SHAARAYIM INSCRIPTIONS

THE DAVID AND GOLIATH OSTRACON

AND THE ESHBAAL JAR

FROM KHIRBET QEIYAFA (SHA`ARAYIM)

Brian Edric Colless

This is "work in progress" and is continually being modified.

Perplexing puzzles can be solved with patience and perseverance.

Part 3 of this essay is at:
https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/qeiyafa-shaaraim

(1) THE OSTRACON INSCRIPTION

The Qeiyafa Ostracon is an ancient potsherd bearing five lines of faded but fairly legible writing; it was found on the floor of a room in a building at Khirbet Qeiyafa,(also here) which is a fortress situated SW of Jerusalem; it looks out over the Elah Valley ("Vale of the Terebinth"), where David slew Goliath (according to 1 Samuel 17 in the Bible). The ostracon is now housed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Khirbet Qeiyafa has been identified by Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor as Sha`arayim ("Two Gates", an unusual feature which is present at the site); Sha`arayim is a place mentioned in the account of the confrontation between David and Goliath, as being on the way to Gath and Ekron (1 Samuel 17:52); it also appears in the city list of Judah's tribal inheritance, after Socoh and Azekah (Joshua 15:33-36); these two towns are also mentioned at the beginning of the Goliath narrative, which locates the Philistian camp between them (1 Samuel 17:1), and thus confronting Khirbet Qeiyafa, which is also between Azekah and Socoh, but further north.

The history of the discovery of the document (by the expedition led by Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor) is (or was, now no longer accessible) recorded at the Qeiyafa Ostracon Chronicle Part 1; and Part 2 gives an account of the attempts by various scholars to decipher the five lines of visible writing, [with three excellent and essential photographs: two by Clara Amit (Israel Antiquities Authority), and another by Megavision Laboratory; and also drawings by Haggai Misgav (the official epigraphist of the expedition), Ada Yardeni, Gershon Galil, and Émile Puech. George Grena also provided a copy of his own drawing to me personally.]

Qeiyafa ostracon in full flattened contrast (by Megavision laboratory)

Infrared photo of the ostracon (by Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority).

http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/ostracon/Fig6.jpg [now inactive, but found as plate xx in Garfinkel et al 2018, and on p. 244 in Khirbet Qeiyafa Vol. 1]
https://web.archive.org/web/20210119072446/http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/ostracon12_2.asp
Google Qeiyafa for a collection of available images, including earlier drawings of mine.

The enhanced photographs remain as the source-texts, and the descriptions provided below give the characters that I think are there. Drawings are not to be trusted, and my method will be to work constantly from photographs.

An interesting but fallacious feature of the published "sketches" of the inscription is the assumption that the letters proceed one by one along the lines, and where there is a space, with only faint ink marks remaining, the presumption is that there is only one letter lurking there. An important instance occurs early in the third line, where I read a sequence GLYT, with the Y and T in the same slot, and with the T above the Y. Support for accepting this order of the letters is offered by the YH (the divine name Yahu) at the end of line 2 (which strays into the space of line 1)

After examining all the available pictures and drawings, and trying numerous possibilities for each of the five lines, and literally joining up the dots to reconstruct the faint letters, I produced a preliminary sketch of what I see on the sherd (it differs from the more advanced copy stored in my head).

There may have been a sixth line, and even a seventh: many dots, and a white 9-shaped B, can be seen at the start of the phantom line 6; and towards the end of this supposed line a dotted-circle `ayin is visible on some photographs. Note that in line 1, for example, dots (middle and end of the line) are the remains of letters (B and M), and are not to be regarded as punctuation marks. The writing is on the concave side of the potsherd (the interior side of the vessel), so it is an ostracon, and not a piece of an inscribed jar (as with the Eshbaal jar inscription from the same site, see below) .

The smaller photograph (also from Megavision Laboratory, and there is an enlarged version at the end of this article) shows more details, including the `ayin (a dotted circle) in the lower right corner (in the possible line 6, which has a ghostly white B at the other end); and the Yod at the end of line 4 (which is usually ignored, assumed to be a flourish on the preceding K); also the Y with a T above it, after the sequence GL at the start of line 3. This example illustrates a basic flaw in other scholars' attempts to decipher and transcribe this text: the assumption that each space contains a single character. If we look closely at the fourth place from the left in line 2 (immediately above Y + T in line 3) we find K + `ayin (when the dots are joined up, the K is the same as Greco-Roman K; the `ayin is a circle with a central dot). Similarly, further along in line 3, in a sequence DWD, a triangular D sits above a Nun, and published drawings try to make sense of them as one character.; the N has a 6-shaped L above it. At the beginning of line 3 (in the space before GLYT) there could be two or even three letters lurking.

Tentative translation:

[1] You have cursed ('lt), Anakite (`nq), against (b) the servant of God (`bd 'lhm);

[2] the servant of God (`bd 'lhm) has judged you (sha-pa-t.a-ka), with (b) judgements of Yahu (mi-shi-pi-t.i ya-hu);

[3] Goliath (glyt), you are dead (mtt); David (dwd) has prevailed (b`l) for time evermore (l`t ns.h.m);

[4] and I am avenged ('nqm), and raised up is (nrm) the foundation (ysd) of my kingdom (mlky);

[5] I raise up ('rm) the people (`m) of my servant (`bdy) for his virtuous acts (`l s.dqtw).

The basic source for this research is Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor (eds.) Khirbet Qeiyafa Vol. 1: Excavation Report 2007 – 2008 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2009), particularly the introductory Chapter 1 (by the editors, pp. 3-18); Chapter 4 (by David L. Adams, pp. 47-66) on the identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa as Sha‘arayim; Chapter 14 (by the epigraphist Haggai Misgav and the editors, pp. 243-257) on the ostracon, with a photograph, a drawing by Misgav, and his observations on the script and the text, with a comparative chart of letters from various inscriptions dating from the eleventh to the ninth centuries BCE; Chapter 14A (by Ada Yardeni, pp. 259-260) offering another drawing and comments on the text; Chapter 15 (by Greg Bearman and William A. Christens-Barry, pp. 261-270) providing enhanced photographs of the inscription, notably Fig. 15.12, “in full flattened contrast, enhanced 3% (produced at Megavision laboratory)” [(http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/ostracon/Fig6.jpg). Several other pictures and drawings of the inscription have appeared on the Qeiyafa website: http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il, specifically http://qeiyafa.huji.ac.il/ostracon12_2.asp ] [These have now disappeared.]

Yosef Garfinkel, Saar Ganor, Michael G. Hasel, In the Footsteps of King David: Revelations from an Ancient Biblical City (London: Thames and Hudson, 2018).

(The supposed connection with King David is misplaced; there is a revelation about David in the ostracon, but this short-lived town belongs in the reign of King Saul, not King David. Not much light is thrown on the two inscriptions, Chapter 5, 114-127.)

Other scholars, besides Haggai Misgav and Ada Yardeni, have published interpretations of the ostracon:

Gershon Galil, “The Hebrew Inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa/Neta'im: Script, Language, Literature and History,” Ugarit-Forschungen 41 (2009), 193-242.

William Shea, “The Qeiyafa Ostracon. Separation of powers in ancient Israel,” Ugarit-Forschungen 41 (2009), 601-610.

Emile Puech, “L’Ostracon de Khirbet Qeyafa et les débuts de la royauté en Israel,” Revue Biblique 117 (2010), 162-184.

Alan Millard, “The Ostracon from the Days of David Found at Khirbet Qeiyafa,” Tyndale Bulletin 62.1 (2011), 1-13. Millard (6-7) conveniently summarizes the observations made by specialists who preceded him in this endeavour: Haggai Misgav accepts it as a Hebrew text, a message with continuity of meaning, not a set of unconnected words; Aaron Demsky supposes it is a scribal exercise, a list of words; Shmuel Ahituv also thinks it is a practice text; Ada Yardeni considers that it is possibly Hebrew and perhaps a list; Gershon Galil finds in it a social statement, instructions relating to slaves, widows, orphans, and aliens; Émile Puech recognizes a similar situation, and highlights the institution of kingship, as does William Shea; Millard sees it is a list of personal names, and invokes Judges 8:14 (a list of the names of 77 men). However, in a later publication (Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June 2014, ) he says:"The ostracon found at Khirbet Qeiyafa may be a student's exercise, reproducing a list of names or perhaps a message". Thus, he allows the possibility that there is a coherent text on the sherd.

Christopher Rollston, “The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon: Methodological Musings and Caveats”, Tel Aviv 38 (2011), 67-82, simply urges caution, and does not offer a reading of the text.

Aaron Demsky, "An Iron Age IIA Alphabetic Writing Exercise from Khirbet Qeiyafa", Israel Exploration Journal 62 (2012), 186-199: "an elementary writing exercise that reflects a local scribal tradition listing human and divine titles similar to those found in scribal encyclopaedic lists" (186). His admirable methodology for the decipherment of Northwest Semitic epigraphic texts (which I will endeavour to emulate in studying the two Qeiyafa inscriptions) is summed up in six points (189), and I will make a brief statement relating to five of them here:

Study the archeological context in which the inscription was found.
The ostracon was discovered in a room in section B2, north of the west gate; this area might have been the quarters of the military officers. The inscribed jar was in building C10, west of the south gate, adjoining C11, which may have been the main cultic shrine of the city. The general area was the Elah Valley, where David slew the giant Goliath (1 Sam 17).

Decipher the palaeographic evidence, noting unusual markings.
The script of the ostracon has variant letters for each consonant, which suggests it is a syllabic version of the West Semitic consonantary. The jar inscription is apparently consonantal, using selected letter-forms of the ostracon.

Determine the language or dialect.
The language is West Semitic, and seems to be Hebraic in particular.

Discern the literary genre.
The ostracon bears a prophetic oracle. The jar has the owner's name inscribed on it, and possibly has an indication of its contents.

Propose historical and social implications.
The combined evidence of the inscriptions and the archaeological discoveries suggests that the settlement was established by King Saul, as a taxation centre for the collection of produce, and also as a military installation for protection against Philistian invasion; although it is not described as such in the Bible, this walled town also appears to have been the religious centre of the kingdom of Saul (after he had exterminated the priests of Yahweh).
See further: https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/qeiyafa-shaaraim

Demsky proposes "columnar writing" for the form of the text on the ostracon, that is to say, the ink lines dividing the five sequences of letters run vertically, not horizontally, so the lines of writing are not in rows, but in columns, moving from right to left; early West Semitic alphabetic and syllabic inscriptions provide analogies for columnar texts; but in my view, even if the scribe wrote one or more of the lines vertically (and such things do happen in Semitic writing), the intention was that the text should be read horizontally, with the letters proceeding from left to right (sinistrodextral or dextrograde writing). Demsky's conclusion (192) is that "this is a most unusual writing exercise, in which the writer practices his letters in different directions and stances, sometimes even within the same line", and "the changing or rotating directions of writing was the result of the novel choice of writing on the concave side of the sherd so that it could easily revolve on its axis"; and this "would facilitate the exercise in recognizing and writing letters in different directions, guided by lines drawn in order to focus the attention of the learner". My response to this ingenious hypothesis is that the varying stances and forms of the letters are actually significant, not random, and the writer of this document was a competent scribe who knew what he was doing with them, and he was employing them to make a solemn statement, not just a collection of isolated words.

Matthieu Richelle, "Quelques nouvelles lectures sur l'ostracon de Khirbet Qeiyafa", Semitica 57 (2015), 147-162. The first two lines may contain a list of personal names.

William M. Schniedewind, The Finger of the Scribe (OUP 2019), 85-87 (section titled enigmatically "Khirbet Qeiyafa as a List" (?!); and notes 45-50 on p. 192; the ostracon inscription is "some sort of list of names" (86), "a writing exercise" (87), and "the most likely interpretation is that it is a lexical list of some type" (87); he does ask whether the different orientations of the letters have significance ("meaning"), or perhaps they "have something to do with its function as a school exercise" (87).

Brian Donnelly-Lewis. "The Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon: A New Collation Based on the Multispectral Images, with Translation and Commentary", Bulletin of ASOR 388 (2022), 181-210
Author's abstract: This paper provides a new collation of the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon on the basis of the multispectral images produced by Gregory Bearman and William Christens-Barry in collaboration with a number of imaging labs in 2009. It proposes 59 letters in total, with 12 new readings, including 5 new partial reconstructions, all supported by an analysis of these detailed, high-definition images. This new collation permits a renewed attempt at translation of the ostracon, which is interpreted as a record of the summons of a defendant in a legal dispute. In the course of analysis, it is argued that if the decipherment is accepted, the language of the text appears to be an archaic, dialectal form of Hebrew.
A plentiful harvest is promised, though the pickings are meagre in the outcome. The Hebrew word for "harvest"(qs.r) is discovered in the very middle of the text, in line 3, in a "constructed" reading: " he has recounted (spr ) a false report (db) about (`l ) the harvest (qs.r)". I can confidently retort that this statement is true regarding his reading of the text; the only letters that have been transcribed correctly are in the sequence B`L, which invites the god Ba`al into the action, though I think it is the verb ba`ala, "has prevailed", or "has become lord", and the subject is named not as QS.R, which is a total misreading of D (door with its post) W (a Y-shaped character) D (a triangular D, like Delta, above a letter N; see his Fig. 11); this says syllabically DAWIDI, the name that so many have longed to find in an inscription, and here it is.
He remarks on "seven letters ... having been written in multiple directions: right, left, and upside down", and he attributes these apparent irregularities to "the poor education of the writer", blaming the scribe for our ignorance, incompetence, and lack of understanding, without considering that there might be a system operating here, a syllabary in fact. The merit of this publication is the provision of additional multispectral images of the inscription.

It has to be said that these scholars are unaware of the true origin of the alphabet (it issued from the West Semitic syllabary that preceded it in the Bronze Age), and the various ways it was used in the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age; they assume that it always functioned like the Phoenician alphabet, as a simple consonantary. For a record of my own struggles with the inscription (earlier “work in progress”), with details of the various readings I have tried for the letters in the text, refer to these sites:

http://cryptcracker.blogspot.co.nz/2010/03/qeiyafa-ostracon-inscription-this-large.html

http://cryptcracker.blogspot.co.nz/2010/03/two-goliath-ostraca-having-already-made.html

http://bonzoz.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/goliath.html

https://sites.google.com/site/collesseum/qeiyafa-ostracon-1

The Qeiyafa ostracon in full flattened contrast (by Megavision Laboratory).

An infrared photo of the ostracon (by Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

is not available, but it appears in Garfinkel et al, 2018, Plate XX.

This photograph, also from Megavision Laboratory, shows more details, including the `ayin (a dotted circle) in the lower right corner (in the possible line 6, which has a ghostly white B at the other end); and the Yod at the end of line 4 (which is usually ignored, assumed to be a flourish on the preceding K); also the Y with a T above it, after the sequence GL at the start of line 3. This example illustrates a basic flaw in other scholars' attempts to decipher and transcribe this text: the assumption that each space contains a single character. If we look closely at the fourth place from the left in line 2 (immediately above Y + T in line 3) we find K + `ayin (when the dots are joined up, the K is the same as Greco-Roman K; the `ayin is a circle with a central dot). Similarly, further along in line 3, in a sequence DWD, a triangular D sits above a Nun, and published drawings try to make sense of them as one character.; the N has a 6-shaped L above it. At the beginning of line 3 (in the space before GLYT) there could be two or even three letters lurking, Taw twice preceded by M above them, MTT .

Izbet Sartah Ostracon (BEC)

READING THE QEIYAFA OSTRACON

We need to remember the problems that confront us in approaching such ancient texts:

(1) the aging and fading of the writing over 3000 years;

(2) the idiosyncratic handwriting styles of the scribes;

(3) the lack of spaces or points to separate the words;

(4) the absence of signs for vowels (usually only consonants are shown, but syllabograms here);

(5) the intended meaning of the text is known only to its author.

The direction of the writing on the Qeiyafa ostracon is dextrograde (from left to right, sinistrodextral. as on the Izbet Sartah ostracon); this is shown by the underlining (the first of the four line separators runs upwards at the right-hand end, leaving space for the last two letters of the second line.

The proposed reading of each whole line can be seen by looking down the columns of bracketed letters, below (in the section: A syllabic alphabet).

The source of our knowledge for identifying the letters is shown on the table of signs (appended below);

the first column has transcriptions in Roman letters;

the second has Egyptian hieroglyphs which were borrowed for the protoalphabet;

examples of the original forms of the letters from the Bronze Age appear in the Sinai and Egypt column, and in the left-hand side of the Canaan column;

the BS [Byblos syllabary] column shows the forms of the corresponding letters in the West Semitic syllabary, which preceded and influenced the protoalphabet;

a selection of letters from the Iron Age is found in the Canaan and Phoenicia columns, and these can be compared with the forms on the Qeiyafa ostracon.

Note that there were more than 22 letters in the proto-alphabet (Dh, H, Z., Gh, Th) and two forms of Samek (fish and spinal column).

The ostracon inscription includes Samek (in line 4); it appears that the fish is Samek in early Israelian writing (Beth-Shemesh, Izbet Sartah) while the spinal column/backbone (Egyptian djed) becomes the standard form when the Phoenician alphabet was adopted internationally (10th century BCE in Israel). Was it si in this Neosyllabary? It was SA in the Proto-syllabary.

Identification of signs

'A ('alp "ox", 'Aleph, Alpha) shows three variants (all are among the examples from other sources on my table of signs, below and here): near the end of line 1 and in the middle of line 2 we can see the ox-head with its horns (realistically curved in the latter case); the first letter in the top line has the head reclining; at the beginning of line 4 (and 5, apparently) the head is completely inverted like the Greek Alpha and Roman A; the total number is 5.

B (bayt "house", Beth, Beta) was originally square, representing a house with a doorway; one ancient variation had the bottom line of the square radiating up to the top right corner, and here, in the middle of line 1, it has a counterpart, almost triangular with a projection curling round and downwards at the top on the right-hand side; then there is the sixth character (by my reckoning) in line 2; beneath that one, in line 3, is yet another B; a fairly clear B is located towards the middle of the bottom line; and a collection of dots in line 2 (under the second B in line 1, and superscript between two cases of M) may constitute another B; in the middle of the top line the dots on the left side of the dotted circle may be joined to reconstruct another form of B (shaped like a square 9); a ghostly white B of this type is visible in the apparently empty space below line 5, at the beginning of a possible 6th line; total 7.

G (gaml, Gimel, Gamma) was a boomerang, or throw-stick; one example, uncharacteristically inverted, appears near the start of line 3; total 1.

D (dalt "door", Daleth, Delta) was a door with a post, and sometimes with panels (as on the Raddana handle: Sass 1988, fig. 154 and 155; Colless 1991, fig. 25); like B it became more triangular; there is an example in the middle of line 3, with its doorpost on the right, and possibly a horizontal line (marked by a dot at each end) indicating panels; another such D can be reconstructed in line 2, from dots between B and 'Aleph; in the top line, likewise standing between B and 'Aleph, there is a comparable D, if we allow that the top of its post has been broken off, and accept that the bottom part of it, and also the panel-dividing line, are obscure (but the panel-line may have become obsolete at this time, and hints of its presence here may be illusory); a simple triangular D (like the letter Delta) appears in line 3, separated from the door-D by a Y-shaped Waw, and there is another triangular D in the middle of line 5 (between B and Y); the one in the latter part of line 4 is like an oblique (italic) Roman D (D) with the door post on the left side; in line 5, the second D (the one standing immediately below the D in line 4) is also oblique and rounded. Daleth is not a frequent letter in Hebrew, and yet it has a very high total here; but three of the instances are in a word that occurs three times (`bd); total 7.

H (He, Epsilon) was first represented by a person jubilating (hll), generally with both arms raised (although sometimes the image was inverted to a posture of him standing on his hands); and ultimately this figure was turned on its side and its body was amputated, leaving only E, and becoming Greek Epsilon; there is a reversed E with the middle stroke projecting rightwards, in the top-right corner (actually at the end of line 2); and another (as E with a vertical projecting line at the bottom) at the end of the text of line 1, preceding the final M, as also in line 2, but obscure, in the same word 'lhm; total 3.

W (Waw) was a hook or peg or nail (waw) in the proto-alphabet, basically a circle on a stem (--o), but it opened out into a form resembling Y; one example (with D on either side of it) is in line 3; another in line 4 (in fifth position, between M and N); apparently there is one at the very end of line 5; total 3. and in the space at the start of line 4

Z (Zayin, Zeta) was originally two joined triangles (|><|), apparently representing a shackle (ziqq); it is a very infrequent letter, but it is attested on the Izbet Sartah Ostracon; total 0.

H. (Het, Eta) was a mansion with two rooms and a courtyard (h.as.ir), often with a rounded wall; but eventually it was reduced to a bisected rectangle; the inner line is usually horizontal; the proposed Het at the end of line 3 is based on the weak ink marks, and it apparently has a horizontal line inside the square; a possible example in line 4 seems to have the original semicircular courtyard and a vertical line, but it could be a fish, and thus Samek; total at least 1.

T. (Tet, Theta) began as the Egyptian nefer sign, denoting beauty (t.ab "fine", nfr as in Nefertiti); it was a circle with a cross (o-+), and, apparently, the cross moved into the circle (though the latter form may have been originally a variant letter for Tet); it became Theta in the Greek alphabet, but it was not taken over by the Romans; line 2 has two cases of it (both in the sequence sh-p-t.); it is very rare; total 2.

Y (yad "hand", Yod, Iota) is an arm with a hand; there are three different stances; (1) the clearest is in the middle of line 4, with the arm upright and the hand pointing leftwards; (2) the example below it, in line 5, and another instance at the end of line 2, have the hand on the right of the arm and pointing downwards; at the very end of line 4 there is a small right angle which can be reconstructed as a third example of this form of Yod; (3) another type (although small and faint) is observable near the beginning of line 3 (between L and B, and beneath a tiny cross-sign, Taw); it has a short arm, and the hand on the left is pointing downwards; total 5.

K (kap "palm of hand", Kap, Kappa) is a hand, sometimes with a wrist; here, at the end of line 4, it is just a simple stick-figure, with merely three fingers (but a few dots beneath it might be the residue of a stem, making it a K, like Kappa); and there seems to be a K with a stem (now reduced to a few dots and 2 faint lines for the angle section of the K) in fourth place in line 2; in an extended text there would normally be relatively more occurrences of this letter; total 2.

L (Lamed, Lambda) was a shepherd's crook (perhaps also a rope for tethering animals); there are three kinds of L in this document; (1) an inverted crook or coiled rope (an attested stance for this letter) follows the inverted G at the beginning of line 3; (2) a coiled type, shaped like a 6 or a G, is found in line 3 (centre); another L of type 2, looking like 6 or G, stands near the end of line 4, in a sequence mlk; (3) its opposite, like a reversed 6, appears in the middle of line 2, in the word 'lhm, and can be detected in the same set of letters at the end of line 1; the second sign in line 1 may be a another G-shaped L (type 2), truncated by damage to the top of the shard, or else an inverted crook (type 1) with its stem broken off (as with the damaged Taw and `ayin which follow it); in the bottom line there is a gap after Y, with ink marks showing, possibly L; and in line 3, after the triangular D and above the N, there could be a small L (type 2); total 8.

M (maym, mu, running water or falling water, Mem, Mu) has a vertical stance in all cases, not the horizontal set of waves which will become Greco-Roman M; the examples are in line 2 (2x, separated by a superscript B); line 4 (3x); line 5, third letter, and another below the M in the middle of line 4 and above the D in line 5, which has taken a depressed position to make room for the M; the three dots at the end of the top line of writing are the remains of a Mem (in a sequence `lhm), rather than punctuation marks; there are dots and traces of M at the beginning and at the end of line 3; possible total 10.

N (nah.ash "snake", Nun, Nu) was clearly a snake, sometimes a cobra, sometimes a viper, but the erect cobra was the victor; a clear case is lurking in line 4 (following MW); an unclear example is discernible, in white, as the second letter in that same line 4; another possible N stands towards the end of line 3, underneath the triangular D; and in line 1, the fifth letter is N (it might be an instance of Shin, like the one at the start of line 2, but the top curve is missing here; a bias towards reading 'l t`s, "Do not do", has led to a general restoration of this Nun as Sin); total 4.

S (samk "fish" or "support", Samek, Xi) is a controversial subject, as the fish is commonly identified as D (since W.F. Albright publicized the idea) because dag is the common West Semitic word for "fish" (Emile Puech, Douglas Petrovich, and I, swimming like salmon against the current, recognize the fish sign as S); but samk is another Semitic "fish" word (in Arabic but not Hebrew); samk also means "support", and an alternative sign was used for S (Samek), namely the Egyptian djed pillar (spinal column as the "support" for standing upright), and this eventually became the standard letter in West Semitic scripts; the fish and the spine were both used for s-sounds in the cuneiform alphabet, and the fish survived as S in Arabia; but West Semitic Samek is a very infrequent letter; nevertheless there is an example of the fish-sign in line 4 between Y and D (with a head made up of dots at the top, dorsal fin on the right side, and a tail at the bottom, and this is the opposite stance to the form on the Izbet Sartah ostracon); there is no trace of the "telegraph pole" (--|-|-|) in the five lines of text, but a startling vision of it may be seen in the putative line 6, under the D of line 5; total 1 (or 2). The emergence of the backbone Samek, replacing the fish, marks the adoption of the Phoenician alphabet in Iron Age Israel; the fish also appears on the Izbet Sartah ostracon (head at the bottom) and the Beth-Shemesh ostracon (position of the head uncertain).

`O (`ayn "eye", `Ayin, Omikron) was originally an eye (with or without the pupil), and it was reduced to a circle (with or without a dot); here nearly all cases are circles with a dot; two examples in the top line; a faint one in the next line (in the sequence `bd); a clearer one in line 3; and I find two together in the last line (the second one above the Beth) and perhaps a third above L, following Y; also a possible instance near the end of the putative sixth line; a plain circle appears in a superscript position towards the end of line 3; total 6 (or 7 or 8).

P (pu "mouth", Pe, Pi) is a mouth, as shown by every example on the table (including the Arabian), but allowing that one of the lips has been removed along the way; there is an example of Pe at each end of line 2, facing in opposite directions though looking towards each other; total 2.

S. (s.irar "tied bag", Sadey, San) was a bag tied at the top (the same word as for the money-bags of Joseph's brothers in Genesis 42:35); the bag became deflated in some cases, and torn open in others; there is one in line 5 (like the type found on the Gezer Calendar inscription); and another near the end of line 3; total 2.

Q (qaw "line", Qop, Qoppa) was a cord wound on a stick, and in the Iron Age its upper one or two projections were omitted, making it look like Waw, which consequently had to open up its top; a clear example stands near the end of the bottom line; there is a possible instance in the middle of the top line (its stem is obvious enough, and the circle is discernible); the character between 'A and M at the start of line 4 is extremely obscure, but I propose Q for it; immediately below it in line 5 is a much clearer circle on a stem, likewise between 'A and M, but this may be R, as also the example in the middle of line 4; R is a frequently occurring letter, and Q is not, and if we accept all these as Q there will be no cases of R (note that we have the same difficulty distinguishing Q and R on the earlier Izbet Sartah ostracon); total 3.

R (ra'sh "head", Resh, Rho) is a human head, usually with a neck; see the notes on Q, for the possibility that there are two cases of R in lines 4 and 5; the normal difference is that R has a somewhat triangular head on its stem, while Q has a circle or oval on its stick; total 2.

Sh (thad/shad "breast", Shin and Sin, Sigma) was a human breast (thad), standing for Th, while Sh had various representations of the sun (shimsh), a circle as the sun-disc, or a circle with a serpent, or a serpent (or two) with no disc; but the breast-sign prevailed. At the beginning of line 2 is a vertical example (like Sigma), and towards the end of the line a horizontal form (W-shaped) which became the standard Shin ("tooth"!) and Sin; total 2.

T (taw "mark, signature", Taw, Tau) has always been a cross (+ or x); one example stands near the end of the inscription; another is in the third position at the top; there is another possible case of T between L and B in line 3 (above Y); there is a faint possibility of one or two instances at the start of line 3; total 4.

Relative Frequency Test

To test whether the occurrences of each letter in this text are commensurate with their relative frequency in a typical Classical Hebrew document, a comparison has been made with Psalm 18 (17 of the 51 verses), which is attributed to "the servant of YHWH, David".

The two most frequent letters to emerge from this exercise on Psalm 18 are Yod (in first position) and Waw (in second place), and this is very surprising, because in documents in other ancient West Semitic languages (Ugaritic and Phoenician), W is among the infrequent letters, and Y is in or around tenth place. One part of the explanation for the anomaly is that Y and W are also used as vowel-letters (matres lectionis) in Biblical Hebrew (and modern Hebrew); another factor is the ubiquity of the Divine Name, which includes Y and W, and also H (twice). H occurs in the Qeiyafa inscription (in the combination YH, and also in 'LHM); thus the Sacred Name is not present in its full form (YHWH); also absent is the definite article ha (which was not used in early extant documents in West Semitic languages).

The most infrequent letters in Hebrew are: Zayin (here 0), Sin (0), Samek (1), Tet (2, but in a recurring root ShPT.), Gimel (1); so this is an acceptable result.

Also rare are: Sadey (here 2), Pe (2, but in a recurring root ShPT.), Het (1), Qop (3, an unusual outcome, appearing in three different words).

Less rare (at the halfway mark) is Dalet, and yet it holds a top place (3rd) in this text (7x), but in the same word `BD three times, and in a name which begins and ends with D (in line 3); this `bd sequence also raises the frequency of Bet (in 3rd place with D).

Resh, with only 2 instances, is irregular, sitting in the middle of the scale, not on the upper rungs; it shares the 13th position with five other letters which make two appearances.

The full results are (with positions from Psalm 18 in brackets, and apparent anomalies marked with an asterisk*):

'A 6 (5) *B 3 (9) G 19 (17) *D 3 (11) H 10 (13) *W 10 (2) Z 22 (21) H. 19 (14) *T. 13 (22) *Y 6 (1) K 13 (15) L 2 (3) M 1 (4) N 8 (10) S 19 (20) `O 5 (7) P 13 (16) S. 13 (19) *Q 10 (18) *R 13 (6) Sh 13 (12) Sin 23 (23) T 8 (8)

The correspondences are mostly unobjectionable, and the deviant cases have been explained above. The figure 13 appears frequently because many letters have two occurrences. If the ostracon had more lines (and it appears that a sixth line has been lost at the bottom) we would have had a larger sample and the relative positions of the letters might have been clearer.

A syllabic alphabet

A curious feature of the Qeiyafa ostracon inscription is that the scribe does not write his characters consistently. This might be a personal whim on his part, simply to add variety to his text.

However, the possibility arises that the variations in the signs are not arbitrary but significant. Consequently, this would be a syllabic alphabet, with not 22 letters (as in the later Phoenician and Hebrew consonantal alphabet) but 66 characters.

http://www.asor.org/anetoday/2014/02/the-lost-link-the-alphabet-in-the-hands-of-the-early-israelites/

https://www.academia.edu/36973107/The_Mediterranean_Diet_in_Ancient_West_Semitic_Inscriptions._Damqatum_12_2016_3_-_20.Damqatum-The-CEHAO-newsletter-N12-2c-2016.pdf

(See the section on the Beth-Shemesh ostracon as an example of neo-syllabic writing.)

Is it a three-vowel system (as is the West Semitic Proto-syllabary and the cuneiform alphabet) or are five vowels shown (as in Masoretic Hebrew pointing, or in Linear B of the Aegean syllabary)? Three seems right (though the forms for D and L seem to show more than three?). Each letter would have three variants ('a, 'i, 'u; ba, bi, bu), and so this alphabet functions as a syllabary. We could call it the Neo-syllabary, a new West Semitic syllabary, as distinct from the original West Semitic Proto-syllabary of the Bronze Age, and the international Phoenician alphabet, which had only consonant-signs. (The inscription on the Qeiyafa jar, examined below, has similarities with the ostracon text, but it runs in the opposite direction, leftwards, and its signs are used consistently, not syllabically, though not using the forms of the Phoenician alphabet; thus `ayin has a dot, B is a reversed BA, Shin is SHA, D is DA, 'alep is 'U...)

An example of the syllabic system is provided by the two forms of the root Sh P T. ('judge') in line 2, which might be sha-pa-t.a and shi-pi-t.i.

In the latter case, the three characters have counterparts in the Phoenician inscriptions, and this leads to the supposition that the letters of the Phoenician international consonantal alphabet corresponded to the -i syllabograms of the Neo-syllabary, while the letters in the copy of the alphabet on the Izbet Sartah ostracon (line 5) would be the -a syllabograms (as with the set sha-pa-t.a on the Qeiyafa ostracon) . This hypothesis will be explored here and elsewhere.

In this section an attempt is made to identify every sign in lines 1 - 5 (there are remnants of other letters at the bottom, with a clear ghostly B [bi] at the beginning of a presumed line of writing).

The basic principle of the identification procedure is that the consonantal letters of the standard alphabet (as represented on the Tel Zayit Stone and the Gezer Calendar) correspond to the signs with -i vowels in the syllabary; and the forms of the letters on the bottom line of the Izbet Sartah Ostracon convey the -a vowels; the remaining forms would presumably be the -u syllables. Unfortunately this method will fail us sometimes, since consistency is not found in the various documents available to us; hindsight reveals that regional and scribal variations are at play.

The initial letters in round brackets indicate the names of others who have supported the proposed reading for each consonant (though not the syllables, which have my own hypothetical vowels).

DL: Brian Donnelly-Lewis D: Aaron Demsky G: Gershon Galil M: Haggai Misgav P: Emile Puech R: Matthieu Richelle S: William Shea Sch William Schniedewind Y: Ada Yardeni

IS: Izbet Sartah Ostracon (its abagadary in line 5 generally shows the consonant + a forms)

TZ: Tel Zayit Stone (has the Phoenician-style international consonantal alphabet)

1.1 [’] ’a (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (same as IS ’a)

1.2 [L] li (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (has lost its top part; same as 3.4 [li], or 3.9 [la]?)

1.3 [T] ta (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (same as IS ta, with crossbar pointing NE)

1.4 [‘] ‘a (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (same as IS ‘a, with centre dot)

1.5 [N] na (all others wrongly restore it as Sh) (same as 4.6, not quite like IS na)

1.6 [Q] qa? (M P) (stem penetrating circle for qi? but, like IS qa, has projecting mark at top for qa, or is this accidental, in each case?)

1.7 [B] bi (same as Phoenician and TZ B, and the white instance at line 6; not simply punctuation dots)

1.8 [‘] ‘a (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (smaller than 1.4; significant?)

1.9 [B] ba (DL D G M P S Y Sch) (not the same as IS ba; reversed form of B on the Qeiyafa jar)

1.10 [D] da (D G M P S Y Sch) (same as IS da, but damaged at top)

1.11 [’] ’u (DL D G M P S Y Sch) (equivalent to 2.8)

1.12 [L] lu (D P Sch) (a small version of 2.9)

1.13 [H] hi (faintly discernible; should be equivalent to 2.10, in the same word; an E-shape with a projection at the bottom, it is a reverse form of the Phoenician H)

1.14 [M] mi (three dots joined by faint lines, same as 2.11, in 'lhm)

2.1 [Sh] sha (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (same as IS sha)

2.2 [P] pa (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (reversed form of 2.14 and of Phoenician P)

2.3 [T.] t.a (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (same as IS t.a, + inside a circle)

2.4 [K] ka (faintly discernible K, with the stem surviving as three dots; same as Greek and Roman K; and like IS ka)

2.5 [‘] ‘a (G) (below 2.4; small, like 1.8)

2.6 [B] ba (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (same as 1.9, in same sequence,‘bd)

2.7 [D] da (DL G) (same as 1.10, but with protruding marks at top)

2.8 [’] ’u (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (same as 1.11)

2.9 [L] lu (DL D G M P S Y Sch) (form neither 9 nor 6 shape, but reverse of 3.4)

2.10 [H] hi? (faint lines between 2.9 and 2.10; one clear horizontal stroke of its three between the upper parts of L and M; should be like 1.13, in the same word, 'lhm)

2.11 [M] mi (DL D G M P R Y Sch) (1.14)

2.12 [B] ba (superscript)

2.13 [M] mi (fainter than 2.11, but discernible as having the same curves)

2.14 [Sh] shi (DL D G P R S Y Sch) (VV shape, as on TZ and the international consonantary, the Phoenician alphabet)

2.15 [P] pi (DL D G R S Y Sch) (has a shape like [ ) ], as in the Phoenician alphabet)

2.16 [T.] t.i (DL D G M P R S Y Sch) (the cross [x] in the circle has the same stance as TI)

2.17 [Y] ya (G R Y Sch) (similar to 4.14 and 5.9)

2.18 [H] hu (reversed E shape with middle stroke protruding rightwards)

3.1 [M] ma? mi? (faint line)

3.2 [T] ta? tu? (faded marks to the left of the crook of 3.3; possibly double ta; so DL, but reads it as S)

3.3 [G] gu (D G M P Y) (inverted g, not IS ga, nor IS gi, which is reverse of ga and corresponding to Phoenician G)

3.4 [L] li (M, others read r) (close to TZ Lamed, therefore li)

3.5 [Y] yu (reverse of 2.16 ya, and different stance from 4.9 yi)

3.6 [T] tu (above 3.5; stance differs from 1.3 ta and 5.14 ti)

3.7 [B] ba (DL D G M P Y Sch) (matches 1.9 and 2.6)

3.8 [‘] ‘a (DL D G M P Y Sch) (has centre dot, like 1.4)

3.9 [L] la (DL D G M P Y Sch) (same as IS la)

3.10 [D] da (like 2.7, doorpost protrusion at top, and curved side on left)

3.11 [W] wi (Y shape) (vertical stem with branch pointing NW)

3.12 [D] di (triangular, like 5.8, and Phoenician D)

3.13 [L] la (small and faint, above 3.14, same as 3.9?)

3.14 [`] `i (undotted circle, superscript position)

3.15 [T] ti (after 3.14, above 3.18; same as 5.15, not 1.3 ta, nor 3.6 tu)

3.16 [N] na (written below 3.12 di, same as IS nu, not like 4.5 and 1.5 )

3.17 [S.] s.- (a Sadey is possible, reconstructed by joining dots)

3.18 [H.] h.a? h.i? (P) (a box with a horizontal dividing line, like IS h.a; but the right-hand side may extend downwards at the bottom, indicating h.i)

3.19 [M] (ma? mi?) (curving traces)

4.0 [ ] (enough space for a letter: W, "and"?)

4.1 [’] ’i (D G M P S Y Sch) (projecting cross-bar,, as with 'alep in the standard alphabet, though the stance differs; apparently 1 p. sg. verb imperfect)

4.2 [N] na (white ghost-image)

4.3 [Q] qi (dots form a circle with a stem, possibly like 5.14 qu, but if the stem penetrates the circle, as in the standard alphabet, it would be qi; see Fig. 22 here)

4.4 [M] mi (DL D G M P Y Sch) (like 5.3, and same as M in the standard alphabet)

4.5 [W] wa? (D M P S Sch) (not the same shape as 3.11; its branch points NE)

4.6 [N] na (G M Y Sch) (like 1.5)

4.7 [R] ri (D P)

4.8 [M] ma? mi? (D G M P Y Sch) (unclear, same as IS ma?)

4.9 [Y] yi (DL D G M P Y Sch) (same as TZ Y, hence yi?)

4.10 [S] su (P M) (fish with tail at bottom and dorsal fin on right)

4.11 [D] du (DL G M P Y Sch) (same as 5.13)

4.12 [M] mu? (DL D G M P Y Sch) (like IS mu, central angle facing left? or ma, with angle pointing rightwards)

4.13 [L] la (DL G M P Y Sch) (6 shape, like 3.9)

4.13 [K] ki (DL D G M P S Y Sch) (without stem? or three dots are remnants of a stem?)

4.14 [Y] ya (partly faded, but discernible; same as 5.9)

5.1 [’] ’i? (DL G M) (like 4.1, but not exactly the same shape)

5.2 [R] ri? (M P Y Sch) (or ru? not exactly like 4.7)

5.3 [M] mi (DL M P Y Sch) (like 4.4)

5.4 [‘] ‘a (superscript, above 5.6 ‘a; it includes a dot in its circle)

5.5 [M] ma (M) (superscript, above 5.8)

5.6 [‘] ‘a (D G M P S Sch)

5.7 [B] ba (G M P S) (slightly different stance from 1.9 and 2.6 in ‘bd sequence)

5.8 [D] di (G M P S) (like 3.12)

5.9 [Y] ya (like 2.16)

5.10 [‘] ‘a? (dotted circle, above 5.11? or it is a piece of 5.11?)

5.11 [L] la? (small version of 3.9, or 3.4, li? )

5.12 [S.] s.i? ( M)

5.13 [D] du (M P) (others see g, ignoring the curved side on the right, like 4.10)

5.14 [Q] qu? (oblique stem does not penetrate circle, and no projection at top)

5.15 [T] ti (G M P Y Sch) (not ta 1.3, nor tu 3.6, but ti, having same stance as Taw on Gezer Calendar)

5.16 [W] wu? (Y-shaped)

6.1 [B] bi ..... [`] `a ...

The ostracon in full flattened contrast (by Megavision laboratory)

1] 'a li ta `a na qa bi `a ba da 'u lu hi mi

2] sha pa t.a ka `a ba da 'u lu hi mi ba mi shi pi t.i ya hu

3] ma ta ta gu li yu tu ba `a la da wi di la `i ti na s.a h.i mi

4] ( ) 'i na qi mi wa na ri mi yi su du mu la ki ya

5] 'i ri mi `a ma `a ba di ya `a la s.i du qu ti wu

Tentative translation:

[1] You have cursed ('lt), Anak (`nq), against (b) the servant of God (`bd 'lhm);

[2] the servant of God (`bd 'lhm) has judged you (sha-pa-t.a-ka) with (b) judgements of Yahu (mi-shi-pi-t.i ya-hu);

[3] You are dead (mtt) Goliath (glyt), David (dwd) is master (b`l) for endless time (l`t ns.h.m);

[4] I am avenged ('nqm) and raised up (nrm) is the foundation (ysd) of my kingdom (mlky);

[5] I raise up ('rm) the people (`m) of my servant (`bdy) for his virtuous acts (`l s.dqtw).

[In transcribing the characters I sometimes use 'A for 'aleph (ox) and `O for `ayin (eye) for ease of distinguishing the two guttural sounds, rather than their simple transcription with ' and ` (remembering that they are the original sources of the Greco-Roman letters A and O);] Emphatic consonants have the dot next to them not under them (H. T. S.); Shin is shown as Sh.

[1] ' L T ` N Q B ` B D ' L H M

[1] 'LT `NQ B `BD 'LHM

[1] 'alita `anaqa bi `abada 'uluhimi

[1] Anak (Giant), you have cursed against the servant of God.

The first sentence could start with 'L as "El/God" (or 'LT as "Goddess"); or 'L as "not" ('L T`N. "Do not answer", or "Do not worry"); or 'L as the preposition 'el "unto". But the syllabic writing seems to restrict the choices to 'alita.

'LT "curse" or "cursing" or "curses" (Hebrew 'alah, plural 'alot); but `alita would be second person singular verb from the same root, "you have cursed", or "you have uttered a curse" (against the servant).

Note that the Philistine Goliath is said to have "cursed (qll, not 'lh as here) David by his gods" (1 Samuel 17:43).

`NQ "Anak" (`anaqa), or "Anaki" (`anaqi, gentilic form);`Anaqim were a "tribe" of giants who were located in Ashdod, Gaza, and Gath, all Philistine towns, as noted in Joshua 11:21-22, and presumably Goliath of Gath was one of them; this seems to confirm that supposition, as GLYT is named in line 3. The Anaqim have no known references outside the Bible, except where the Bible is quoted, as 'Einakeim in the Onomasticon of Eusebius (68.4; Rainey Bridge, 154c), followed by Jerome's Enacim in his Latin translation of the Onomasticon (Rainey 155a). However, Modern Hebrew has `anâq (noun) "giant", and`anâqî (adjective).

B (bi) "in" (here "on" or "against"; note the Hebrew expression ns' 'lh b, "lay a curse on", in 1 Kings 8:31).

`BD (`abada, Biblical Hebrew `ebed) "servant" or "slave".

'LHM ('uluhimi) "Elohim, God". In Biblical Hebrew this would be `bd ha-'lhm (Dn 9.11, Neh 10.30, 1 Chr 6.34, 2 Chr 24.9, referring to Moses in each case), and the absence of the definite article here and in line 2 suggests that it was not in current usage. Here "the servant of God is identified in line 3 as David (dawidi). As noted above, the opening words of Psalm 18 speak of "the servant of Yahweh, David". According to Psalm 78, "Yahweh (4), God ('lhym, 7), God Most High ('lhm `lywn, 56), the Lord ('dny, 65) chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds ... to shepherd Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance" (71-72).

[2] Sh P T. K ` B D ' L H M B M Sh P T. Y H

[2] ShP T. K `BD 'LHM B MShPT. YH

[2] shapat.a ka `abada 'uluhimi ba mishipit.i yahu

[2] The servant of God has judged you with judgements of Yahu

ShPT. K (shapat.aka) "he has judged you" (3rd person singular masculine, perfect tense, with 2nd p. m. pronominal suffix); the suspicion here is that it means "has passed judgement on", and the implication is that the death penalty has been executed; the next line apparently begins with MT GLYT (indicating that Glyt is dead).

`BD 'LHM (`abada 'uluhimi) "the servant of God" (as in line 1); "my servant" (`abadiya) in line 5.

ShPT. YH (shipit.i yahu) "judgements of Yahu"; the word shepet.("judgement", Akkadian shipt.u) is here possibly in its plural construct form, shipit.i; compare the use of the plural of this word in Exodus 6:6, "I YHWH ... will redeem you ... with (b) great judgements" (sh-p-t.-y-m). However, the MI is clear enough, preceded by superscript BA, yielding ba-mishipiti (mishpt.é), "with judgements of Yahu".

[3] M T G L Y T B`L D W D L`T N S. H. M

[3] MT GLYT B`L DWD LNS.H.M

[3] mata guliyutu ba`ala dawidi la`iti nis.ah.ama

[3] You are dead, Golyat, David is the master for endless time (evermore).

There is a space before G and some ink marks, possibly M T T, written vertically.

MTT (matata, BH matta) 2nd p. sg. m. pf.; this reading is rather intuitive, but it fits the context, and the prophet continues addressing the giant posthumously, as in the previous two lines. If it is mit-, it would say "Dead (mét) is Goliath".

GLYT (guliyutu) "Golyat" (Goliath from Gath, or the Gittite), the champion of the Philistines in the battle against Israel in the Elah Valley (1 Samuel 17:4); elsewhere it is reported that another Goliath the Gittite was slain by Elhanan the Bethlehemite (2 Samuel 21:19) though the Chronicler has Elhanan killing Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite (1 Chronicles 20:5).

B`L (ba`ala) "Ba`al", a title, meaning "Lord" (applied to the weather-god Hadad); as an epithet it could refer to Goliath here; as a verb it means "be master" or "possess", and it could have the following name DWD as its subject, "he has become the master".

DWD (dawidi) "Dawid" (David), a unique name in the Hebrew Bible, belonging to Dawid of Bethlehem, who became the second king of Israel; he is called "the servant of the LORD" (Psalm 18:1), and the word of the Lord to David was, "By the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel from the Philistines and all their enemies" (2 Samuel 3:18). Here (in lines 1 and 2) he is "servant of God", and in line 5 he is "my servant".

L`TNS.H.M is not a clear reading, but if NS.H. is a verb it would mean "he has prevailed", and as an adverb it would say "ever" or "enduringly" (lânes.ah., or lns.h.ym); the preposition and the plural are not necessary (Amos 1:11, ns.h., "ever"); but the word `iti (Hebrew `ét "time") stands above the other word, on the same level as la ("to" or "for"), and la`iti ns.h.m would say "for time of endlessness", or "for endless time", that is, "for time and eternity". Compare the words attributed to David by the later Chronicler (1 Chronicles 28:4): "Yahweh God of Israel has chosen me out of all the house of my father to be king over Israel for ever (l`wlm)".

[2-3] The servant of God has judged you with the judgements of Yah.

Goliath is dead (or: You are dead, Goliath); David is the master for endless time.

[4] ' N Q M W N R M Y S D M L K Y

[4] 'NQM W NRM YSD MLKY

[4] 'inaqimi wa narimi yisudu mulakiya

[4] "I am avenged, and raised up is the foundation of my kingdom"

'NQM ('inaqimi) "I am avenged" or "I will have revenge" (1st person singular, imperfect tense, root nqm, "avenge", nip`al 'innâqém, "I am avenged"), I am avenged (w'nqm) wuth regard to the cursing against the :servant of Elohim, by the `ANAQ, who is now dead.

W (wa) "and"; the conjunction is connecting two verbs, both apparently imperfect tense, in which case it would be merely coordinating; but if the second verb is perfect tense, this could be an early case of "waw-conversive". There is an anomalous space at the beginning of the line, and some dots could be the remains of a letter, possibly W-, "and".

NRM (narimi ?) "we raise" (1st p. pl., imperfect tense, hip`il, root rwm, "be high"); or nip`al "is raised up".

YSD "foundation" (yisudu = Hebrew ysôd); the final -u would be silent and synharmonic with the preceding syllable su; if the case endings were functioning it would be -da, accusative, as the object of the verb NRM; but if NRM is passive, and yisudu the subject, then the -u ending would indicate tne nominative case.

MLKY "my king" (malakiya), or "my kingdom" (mulakiya, root mlk, "reign"); "my king" might be Saul, though he had been rejected by the LORD (1 Sam 16:1), and David had been anointed as the next king (1 Sam 16:2-14); so the king mentioned here might be David, to be "elevated" to kingship; and the internal war is imminent (2 Sam 3:1) between the "house of Saul" and "the house of David" (a term found in the Tel Dan Inscription). If the text was written down at the time of the battle of the Valley of Elah, then the reigning king was indeed Saul. However, if mulakiya is the correct reading, then it says "the foundation of my kingdom", and the implication is that the current king, Saul, would be replaced by "Dawid", "my servant", "the servant of God". The same word mulakiya is attested in Tablet D of the Byblos/Gubla documents, line 4: "they will guard for me the boundary of my empire" (Colless 1993:8-9); cp. Arabic mulk, Ugaritic mlk. Worthy of mention is the reading of Emile Puech (169 and 175) at this point: he recognizes the fish-sign for Samek, as I do, against a seawall of stubborn opposition, and proposes YSD MLK, "they establish a king", referring to King Saul. If the intended reading is "king" and not "kingdom", and the idea is that a new king shall be installed, then we might say "the re-establishing of my king shall be instigated".

[5] ' R M [`O M ] `O B D Y L S. D Q T W

[5] 'RM `M `BDY LS.DQTW

5] 'i ri mi `a ma `a ba di ya `a la s.i du qu ti wu

[5] "I raise up the people of my servant for his acts of righteousness."

'RM ('irimi ?) "I raise up" (1st p. sg., imperfect tense, hip`il, root rwm, "be high"); if there is a second M in the space, it could be polel, with the same meaning of "uplift".

`M (`ama) "people" (`am), or "with" (`im); this is written between the lines and is not easy to detect, but if there is nothing there why do the letters of line 5 dive down at this point?

`BDY (`abadiya) "my servant"; the same person as "the servant of God" in lines 1 and 2, identified as David in line 3. The people of David are presumably the tribe of Judah, or the whole nation of Israel (at that time under the rule of King Saul). In support of Judah we may turn to the Chronicler (1 Chronicles 28:4, a continuation of the verse cited in the notes on line 3 above) who has David declaring: "... he chose Judah (Yehuda) as ruler (ngyd); and in the house of Judah, the house of my father; and from among the sons of my father he gladly made me king over all Israel".

LS.DQTW (li s.iduqutiwu), the L (preposition "to" or "for") is small and not certain; it may have an `ayin above it, and thus `L, "on account of"; if the final Waw is really there, it would say "his", with a plural noun, "for his righteousnesses (acts of righteousness)"; compare this affirmation, "YHWH rewards me (ygmlny) according to (k) my righteousness" (2 Sam 22:21); thus the supposed `al or li might actually be ka. Note also that when David ascended to the throne of all Israel (2 Sam 8:15), he was deemed to have ruled with "judgement" (see line 2) and "righteousness" (as here in line 5).

Linguistic Considerations

Is shwa represented? by -u? ('u-lu-hi-mi) ('elohim)? by -i? (yisudu)

Same vowel for prepositions b- and l-? Always the same (-a? -i?) or -i before –a, and -a before -i (as in Byblos syllabic inscriptions)? Examples bi`abada (1), ba mishipit.i (2).

Are case endings still used? Possibly, but apparently they are obsolete in this text. In line 2, `abada 'ulihimi ("the servant of God") is the subject (nominative case) of a verb ("judged"), and so we might have expected the ending -du (nominative) rather than -da (-a is the singular accusative vowel). In line 1, `abada 'ulihimi is preceded by a preposition (b), and -di (genitive) would be called for; but `bd is in the construct state, and no vowel at all might be the pattern, as in Massoretic Hebrew; in this syllabic setting, the -a in `abada could be a "dead vowel", not pronounced, but the syllabogram bears the same vowel as the preceding syllable (ba) according to the rule of "vowel harmony" that applies in syllabic writing; but the form `abd is required in Hebrew and Arabic (`Abdullah, "servant of God") so the -a- and the -a are both silent, written with the same vowel as in the first syllable.

This constant contending with unpronounced vowels, as also juggling the stances of the letters, may have partly influenced the abrupt acceptance of the consonantal alphabet alone in the Levant; and similarly in Mesoptamia, where Aramaic and the Aramaic consonantal alphabet gradually replaced the cuneiform syllabic system.

The name dawidi is the subject of the verb ba`ala, so the -i must be a "dead vowel", and likewise the final -u in guliyutu.

The Izbet Sartah abgadary (line 5 of the ostracon) presumably has -a forms of letters. The others (-i and -u) are to be found in the text (lines 1-4).

Accordingly, we can establish the forms ba, ga, da, and so on, and seek the -i and -u forms in both inscriptions (and in the shorter texts also). This does not work as an absolute rule, unfortunately. Examples: his B is more like Qeiyafa bi, and like his own bi in bin in line 4, and like Phoenician B; his Tet is leaning towards the stance of Qeiyafa t.i and as in his own word t.it.i ("clay", end of line 2); his Y......

This search has led me to the hypothesis that when they decided to not show the vowels, and reduce the number of signs from 66 to 22, by dropping two of the three columns (A, I, U) it was the 'i, Bi. Gi, Di (etc) column that survived. The Q ostracon with its five lines of writing showed me that the letters were used syllabically by having three different stances for each of them (representing ba, bi, bu, for example).

On the other hand, a more likely hypothesis is that the -i column may have been the original set of signs and two other sets were devised for the -a and -u syllables. The Mesopotamian Sealand signature-graffiti are supposed to be Late Bronze Age, and they have the letter-forms of the Phoenician alphabet of the Iron Age.

So the Zayit abgadary shows the letters that at one time functioned as -i syllabograms in Israel; but they were simple consonantograms (with no indication of vowels) on the Gezer calendar in Israel, and on the Ahirom sarcophagus in Phoenicia.

The genre of the ostracon inscription

An oracle presumably delivered and recorded by a prophet.

Not preced by "Thus says Yahu", or ne'um, "oracle" (solemn declaration)

Poetry or prose?

Byproduct: we have an example of the language of Israel from the 11th century BCE, with the vowels represented.

The author of the oracle

The prophet who delivers this oracle is not named (but his name might have appeared in the unretrieved text at the bottom of the document). Three prophets (each accorded the title nabi') reportedly had a connection with David: [1] Shemu'el (Samuel, 1 Samuel 3:20; 16:1-13) secretly anointed David to be the next king; [2] Gad gave David counsel and direction (1 Samuel 22:5); [3] Natan (Nathan) was the official prophet of King David (2 Samuel 7:2, for example); all three are designated as recorders of David's doings in 1 Chronicles 29:29, where Samuel is a seer (ro'eh, cp. 1 Sam 9:9, man of God = seer = prophet), Nathan a prophet (nabi', cp. 2 Sam 7:2), and Gad a visionary (h.ozeh); and there were others, notably the band of prophets which Saul met (1 Samuel 10:10). David also consulted priests in Nob (1 Samuel 22:9-23), namely Ahimelek, who "gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine" (22:10), and his son [4] Abiathar, who fled with David when Saul had all the priests in Nob slaughtered. Incidentally, Nob is near Jerusalem, and this might partly explain the statement that appears immediately after David had cut off the head of Goliath with the giant's own sword: "David picked up the Philistine's head and took it to Jerusalem" (more precisely to Nob?), though "he placed his weapons in his tent" (1 Sam 17:51, 54).

Another possibility for the prophet-scribe is [5] Eshbaal, the son of Saul. This name appears on the other Qeiyafa inscription, where he is described as BN BD`; the sequence BD` is not a known personal name, but B D` could be "house of knowledge" (B as logogram for bayt, "house", or "temple"); so Eshbaal might also have been "among the prophets", like his father Saul (1 Sam 10:11-12, 19:23-24). This might explain why he was not with his father and brothers at the battle of Gilboa (1Sam 31:2, 2 Sam 2:8-9): apparently he was not a warrior, though he was (literally though unsuccessfully) holding the fort on the road to Gath at that time. (See further part 2 below, on the jar inscription.) However, the Eshbaal inscription was found in the vicinity of the South Gate, and the David ostracon was in a room near the West Gate; and it is not likely that Eshbaal had the same affection for David as his brother Jonathan, including acceptance of David's kingship (1 Sam 18:1, 20:12-17, 41-42).

Weighing the evidence in the scales of probability, Samuel was the king-maker, in the case of Saul (1 Sam 9-10) and David (16:1-13); but he feared Saul would kill him for anointing David (16:2), and there came a point where Samuel in Ramah had no communication with Saul in Gibeah "until the day of his death" (16:34-35), though Saul summoned the spirit of Samuel from the realm of the dead, and heard again that David would replace him as King (28:15-19). It seems unlikely that Samuel was in Shaaraim at the time of this Battle of Elah, although the content of the document is certainly in accord with the oracles he had received from Yahweh, concerning the replacement of Saul by David (15:23-16:2).

Nathan the Prophet was a functionary at the court of King David, delivering the words of God on the matter of (not) building a temple in Jerusalem, and the establishing of "the house of David (2 Sam 7), and a rebuke for his taking another man's wife (12:1-15); and together with Zadok the Priest he anointed Solomon as King (1Kings 1).

Gad "the Prophet, David's Visionary" (2 Sam 24:11), was also serving David during his reign, and is prominent in the account of the sinful census and the ensuing plague

(2 Sam 24); but Gad was available to David when he set up his band of family members and outcasts at the Cave of Adullam (1 Sam 22:5), and Gad may have been the prophet who conveyed the will of Yahweh to David in various situations (1 Sam 23:1-5), together with Abiathar the Priest (22:19-23, 23:6-13).

Accordingly, if one of these three prophets delivered the oracle on the Qeiyafa Ostracon, Gad would have been the most likely to have done so.

It is a pleasant surprise to see in this ostracon inscription two Bible characters (Dawid the shepherd and Guliyut the giant) doing what they did in the Bible story (Goliath cursed David, and David slew Goliath in the name of YHWH 'Elohim), at the very place where it is said they did it (the Elah Valley), and at the very time in history when it happened (during the reign of King Saul, near the end of the 11th Century BCE).

Israel Finkelstein and Émile Puech independently and correctly connect Khirbet Qeiyafa with King Saul, not King David.

The Qeiyafa ostracon is indeed a Hebrew inscription, with regard to its language, though its handwriting is not the official Old Hebrew script, which came after it. However, it is not the oldest Hebrew inscription we possess, as is often asserted, nor the earliest known Israelian Hebrew inscription. For the present, that distinction possibly belongs to the Izbet Sartah ostracon, which was found at the site of an earlier battle between Israel and Philistia, namely Eben-ezer (1 Samuel 4); or else the ostracon from Beth-Shemesh, where the Ark of the Covenant arrived after its captivity in Philistia (1 Sam 6).

Please remember, this is "work in progress" and not my last word on the subject. There is a possibility that the Qeiyafa sherd is broken at the top, and that there was more writing preceding the present line 1. Also, the space at the bottom has many dots that could be the remains of letters.

However that may be, this text seems to merit the title "the David and Goliath inscription from Sha`arayim".

The Qeiyafa Ostracon is certainly a document about David and kingship, but not about King David. Rather it is a record from the time of King Saul, and it is Israelian/Israelite, not specifically Judean/Judahite. David was present at this fortress at least once, when the `Anaq was killed, and when this prophecy was delivered (perhaps not publicly, in the hearing of King Saul); and his presence remained there with his name Dawid written in this oracle on this ostracon, as "the servant of God", up to the time of the destruction of the stronghold, and it lay there for 3000 years until it was brought to light by archaeology.

(2) THE JAR INSCRIPTION

The ʾIšbaʿal Inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa

Authors: Yosef Garfinkel, Mitka R. Golub, Haggai Misgav, Saar Ganor

Bulletin of the American Schools of Orie...

No. 373, May 2015 pp. 217-233

http://cryptcracker.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/qeiyafa-jar-inscription.html

(Go there for picture))

We begin with a speculation: perhaps this shattered vessel was a victim of the rampaging destroyers of the town; it may have been singled out by Philistian invaders in revenge for the event recorded on the ostracon, since some other storage jars in the same spot were still intact. Even though the broken pot has been painstakingly reconstructed, important pieces containing parts of the text are missing.
It appears that there are fourteen letters, and half of them are now incomplete characters; but in the middle of the inscription we can read fairly securely (from right to left):

' Sh B ` L (Aleph, Shin, Beth, `Ayin, Lamed)

This looks like a personal name, and if ʾIšbaʿal is the correct rendering of the word (as in the title of the BASOR article) then it is masculine, meaning "Man of Ba`al" (though this is certainly not certain).

'Eshba`al happens to be the name of one of King Saul's sons, who had his own kingdom after his father's death (2 Samuel 2-4). But the late scribes of the Bible had him as Ishbosheth (Man of shame): 2 Samuel 2 (11x). Nevertheless, the Chronicler chose to call him 'Eshba`al (1 Chr 8.33, and 9.39): "Ner begat Qish ... begat Sha'ul... begat ... 'Eshba`al". Accordingly, 'Eshba`al was a son of King Saul.

But this Qeiyafa 'ShB`L apparently styles himself BN BD`. Is BD` another name of Saul? Or the mother's name? But Saul's wife was Ahino`am Bath-Ahimo`as (1 Sam 15:50); incidentally, the mother of Amnon, the firstborn son of David, was also named Ahinoam, of Jezreel, one of David's wives (1 Sm 25:43; 2 Sm 3:2). Saul had at least one concubine, named Rizpah, and when Abner took her as his own, Eshbaal objected, causing Abner to go over to David's side (2 Sm 3:6-12); she could have been Eshbaal's mother, and might have functioned as Queen Mother, but in any case Abner was possibly thinking of founding his own dynasty through her, but he yielded to the divine decree and popular support for David (2 Sm 3:17-19).

If the text of the inscription said BN BL`, instead of BN BD`(although the D is clear enough), we could presume that he was asserting his lineage in the tribe of Benjamin; that same chapter 8 of 1 Chronicles begins thus (8.1): "Benjamin begat Bela` his firstborn". This appears to be a definite possibility, as a scribal error.

Then again, is this ' Sh B ` L really a personal name? The place where the jar was found (Room B of Building C11, 6x5 m) possibly had no roof, and with its central hearth and water-basin, it could have been a sanctuary for performing sacrifices. (A cultic chamber, with a standing stone, has been excavated elsewhere in Area C, in C3.) The sequence ' Sh B ` L , if read as 'Eshba`al, could mean "fire of the Lord"; and if the Lord is not human but divine, he is not necessarily the weather god Ba`al Hadad, but Yahweh. Christopher Rollston (in his first account of this inscription) refers us to a Benjaminite in the service of King David with the personal name “Ba‘alyah” (1 Chr 12:5/6), a name that means “Yahweh is Ba‘al (or "Yah is Lord"). However, we have seen B`L as a verb in line 3 of the Qeiyafa Ostracon (above): BA`ALA DAWIDI, "David has prevailed".

Incidentally, we might ask whether the supposed BN sequence ("son of") might actually be BG. Below I suggest that the final sequence (BD`) could be interpreted as "house of knowledge", possibly referring to this Room C11; and BG could be understood as begaw, "within" or "inside". Hence we have: "the fire of Ba`al within the house of knowledge".

However, the reading BN can be defended: what looks like a G (an angle) is more likely to be the top part of a Nun, as represented on the Gerbaal arrowhead, and in the new inscription from Beth-Shemesh (it is N on its side, that is, like Z).

The presence of a hearth in the room where the storage jar was discovered suggests that it might be 'eš b`l, "fire of Ba`al", and the container held fuel (oil?) for this fire-place. Or does the basin in the room suggest the jar was for water?

The form ʾIšbaʿal seems to be confirmed in Ugaritic documents, showing initial 'i. But 'iš as 'man' has not been found at Ugarit, has it? Also, "fire" is 'št ('išat) in Ugaritic, but 'eš in Hebrew.

The idea of the name meaning not "Baal's man" but "Baal is" or "There is a Baal" or "Baal is really someone", is appealing; but would this be possible in early Israel? Yes, since Ba`al could refer to Yah/Yahweh in those days, as already noted, above.

Here is a relevant comment from William Foxwell Albright (1891-1971),

Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, Baltimore, 1968 edn.

'One of Saul's sons was called "Esh-Baal" (Baal exists)'. (p. 113)|

'The usual translation, "Man of Baal," is linguistically difficult, and must, in my opinion, be replaced by the rendering ... [Baal exists]. Note that in the Baal Epic of Ugarit the resurrection of Baal is greeted with the triumphant words, "And I know that triumphant Baal lives (h.y), that the Prince, lord of the earth, exists ('it, which would be 'ish in later Canaanite)." Moreover, there are several passages in the Bible where 'ish or 'esh is employed instead of classical yesh.' (p.207, n.62).

However, another possible Eshbaal has been found as the first person named among David's mighty men (2 Sam 23:8; S. R. Driver, Notes on ... the Books of Samuel ..., Oxford 1913, 362-364): y$b b$bt might be a corruption of 'y$-b$t, where Ba`l has been replaced by bosheth ('shame'); the Septuagint Greek translation has 'Iebosthe, and Lucian has 'Iesbaal. Was this outstanding warrior holding the double-gated fort for David at some time? He is further qualified as 'chief among the captains', and th.kmny ("a Takhkemonite"?). The Chronicler (1 Chron 11:11) has him as y$b`m bn h.kmwny, and the occurrence of the root h.km, referring to 'wisdom', hints at a connection with the bn bd` (son of the House of Knowledge?) of the Eshbaal jar inscription, though I am reluctant to accept this personage instead of Saul's son Eshbaal.

Another complication is that a name Eshbaal or Ishbosheth does not occur in the list of Saul's sons in 1 Samuel 14:49; in second place, between YWNTN (Jonathan) and MLKYShW`(Malkishua`) is YShWY (see Driver, Notes, 120-121). In the account of the death of Saul and his sons at the Battle of Gilboa (31:2), the name between Jonathan and Malkishua`is 'BYNDB ('Abinadab) (see Driver, Notes, 227), A later list (1 Chronicles 8:33, also 9:39) has four sons, of Saul, in this order: Jonathan, Malkishua`, 'Abinadab, and 'Eshbaal. Accordingly, it seems that 'Eshbaal, alias 'Ishbosheth, who survived the wrath of the Philistian hordes, and succeeded his father as king (2 Sam 2:8), was the missing YShWY; and this name apparently includes a form of YHWH (perhaps YW or YH, remembering that the divine name Yahu appears on the ostracon, at the end of line 2). It seems best, even though Israelites had worshipped "the Baalim and the Ashtaroth" (1 Sam 7:3-4), to accept that the original form of the second son of Saul was 'ShB`L, as on the Qeiyafa jar, but the intended Lord (B`L) was Yahweh, or Yahu (as on the Qeiyafa ostracon); in Judaism and Christianity words for LORD replace the divine name, to avoid blasphemy, "taking God's name in vain" (Exodus 20:7); and when the association of Baal with "strange gods" became strongly felt in Israel, Baal names were banned, and -baal was replaced by -yahu, as in 'Eliyahu (Elijah). Therefore, the name Eshbaal or Ishbaal or Yishbaal had to be Ishbosheth (man of shame), or Baal had to be replaced with YHWH, in the form Yahu or Yah. Conversely, when King Saul turned his back on Samuel and Yahweh, he may have directed his worship to Baal and `Asntart, and some members of the royal family (presumably not Yonatan) went with him into apostasy. In this case, YShWY would have changed his Yahwist name to 'ShB`L, as seen on this vessel.

In the present context, we are confronted by 'SHB`L BN BD`. A Hebrew root BD`is not attested, so it may be necessary to break this sequence of signs into more than one part. I have long maintained that the letters of the protoalphabet could be used as logograms; Beth represents a house (bayt) and could stand for "house" here, followed by d` (knowledge, a masculine noun, Job 36:3; or it could be the feminine noun d`h, without the -h, since the matres lectionis were not in use at that time); hence "house of knowledge", preceded by "son of", that is, a student of that school.

Adding to the uncertainty is the possibility that BN is not "son" but "builder", which would later be written with helping consonants as bwnh. An analogy might be found in the St Mark's Isaiah of the Dead Sea Scrolls (49:17), which has "thy builders", whereas the received text (Masoretic) has "thy sons"; but the term "builders" fits comfortably with the walls of Sion in the context (49:16), though "a son of her womb" is clear enough in 49:15. In the present instance Eshbaal would be the builder of the house of knowledge, presumably meaning its founder, but the nature of the edifice or institution remains mysterious, unless it is the room in which the jar was found (C11), or even the whole complex of sacred places (C10 + C11) associated with the South Gate.

Looking again at that D in the inscription: it could have had a stem, which has been lost in the break; it would then be R, like the 6th letter in line 4 on the ostracon, or the second character in line 5. This is "stretching" it, literally and figuratively, but we are now looking at a word BR`. This could be "house of evil", but also a personal name. There is Bera` (King of Sodom, Gen 14.2), and four instances of Beri`â, one of whom belonged to the tribe of Benjamin (1 Chron 8.13), as did King Saul. In the current square Hebrew script , Resh and Dalet are easily confused (both are basically a right angle) but at this stage, in the Iron Age, it is Q and R that cause us grief. And the fourth letter in the jar inscription has a stem and a missing circle (Q?) or triangle (R?).

We should contemplate BD` as an error for B`D, or perhaps even `BD ('servant"). A root B`D is found in Arabic, meaning "be distant", but not known in Hebrew; in Northwest Semitic b`d is a preposition, "behind". However, two names on seals have now been attested archaeologically: B`d'el on Beth-Shemesh Seal 48), and B`dyh on Seals 536 and 537 from Tell Beit Mirsim (DCH, II, 236); we could suppose that the B`D in both names are scribal errors for `BD, hence "servant of El" and "servant of Yahu"; but the double occurrence of B`D in the Yahu name seems to disallow this.

There is yet another possible interpretation of the sequence B N B D `, which involves "servant", and it is ingenious and appealing. Ada Yardeni (The National Hebrew Script up to the Babylonian Exile, Jerusalem 2018, 70-72) proposed that BD` is an abbreviation of `BD `ShTRT, "Servant of `Ashtart" (the goddess Astarte); this is an attested Phoenician name, and the omission of the initial `ayin in this and other `abd (servant) appellations is not unusual. (Yardeni's solution is also offered by Douglas Petrovich, Connecting Khirbet Qeiyafa to the proper Israelite King, JESOT 7.1 (2021) 98). The final `ayin is followed by a gap in the restored jar, and this could mean that the remainder of the text has been lost, or perhaps that the `ayin is an abbreviation of `ShTRT. However, I can offer a bold solution to the problem: the Sh and T are in fact discernible after the `ayin, and the R and T are available at the other end of the inscription, possibly but not probably placed there by mistake in the restoration process; at least they give an inkling of what was in the space after `ShT. In any case, if 'ShB`L BN `BD`ShTRT (Ishba`al bin `abd-`ashtart) is the intended designation of the owner of the jar, then this worshipper of Baal had a father who bore the epithet "Servant of Ashtart". Perhaps the name Saul (Sha'ûl) was also in the lost portion of the inscription, but in any case this hypothetical set of letters must refer to King Saul, and thus ties in with the scriptural evidence: the relationship between Saul, a worshipper of Yahweh (1 Samuel 15:31) and Samuel the prophet of Yahweh (1 Sam 3:19-21) had been broken (1 Sam 15:34-35), and Saul subsequently felt that he had been abandoned by Yahweh (1 Sam 15:35, 16:14), and he had the priests of Yahweh slaughtered at Nob (1 Sam 22:11-19), and so it may be assumed that he reverted to promoting the cult of Baal and Ashtart, which was endemic in Israel (Judges 2:13, 1 Sam 7:3-4,12:10), and both these deities are present in this jar inscription, in the name (as reconstructed) "Eshbaal Son of Servant of Ashtart". It now seems significant that the Philistines took Saul's armour to a temple of Ashtart (1 Sam 31:10).

The first word in the inscription could be KPQT or KPRT; and since the hypothetical P is represented only by a single horizontal stroke, a telegraph-pole Samek could also be constructed. The resulting sequence KS is found at the start of inscriptions with the meaning "cup"(written on beakers and bowls), but that does not seem applicable here.

But KSRT and KSQT are possible as restored readings.

However, we should explore some possibilities for the extremely uncertain reading kprt. The final letter is only half there, but it is probably T (a cross, +). It could mark -ot, the plural of a feminine noun, or singular -at (construct state). As a toponym it might be Kepirâ, one of the Gibeonite towns (Joshua 9.17). This is worth considering, as a place name is a likely word to appear as the source of the pot or its contents; and Gibeon is not far north of Khirbet Qeiyafa. If the H on the end of the Hebrew form (kpyrh) indicates an original -at ending, then it would fit the presumed KPRT nicely.

We could suppose that kprt refers to the contents of the pot. As a substance it could be koper, that is, henna, though its plural is in -im (masculine), and likewise koper, bitumen. Could it possibly be copra (coconut oil from India)? If the presumed "knowledge" (d`) at the end of the text implies mind-altering drugs, then a distinct possibility is cannabis, as found in a temple at Arad in the Beersheba Valley, in the Negev:

https://phys.org/news/2020-05-reveals-cannabis-frankincense-judahite-shrine.html
Note also that kprt can mean "henna bush" (Ugaritic), and perhaps that is what was in the jar. Would a man want to own such a shrub? Henna is an orange dye for use on the body (from the hair down to the toes). Or does this "cyprus flower", which grows wild in Israel, act here as a decorative indoor plant? Henna certainly has a place in the Song of Songs: a cluster in a vineyard (1:14); in the secret garden with pomegranates, nard, saffron, cinnamon (4:13); and out in the fields (henna rather than villages, kprym, 7:12).

As an object it might be a kepor (m), a bowl, or a kepir (m), a copper vessel, but it is neither.

As an abstract idea it could come from the root kpr, cover, make expiation, and we immediately think of Yom kippur, the Day of Atonement; and yet this word always appears as kippurim in the Bible. Another term with the same connection is, yet again, koper (m), ransom.

There is one KPR noun that would fit kprt, and that is kaporet (f), a mysterious word, said to mean the cover or lid of the Ark of the Covenant, and then "the mercy seat" where a propitiatory rite was performed on Atonement Day.

KPRT could be a verb: "Thou hast atoned, O Eshbaal". Incidentally, that is how I see the beginning of the Qeiyafa ostracon: "Thou hast cursed" ('LT). But that was on an ostracon; a sermon or oracle would probably not be engraved on a storage jar.

Actually, the first three letters of the supposed KPRT only have tiny remnants of their originals.

We must draw a veil over the possibility of kepir, young lion, which would raise the spectre of the Lion of Judah (cp Gn 49.9). We remember that Eshbaal did not take part in the Battle of Gilboa, with his brothers.

Another thought: if the final T (constructed from a remaining right angle) was in fact M (vertical), KPRM would suit kippurim, 'atonement'. However, it needs to be said that the drawings made by Ada Yardeni (her figs 15, 16, 17) are plausible in their reconstructing of the text.

Another possible interpretation of the damaged beginning has occurred to me, after reading the reconstruction published by Yariv Hacham (H. Yariv 2018), who proposes MGRT, "granary". I will tentatively accept his M (horizontal not vertical, to be compared with an M-sign on the Beth-Shemesh ostracon); and I propose Sh (as in the name 'ShB`L) instead of P or G; I would read Q not R; and retain T; the resultant sequence is MShQT.

Two ideas that I have already mentioned now come into play: the letters of the early alphabet could be used as logograms, so that B(ayt) could denote "house", and likewise Mem could represent "water"; the vessel could have contained water, as a basin was found in the room. Accordingly, the M stands for "water", and ShQT is from the root ShQY, which signifies "drink", and giving someone something to drink; in Hebrew there is a noun from this root, in the term KLY MSHQ(H), “drink vessels” (1 Kings 10:21), but this is masculine and could not have a –T ending; but ShQY (written ShQH in Hebrew) is a "Lamed He" verb, and its infinitive construct has final -t; so we possibly have a logogram with a verbal noun producing this meaning: "drinking water". This water pot had been specially made for Eshbaal, who was presumably the prince and governor of the fortress Sha`arayim.

Petrovich, JESOT 7.1 (2021) 99-100) KPRT : "According to the fruitfulness of Eshbaal"
The vessel would have contained grain for people who visit his house, as implied in the account of his assassination (2 Sm 4:6); but it is a small storage jar.

Part 3 of this essay is at:
https://sites.google.com/view/collesseum/qeiyafa-shaaraim

Qeiyafa Ostracon

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This old drawing by BEC is tentative and flawed.

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