Cursing in Judean

Kings 2 18:28

Empires take over with swords and seduction, with laws and with language. The Neo-Assyrian Empire did all of that and more, leaving behind its semitic alphabet as the surviving prototype for written Hebrew, still in use today. 

But what was the spoken language of the empire as it scrambled together so many ethnic groups all over its regions? 

By the time today’s chapters, the turn of the 7th century BCE, Aramaic is the dialect that’s becoming common. What today’s heartbreaking chapter reveals is that  Assyrian strategy made sure officials also knew the dialects of the people they were about to subdue. 

 As the Northern Kingdom is decimated and its population changes, the Southern kingdom is going through dramatic transitions as well. The new king is a religious reformer, an ambitious builder, but also a risk taker - and he’ll be taking it too far. 

The narrative of Kings is terse, but details found in the Book of Chronicles and in Isaiah fill in some more details about the rise and fall of King Hezekiah, son of King Ahaz and Queen Abiya, daughter of the High Priest Zechariah. 

 The new king’s name means YHWH is my Strength.  And he walked that talk. 

Ahaz was the first Judean king to kneel before Assyria, turning Judah into a vassal state. He also embraced the Assyrian religion and social norms, whether by choice or not. 

But his son, tutored by Isaiah the Prophet, developed a passion for the old ways of YHWH and as soon as became king revoked his father’s pagan path. This begins with his father’s famous funeral - in which the new king chooses to bring his father to burial on a bed of ropes, a public display of disapproval of his father’s religious policies. 

The Bible includes a few more  examples of his Judaic piety -  including his purification of the temple from idols, and the destruction of the great copper serpent of healing created by Moses. Although this relic survived hundreds of years it too was now deemed too much like the idols all around.  

He is also accused of destroying the mysterious book of healing spells. We’ll get to that one later this week. 

According to Chronicles he also produced the first public Passover celebration in the Jerusalem temple - and the last one shared by both members of the Northern and the Southern kingdoms - just before the great destruction. 

The Judean authors of the Bible clearly like this guy a lot, but even they are perplexed and uncomfortable with what happens next and why he made the big political mistake of breaking the vassal bonds with Assyria. 

Here’s the best guess: Sargon, the Assyrian king known for his cruelty, died in battle  and his body was never found. In the political vacuum created, kings of minor vassal kingdoms in the south and north rose up in swift rebellion. Hezekiah joined them. In a matter of two years he supervises the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls and managed to dig an impressive underground water tunnel that would enable the city to withstand a siege. The tunnel survived - and is a major tourist attraction today, also offering some archeological evidence to the king’s existence and the facts of his struggles. But the effort against Assyria did not last. 

The empire reorganized, Sennacherib, Saragon’s son took the crown and  quelled the revolt on the Babylonian front. Hezekiah’s attempts at a major financial gift from whatever is left of the temple coffers,  even taking off the gold doors of the temple. But it was too late. 

The Assyrians went about destroying Judah, conquering the walled cities including the fortress of Lachish, and were advancing on Jerusalem. 

A delegation of three Assyrian leaders reached the city walls, ahead of the army, led by Sennacherib. 

A delegation of three Judean courtiers met them there.  The people, terrified of what’s to come, crowded to listen. The king was waiting in the palace. 

The Rabshakeh, which is the title of the prominent Assyrian spokesman addressed the delegation with a long speech that was meant to deflate.  And he speaks in Judean - whatever early Hebraic dialect this was -- the language that the local people can understand.  Some scholars speculate that he was familiar with the dialect because of his own Israelite origin. 

What security do you have? He asks the terrified people. If you are relying on Egypt - that is not going to work, they are weak as the reeds of the Nile. If you are relying on your own army - you know as well as we do that you do not have soldiers. And if you rely on your god - well, see how all the other local gods have failed before us.  

Hezekiah’s courtiers beg Rabshakeh to speak in Aramaic, the language of the empire - not in the Judean that the masses may make sense of. 

But he knows exactly what he’s doing and now addressed the people directly - 

וַֽיַּעֲמֹד֙ רַבְשָׁקֵ֔ה וַיִּקְרָ֥א בְקוֹל־גָּד֖וֹל יְהוּדִ֑ית וַיְדַבֵּ֣ר וַיֹּ֔אמֶר שִׁמְע֛וּ דְּבַר־הַמֶּ֥לֶךְ הַגָּד֖וֹל מֶ֥לֶךְ אַשּֽׁוּר׃

And the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judean: “Hear the words of the Great King, the King of Assyria.

Kings 2 18:28

You are the people who will suffer if your king persists, he tells Jerusalem. “You are the ones who will eat your own shit and drink your own piss.” 

His words are that explicit and quoted verbatim. He tries to convince them to surrender, disobey their king, realize that their god is useless, and agree to disloate quietly to ‘fertile lands’ beyond. The people, per royal command, keep silent and do not respond. 

The three courtiers return to Hezekiah’s palace, clothes torn, ash on their foreheads, to deliver the news.  What the Assyrian just delivered was not terror but also conviction - the old ways will not win. But what’s left for the pious king and his people? The curious case of faith, luck and mystery comes next.

Enter - the prophet.

The (Actual) Birth of the Bible! 

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