w. f. a., the son of tabeel (isaiah 7,6)
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8/15/2019 W. F. a., The Son of Tabeel (Isaiah 7,6)
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The Son of Tabeel (Isaiah 7: 6)Author(s): W. F. A.
Source: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 140 (Dec., 1955), pp. 34-35Published by: The American Schools of Oriental ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1355967Accessed: 11/09/2008 11:45
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8/15/2019 W. F. a., The Son of Tabeel (Isaiah 7,6)
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Bulletin
of
the American Schools of
Oriental
Research
THE
SON OF
TABEEL
(ISAIAH
7:
6)
The current number of Iraq contains a valuable article by Mr. H. W.
F.
Saggs
on
a
group
of
letters
from
the
Assyrian
archives
of Calah
concerning Syria
and
Palestine. Here
Professor M.
E.
L. Mallowan
has
been
conducting exceedingly
important
excavations since
1949;
these
letters
are
selected from the finds
of
the 1952 season at
Nimrud. We
shall deal
with
only
one
of the
twelve
letters,
No.
XIV,1
which is one of
the best
preserved
and
the
easiest
to
interpret;
it
also
throws
light
on
an obscure
episode
in
the
history
of the Divided
Kingdom.
Mr.
Saggs'
copy
of
the cuneiform
text looks
impeccable;
his
transcription
of the
cuneiform is
formally
correct
(i.
e.,
the
characters
are
correctly
identi-
fied)
except
in line 7, where there is an unusual
slip;
the translation needs
some
revision,
as is
generally
true of first
publications.
The
Assyrian
dialect
which is
employed
in these
letters
is
not
always
easy
to under-
stand,
and
the
circumstances in
which
a letter was
written are not
described
but
must be inferred
from its
content.
[an]a
sarri
beliya
aradka
mQurdi-Agsur
l1
sulmu ana
sarri
beliya
Lu
mdr
sipri
sa
m.dAya-nu-ri
5
KUR
Ta-ab-i-la-aya
mE-za-zu sumsu kaniku
ina
qdtesu
ana
ekalli
ubala dibbi
sa
ina
libbi kanikisu
10
ina
muhhi
dli
Ma-'a-ba-aya
sunu sa
KUR
Gi-di-ra-aya
ana mat Ma-'a-ba
etiqi
[ni]
[i]
likuni
15
diktasu idakuni
ina muhhi
tstu
umd annurig
ina
qdte
L
mar
sipriya
aptiqi
(s)
su
20 ana
ekalli
ubalasu
ina
umi
29KAM
sa
arah
Sabati
isuni
To
the
king,
my
lord,
thy
servant,
Qurdi-Asfir,
may
it
be well
with the
king,
my
lord
The
messenger
of
Ayanfir,
the
Tab'elite,
Ezazu
2
by name, is bringing
a sealed document
with
him3
to
the
palace.
The words
which
are in his
sealed
document,
refer
to
a
Moabite
town
(and
say)
that
the men of the
land of Geder
into
the land of Moab
crossed,
(and)
proceeded
to
slaughter
its
people.
With
regard
to him
4
Truly, at once,
into the
care of
my messenger
I
have
entrusted
him,
to
the
palace
he will
bring
him.
On
the
29th
of
the
month
of
Shebat
they
are
leaving.
This letter was
written
toward the
end of the
reign
of
Tiglath-pileser
III
or
a
little
later,
but
in
no case
before
the fall
of
Damascus
in
732
or
after
the
transfer
of the
Assyrian
capital
from Calah
to
Dur-Sharrukin
in
the
early years
of
Sargon
(722-705
B.
C.).
Qurdi-Assur
(-lamur)
was
a high Assyrian official, who also figures in two letters about the affairs
1
See
Iraq,
XVII
(1955),
pp.
131-133 and
plate
XXXII.
2
Perhaps
an
Arabic
'Izaz.
3
The clear
ina
qdtsgu
is
transcribed
inasu Ainisu
by
the
first
editor,
who
naturally
could not
explain
the
words.
4The
masculine
pronoun
can refer
only
to
the
messenger
of
Ayanfr,
and the same
is true
of the
following
masculine
suffixes.
34
8/15/2019 W. F. a., The Son of Tabeel (Isaiah 7,6)
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Number
140
December, 1955
of
Tyre
and
Sidon.
Ayanur,
who bears
a
name
typical
of the
desert
fringes
of Palestine
and
Syria
in
this
age,5
was an
important
official
(per-
haps
"
king
")
of the
land
of
Tab'el.
Ayaniur
seems to have won
Assyrian
favor and to have been charged with the oversight of the regions south
of
Tab'el,
whose Aramaic name
points
to a
location
north
of Ammon and
Gilead.
The "land" of
Gidir
is
probably
a
Geder of
Judah,
just
as
Qedesh
of
Naphtali
is called
Qidis
in a
Neo-Babylonian
letter of
the
sixth
century;
it
may
be
Bet-gader
or
Bet-geder
in
eastern Judah.
The
gentilic
clears
up
the
mystery
of
"
the son of
Tab'el" who
was set
up by
Rezin
of Damascus and Pekah
of Israel as a
pretender
to the
throne of
Judah,
in
place
of Ahaz.6
We
have no
space
to
enter
into
a
discussion of the
so-called
Syro-Ephraimite
war,7
but
it is obvious that
our
"
son of
Tab'el" refers to a
prince
of Judah whose
maternal
home
was in the land of Tab'el in northeastern Palestine or southeastern Syria.
Like
Absalom,
whose mother
was a
princess
of
Geshur
(also
in
the north-
east),
Rehoboam,
whose
mother was an
Ammonite
princess,
and
ap-
parently
others,
the
"
son of
Tab'el"
was
presumably
son of
Uzziah or
Jotham
by
a
princess
of
Tab'el.
The war itself is
recognized
by
all to
have
been
fought
by
Rezin
and
Pekah about
733
B.
C.
in
order
to
con-
solidate their forces
before
the
impending
Assyrian
attack.
W.
F.
A.
5
See
my
paper,
"
The Biblical Tribe of
Massa'
and
Some
Congeners,"
to
appear
in
the
Levi
Della
Vida
Festschrift,
where
names
of
this
type
are
cited,
with an
explanation
of their
origin.
On
the
use of
the
patronymic
alone,
without the
personal
name,
see
especially
Albrecht
Alt,
"
Menschen ohne
Namen,"
Archiv
Orientdlni,
XVIII
(1950),
pp.
22 f.
with
specific
reference to
our
passage
(Isa.
7:
1-9),
where Pekah
is three
times
called only "son of Remaliah " whereas Rezin is always mentioned by name. Nor
should
we
forget
that
Tab'el
was
properly
a
personal
name,
so
the
full name
of
the
tribe
and land
was
doubtless
Bet-Tdb'el.
It is
now well
known that
"Hadad-ezer
son
of Rehob
"
means
"
Hadad-ezer of
Beth-Rehob,"
just
as the
Assyrian
"
Ba'sa son
of Ruhub
"
means
"
Baasha
of
Beth-Rehob."
Similarly,
"
Shamgar
son of
Anath"
means
"
Shamgar
of
Beth-Anath,"
and
the
Assyrian
"
Jehu
son of
Omri
"
means
"Jehu
of
Beth-Omri,"
the official
name of Samaria.
7
See
II
Kings
16:
5ff.,
Isa.
7:
Iff.,
and
1.
Noth,
Geschichte
Israels
(1950),
pp.
222
ff.
35
Number 140
December,
1955