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Home , Jeremiah 40

Back to : An Illustration of How an Archaeological Find May Illumine a Biblical Passage

Lawrence T. Geraty

As one who has been supported and inspired by the archaeological, exegetical and administrative efforts of Robert Coughenour, it is an honor to dedicate to him this meditation on a relatively new find from our excavation in Jordan where his own work has been so fruitful.

The Find On the second day of our new Madaba Plains Project which began with the excavation of Tell el-'Umeiri (the successor project to the excavations at Tell 1 Hesban where Robert Coughenour was a key staff member ), during the summer of 1984, one of our supervisors who was working the sift spied a small, stone-like, conically shaped ceramic object, showed it to his supervisor who in tum showed it to another one of the supervis.ors who happened to be walking by. This time the latter supervisor rubbed the object on his trousers, took a good look at it, and discovered that the circular flat portion of the cone was inscribed! That happened to be on a Friday (June 22) when in the afternoon we were scheduled to take the staff down to Petra for the weekend. Larry Herr, our chief archaeologist (whose doctoral dissertation at Harvard was on Iron Age seals), volunteered to stay behind to work on reading and interpreting the new find. When we returned from our weekend trip, Larry Herr had it figured out. The finely conceived and executed seal impression was divided into three panels, the top and bottom panels containing the Ammonite inscription-dated paleographically to ca. 600 B.C.2-and the middle panel depicting typically 3 Ammonite iconography : a four-winged scarab beetle pushing a solar ball flanked by standards, solar discs, and crescent moons in an assemblage reminiscent of Zephaniah 1 :4-6. The inscription itself read lmlkm- 'wr 'bd b 'l­ ys ', "belonging to Milkom-'ur, servant of Ba'al-yish'a (or Ba'al-yasha')." Both of the personal names constituted "firsts": The seal's owner, Milkom­ 'ur ("Milkom's flame") or Milkom-'or ("Milkom is light"), is the first known occurrence of the well-known Ammonite divine name Milkom as one of the elements in an Ammonite proper name. Since our find, a couple of other examples have been published. 4 According to his title, "servant," this

221 individual would have been a prominent government official in the service of the Ammonite king, Ba'al-yish'a (" is salvation") orBa'al-yasha' ("Baal saves"). At first we thought we had found evidence for a previously unknown Ammonite king. Then Robert Boling of McCormick Theological Seminary, who was in charge of our regional survey and lived at the American Center for Oriental Research (ACOR) where Robert Coughenour was later president and where there was a library, came back to camp and told us to look at 40: 14. It quickly became apparent that our Ammonite king was to be identified with the Baalis of that text. And that is how we came across Baalis' first extra­ biblical confirmation-despite Wright's published claim5 about "Ba'lay" being 6 on the Tell Siran bottle (a misunderstanding of Cross ; and this misinformation was perpetuated by Feinberg. 7 The spellings for the name of the Ammonite king preserved in Jeremiah 40: 14 (b'lys) and in the seal impression (b'lys') are different enough that one may legitimately question the identification. The following points argue in its 8 favor : 1. Of the nine Ammonite kings now known from the , Assyrian texts, and 9 Ammonite inscriptions (cf. Cross' listing in Herr ), the Baalis of Jeremiah is the only one containing "Baal" as a theophoric element. 2. In the more than one hundred other proper names assembled thus far in our Ammonite onomasticon, Baalis is the only name containing "Baal" as its theophoric element, except for the fragmentary Amman Theater Inscription where there is a broken, but possible, Baal name. 10 Thus the use of "Baal" in an Ammonite king's name appears to be exclusive to the king of the 'Umeiri sealing and the king mentioned in Jeremiah 40: 14. Even though the verbal element in the names differs, it is reasonable to conclude that the two references are to one and the same Ammonite king. The spelling difference in the verbal element of the name thus requires an explanation. Before the discovery of the seal impression, both Cross" and Landes 12 recognized that the name Baalis makes no sense as it stands in the (Massoretic Text), so suggested it could be a hypocoristicon. Subsequent to the find, Shea 13 has argued an intentional pious change in the 14 Bible to avoid heathen theology, a view disputed by Herr • It is also possible that it is an unintentional change reflecting the way Judaeans heard the name pronounced in Ammonite, partially preserved, perhaps, in : 14 (LXX) as Belisa, where the final vowel would reflect the presence of a final 'ayin which would, of course, not have been written in Greek. 15 That Transjordanian sin was pronounced sin in Cisjordan is well known from the Shibboleth story in Judges 12:6. Whatever the reason for the difference in spelling, it was accurately hypothetically reconstructed by Puech 16 before the archaeological discovery.

222 The Text This important discovery has obviously interested me in the larger context of Jeremiah 40: 14. It provides us with an opportunity to see how archaeology helps to fill out the picture for the full understanding of a biblical passage. The historical narrative in Jeremiah 40-43 constitutes one of the most vivid and striking stories in the Bible. It tells what happened to after 's fall to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The story in Jeremiah 40 begins with the Babylonian dragnet that is sweeping up the intelligentsia of Judah after the fall of Jerusalem, for deportation to . The Babylonian captain is surprised to find Jeremiah in his group. Knowing that Jeremiah had counseled Judah to cooperate with the Babylonians, the captain says to him, "I release you from your chains. If you want to come along with us, fine, I will treat you well, but if you wish to stay here in Judah with , you are free to do so." Now Gedaliah, the Jew, was the newly-appointed Babylonian governor of Judah. He had surely been known to the Babylonians as one who had opposed the anti-Babylonian policies of , Judah's last king. As it happened, Gedaliah came from a family that strongly supported Jeremiah (cf. Jer. 39: 14; 26:24). So Jeremiah decided to stay with his friend in Mizpah, Gedaliah's headquarters just north of Jerusalem, chosen no doubt because of the complete destruction of the latter. Gedaliah attracted the support of the Jewish leaders from far and wide. His message to them was, "Do not be afraid to serve the Babylonians. Everything will be all right. While I represent your interest to our rulers, you just go ahead and gather wine and summer fruits and oil, store them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that you have taken." So the exiles from the surrounding countries, particularly those from Transjordan, came home, trusting in Gedaliah's assurances. About this time Johanan, one of the former guerilla leaders, came to Gedaliah with this warning, "Do you know that Baalis the king of the Ammonites has sent Ishmael to take your life?" (Jer. 40: 14). In fact Johanan suggested that he be allowed to kill Ishmael before Ishmael could kill Gedaliah. But Gedaliah, wanting to let bygones be bygones and to encourage a fresh start, responded, "Do not even think of doing that and do not slander Ishmael." We do know that seven or eight years before this episode the Transjordanian kings had tried to persuade Zedekiah to join a coalition of western states whose purpose was to overthrow the Babylonian domination. So now Baalis must have seen Gedaliah's leadership as a threat to this prior plan. And perhaps Ishmael was a willing tool because, being of royal Davidic blood, he was jealous of Gedaliah. Or maybe he just wanted to cause trouble for the Babylonians. But Gedaliah was too big a man to operate on rumor and gossip. Some time after this, while Gedaliah was entertaining a group of men that included Ishmael, Ishmael jumped up and murdered his host, killing also the

223 other Jews who were with Gedaliah as well as his Babylonian soldiers. These and others murdered that day were buried in a cistern at Mizpah. "Then Ishmael took captive all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah, the king's daughters and all the people who were left at Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, had committed to Gedaliah, son of . Ishmael, son of Nathaniah, took them captive and set out to cross over to the Ammonites" (Jer. 41: 10). But when Johanan and his friends heard about this terrible massacre, they took their friends and started on a chase of Ishmael and his entourage. "They came upon him at the great pool that is in Gibeon" (Jer. 41: 12). Archaeologists have excavated this pool which is carved out of the rock down to a depth of some eighty feet. It had been the site of an earlier gruesome battle between the generals of Saul and (see 2 Sam. 2: 13). Ishmael's captives were delighted to be set free by this unexpected turn of events· while Ishmael, himself, together with eight men, escaped, crossing the Jordan River over to their sponsors, the Ammonites. Johanan, on the other hand, gathered together his own motley crew of escapees, headed toward Bethlehem, intending to go into Egypt because they were afraid the Babylonians would accuse them of complicity in the Mizpah murders. But then someone thought of Jeremiah, the . Why not ask him for God's will in what they should do? So they beseeched the prophet to find out from God what course of action they should take. They added, "May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to everything that the Lord your God sends us through you. Whether it is good .or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, in order that it may go well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God" (Jer. 42:5,6). Obviously true prophetic inspiration does not depend on either human cues or human insights because Jeremiah and/or God kept them waiting for ten days before the answer came! Imagine keeping refugees on the run waiting that long for an answer. Finally, Jeremiah summoned Johanan and the other leaders. He had an answer from the Lord: "Thus says the Lord, the God of , to whom you sent me to present your plea before him: If you will only remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you, and not pluck you up; . . . Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, as you have been; do not be afraid of him, . . . for I am with you, to save you and to rescue you from his hand .... If you are determined to enter Egypt and go to settle there, then the sword that you fear shall overtake you there, in the land of Egypt; and the famine that you dread shall follow close after you into Egypt; and there you shall die" (Jer. 42:9-16). After a long speech in this vein from Jeremiah, Johanan and the other leaders replied impatiently, "You are telling a lie. The Lord our God did not send you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to settle there'; but Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us, to hand us over to the Chaldeans in order that they

224 may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon" (Jer. 43:2,3). Baruch, of course, was the well-known secretary of Jeremiah. Sadly, Johanan and his colleagues decided to disregard the message they had so piously sought; instead they "took all the remnant of Judah who had returned to settle in the land of Judah .. . also the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch . . . and they came into the land of Egypt . . . . And they arrived in " (Jer. 43:5-7).

The Lesson So the refugees went back to Egypt-following in the footsteps of their patriarchs, , , and , and others who sought refuge there. Poor people. As one commentator says, "The story of Israel has come full circle. It started in Egypt, when a crowd of slaves experienced deliverance from servitude by God's grace and power and moved out in a venture of faith toward the Promised Land. Jeremiah had spoken about that from the earliest days of his ministry. Now a crowd of Jewish fugitives has returned to Egypt in fear. 7 This was not the kind of covenant community God had intended to create." 1 Why did these Jews feel they had to return to Egypt for security, to the conditions of the past from which their forebears had been delivered in the Exodus? Was and is Jeremiah trying to demonstrate that doubt often leads to fear which in turn yields disobedience and finally judgment? Is Gedeliah's fate and the subsequent flight to Egypt a type of the insufficiency of all human help-even and including mighty Egypt's? The story, if carefully considered, is at least full of suggestiveness. It reveals a danger which threatens every person and every nation. As G. Campbell Morgan put it, "From tyranny, suffering, degradation, a people was delivered and found freedom, and ennoblement, only at last to return to the place from which they escaped in conditions far more hopeless and helpless than those of the days before their deliverance. "18 According to a very important clay tablet now in the British Museum, Nebuchadnezzar did invade Egypt during his 37th year (ca. 568 B.C.), so what Jeremiah predicted would come to pass did indeed; his word from the Lord was fully vindicated. Why is it that we so often revert to destructive patterns of life instead of living like the redeemed people we really are? Is there any way out? :7 reads: "And they came into the land of Egypt," but verse 8 goes on to say, "Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes." God knows where we are and he does not give up on us. In the time of Jeremiah, just as today, the persistence of the word of God seems to have a purpose of grace. It creates an opportunity for repentance and renewal. The prophet Isaiah has some sage counsel along this line: "Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help and who rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord! . . . The Egyptians are human, and not God; their

225 horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand, the helper will stumble, and the one helped will fall, and they will all perish together" (Isa. 31: 1,3). It is my hope that this meditation sparked by the discovery of the new Ammonite seal impression will encourage us to take our stand with the psalmist. David says, "Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God. They [that trust in chariots and horses] will collapse and fall, but we [who trust in the name of the Lord our God] shall rise and stand upright" (Ps. 20:7 ,8) .

ENDNOTES

I. See Lawrence T. Geraty, "A Preliminary Report on the Madaba Plains Project's 1984 Season at Tell el-'Umeiri," Newsletter of the Institute of Archaeology (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University, 5 (Summer/Fall, 1984), 3, 4; and "A Preliminary Report on the First Season at Tell el­ 'Umeiri," Andrews University Seminary Studies, 23 (1985), 85-110.

2. Larry G. Herr, "The Servant ofBaalis," Biblical Archaeologist, 48 (1985), 169-172; and "The Inscribed Seal Impression," Madaba Plains Project, vol. 1, ed. L.T. Geraty, et al. (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1989).

3. Randall W. Younker, "Israel, Judah, and Ammon and the Motifs on the Baalis Seal from Tell el- 'Umeiri," Biblical Archaeologist, 48 (1985), 173- 180.

4. Walter E. Aufrecht, A Corpus of Ammonite Inscriptions (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), nos. 127 and 136.

5. G. Ernest Wright, "Annual Report to the Trustees, the Corporation, Members and Friends," American Schools of Oriental Research Newsletter, 9 (1974), 1-12.

6. Frank M. Cross, Jr., "Notes on the Ammonite Inscription from Tell Siran, " Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 212 (1973), 12-15.

7. Charles L. Feinberg, Jeremiah: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982), 272.

??I( 8. William H. Shea, "Mutilation of Foreign Names by Bible Writers: A Possible Example from Tell el-'Umeiri," Andrews University Seminary Studies, 23 (1985), 111-115.

9. Herr, op. cit., 171.

10. Aufrecht, op. cit., 58.

11. Cross, op. cit., 15.

12 · George M. Landes, "Ammon," "Ammonites," The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962), vol. A-D, 108-114.

13 · Shea, op. cit.

14 · Larry G. Herr, "Is the Spelling of 'Baalis' in Jeremiah 40: 14 a Mutilation?" Andrews University Seminary Studies, 23 (1985), 187-191.

15 · Geraty, op. cit. (1985), 100.

16 · Emile Puech, "L'inscription de la statue d' Amman et la paleographie ammonite," Revue Biblque, 92 (1985), 5-24.

17 · J. L. Green, Jeremiah in Broadman Bible Commentary (Nashville: Broadman, n.d.), vol. 6, 180.

18 · Studies in the Prophecy of Jeremiah (New York: Fleming H. Revel, 1931), 253.

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