In the late eighth century B.C., when Sennacherib, King of Assyria, sent messengers to Hezekiah, King of Judah, to demand the surrender of Jerusalem, Hezekiah dispatched three senior officials to negotiate with the Assyrian messengers. When the negotiations proved unsuccessful, Hezekiah sent these Judean officials to the prophet Isaiah to seek the prophet’s advice. (2 Kings 18–19; Isaiah 36–37.)
One of these senior Judean officials was a man named Shebna. In the early 1950’s Nachman Avigad of The Hebrew University, one of the world’s greatest living epigraphers, startled the scholarly world with a brilliant decipherment of a tomb inscription in the village of Silwan, on a hillside facing Jerusalem. The inscription revealed that the tomb might well have belonged to this same Shebna mentioned in the Bible.
One of the other senior Judean officials of Hezekiah’s court was Eliachim, son of Hilkiah, who was at the time in charge of the king’s household. Recently the Israel Museum acquired a seal impression which may be stamped with the seal of Eliachim’s brother who apparently also served in Hezekiah’s court.
The seal impression consists of an inscription which reads “Belonging to Yehozarah, the son of Hilkiah, servant of Hezekiah” (see illustration). That Yehozarah, like Eliachim, also serves in Hezekiah’s court and is the son of Hilkiah makes it likely that he is Eliachim’s brother.
The letters of the inscription are in old Hebrew script and closely resemble the letters in one of the most famous of all old Hebrew inscriptions, the so-called Siloam Tunnel inscription, which came from the tunnel Hezekiah dug to provide Jerusalem with water during the Assyrian siege.
This seal impression was not discovered as the result of scientific archeological excavation, but, like so many important ancient artifacts, found its way onto the antiquities market and was acquired by a responsible collector who donated it to the museum. When artifacts are obtained in this way, it is often difficult to date them accurately. However, there is no difficulty in this case, because the letters of the inscription so closely resemble those of the Siloam Tunnel inscription that we can be confident that the seal impression comes from the late eighth century B.C. Moreover, the reference to Hezekiah—mentioned here for the first time in a contemporaneous seal also confirms the dating.
The piece of clay on which the seal impression is stamped is called a bulla. A 032bulla was used to identify and certify the contents which were sealed. This bulla of King Hezekiah’s servant was apparently used to seal a papyrus document, for on the reverse side of the seal impression, archaeologists from the Israel Museum have found clear impressions of papyrus fibers. Indeed, on the edges of the sealing can be seen the fingerprint of the man who impressed the seal into the clay 2700 years ago—most probably Yehozarah himself, whose brother Eliachim is mentioned in Kings, and Isaiah. As one silently stares at this bulla, the centuries are easily spanned and the ancient history takes on a new reality.
(For further details see Ruth Hestrin and Michael Dayagi, “A Seal Impression Of A Servant Of King Hezekiah,” Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 24, p. 27 (1974). See also N. Avigad, “The Epitaph Of A Royal Steward From Siloam Village,” The Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 3. p. 137 (1953)).
In the late eighth century B.C., when Sennacherib, King of Assyria, sent messengers to Hezekiah, King of Judah, to demand the surrender of Jerusalem, Hezekiah dispatched three senior officials to negotiate with the Assyrian messengers. When the negotiations proved unsuccessful, Hezekiah sent these Judean officials to the prophet Isaiah to seek the prophet’s advice. (2 Kings 18–19; Isaiah 36–37.) One of these senior Judean officials was a man named Shebna. In the early 1950’s Nachman Avigad of The Hebrew University, one of the world’s greatest living epigraphers, startled the scholarly world with a brilliant decipherment of a tomb inscription […]
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
