Biblical Hebrew Blog by ClassicalHebrew.com

Assyrian Archer

It is of no surprise to hear another personal seal has been uncovered in one of the many on-going excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem (the Western Wall Plaza). What may be the twist in this tale is the possibility that the seal may have been planted - a fake.

Anyone who has seen the beautiful depictions of King Sennacherib’s assault on the Judean city of Lachish (701 BCE) will recall the rows of Assyrian archers sending a hail of arrows into the defending city. The depiction of the Assyrian archer is a well-known stylized form - a man walking right with his left hand on the bow as his right hand (the stronger one) pulls back the string. This image is duplicated so two archers appear together side-by-side as in battle formation.

What then becomes interesting and slightly suspicious, is to see this new discovery showing a single archer wearing two quivers of arrows (as if two men were standing together), and he is standing (when impressed into the seal/wax) back-to-front! His weaker arm (the left hand) pulls the string back and his feet are reversed.

Assyrian Archer

One would expect a seventh-century artisan who makes and manufactures artifacts that reflects the images of his own age, would know that the archer needs to be inscribed in the reverse on the stone- thus only when impressed in the wax - does it appear in the stylized format with the right hand on the strong string and his left hand steadying the bow.

This seal has correctly reversed the inscription “for Hagab” - a Hebrew name (appears in Ezra 2:46) - on the stone. The image is not reversed, though! It is a possibility that this seal is the result of a simple and recent sketch of a walking Assyrian archer as lifted from (the inscription of the destruction of Lachish?) any source depicting Assyrian archers.

Let’s wait for more news. After all, there may have been a military commander in Jerusalem famed for his mighty left-handed feats and dexterity!

The seventh century BCE seal uncovered in the excavations (Photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Jerusalem’s Origins

We know that from the beginning when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob entered and dwelt in Canaan, Jerusalem did not feature on their religious map. It was other places such as Bethel that became important places where the presence of God was felt, be it in a dream with angels and a ladder, or in other ways (Genesis 18). Jerusalem instead was a small town fortunate to make its living off the trade routes that passed east and west, and north and south through the town. She was established and lived as a Canaanite city.

The bible mentions that for a brief time there was some healthy connection with this city and Abraham- through his meeting with Malchizedek the king of Salem (Jerusalem) (Genesis 14:18-20). Later however, in the period of Joshua and the Judges we see that Jerusalem was an inhospitable place, one that Israelites feared to lodge in at nights (Judges 19:10-12). This status of Jerusalem continued only until David attacked the stronghold and made it his own. The beginning of Jerusalem’s sanctification began with David.

Jerusalem As Capital

David a man of Judah ruled his growing kingdom from his tribal city of Hebron. In many regards this was a disadvantage to the king who increasingly wanted to unite the tribes that lay spread out between the Mediterranean and east across the Jordan river; the tribes of Israel. For this reason and others, he turned Jerusalem a city that did not belong to Judah, and had no historical connections with any of the tribes, into their new capital. So now when coming to visit the king one did not have to enter the heartland of Judah, but rather instead go up to Jerusalem a place that now represented all the tribes. David wanted everyone to know that his kingdom was not a kingdom for Judah, but one for Israel.

Jerusalem As a Holy Center

Making Jerusalem historically relevant to the people of Israel was relatively easy when he gave it the status of capital for his new kingdom- however making it religiously significant was a more difficult matter. To rectify this spiritual void that Jerusalem represented he decided to introduce to the city the symbol of the presence of God, the ark, that had almost been left forgotten at Kiriath-jearim (1 Sam 7:1-2). He organized a welcoming ceremony and procession to accept the ark into Jerusalem where he erected a tent to cover it and made plans to build a permanent structure to house the presence of Yahweh. It was this move that immediately put Jerusalem on the religious map for all the Israelites.

Even when the kingdom split in the time of David’s grandson we see that Jerusalem had become a site of great veneration. The northern kingdom thus decided to establish their own religious sites such as Bethel, to distance them from the power that the religious center of Jerusalem had over the hearts of all the Israelites.

However Jerusalem’s identity as the invincible stronghold of the Lord was truly forged many centuries later when she withstood and survived a terrible siege from the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 701 BCE (2 Kings 18). This event cannot be underestimated. Not only did it launch Jerusalem into the status of a safe haven, but she also became a symbol of God’s salvation and his protective presence in the city. The theological ramifications of this historical event and the people’s spiritual reaction and interpretation of it, only helped further to fix Jerusalem’s character as the religious center for the people of Israel, a process that David had began many centuries earlier.

The city of Lachish, located in the maritime lowlands of Judea, is first mentioned in the Bible during Joshua’s conquest. After the Gibeonites deceptively made a covenant with Joshua, many of the Canaanite kings were alarmed that they might be conquered with Gibeonite assistance, and therefore set out to fight the Gibeonites. Joshua took over all of these rebellious cities, and Lachish, being one of them, was later part of the territory assigned to the tribe of Judah.

Lachish, located on an important cross-roads between the coast and Hebron, became a major city in the Judean kingdom during the reign of Rehoboam, and was conquered by the Assyrians in the time of Hezekiah (in 701 BCE), when it became the Assyrian local headquarters. Due to the fact that the Assyrians failed to conquer Jerusalem, it was Lachish that was depicted as the main Judean city overcome during the Assyrian invasion and carved reliefs describing its destruction were placed in the central room of Sennacherib’s new palace in Nineveh.

The archaeological findings from Lachish are extensive and include a temple, inscriptions and more from the Canaanite period, and an impressive fortress which should probably be dated to the Israelite period. Many ostraca, stamps and weights containing Hebrew writing that probably should be dated to a period after the destruction by the Assyrians when the city was re-inhabited teach us of the every-day life there.

Most famous among the archaeological finds are the “Lachish Letters.” In these letters, which were written on re-cycled pieces of broken earthenware pottery (known as “ostraca”) we find an extensive correspondence between an outpost in the vicinity of Lachish and the Lachish military headquarters. The letters were all written within a few days, and deal with a book (meaning, a letter) which was read by someone unauthorized to do so or possibly was misread and misunderstood. These letters also mention a military delegation sent to Egypt and other information. Based on archaeological data, the letters are apparently from the eve of the Babylonian destruction, and therefore can be connected to the Babylonian conquest of Judea and the siege over the few remaining cities – Jerusalem, Lachish and Azeka.
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