this text "shows that (Nehemiah) had predecessors of his own rank.. . . Alt has no reason except the needs of his theory to doubt that the regular title of Zerubbabel meant what it is regularly supposed to mean, 'Governor of Judah.'",4 Exegetes and philologists are automatically repelled by "the needs of his theory," but historians like Morton Smith must recognize that all methods for writing history depend on the imaginative formation of hypotheses (theory) to fit data. Has Alt twisted the data? Smith suggests that in Neh 5:15 pehâ "is regularly supposed to mean 'Governor of Judah.'" But the exact sense of his claim is obscure, and unfortunately he does not trouble to document it. Geo Widengren takes up this argument. He discusses the application of the titles pehâ and tir§ätäD to Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah. He continues: This is what we would expect when Judah is called a medînah, a territory of jurisdiction (Ezra 2.1; Neh 1.3; 7.6; 11.3). The term mïdînah is a term found in Imperial Aramaic and was used in the Persian chancelleries to designate a small or a large province. The Xtxmpehâ was also a term in Imperial Aramaic, designat­ ing a governor, either of a great satrap or of a small province. Accordingly, there is no doubt that Judah from the beginning of the Persian period was given the status of a province by the Persian government, and Alt's opinion seems improb­ able in view of these facts which were not taken into account by him. . . ,15

Examination of the Philological Evidence Moving, then, from historical imagination to philological data, we shall study the biblical meaning of three words: mêdînâ, pehâ and tir§ätäD, to see whether or not they have technical meanings to fit Persian practices in government and whether or not the texts adduced by Smith and Widengren refute Alt's theory.

14 Palestinian Parties and Politics that Shaped the Old Testament (New York/ London: Columbia University, 1971) 196. 15 "The Persian Period," Israelite and Judaean History (eds. J. H. Hayes and J. M. Miller; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977)489-538, esp. pp. 510-11. THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE IN JUDAH 359

1. Medina. The only pre-exilic biblical uses of the term mëdînâ occur in 1 Kgs 20:14, 15, 17, 19. Here "the servants of the princes of the mëdînôt" are to win victory for Ahab, king of the northern kingdom, over Syria. There is no reference to independent states with their governors. The reference is to the Solomonic administrative districts which are carefully listed in 1 Kgs 4:7-19. No technical name is given to the districts there. Their administra­ tors, however, are termed nissäb in 4:5, 7.16 Now the Solomonic districts were a mixture of tribal districts and newly organized geographical areas.17 Their whole purpose, and that of the nissäb, was taxation; other aspects of life and culture were administered indepen­ dently of them (cf. 1 Kgs 4:1-6). It is to be noted that Judah was not enumerated among these districts, even though there were twelve districts (4:7), because Judah came directly under the king independently of Israel (cf. 2 Sam 2:4; 5:1-5; 1 Kgs 4:20). The term mêdînâ, therefore, designated a second-level administrative district. The mëdînâ in pre-exilic times was a division of families as much as of lands. The term suggests that these families were remote from Jerusalem and the king. The head of a district or family (nissäb under Solomon; later sär, 1 Kgs 20:14, 15, 17, 19; and also/*?Aa, 1 Kgs 10:15 = 2 Chr 9:14) is a lower official whose chief responsibility is organizing the taxes. Now it is my contention that this meaning of the term continued into the postexilic period. We shall consider, first, Hebrew texts in Ezra and Nehemiah, then Aramaic texts in the same books, and finally other post- exilic usage. One must begin by reading Neh 11:1-3, where the author explains the presence of non-priests in Jerusalem; they are representatives of mêdînâ. Contrasted here is the city of Jerusalem, on the one hand, and the towns of Judah, on the other. In the towns dwell "the rest of the people," and they are to cast lots to select one out of ten. This is clearly the pre-exilic sense of mëdînâ\ it means confusedly the people and the land, and in this case the land is specifically that land which is outside Jerusalem. A second text is Ezra 2:1 = Neh 7:6: "Now these were the people of the mëdînâ who came up out of the captivity." Galling points out that com­ mentators automatically explain "province of Juda," and he asks why the text omits mentioning a name. He answers that the authors of the text could

16 This term, in all its occurrences, refers to some level of administration, specifically in Solomon's administration: 1 Kgs 5:7, 30; 9:23; 2 Chr 8:10. (In 1 Kgs 22:48, KittePs emendation to nißtb must be accepted; cf. John Gray, I and II Kings: A Commentary [2d rev. ed.; London: SCM, 1970]). We may note in passing that a later writer calls these officialspahqt (I Kgs 10:15). 17 See A. Alt, "Israels Gaue unter Salamo," Festschrift Rudolph Kittel (Leipzig: Hin- richs, 1913) 1-19; reprinted, Kleine Schriften, 2. 76-89. 360 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 43,1981 not have written "Judah," because the document was drawn up to reassure Tattenai and Darius—to write "province of Juda" would arouse fears of separatism. Moreover, the author does not write "province of Samaria" or "Beyond-the-River," because those named did not originate from the north; and in any case such a designation would not please those listed who already had come to distrust the Samaritans.18 But a further question must be asked: Why did the author then use so difficult a term as mëdînâ in the first place? The answer is that the families listed in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 are precisely those who were bënê haggôlâ, come to claim land on the basis of family connection . There could be no more accurate and acceptable designation for such people than bënê hammëdînâ. They are no longer exiles; they are claimants of land on the basis of Solomonic administrative divisions. Here again the pre-exilic use of the term is retained. Turning now to Aramaic texts, we find that the word occurs in Ezra 5:8 (Province of Judah); 6:20 (Province of Media); and 7:16 (Province of Babylon). The first text occurs in Tattenai's letter to Darius, and at first reading it appears to state unequivocally that Tattenai did consider Judah to be a province! However, the question is: How technical is the meaning of this Aramaic word? The parallel in "Province of Media" does at least allow of a technical meaning and begins to swing the balance of probability. How­ ever, in the third text, "Province of Babylon" reverses the swing. This text has to be read as an authentic letter of Artaxerxes I, written in 429 B.C.19 At this point, Babylon was like Jerusalem! It had been razed 60 years earlier, because of the revolt of Belshimanni under Xerxes in 482. Babylon was fully incorporated into Assyria and lost its administrative identity.20 Here, there­ fore, mëdînâ means only region of Babylon. To clinch this argument, it must be pointed out that the real administra­ tive district here was Beyond-the-River. This province, or sub-province, is named 14 times in the Aramaic texts in Ezra, and it is never once called mëdînâ.21 I conclude that the correct translation of Ezra 5:8 is "region of Jerusa­ lem." It may be further pointed out that mëdînâ is never used of Jerusalem, or Judah as a whole, in the Hebrew texts examined so far, and that the Solomonic sense of the word did not affect its use in the Aramaic language. The Aramaic word occurs further in Dan 2:48, 49; 3:1, 2, 3, 12, 30. In similar contexts, but in Hebrew, the word occurs further in Dan 8:2; 11:24,

18 Κ Galling, Studien, 93-94 19 See W Rudolph, Esra und Nehemia, on this text 20 Cf A Τ Olmstead, History, 237 21 cabar nahäräh names a province m the following texts Ezra 4 10, 11, 16, 17, 20, 5 3, 6bis, 8, 13, 6 6bis, 8, 13,7 21,25 THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE IN JUDAH 361 and throughout the book of Esther. In some of these, at least, the word designates an administrative district like a satrapy or a province. In these fanciful texts, the word has the technicity of a fairy tale; it is like the word "kingdom" in our fairy tales. These texts establish the fact that postexilic Hebrew and Aramaic could use this word in other than its Solomonic sense, or in the sense of "region." Other postexilic occurrences show rather the Solomonic flavor. In Qoh 5:7 (Engl. 5:8) the poor are oppressed by very minor officials, remote from the king, in a mëdînâ. In Qoh 2:8 Solomon is seen collecting silver and gold from kings (presumably the Queen of Sheba and Hiram of Tyre), and from médînôt (presumably his administrative districts). In Lam 1:1 Jerusalem is described as a city numerous in population, great among gôyîm, and a princess among mèdînôt. The last phrase describes Jerusalem quite exactly as it was conceived in the Solomonic period, a royal city governing the districts. Any more grandiose interpretation of the word (e.g., by Dhorme in the de la Pléiade, who makes Jerusalem a princess among the Persian provinces) is out of keeping with the total sobriety of the whole passage. Jerusalem had been populous, had been great among gôyîm (Ammon, Moab, Edom), and had been the royal head of districts. Finally, the occur­ rence in Ezek 19:8 yields such poor sense, that one is tempted to emend with Kittel and others to mësûdôt. 2. Pehâ. As Morton Smith points out, Neh 5:14-16 indicates that there were pahôt prior to Nehemiah. Nehemiah was not the first. In fact, we have the names of some Jewish pahôt between Zerubbabel and Nehemiah.22 The

22 See N. Avigad, Bullae and Seals from a Post-Exilic Judean Archive (Qedem 4; Insti­ tute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1976). Avigad summarizes lucidly the position of Alt and his followers, and then offers a refutation: "Thus, we must not corrupt the meaning of its text or read into it matters which have no basis in other sources. If the Bible calls Judah yhwd mdynt^, "Judah the province," there is no reason to assume that it was not a province but merely part of Samaria. If a member of the nobility, of the Davidic line, such as Sheshbazzar (who also bore the local title "prince of Judah") is referred to as "governor," and Zerubbabel is designated specifically as "governor of Judah," there is no reason to hold that they were not actual governors but only "commissaries," as Alt claims. Further, if the Bible relates of instructions given by Darius, King of Persia, to Tattenai, governor of the Province Beyond-the-River, and his colleagues, to allow the 'governor of the Jews' and the elders of the Jews to build their Temple (:7), then it is improper to say that no governor of Judah is mentioned in this episode, claiming that the wordspht hyhwdym are secondary." The philologi­ cal studies reported in the present article have unwittingly prepared answers for Avigad. The root pht does not bear the weight he puts on it. He argues further that the Bible would have contained traces of this dependence on Samaria, and secondly that the Samaritans would have settled Jerusalem. Against this, one can only point out that Jerusalem was sacked and burned and that we know nothing about either the presence or absence of Samaritans in the city. Moreover, the Chronicler-editors had every reason to suppress direct references to the subjection of Jerusalem and Judah to Samaria. In 362 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 43, 1981 question is whether or not this word is a technical term for a specific author­ ity in the Persian empire. This is the philological question. Once this ques­ tion has been answered, we can once again address the historical questions: What is the weight of this evidence vis-à-vis evidence accumulated so far that Nehemiah was the first governor. Is Smith right in presuming that these former pahôt were resident in Jerusalem? Or does the text refer to foreign rulers in Samaria? The point of Nehemiah's text here is to contrast his own dedicated service with the greed and cruelty of the former pahôt. Were these villains Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel? Or were they other Jewish authorities in Jerusalem whose names we have? Or were they basically foreigners in Samaria? Now it is clear that the Book of Esther here, as in the case of mëdînâ, is profoundly influenced by Persian life and has adopted a meaning which does not seem to be Jewish in origin. In 3:13; 8:9; 9:3 the term seems to indicate a governor subject to a satrap, and superior to särim, i.e., feudal lords. In Aramaic texts of Daniel (3:2, 27; 6:8) the same seems to be true. Moreover, in Mai 1:8 the term refers to someone with fearsome authority. However, if we turn to a pre-exilic biblical usage, something very differ­ ent emerges. The term refers exclusively to military contexts and seems to designate a person who marches with the army, whatever the exact nature of his authority may be.23 The only exception is 1 Kgs 10:15 = 2 Chr 9:14, where fact, the unique dearth of all information concerning the Persian period is hard to explain except in terms of such suppression Avigad feels that his real argument is based on the bullae which mention yhd and Hntn phw> (pp 3-13) About the first he claims, without any substantiation, that "this name is m itself sufficient to indicate that Judah was a separate administrative unit, having its own autonomous rule" (p 4) That he has there an authentic bulla from the Persian period I do not doubt It does mention Yehud But why must Yèhûd automatically be a territory9 And, if a territory, why a province rather than a region9 And, if a province, why prior to Nehemiah9 Concerning the second, he makes phwJ mean "governor" against known Aramaic usage He follows Y Kutscher in claiming that it is a "local Aramaic form" (p 6) I believe that my argument shows that the root involved here need not specifically refer to a governor As for this particular bulla (no 5 of his series), F M Cross insists, on grounds of paleography, that one must read phrJ, "potter " Avigad refuses this argument, saying, "But seal No 14 in our collection removes any doubt concerning the proper interpretation of the disputed term" (p 7) However, when we turn to his treatment of seal no 14, no contribution whatever is made to the argument In fact, seal no 14 presents Elnathan as a ph, with the h mostly obliterated and no further letters readable' (p 11) 23 Cf 1 Kgs 20 24, 2 Kgs 18 24 = Isa 36 9, Ezek 23 6, 12, 23, Jer 51 23, 28, 57 These OT contexts show that the word was learned in Israel from foreign invaders The contexts are always military The RS V regularly translates "governor," presumably because the English translation of the word was established on a pre-Alt misreading of our postexilic texts Cf H W F Saggs, "Notes and Studies," JTS 10 (1959) 84-87 The Hebrew word is borrowed from Akkadian paljatu, which can refer to any kind of administrative responsibility, cf Ρ Nober, "Notae philologicae," VD 39 (1961) 110-11 THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE IN JUDAH 363 it designates a Solomonic administrator. Here no army connection is shown, but it may be there all the same. The Hebrew word could, therefore, easily be taken over by a governmental system so military in character as the Persian. If Nehemiah is a pehâ, we are not surprised to find him accompanied by soldiers and horsemen on his way through Beyond-the-River (Neh 2:9). However, as we pointed out above, the Persians had one line of author­ ity from emperor to satrap to governor, and independent lines beside this one. Darius took special steps to distinguish military from civil authority, establishing generals alongside of satraps.24 This fact tends to support the view that biblical pehâ suggests something distinct from satraps and governor. Is it possible to give a clear meaning to the term pehâ in its further biblical occurrences in the Persian period? If we consider Aramaic texts first, the term is applied to Sheshbazzar in Ezra 5:14, to Zerubbabel in Ezra 6:7,25 and to Tattenai in Ezra 5:3, 6; 6:6, 13. These people are very clearly not on an equal footing. It follows that the term is non-technical in Aramaic, and specifically that it can equally well designate a governor (Tattenai) or an official who, on the evidence adduced by Alt and Galling, does not act like a governor (Sheshbazzar). Considering Hebrew texts, we find in Neh 3:7 that there is ont pehâ in Beyond-the-River and he has a throne; but in Neh 2:7 and 9 there are several, and it is not clear who they are since it is not made at all clear that Sanballat is among them (Neh 2:10). In :36 they are distinguished over against the royal satraps in Beyond-the-River. In Neh 5:15, 18 we learn not only that the pahôt, who preceded Nehemiah, exacted heavy taxes in food, wine, and silver, but also that their servants did the same. Clearly, the term pehâ is not univocal. When Nehemiah is given this title (Neh 5:14; 12:26), the power conferred by it is not, therefore, to be deduced on the basis of philological hypotheses of equivalence of language in the court of Susa and Judean biblical documents, but rather from what we see him do. He fortifies a city, calls into service Jews from all the border-towns of Judah,26 takes over an authority which before this had servants and exacted taxes. Nehemiah was a governor. Thus Morton Smith's argument from Neh 5:15, or any further argu­ ments which suppose a universal technical meaning for this term, do not stand up under scrutiny.

24 Cf. M. Ehtécham, L'Iran sous les Achéménides: Contribution à l'étude, 112ff.; cited by Gillis Gerleman, Esther (BKAT 21; Neukirchen: Neukirchener-V., 1973) 79. 25 Note that in Ezra 6:6 Tattenai is pahat cäbar nahäräh, whereas in the following verse Zerubbabel is pahat yëhûdâyë^. The one rules a huge province; the other rules a little people. 26 See A. Alt, "Judas Nachbarn zur Zeit Nehemias," Palästina-Jahrbuch 27 ( 1931) 66-74; reprinted, Kleine Schriften, 2. 338-45. 364 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 43, 1981

3. TirsätäD. The study of the final term may be brief. The Hebrew text of the Bible had taken over a Persian title tirsätäD and applied it to Zerub­ babel in Ezra 2:63;27 Neh 7:65, 69 (Engl. 70), and also to Nehemiah in 8:9; 10:2. The term does not occur elsewhere in the Bible. In the light of all the foregoing discussion, and granted the lack of context for interpreting the term in these texts, no certain conclusion may be drawn from this.28 One must measure the weight of this obscure title shared both by Zerubbabel and by Nehemiah against the weight of their divergent social roles.

Conclusion In conclusion, it may be advanced that the form of political authority in Judah from 597 to 445 B.C. remains obscure in our sources. Clearly it was an authority alien from the Jews, an authority which begrudged them their temple and forbade them home rule. The proposal of Alt that Judah was annexed to Samaria during this period offers a partial explanation for the bitterness of the subsequent schism between Samaritans and Jews. In any case, it remains the only proposal supported by probable arguments. Thus the most important phase in the development of a Hebrew Bible and in the self-definition of Israel took place during a period when Israel was in a large measure scattered in exile, and even in Judah was not a politically sovereign entity. The crucial steps in the formation of the canon of Israel's sacred Scriptures were taken during a period when the nation was alienated from all political power. It was then that texts recalling the authoritative acts of Moses became a text embodying the power of Moses (Deut 4:1-8; 34: ΙΟ­ Ι 2); that all the law collections in Israel were slipped into the Pentateuch and given divine authority; and theological treatises about the remembered past became edited and normative statements about the nature of Israel (Penta­ teuch and deuteronomistic history); and collections of prophetic poems became deeply edited books viewed as interpretations of the torà. Religious traditions stiffened as politico-historical memories faded, and the authority of a text became sacred as other forms of authority were alienated.

27Ezra 2 63, in the light of Ezra 18, 11, suggests that the tirSätä" was Sheshbazzar But Galhng's analysis {Studien, 91) shows that the original context for this list in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 is independent of Ezra 11-11 28 For the etymology of this word, see most recently E. M. Yamauchi, "Was Nehemiah the Cupbearer a Eunuch?" ZA W 92 (1980) 136-37, and the studies he cites there ^s

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