A stamp seal found in Lachish in 1935. It reads לגדליהו אשר על הבית “Belonging to Gedaliah, who is over the House.”
How Long Did Gedaliah Govern before He Was Assassinated?
After destroying Jerusalem and taking the king captive, Nebuchadnezzar appoints Gedaliah, a former royal steward, as the governor of Judah. But Ishmael, a scion of the royal family, conspires with Baalis, king of Ammon, assassinates Gedaliah, and kills the Babylonian soldiers stationed in Judah. How did Nebuchadnezzar respond?
Published September 28, 2022
See Shmuel Aḥituv, אסופת כתובות עבריות [Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions], ספריית האנציקלופידיה העברית [The Biblical Encyclopaedia Library] 7 (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1992), 125. While much of this book appears in English translation under the title Echoes from the Past (Carta 2008), that volume does not contain the Judean stamp seals.
The title is mentioned often in the books of Kings and Isaiah. For a discussion of its meaning, see Mordechai Cogan, I Kings, Anchor Bible 10 (NY: Doubleday, 2001), 203–204.
The word chodesh often means New Moon, though it can also just mean “month,” especially in later texts.
For the publication of the bulla, see Gabriel Barkay, “A Bulla of Ishmael, the King's Son,” BASOR 290/1 (1993): 109–114. Unprovenanced finds refer to objects that we do not know where they were found. In addition to the problem of antiquities theft, unprovenanced artifacts may also be forgeries. Experts try to determine whether or not this is the case, but obviously this problem does not plague objects found in controlled excavations.
The story of Gedaliah’s time as governor and his assassination in Kings is very brief, and is likely just a greatly abbreviated version of the Jeremiah account, or perhaps an earlier version of it, before it was incorporated into the book of Jeremiah. See discussion in Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible 11 (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 326.
Milkom-Or means “The light or flame of Milcom,” the Ammonite god. This person is not mentioned in the Bible. See Larry Herr, “The Servant of Baalis,” The Biblical Archaeologist 48.3 (1985): 169–172. From the spelling of the king’s name in Ammonite, as opposed to the biblical spelling, we understand that the name means “Baʿal Saves.”
For a publication of this bulla, see Robert Deutsch, “Seal of Baalis Surfaces,” Biblical Archaeology Review 25.2 (1999) 46–49, 66.
See discussion in Eric Peels, “The Assassination of Gedaliah (Jer. 40:7–41:18),” in Exile and Suffering: A Selection of Papers Read at the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Old Testament Society of South Africa OTWSA/OTSSA, Pretoria August 2007, ed. Bob Becking and Dirk Human, Oudetestamentische Studien 50 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 83–103 [95–96].
Unfortunately, the Babylonian Chronicle, from which we glean much information about the early years of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, is missing for this period, so we cannot check Nebuchadnezzar’s regnal year 23 to see if he conducted such a campaign or not.
Chapter 52 is almost identical to 2 Kings 25. One major difference is that instead of the brief description of the assassination of Gedaliah in Kings—told at length earlier in Jeremiah 40–41—we have a description of another exile in Nebuchadnezzar’s 23rd regnal year.
Josephus begins by narrating how the remaining Judahites escaped to Egypt, and how Jeremiah prophesied their doom:
Jud. Ant. 10 §180 But when they came there, the Deity revealed to the prophet that the king of Babylonia was about to march against the Egyptians, and He bade the prophet foretell to the people that Egypt would be taken and that the Babylonian king would kill some of them and would take the rest captive and carry them off to Babylon.
Thus he sees Nebuchadnezzar’s campaign as an affirmation of Jeremiah’s prophecy.
For some discussion, see Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology: 626 BC–AD 75. 3rd ed. (Providence, RI: Brown University, 1967), 28; Anthony Spalinger, “Egypt and Babylonia: A Survey (c. 620 B.C.–550 B.C.),” Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 5 (1977): 221–244 [p. 236]. For the possibility that it is based on earlier midrashic traditions, see Israel Eph‘al, “Nebuchadnezzar the Warrior: Remarks on his Military Achievements,” Israel Exploration Journal 53 (2003): 178–191 [183–185].
Jürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten: die Zeitbestimmung der ägyptischen Geschichte von der Vorzeit bis 332 v. Chr., Münchner Ägyptologische Studien 46 (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1997), 198.
The translation is based on M. Abd el-Maksoud, and D. Valbelle, “Une stèle de l'an 7 d'Apriès découverte sur le site de Tell Défenneh,” Revue d'égyptologie 64, (2013): 1–13.
We do not know who this is.
The text reads:
…when a mission comes from those which have a bad character because of the saying of [...] 7 [..], who is faithful to His Majesty, making sure to act in his interest (?) by saying: “The ruler ... … … … [Horus's?] way (the highway between Egypt and Canaan) to hide his action; He guarded the entrance of the path to the desert [... ... … … …] 9 your majesty's army ... away from him; These [...] have risen [...] 10 [...] He has seen [...]; to go [... ... … … …] 11 ... … … … 12 ... … … …
Apparently, one army is on the main highway, known as the Horus Road, biblical “Way of the Philistines” (Exod 13:17) and the other is by the desert entrance. Which army is where is hard to tell because of the lacunae.
Josephus’ description of a Babylonian conquest of Egypt, complete with the killing of the Pharaoh and the deportation of Judahites that ran to Egypt, is not historical, however, but derives from his taking the prophecies Jeremiah 43–44 as historical truth. For a discussion of Nebuchadnezzar’s other failed attempts to conquer Egypt (601 and 567 B.C.E.), see my, “Nebuchadnezzar Fails to Conquer Egypt So Jeremiah’s Prophecy Was Updated,” TheTorah (2022).
