Prophet Isaiah had his own struggle with faith and trust

by Damien F. Mackey When we read Isaiah’s authoritative and unerring statements to King Hezekiah, we might be led to imagine that, whereas Hezekiah had to be taught, the prophet Isaiah was always in complete control of situations. That will prove very much not to have been the case. As the Oracle and mouthpiece of the Lord, the prophet Isaiah was empowered to utter profound and edifying statements. But that does not mean that he was a perfectly un-flawed human being. We read in: Isaiah berates King Hezekiah for trusting, not in God, but in weaponry and defence works (1) Isaiah berates King Hezekiah for trusting, not in God, but in weaponry and defence works | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu about King Hezekiah’s personal flaws of character, chiefly his pride. But that did not make him a bad king overall. When measured against the Gold Standard, King David, the pious reformer king, Hezekiah, comes in second out of all of the kings of Judah - presuming that one identifies Hezekiah with Josiah, as I do: Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses (2) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu When we read Isaiah’s authoritative and unerring statements to King Hezekiah, we might be led to imagine that, whereas Hezekiah had to be taught, the prophet Isaiah was always in complete control of situations. That will prove very much not to have been the case. Who was Isaiah? I have dealt with this question now in various articles and a university thesis (2007). Isaiah was, in fact, the son of the prophet Micah, who stretches right back to embrace the prophet Micaiah at the time of King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah: Micaiah and Micah more than just a name match (2) Micaiah and Micah more than just a name match | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Isaiah was a Simeonite: God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon (2) God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu As a non-priest, non-Levite, Isaiah, like his father Micah (a veritable Amos redivivus), and who was also Amos, was never expected to have become a prophet (cf. Amos 7:14). Isaiah appears under various names in the Bible, some of these being compatible. In the context of King Hezekiah, Isaiah was also Hosea and “Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon” (Judith 6:15). In the context of King Josiah, Isaiah was also Asaiah (2 Kings 22:14), and Nahum, and Jonah, and the martyred Uriah (Urijah) (Jeremiah 26:20-23). The Gath-hepher from which he (as Jonah) hailed (2 Kings 14:25) could not have been a place in Galilee (cf. John 7:52), but must have been his father Micah’s home town of Moresheth (Gath) in southern Judah (Micah 1:1). Isaiah’s father, as Amos, had been commissioned by the Lord to testify at Bethel in the north, where he was unwelcome. Bethel is the “Bethulia” of the Book of Judith, which C. C. Torrey had brilliantly shown to be, geographically and topographically, Shechem: Isaiah himself, who was (as Uzziah in Judith) a prince: “… the prince of Juda[h]” and “the prince of the people of Israel” (Judith 8:34; 13:23: Douay), must have been amongst those “captains of war” whom King Hezekiah placed in charge of Judah’s defences (2 Chronicles 32:6). Isaiah would have well known Shechem (“Bethulia”) in the north from his father’s sojourn there, and from his own experience in the northern kingdom as the prophet Hosea. With 182,000 plus Assyrians surrounding “Bethulia” and its environs (cf. Judith 7:2 NRSV), Isaiah - as Uzziah the chief magistrate of the city - would be pressurised into a situation leading to a failure in faith and trust, over the same issue as Moses had been, water (cf. Judith 6:14-15; Numbers 20:10-12). Whereas Moses would be reprimanded on high for not upholding the holiness of God before the people, Uzziah (Isaiah) would have to face a furious Judith, no doubt his younger Simeonite relative, for placing a time limit to “bind the purpose of God”. Listen to the powerful words (Judith 8:9-27 below), a true masterpiece of theology, as uttered by the young Judith, the archetypal Joan of Arc: Judith of Bethulia and Joan of Arc (1) Judith of Bethulia and Joan of Arc | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu When Judith heard the harsh words spoken by the people against the ruler because they were faint for lack of water, and when she heard all that Uzziah said to them and how he promised them under oath to surrender the town to the Assyrians after five days, she sent her maid in charge of all she possessed to summon Uzziah and Chabris and Charmis, the elders of her town. They came to her, and she said to them, ‘Listen to me, rulers of the people of Bethulia! What you have said to the people today is not right; you have even sworn and pronounced this oath between God and you, promising to surrender the town to our enemies unless the Lord turns and helps us within so many days. Who are you to put God to the test today and to set yourselves up in the place of God in human affairs? You are putting the Lord Almighty to the test, but you will never learn anything! You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart or understand the workings of the human mind; how do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out his mind or comprehend his thought? No, my brothers, do not anger the Lord our God. For if he does not choose to help us within these five days, he has power to protect us within any time he pleases or even to destroy us in the presence of our enemies. Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God, for God is not like a human being, to be threatened, or like a mere mortal, to be won over by pleading. Therefore, while we wait for his deliverance, let us call upon him to help us, and he will hear our voice, if it pleases him. For never in our generation nor in these present days has there been any tribe or family or people or town of ours that worships gods made with hands, as was done in days gone by. That was why our ancestors were handed over to the sword and to pillage, and so they suffered a great catastrophe before our enemies. But we know no other god but him, and so we hope that he will not disdain us or any of our people. For if we are captured, all Judea will fall, and our sanctuary will be plundered, and he will make us pay for its desecration with our blood. The slaughter of our kindred and the captivity of the land and the desolation of our inheritance—all this he will bring on our heads among the nations, wherever we serve as slaves, and we shall be an offense and a disgrace in the eyes of those who acquire us. For our slavery will not bring us into favor, but the Lord our God will turn it to dishonor. Therefore, my brothers, let us set an example for our kindred, for their lives depend upon us, and the sanctuary—both the temple and the altar—rests upon us. In spite of everything, let us give thanks to the Lord our God, who is putting us to the test as he did our ancestors. Remember what he did with Abraham and how he tested Isaac and what happened to Jacob in Syrian Mesopotamia, while he was tending the sheep of Laban, his mother’s brother. For he has not tried us with fire, as he did them, to search their hearts, nor has he taken vengeance on us, but the Lord scourges those who are close to him in order to admonish them’. Perhaps, now, too, we can begin to understand what has puzzled so many commentators, Why King Josiah, upon the discovery of the Book of the Law, did not send his delegation to consult any of the outstanding male prophets of the time, but a woman, Huldah. For Judith was that woman, Huldah! Judith and Huldah (DOC) Judith and Huldah | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu And this explains Uzziah’s reply to Judith: ‘Today is not the first time your wisdom has been shown …’ (vv. 28-31): Then Uzziah said to her, ‘All that you have said was spoken out of a true heart, and there is no one who can deny your words. Today is not the first time your wisdom has been shown, but from the beginning of your life all the people have recognized your understanding, for your heart’s disposition is right. But the people were so thirsty that they compelled us to do for them what we have promised and made us take an oath that we cannot break. Now since you are a God-fearing woman, pray for us, so that the Lord may send us rain to fill our cisterns. Then we will no longer feel faint from thirst’. As Huldah, Judith had boldly responded to King Josiah’s delegation with: ‘Tell that man …’ (2 Kings 22:15). It sounds blunt. She must have known the young king well, was reputedly his mentor. And now, again, with similar Joan of Arc like forthrightness Judith continues, seemingly brushing aside Uzziah’s comments. ‘Listen to me …’ (Judith 8:32-34): Then Judith said to them, ‘Listen to me. I am about to do something that will go down through all generations of our people. Stand at the town gate tonight so that I may go out with my maid, and within the days after which you have promised to surrender the town to our enemies, the Lord will deliver Israel by my hand. Only, do not try to find out what I am doing, for I will not tell you until I have finished what I am about to do’. Judith 8:35-36: Uzziah and the rulers said to her, ‘Go in peace, and may the Lord God go before you, to take vengeance on our enemies’. So they returned from the tent and went to their posts. What incredible, total faith and trust in God! Virtually unprecedented in human history – at least in the Old Testament. No wonder that Judith stands as a type of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Another commentator who is amazed at Judith’s firm faith is Toni Craven, as I noted in my university thesis (2007, Volume Two, p. 68): Craven, following Dancy’s view that the theology presented in Judith’s words to the town officials rivals the theology of the Book of Job, will go on to make this comment: “Judith plays out her whole story with the kind of faith described in the Prologue of Job (esp. 1:21 and 2:9). Her faith is like that of Job after his experience of God in the whirlwind (cf. 42:1-6), yet in the story she has no special theophanic experience. We can only imagine what happened on her housetop where she was habitually a woman of regular prayer”. Isaiah (as Jonah) fails again I'm going down I'm going, down, down, down, down, down Yes, I'm going down, yes I'm going down, down, down, down, down Yes, I've got my feet in the window Got my head on the ground Albert King That just about describes the career of Jonah, “going down”. Going down to Joppa; going down to the ship; going down “below deck”; going down in the storm; going down into the depth of the sea; going down inside the big fish. By stark contrast to Judith, who was completely God-centred, His will being paramount, Jonah self-centredly did not want an opportunity of mercy afforded to the Ninevites. Had he not only recently had a front seat view of the rout of the mighty Assyrian army? Had not the Great King of Assyria, Sennacherib, only recently been assassinated by his sons? Now, with Assyria in chaos, was the time for God to strike that wicked people for good. But, no, here is God commissioning Jonah to Nineveh, as He had once sent his father Amos to Bethel. Jonah knew that God was merciful - mercy is in fact His first and greatest attribute - that He was about to offer the pagan Ninevites a chance to repent. And Jonah was having none of it. Even to the very end, with the miracle of mass conversion going on in the city, Jonah was meanly waiting in the east of Nineveh for the outcome. More concerned about shelter from the burning sun than the fate of an entire city. And that is how the Book of Jonah ends, with an angry Jonah (4:9): ‘I’m so angry I wish I were dead’. The poor man, by now of great age, will have – according to my revision – yet one more opportunity to run away, to ‘go down’ to Egypt to escape his persecutors, now as the prophet Uriah (Urijah) (Jeremiah 26:20-23). The great prophet’s misery will soon be at an end. He will be hauled back to Jerusalem by the emissaries of King Jehoiakim (= Manasseh) and slain with the sword. This is, in fact, tradition’s Martyrdom of Isaiah.

Shechem: the Bethel of Jeroboam and the “Bethulia” of Judith

by Damien F. Mackey “… Shechem was almost certainly the Bethel of Jeroboam, during the divided kingdom”. Dr. John Osgood For a long time I was of the opinion that the best candidate for Judith’s strategically important town of “Bethulia” was, following C. R. Conder, Mithilia (or Mesilieh), near Dothan. That was more due to the fact that Conder himself had been so enthusiastic about the site rather than because it was a location of the strategic importance that the Judith narrative would demand. C. R. Conder had apparently, from the following description, entertained the possible reality of the Judith account: ?Meselieh? A small village, with a detached portion to the north, and placed on a slope, with a hill to the south, and surrounded by good olive-groves, with an open valley called W鈊y el Melek (“the King’s Valley’) on the north. The water-supply is from wells, some of which have an ancient appearance. They are mainly supplied with rain-water. In 1876 I proposed to identify the village of Meselieh, or Mithilia, south of Jenin, with the Bethulia of the Book of Judith, supposing the substitution of M for B, of which there are occasional instances in Syrian nomenclature. The indications of the site given in the Apocrypha are tolerably distinct. Bethulia stood on a hill, but not apparently on the top, which is mentioned separately (Judith vi. 12) There were springs or wells beneath the town (verse 11), and the houses were above these (verse 13). The city stood in the hill-country not far from the plain (verse 11), and apparently near Dothan (Judith iv. 6). The army of Holofernes was visible when encamped near Dothan (Judith vii. 3, 4), by the spring in the valley near Bethulia (verses 3-7).’The site usually supposed to represent Bethulia – namely, the strong village of Sanur – does not fulfill these various requisites; but the topography of the Book of Judith, as a whole, is so consistent and easily understood, that it seems that Bethulia was an actual site. Visiting Mithilia on our way to Shechem ? we found a small ruinous village on the slope of the hill. Beneath it are ancient wells, and above it a rounded hill-top, commanding a tolerably extensive view. The north-east part of the great plain, Gilboa, Tabor … and Nazareth, are clearly seen. West of these are neighbouring hillsides Jenin and Wady Bel’ameh (the Belmaim, probably of the narrative); but further west Carmel appears behind the ridge of Sheikh Iskander … and part of the plain of ‘Arrabeh, close to Dothan, is seen. A broad corn-vale, called “The King’s Valley”, extends north-west from Meselieh toward Dothan, a distance of only 3 miles. There is a low shed formed by rising ground between two hills, separating this valley from the Dothain plain; and at the latter site is the spring beside which, probably, the Assyrian army is supposed by the old Jewish novelist [sic] to have encamped. In imagination one might see the stately Judith walking through the down-trodden corn-fields and shady olive-groves, while on the rugged hillside above the men of the city “looked after her until she was gone down the mountain, and till she had passed the valley, and could see her no more'”. (Judith x 10) – C. R. C., ‘Quarterly Statement’, July, 1881. On the other hand, the scholar who would properly identify Judith’s “Bethulia” as Shechem, C. C. Torrey, did not consider the narrative to be anything more than a mere fantasy. He did, however, believe that the Book of Judith’s description of “Bethulia” itself must have been based upon the in-put of someone who knew the geography of Shechem in very precise detail. The Site of 'Bethulia' Charles C. Torrey Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 20 (1899), pp. 160-172 (13 pages) Now, Dr. John Osgood has characteristically filled in some of the archaeology of Shechem (from Abraham to Jeroboam of Israel) in its relation to the Scriptures: Techlets - creation.com Shechem: This is no problem to the revised chronology presented here, since the passage concerning Abraham and Shechem, viz. Genesis 12:6, does not indicate that a city of any consequence was then present there. On the other hand, Jacob’s contact makes it clear that there was a significant city present later (Genesis 33 and 34), but only one which was able to be overwhelmed by a small party of Jacob’s sons who took it by surprise. I would date any evidence of civilisation at these times to the late Chalcolithic in Abraham’s case, and to EB I in Jacob’s case, the latter being the most significant. The Bible is silent about Shechem until the Israelite conquest, after which it is apparent that it developed a significant population until the destruction of the city in the days of Abimelech. If the scriptural silence is significant, then no evidence of occupation would be present after EB I until MB I and no significant building would occur until the MB IIC. Shechem was rebuilt by Jeroboam I, and continued thereafter until the Assyrian captivity. Moreover, Shechem was almost certainly the Bethel of Jeroboam, during the divided kingdom. So I would expect heavy activity during the majority of LB and all of Iron I. This is precisely the findings at Shechem, with the exception that the earliest periods have not had sufficient area excavated to give precise details about the Chalcolithic and EB I. No buildings have yet been brought to light from these periods, but these periods are clearly represented at Shechem. MB IIC at Shechem was a major destruction, so almost certainly it was the city of Abimelech. The population’s allegiance to Hamor and Shechem could easily be explained by a return of descendants of the Shechem captives taken by Jacob’s son, now returned after the Exodus nostalgically to Shechem, rather than by a continuation of the population through intervening periods (see Judges 9:28, Genesis 34). For Jeroboam’s city and after, the numerous LB and Iron I strata are a sufficient testimony (see Biblical Archaeology, XX,XXVL and XXXII). …. [End of quote] This accords well with the view that the city of Jericho built during the reign of king Ahab of Israel was the Iron Age I level city. On this, see e.g. my article: Hiel's Jericho. Part One: Stratigraphical level (DOC) Hiel's Jericho. Part One: Stratigraphical level | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Judith’s Shechem (“Bethulia”) level would belong to a later phase again of the Iron Age.

Isaiah berates King Hezekiah for trusting, not in God, but in weaponry and defence works

by Damien F. Mackey “The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah, and you looked in that day to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest. You saw that the walls of the City of David were broken through in many places; you stored up water in the Lower Pool. You counted the buildings in Jerusalem and tore down houses to strengthen the wall. You built a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the Old Pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago. Isaiah 22:8-11 It was the Lord’s work. He, it was, who had stripped Judah naked of its defence cities, most notably Lachish. The point being made was that Jerusalem, the capital of ‘a godless nation’, was now utterly defenceless against the might of Assyria - a might that was being Divinely driven according to Isaiah 10:5-6: ‘Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath! I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets’. King Sennacherib of Assyria, however, was totally out of touch with the Divine Plan. All the might, he thought, emanated from his own glorious self (Sennacherib Prism): As for Hezekiah the Judahite, who did not submit to my yoke: forty-six of his strong, walled cities, as well as the small towns in their area, which were without number, by levelling with battering-rams and by bringing up siege-engines, and by attacking and storming on foot, by mines, tunnels, and breeches, I besieged and took them. 200,150 people, great and small, male and female, horses, mules, asses, camels, cattle and sheep without number, I brought away from them and counted as spoil. (Hezekiah) himself, like a caged bird I shut up in Jerusalem, his royal city. Those who mistakenly think that this was the occasion of Judah’s miraculous deliverance from the Assyrians are forced to conclude that Sennacherib’s words here were an empty boast. They weren’t. This is exactly what the Assyrians managed to do to Judah during Sennacherib’s first major campaign there. Look at the archaeology of once strong forts such as Lachish. Isaiah tells us just what was the mentality of Sennacherib at the time (10:7-14): But this is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind; his purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations. ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says. ‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad, and Samaria like Damascus? As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols, kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria— shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’ When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, ‘I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, because I have understanding. I removed the boundaries of nations, I plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their kings. As one reaches into a nest, so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations; as people gather abandoned eggs, so I gathered all the countries; not one flapped a wing, or opened its mouth to chirp”.’ However, it was the Lord, not Sennacherib, so Isaiah tells us, who was really fighting against Judah and Jerusalem: ‘When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem …’. Assyria was merely serving as God’s potent instrument, “the rod of my anger”, “the club of my wrath”, my “axe”, but soon to be discarded (vv. 15-19): Does the axe raise itself above the person who swings it, or the saw boast against the one who uses it? As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up, or a club brandish the one who is not wood! Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors; under his pomp a fire will be kindled like a blazing flame. The Light of Israel will become a fire, their Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn and consume his thorns and his briers. The splendor of his forests and fertile fields it will completely destroy, as when a sick person wastes away. And the remaining trees of his forests will be so few that a child could write them down. So, today, do nations rely upon, boast of, their defences, their Iron Dome missile systems and their mighty armouries, not taking to heart that it is the Lord who guides the fortunes of the nations and who determines outcomes (Isaiah 45:6-7): ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things’. … but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago. ‘Those who live by the sword will die by the sword’ (Matthew 26:52). Sennacherib will be severely punished for his blasphemous boasting against the Lord, “for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes”. But King Hezekiah of Judah will also need to be brought down a peg or two. Did not even Sennacherib himself refer to the King of Judah as “the strong, proud Hezekiah” (Sennacherib’s Bull Inscriptions)? King Hezekiah was second only to David King Hezekiah of Judah had, like all of us, his own particular faults and failings. He was proud. But he was a good pious king, second only to King David amongst the Kings of Judah. If that seems to be what was said also about the great reforming king, Josiah, then I have no problem whatsoever with that. See e.g. my article: Damien F. Mackey’s A Tale of Two Theses (5) Damien F. Mackey's A Tale of Two Theses | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu in which I arrive at the conclusion that King Josiah was King Hezekiah. But King Hezekiah (Josiah) had yet to learn about faith and complete trust in the Lord. It is a lesson that we all need to learn - and quickly, the way that the world is going. Meanwhile, even as his fortified cities are falling like dominoes to the Assyrian army, King Hezekiah is to be found frantically gathering weapons and fortifying Jerusalem. It must have been on this occasion that King Hezekiah built the great moat of Jerusalem, recently found, surely the same as the pool: King Hezekiah made the pool in Jerusalem (5) King Hezekiah made the pool in Jerusalem | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Some are assigning the moat to the time of King Josiah of Judah. Again, I have no problem with that if King Josiah was King Hezekiah. The following 2009 article is taken from: https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/a-tiny-piece-of-the-puzzle/ A Tiny Piece of the Puzzle Six-Letter Inscription Suggests Monumental Building of Hezekiah By Hershel Shanks Ancient Jerusalem sometimes reveals itself in little bits. In this case, it is a tiny inscription with only six letters preserved. So little remains of ancient Israel in the City of David (the 12-acre ridge where the oldest inhabited part of Jerusalem is located) because later inhabitants continually destroyed evidence of earlier occupation. Over the millennia, the stones that made up the houses, temples and monuments of Iron Age Jerusalem were swept aside and scattered to make room for new settlements. A few years ago, archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron discovered a huge water pool at the southern tip of the City of David that dates to the time of Jesus. This is entirely different from the tiny pool nearby that was long thought to be the Pool of Siloam. The new pool is undoubtedly the one to which the New Testament refers when it describes the man, blind from birth, who was miraculously cured by Jesus at “the Pool of Siloam” (John 9:1–11).a The Pool of Siloam is at the outlet to another well-known monument in the City of David: Hezekiah’s Tunnel. This 1,750-foot-long tunnel begins at the Gihon Spring (ancient Jerusalem’s only flowing water source) and winds its way west and south until it debouches into the Pool of Siloam. In 1880 some boys swimming in the tunnel discovered an inscription engraved into the wall near the southern outlet. Later vandals chiseled the inscription out of the wall. Eventually, the Ottoman authorities seized it and sent it to Istanbul. To this day, it remains one of the highlights of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. The famous inscription written in late-eighth-century B.C. script describes how two teams dug the tunnel from opposite ends and met in the middle. How they managed to do it remains somewhat of a puzzle. But you can still walk through the water-filled tunnel and decide for yourself.b The tunnel brought water from the spring outside the city wall into the city as a safety measure for whenever it would be dangerous to venture outside. This was probably critical to the city’s survival when the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib besieged the city in 701 B.C. Recently Reich and Shukron found a small piece of white limestone (5.3 x 3.7 inches [13.5 x 9.5 cm]) that adds one small, intriguing piece to the puzzle of Jerusalem in the eighth century B.C. It is broken on all sides and is engraved with just six paleo-Hebrew letters, the kind used before the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Unfortunately, the stone was found in a thick fill, rather than in a stratified context. But the pottery sherds in the fill all dated to the eighth century B.C., which was the first hint of the date of the inscription on the stone. The second hint was the shape of the six letters. They closely resemble the letters of the Siloam Inscription discovered in Hezekiah’s Tunnel. Hezekiah’s workmen dug the tunnel in the late eighth century B.C. when, as adverted to earlier in this article, the Judahite king was preparing for a siege of Jerusalem by the fearsome Assyrian monarch Sennacherib—a siege that came in 701 B.C. The siege was unsuccessful [sic], however, and Jerusalem no doubt survived in part because of the water carried into the city by the tunnel. All this is described in the Bible (2 Chronicles 32; 2 Kings 18–20), as well as in a cuneiform account in which Sennacherib boasts that he had Hezekiah imprisoned like “a bird in a cage.” But Sennacherib makes no claim to having conquered the city. What makes the new six-letter inscription especially tantalizing is that it was part of an impressive monumental inscription, probably part of some large public building. But what did it say? Alas, we will never know for sure. The possibilities, however, are intriguing. The six letters are arranged in two lines. In the second line, a dot separates the second and the third letter. Dots were customarily used to divide the words of monumental inscriptions at that time. Thus, in the second line we have two letters of one word and one letter of a second word. The three letters of the first line are all part of a single word. The letters on the first line are qyh. This is enough to tell the excavators that it is probably part of a personal name ending in –yahu, a so-called theophoric element, referring to the personal name of the Israelite God, Yahweh. However, several names in the eighth century B.C. ended this way. And several of them incorporate this three-letter sequence. The excavators refrain from expressing any preference. But one leading Biblical scholar in Jerusalem told me that he was sure of what the name was: [Hiz]qyh[w] = Hizqiyahu, or “Hezekiah” in English! The first word in the second line includes the two letters kh. Again there are several possibilities, and the excavators express no preference. But the Bible scholar I spoke with is sure he knows: [br]kh = beracha, or “pool” in English. There must have been a pool at the termination of Hezekiah’s Tunnel even in the First Temple period, as there was in the Second Temple period, when Jesus walked this earth, and as there has always been since then. Perhaps this fragment of a monumental inscription graced a public building erected by King Hezekiah in connection with the pool. This little fragment of stone is only the latest evidence of a thriving metropolis at Jerusalem during the First Temple period. In an excavation in the City of David led by the late Yigal Shiloh, a fragment from a similar monumental inscription was discovered, though on a different kind of stone. Still another such inscription was found further north in an excavation led by Benjamin Mazar and Meir Ben-Dov. Piece by tiny piece, a picture of ancient Jerusalem comes into focus.1 ….