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A call to arms? The message on this potsherd may have encouraged the Judahites to launch their audacious initiative against the Egyptians at Megiddo—if Malamat’s reading of the paleo-Hebrew text (known as Arad Inscription 88) is correct. Though the left half of the ostracon is missing, the beginning of three lines is legible: “I reign in [or over] … / Take strength [literally, arm] and … / King of Egypt to … ” Some scholars claim that the “I” in line 1 may refer to the Judahite king Jehoahaz, who succeeded Josiah, or to the last Assyrian monarch Ashur-ubalit. Malamat holds that the “I” refers to God, and that the line probably reads, “I reign over all the nations [or, over all the mountains of Judah].” The exhortation to “take strength” in line 2 lends credence to the view that the Arad inscription is a prophetic proclamation issued in God’s name, dispatched to Judah with the aim of enlisting troops in the war against Egypt.