The following excerpts are from “Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait
of Ancient Israel and Judah”, by William Dever, SBL Press, 2017
------
The largest corpora of seventh-century ostraca are those from Lachish
and Arad. The original twenty-three Lachish ostraca were letters found in one
room of the gatehouse in the Stratum II destruction of the city, now clearly
dated to the Babylonian campaigns of 586. (“Beyond the Texts”, page 588)
------
Two late seventh- or early sixth-century
hoards of bullae—clay seal impressions with Hebrew names—have recently been
found. The 320 bullae published by Avigad are unprovenanced but probably come
from illicit digging (or
robbing) in Jerusalem. Yigal Shiloh's hoard of fifty-one, however, is well
stratified and dates to Stratum 10 of the early sixth century (586), when the
city was finally destroyed. They were found just above the floor of Building
967 (the Bullae House) in the burnt debris. (pages 589-590)
The most intriguing house shrine known
thus far is in the Bullae House excavated by Shiloh in Area G in Jerusalem, its
destruction well dated to 586. The bullae have been widely discussed. (page
599)
------
The End: The Babylonian Destructions of
586. (page 603)
------
The biblical texts, which here we are
considering separately, focus exclusively on the fall of Jerusalem, which took
place in 586, with devastating results. Jerusalem had been besieged for some
eighteen months. Finally the city walls were breached; the king (Zedekiah) and
his troops fled; the temple and palace were burned; the city was thoroughly
looted; and large numbers of the population were deported to Babylon, leaving
the "people of the land" behind as a remnant.
The Babylonian Chronicle falls silent at this
point, noting only the earlier invasion in 598/597. The Deuteronomistic
History, on the other hand, recounts only the final destruction of Jerusalem,
nothing else. It is only archaeology that can fill in the gaps, but few modern
histories of Israel cite the substantive data that we now have.
Stratum 10 of the recent excavations in
Jerusalem dramatically illuminates the 586 destruction of the city. Avigad's
defensive tower was found below a deep layer of ashes. Shiloh's houses in Areas
E and G—the Ashlar House, the House of Ahiel, the Burnt Room, and the House of
the Bullae—were fired; in the collapse were found large quantities of pottery,
stone and metal vessels, and the bullae discussed above. The destruction of
Mazar's residential quarters is said to have been total. Dozens of iron
arrowheads, as well as triangular Scythian arrowheads, attest to the ferocity
of the battle. The date was 18 July 586 (the 9th of Ab). (page 604)
------
The several Judahite forts listed in
figure 6.5 above, most of which were founded after the 732-721 destructions in
the north, were nearly all destroyed in 586, and many were deserted thereafter.
The forts in the area of Jerusalem and extending eastward into the Judean
desert were undoubtedly overrun by the Babylonian onslaught. The Negev forts,
of less strategic importance, were also destroyed and deserted thereafter. They
may have been taken by the Babylonians in the course of dominating the southern
trade routes or by Edomites taking advantage of Judah's weakness.
In addition to the destructions of
Judahite sites in 586, several sites in Philistia were destroyed by the
Babylonians, most slightly earlier, in 604 or 603: (page 603)
------
Scholars have generally agreed that the
Babylonian destructions in 586 devastated most of the urban sites in Judah. The
fate of the rural areas, however, has only recently been illuminated. (page
606)
------
Coming now to Judah's final demise, there
are several correlations between biblical accounts of the reigns of Judah's
last kings and the archaeological and extrabiblical textual records. Jehozhaz
(609) is said to have been imprisoned at Riblah in Syria by Pharaoh Neco (II)
in the course of his campaigns against the Assyrians. Jehoiakim (609-598) is
said to have rebelled and then become the vassal of Nebuchadnezzar, and the withdrawal
of Egypt, defeated by the Babylonians, is noted. The story of Jehoiachin and
the first exile of Jerusalemites in 597 accords well with Babylonian records.
Jehoiachin is said in cuneiform records to have been released from prison in
Babylon and allowed to attend at the king's table, an incident also recorded in
an epilogue in 2 Kgs 25:27-30, added in the exilic period.
The reign of Zedekiah (597-586) is
described in some detail, and much of the detail has to do with the fall of
Jerusalem in 586. (page 615)
