Caught Between the Great Powers - The BAS Library

Endnotes

1.

See A. Spalinger, “Egypt and Babylonia: A Survey c. 620 B.C.–550 B.C.,” Studien zur Altägyptische Kultur 5 (1977), pp. 221–255.

2.

See M.A. Kaplan, Chap. 27, esp. p. 296ff., and R.N. Rosencrance, Chap. 30, p. 325ff., in J. N. Rosenau, International Politics and Foreign Policy, 2nd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1969).

3.

F.R. Blake, A Resurvey of Hebrew Tenses (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1951), p. 16f.

4.

The place-name of the sender has recently been detected on the reverse of the papyrus. Written in Demotic script, it may be read as Ekron; see Bezalel Porten, “The Identity of King Adon,” Biblical Archaeologist 44 (1981), pp. 36–52.

5.

On the attitude of the “true” prophets and the prophetic books, see C.R. Seitz, “Theology in Conflict: Reactions to the Exile in the Book of Jeremiah,” Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) 176 (1989); C. Hardmeier, “Prophetie im Streit vor dem Untergang Judas,” BZAW 187 (1990).

6.

Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible 11, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1988), p. 308.

7.

Babylonian Chronicle (of Nebuchadnezzar in His Fourth Year), in D.J. Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldean Kings (London: British Museum, 1956), pp. 70–71, lines 5–7. On the campaign in his previous year (602 B.C.E.), see W. Tyborowski in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 86 (1996), pp. 211–216.

8.

Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldean Kings, pp. 72–73, lines 11–13.

9.

Apparently there took place a two-stage deportation, a minor one during the Babylonian siege (Jeremiah 52:28) and a more prominent one a few months later, in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighth year (2 Kings 24:12). See Abraham Malamat, “The Last Years of the Kingdom of Judah,” in Malamat, ed., The Age of the Monarchies: Political History, World History of the Jewish People IV, 1 (Jerusalem: Masada Press, 1979), p. 211; for an analogous situation to the exile under Jehoiachin in the final siege under Zedekiah, see p. 219.

10.

For the various arguments, textual as well as archaeological, see Malamat, “The Last Wars of the Kingdom of Judah,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies (1950), pp. 226–227; and Israel in Biblical Times (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1983), pp. 285–287.

11.

My reckoning of dates in this article is based on an autumnal calendar beginning on 1 Tishri; the spring calendar accepted by a majority of scholars was in general use in Babylonia but not, in my view, in Judah. My position is explained in “The Last Kings of Judah and the Fall of Jerusalem,” Israel Exploration Journal 18 (1968), pp. 137–156, and in “A Chronological Note,” in Israel in Biblical Times (in Hebrew), pp. 243–247. According to the chronological system that I use, Jerusalem survived until 586 B.C.E. rather than the generally accepted date of 587 B.C.E. Thus, according to my chronology, the siege of Jerusalem lasted two and a half years rather than one and a half years.

12.

12Cf. I. Eph‘al in History, Historiography and Interpretation, ed. H. Tadmor and Moshe Weinfeld (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983), p. 97f.