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Hezekiah

Hezekiah

Hezekiah (Hebrew: חזקיה or חזקיהו, "whom God has strengthened") was king of Judah, the son of Ahaz and Abi (2 Kings 18:1-2) or Abijah (2 Chronicles 29:1). He reigned twenty-nine years (2 Kings 18:2). William F. Albright has dated his reign to 715 BCE-687 BCE, while E. R. Thiele offers the dates 716 BCE-687 BCE.

Life

The Biblical account of this king is contained in 2 Kings 18-20, Isaiah 36-39, and 2 Chronicles 29-32. These sources portray him as a great and good king, following the example of his great-grandfather Uzziah. He introduced religious reform, reinstated religious traditions. He set himself to abolish idolatry from his kingdom, and among other things which he did for this end, he destroyed the "brazen serpent," which had been relocated at Jerusalem, and had become an object of idolatrous worship. A great reformation was wrought in the kingdom of Judah in his day (2 Kings 18:4; 2 Chronicles 29:3-36). The author of 2 Kings ends his account of Hezekiah with praise (18:5). Between the death of Sargon, and the succession of his son Sennacherib, Hezekiah sought to throw off his dependence to the Assyrian kings. He refused to pay the tribute enforced on his father, and "rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not," but entered into a league with Egypt (Isaiah 30; 31; 36:6-9). This led to the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:13-16) in the 4th year of Sennacherib (701 BC). Hezekiah anticipated the Assyrian invasion, and made at least one major preparation: in an impressive engineering feat, a tunnel 533 meters long was dug in order to provide Jerusalem underground access to the waters of the Spring of Gihon, which lay outside the city. (The work is described in the Siloam Inscription, which has been dated to his reign on the basis of its script). At the same time, a wall was built around the Pool of Siloam, into which the waters from the spring flowed (Isaiah 22:11). An impressive vestige of this structure is the broad wall in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. "When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, intent on making war against Jerusalem, he consulted with his officers and warriors about stopping the flow of the springs outside the city ... for otherwise, they thought, the King of Assyria would come and find water in abundance" (2 Chronicles 32:2-4). Sennacherib records on his monumental inscription, "The Prism of Sennacherib", how in his campaign against Hezekiah ("Ha-za-qi-(i)a-ú") he took 46 cities in this campaign (column 3, line 19 of Taylor prism), and besieged Jerusalem ("Ur-sa-li-im-mu") with earthworks. Eventually Hezekiah saw Sennacherib's determination, and offered to pay him three hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold in tribute, despoiling the Temple to produce the promised amount (18:14-16). The narrative in the Bible states Sennacherib invaded Judah (Isaiah 33:1; 2 Kings 18:17; 2 Chronicles 32:9; Isaiah 36) and besieged Jerusalem. According to the Biblical accounts, this invasion ended in the destruction of Sennacherib's army, when Hezekiah prayed to God and "that night the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians 185,000 men." The author of the Books of Kings remembers to include the fact that (19:37), seventeen years later, Sennacherib was assassinated by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer, and Esarhaddon became the Assyrian king. There is also a less miraculous account from the Assyrian side, that Sennacherib raised his siege of Jerusalem after Hezekiah acknowledged Sennacherib as his overlord and paid him tribute. The narrative of Hezekiah's sickness and miraculous recovery is found in 2 Kings 20:1, 2 Chronicles 32:24, Isaiah 38:1. Various ambassadors came to congratulate him on his recovery, among them Merodach-baladan, the king of Babylon (2 Chronicles 32:23; 2 Kings 20:12).

Chronological Problems

There is considerable uncertainty about the actual dates of his reign. First, the Biblical records conflict, as they do for a number of rulers of Israel and Judah. 2 Kings 18:10 dates the fall of Samaria to the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, which would make 728 BCE the year of his accession. However, verse 13 of the same chapter states that Sennacherib invaded Judah in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah; the Assyrian records leave no doubt that this invasion took place in 701 BCE, which would fix 715 BCE as Hezekiah's initial year, which would be confirmed by the account of his illness. In chapter 18 of 2 Kings it is stated that during the 14th year of his reign, Sennacherib had returned to pillage Samaria, setting up his base of operations at Lachish and threatening Jerusalem, forcing Hezekiah to pay tribute. As the description in chapter 20 of Hezekiah's illness immediately follows Sennacherib's departure, this would date his illness to his 14th year, which is confirmed by Isaiah's statement that he will live fifteen more years (29-15=14). His fourteenth year being 701 BCE, the first must have been 715 BCE. Another set of calculations show it is probable that Hezekiah did not ascend the throne before 722 BCE. By Albright's calculations, Jehu's initial year is 842 BCE; and between it and Samaria's destruction the Books of Kings give the total number of the years the kings of Israel ruled as 143 7/12, while for the kings of Judah the number is 165. This discrepancy, amounting in the case of Judah to 45 years (165-120), has been accounted for in various ways; but every one of those theories must allow that Hezekiah's first six years as well as Ahaz's last two fell before 722 BCE. Nor is it clearly known how old Hezekiah was when called to the throne, although 2 Kings 18:2 states he was twenty-five years of age. His father (2 Kings 16:2) died at the age of thirty-six; it is not likely that Ahaz at the age of eleven should have had a son. Hezekiah's own son Manasseh ascended the throne twenty-nine years later, at the age of twelve. This places his birth in the seventeenth year of his father's reign, or gives Hezekiah's age as forty-two, if he was twenty-five at his ascension. It is more probable that Ahaz was twenty-one or twenty-five when Hezekiah was born (and suggesting an error in the text), and that the latter was thirty-two at the birth of his son and successor, Manasseh. Still another date is possible by astronomical calculations. 2 Kings 20:8-11 speaks obscurely about "the shadow" moving "ten degrees" during the above mentioned illness of Hezekiah (as does Isaiah 38:7f). Professor Aurel Ponori-Thewrewk, retired director of the planetarium of Budapest, Hungary, may have been the first scholar to offer an astronomical explanation for this passage; observing that new Bible translations use "the sundial of Ahaz," while other Bibles "the stairway of Ahaz," he states that the original Hebrew text says ma(c)alóth, the plural of ma(c)alah. Therefore, his conclusion is that it had a double meaning: while it refers to the steps over which the shadow has already passed, it may have meant the instrument (?) of Ahaz which had obviously contained more than ten units, and on which Hezekiah could observe the movement of the sun's shadow. But whatever was the original meaning of the Hebrew word, Ponori-Thewrewk says, the shadow had made an abnormal movement on it. He imagines a pole or gnomon that casts a shadow on a plane that is perpendicular to it. The shadow can move ahead for a while, then it can move backward on that plane. John D. Davis, Davis dictionary of the Bible (Baker Book House, 1975: 184) confirms the possibility that 2 Kings 20:11 and Isaiah 38:8 may be explained by a solar eclipse, and the stairway of Ahaz may have been a sundial with a projecting gnomon to cast a shadow. The foretold backward position of the sun's shadow, could have been caused by an eclipse of the sun, probably on May 6, 724 BCE. This eclipse took place between 6:09 and 8:24 a.m., its maximum was 64.3% at 7:15 a.m. This would then date Hezekiah's first year as king to 738 BCE, and his last to 709 BCE. It is possible that Isaiah (38: 7-8) had been informed beforehand by an astronomer, perhaps by one of Merodach-baladan's envoys, about the expected date of a solar eclipse on May 6, so Isaiah comforted the king on May 3. An alternative interpretation of Hezekiah's reign spans 727 BCE-698 BCE with Manasseh co-reigning for some years as a teenager. This attempts to harmonize the reference to Hezekiah reigning during the conquest of Samaria (2 Kings 18:9-10), and assumes the reference to Sennacherib's attack in 701 was either a second campaign or that the reference to it being in Hezekiah's 14th year is a corruption.

Religious reforms

King Hezekiah introduced substantial religious reforms during his reign. They included the following:
- Hezekiah renewed worship of Adonai, the Israelite God.
- He abolished idol worship which had resumed under his father's reign. He abolished the shrines and smashed the pillars and cut down the sacred post. He also broke into pieces the bronze serpent which Moses had made, for until that time the Israelites had been offering sacrifices to it "(2 Kings 18:4).
- He resumed the Passover pilgrimage and the tradition of inviting the scattered tribes of Israel to take part in a Passover festival (Chronicles 30:13, 26).

Seals

Two distinct classes of seal impressions have been found in Israel relating to King Hezekiah:
- LMLK seals on storage jar handles, excavated from strata formed by Sennacherib's destruction as well as immediately above that layer suggesting they were used throughout his 29-year reign (Grena, 2004, p. 338)
- Bullae from sealed documents, some that may have belonged to Hezekiah himself (Grena, 2004, p. 26, Figs. 9 and 10) while others name his servants (obed in Hebrew), all from the antiquities market and subject to authentication disputes (see Biblical archaeology)

Resources

-
- Austin, Lynn. Gods And Kings. (ISBN 0764229893); a fictionalized account of Hezekiah's rise to power, Book 1 in Austin's "Chronicles of the Kings" series

External link

- [http://www.kingscalendar.com/bible_dates_research/Research_bible_dates_viewnews_id_163.html Hezekiah King Of Judah - The King's Calendar]
- [http://jeru.huji.ac.il/eb34l.htm King Hezekiah] from Jerusalem Mosaic 687 BCE deaths Category:Kings of ancient Judah
- [http://www.allaboutgod.com/truth-topics/hezekiah.htm Hezekiah] See all Bible verses pertaining to King Hezekiah

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than 6 million people, mainly in Israel, the West Bank, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. The core of the Tanakh (sometimes referred to as the Hebrew Bible), the Torah (which Christianity and Judaism traditionally hold to have been first recorded in the time of Moses 3,300 years ago), is written in (Biblical) Classical Hebrew. Jews have always called it לשון הקודש Lashon ha-Qodesh ("The Sacred Language") as the scriptures written in this language were considered sacred. Most scholars agree that after the first destruction of Jerusalem by the Nebuchadnezzar II and the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the kind of Hebrew prevalent in the Tanakh was replaced in daily use by Mishnaic Hebrew and a local version of Aramaic. After the depletion of the Jewish population of parts of Roman occupied Judea, it is believed that Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language roughly around 200 CE, but has stayed as the major written language throughout the centuries. Not only religious, but texts for a large variety of purposes: letters and contracts, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, protocols of courts—all resorted to Hebrew, which thus adapted itself to various new fields and terminologies by borrowings and new inventions. Hebrew was revitalized as a spoken language during the late 19th and early 20th century as Modern Hebrew, replacing a score of languages spoken by the Jews at that time, such as Arabic, Judezmo (also called Ladino), Yiddish, Russian, and other languages of the Jewish diaspora as the spoken language of the majority of the Jewish people living in Israel. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921, and the primary official language of the State of Israel, (Arabic maintained its official language status). The Hebrew name for the language is עברית, or Ivrit (IPA: )

History

While the term "Hebrew" as a nationality is customarily used to refer to the ancient Israelites, the classical Hebrew language was extremely similar to the Canaanite languages spoken by their neighbors, such as Phoenician; indeed, Moabite and Hebrew are often considered to be two dialects of the same language. Hebrew strongly resembles Aramaic and to a lesser extent South-Central Arabic, sharing many linguistic features with them.

Early history

Hebrew is an Afro-Asiatic language. This language family is generally thought by linguists to have originated somewhere in northeastern Africa, and began to diverge around the 8th millennium BCE, although there is much debate about the exact date and place. (The theory is espoused by most archeologists and linguists, but at odds with traditional reading of the Torah.) One branch of this family, Semitic, eventually reached the Middle East; it gradually differentiated into a variety of related languages. By the end of the 3rd millennium BCE the ancestral languages of Aramaic, Ugaritic, and other various Canaanite languages were spoken in the Levant alongside the influential dialects of Ebla and Akkad. As the Hebrew founders from northern Haran filtered south into and came under the influence of the Levant, like many sojourners into Canaan including the Philistines, they adopted Canaanite dialects. The first written evidence of distinctive Hebrew, the Gezer calendar, dates back to the 10th century BCE, the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon. It presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks and Etruscans later became the Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where more modern spelling requires it (see below). Roman script, dates to the 7th century BCE.]] Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Protosinaitic. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian writing, though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam Inscription, found near Jerusalem, is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Old Hebrew include the ostraka found near Lachish which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. The most famous work originally written in Hebrew is the Tanakh, though the time at which it was written is a matter of dispute (see dating the Bible for details). The earliest extant copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, written between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE. The formal language of the latter Babylonian Empire was Aramaic (its name is either derived from "Aram Naharayim", Upper Mesopotamia, or from "Aram," the ancient name for Syria). The Persian Empire, which had captured Babylonia a few decades later under Cyrus, adopted Aramaic as the official language. Aramaic is also a North-West Semitic language, quite similar to Hebrew. Aramaic has contributed many words and expressions to Hebrew, mainly as the language of commentary in the Talmud and other religious works. In addition to numerous words and expressions, Hebrew also borrowed the Aramaic writing system. Although the original Aramaic letter forms were derived from the same Phoenician alphabet that was used in ancient Israel, they had changed significantly, both in the hands of the Mesopotamians and of the Jews, assuming the forms familiar to us today around the first century CE. Writings of that era (most notably, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran) are written in a script very similar to the "square" one still used today.

Later history

The Jews living in the Persian Empire adopted Aramaic, and Hebrew quickly fell into disuse. It was preserved, however, as the literary language of Bible study. Aramaic became the vernacular language of the renewed Judaea for the following 700 years. Famous works written in Aramaic include the Targum, the Talmud and several of Flavius Josephus' books (several of the latter were not preserved, however, in the original.) Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Jews gradually began to disperse from Judaea into foreign countries (this dispersion was hastened when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem (and turned it into a pagan city named Aelia Capitolina) in 135 CE after putting down Bar Kokhba's revolt.) For many hundreds of years Aramaic remained the spoken language of Mesopotamian Jews, and Lishana Deni, one of several Judæo-Aramaic languages, is a modern descendant that is still spoken by a few thousand Jews (and many non-Jews) from the area known as Kurdistan; however, it gradually gave way to Arabic, as it had given way to other local languages in the countries to which the Jews had gone. Hebrew was not used as a mother tongue for roughly 1800 years. However the Jews have always devoted much effort to maintaining high standards of literacy among themselves, the main purpose being to let any Jew read the Hebrew Bible and the accompanying religious works in the original (see rabbinic literature, Codes of Jewish law, The Jewish Bookshelf). It is interesting to note that the languages that the Jews adopted from their adopted nations, namely Ladino and Yiddish were not directly connected to Hebrew (the former being based on Spanish and Arabic borrowings, latter being a remote dialect of Middle High German), however, both were written from right to left using the Hebrew script. Hebrew was also used as a language of communication among Jews from different countries, particularly for the purpose of international trade. The most important contribution to preserving traditional Hebrew pronunciation in this period was that of scholars called Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who from about the seventh to the tenth centuries CE devised detailed markings to indicate vowels, stress, and cantillation (recitation methods). The original Hebrew texts used only consonants, and later some consonants were used to indicate long vowels. By the time of the Masoretes this text was considered too sacred to be altered, so all their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters.

Revival

cantillation The revival of Hebrew as a mother tongue was initiated by the efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) (אליעזר בן־יהודה). He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 emigrated to Eretz Israel, then a province of the Ottoman Empire. Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora "shtetl" lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making the literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language. However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by more modern grammar and style, in the writings of people like Achad Ha-Am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into a gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904-1905 "Second aliyah" that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the new and better organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous, many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of pre-state Israel who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. Later it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that exists today. The results of his and the Committee's work were published in a dictionary (The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew). Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by the beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British pre-State Israel.

Modern Hebrew

Ben-Yehuda based Modern Hebrew on Biblical Hebrew. Often new words were coined by applying unused word-patterns to existing roots (Biblical k-t-v, "write," gave rise to modern Hebrew hikhtiv, "dictated," and hitkatev, "corresponded.") When this did not suffice and the Committee set out to invent a new word for a certain concept, it searched through the Biblical word-indexes and foreign dictionaries, particularly Arabic. While Ben-Yehuda preferred Semitic roots to European ones, the abundance of European Hebrew speakers led to the introduction of numerous foreign words. Other changes which had taken place as Hebrew came back to life were the systematization of the grammar - the Biblical syntax was sometimes limited and ambiguous -- and the adoption of standard Western punctuation. Modern Hebrew shows influences from Russian (for example, the Russian suffix -acia is used in nouns where English has the suffix -ation); German (particularly in combination words like "tapuakh-adama," meaning potato (German Erdapfel , earth-apple) or "iton" (German Zeitung, news-ity, news-paper). English has been a very strong influence, both from British influence during the period of the Mandate and American influence in the present day. Finally, Arabic, being the language of numerous Mizrahic and Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Arab countries as well as of the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, has also had an important influence on Hebrew, especially in slang (for example, "sababa", meaning "excellent", or "ya'alla", meaning "come on".) Due to its many influences and its youth, Modern Hebrew has many characteristics which are distinctly not Semitic. At the phonetic level, it has abandoned the pharyngeal and emphatic consonants (in most pronunciations). It also uses the occasional foreign morpheme, in words such as רכבל ("rakevel") (meaning "cable car", formed by adding a lamed to the word for "vehicle") and רמזור ("ramzor") (meaning "traffic light", formed by adding a vav and a resh to the root for "hinting" and "allusion"). Even so, the Hebrew preserved part of the prominent characteristics of the Semitic languages. One of the main questions which occupying the researchers of the Modern Hebrew is how much the Modern Hebrew is a Semitic language. Another non-Semitic property of Modern Hebrew is the pronunciation of certain letters. For instance, the letter Heth (ח) now sounds like Khaf (כ), the letter 'Ayin (ע) now sounds like (sometimes) Alef (א), Qof (ק) sounds like Kaf (כּ), and Thav (ת) sounds like Teth (ט). Modern Hebrew is printed with a script known as "square". It is the same script, ultimately derived from Aramaic, that was used for copying of Bible books in Hebrew for two thousand years. This script also has a cursive version, which is used for handwriting. Hebrew has been the language of numerous poets, which include Rachel, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Shaul Tchernihovsky, Lea Goldberg, Avraham Shlonsky and Natan Alterman. Hebrew was also the language of hundreds of authors, one of whom is the Nobel Prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon.

Hebrew language in the USSR

, Yevsektsiya The Soviet authorities considered Hebrew a "reactionary language" since it was associated with both Judaism and Zionism, and it was officially banned by the Narkompros (Commissariat of Education) as early as 1919. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries. Despite numerous protests in the West, teachers and students who attempted to study Hebrew language were pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" and later for "anti-Soviet" activities.

Dialects

According to Ethnologue, dialects of Hebrew include Standard Hebrew (General Israeli, Europeanized Hebrew), Oriental Hebrew (Arabized Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew). In practice, there is also Ashkenazi Hebrew, still widely used in Ashkenazi Jewish religious services and studies in Israel and abroad. It was influenced by the Yiddish language. Sephardi Hebrew language is the basis of Standard Hebrew and not all that different from it, although traditionally it has had a greater range of phonemes. It was influenced by the Ladino language. Mizrahi (Oriental) Hebrew is actually a collection of dialects (including Yemenite) spoken liturgically by Jews in various parts of the Arab and Islamic world. It was influenced by the Arabic language. Nearly every immigrant to Israel is encouraged to adopt Standard Hebrew as their daily language. Phonologically, this "dialect" may most accurately be described as an amalgam of pronunciations preserving Sephardic vowel sounds and Ashkenazic consonant sounds—its recurring feature being simplification of differences among a wide array of pronunciations. This simplifying tendency also accounts for the collapse of the Ashkenazic /t/ and /s/ pronunciations of unaspirated and aspirated ת into the single phoneme /t/. Most Sephardic dialects differentiated between these two pronunciations as /t/ and /θ/. Within Israel, the pronunciation of "Standard Hebrew", however, more often reflects the national or ethnic origin of the individual speaker, rather than the specific recommendations of the Academy. For this reason, over half the population pronounces ר as , (a uvular trill, as in Yiddish and some varieties of German) or as (a uvular fricative, as in French or many varieties of German), rather than as /r/, an apical trill, as in Spanish. The pronunciation of this phoneme is often used as a determinant among Israelis when ascertaining the national origin of perceived foreigners.

Languages strongly influenced by Hebrew

See main article Jewish languages Yiddish, Ladino, Karaim, and Judaeo-Arabic were all highly influenced by Hebrew. Although none are completely derived from Hebrew, they all make extensive use of Hebrew loanwords. In a less direct manner, the revival of Hebrew is often cited by proponents of International auxiliary languages as the best proof that languages long dead, with small communities, or modified or created artificially can become living languages used by a large number of people.

Sounds

Hebrew has two kinds of stress: on the last syllable (milra‘) and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, mil‘el). The former is more frequent. Specific rules connect the location of the stress with the length of the vowels in the last syllable; however due to the fact that Modern Hebrew does not distinguish between long and short vowels, these rules are often ignored in everyday speech. Interestingly enough, the rules that specify the vowel length are different for verbs and nouns, which influences the stress; thus the mil‘el-stressed ókhel (="food") and milra‘-stressed okhèl (="eats", masculine) are written in the same way. Little ambiguity exists, however, due to nouns and verbs having incompatible roles in normal sentences. This is, however, also true in English, in, for example, the English word "conduct," in its nominal and verbal forms.

Vowels

vowel length The Hebrew word for vowels is tnu‘ot. The marks for these vowels are called Niqqud. Modern Israeli Hebrew has 5 vowel phonemes:
- /a/ (as in "car") - The vowels qamatz and patakh
- /e/ (as in "set") - The vowels seggol and tzereh
- /i/ (as in "beak")- The vowel khiriq
- /o/ (as in "horn")- The vowel kholam
- /u/ (as in "room")- The vowels shuruq and qubbutz In Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (hataf). However, there is no audible distinction between the three in modern Israeli Hebrew. Hebrew phonetics include a special feature called shva. According to "Ha-Yesod, the Fundamentals of Hebrew" by Luba Uveeler and Norman M. Broznick, this feature is pronounced "Shva" and is spelled Shin Vav He. There are two kinds of shva: resting (nax) and moving (na' ). The resting shva is pronounced as a brief stop of speech. The moving shva sounds much like the English a in about. Hebrew also has dagesh, a strengthening. There are two kinds of strengthenings: light (qal, known also as dagesh lene) and heavy (hazaq or dagesh forte). There are two sub-categories of the heavy dagesh: structural heavy (hazaq tavniti) and complementing heavy (hazaq mashlim). The light affects the phonemes /b/ /k/ /p/ in the beginning of a word, or after a resting schwa. Structural heavy emphases belong to certain vowel patterns (mishkalim and binyanim; see the section on grammar below), and correspond originally to doubled consonants. Complementing strengthening is added when vowel assimilation takes place. As mentioned before, the emphasis influences which of a pair of (former) allophones is pronounced. Interestingly enough, historical evidence indicates that /g/, /d/ and /t/ used to have strengthened versions of their own, however they had disappeared from virtually all the spoken dialects of Hebrew. All other consonants except gutturals may receive the heavy emphasis, as well. One-letter words are always attached to the following word. Such words include: the definite article h (="the"); prepositions b (="in"), m (="from"), l (="to"); conjunctions sh (="that"), k (="as", "like"), v (="and"). The vowel that follows the letter thus attached depends in general on the beginning of the next word and the presence of a definite article which may be swallowed by the one-letter word. The rules for the prepositions are complicated and vary with the formality of speech. In most cases they are followed by a moving schwa, and for that reason they are pronounced as be, me and le. In more formal speech, if a preposition is put before a word which begins with a moving schwa, then the preposition takes the vowel /i/ (and the initial consonant is weakened), but in colloquial speech these changes do not occur. For example, colloquial be-kfar (="in a village") becomes bi-khfar. If l or b are followed by the definite article ha, their vowel changes to /a/. Thus
- be-ha-matos becomes ba-matos (="in the plane"). However it does not happen to m, therefore me-ha-matos is a valid form, which means "from the plane". :
- indicates that the given example is not grammatically correct

Consonants

The Hebrew word for consonants is ‘itsurim (עיצורים). ע was once pronounced as a voiced pharyngeal fricative. Modern Ashkenazi (Northern and Eastern European Jews) reading tradition ignores this; however, Mizrahi (Middle Eastern and North African Jews) and Israeli Arabs accent these phonemes in a traditional semitic fashion which resembles Arabic `ain ع. Georgian Jews pronounce it as a glottalized g. Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it as "ng" in "sing" — a pronunciation which can also be found in the Italki tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany. Postalveolar sounds (with the exception of ) are not native to Hebrew, and only found in borrowings. The pairs (/b/, /v/), (/k/, /x/), (/p/, /f/), written respectively by the letters bet (ב), kaf (כ) and pe (פ) have historically been allophonic. In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds (/v/ merging with /w/, /k/ merging with /q/, /x/ merging with ), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial /f/ through foreign borrowings.

Historical sound changes

Standard (non-Oriental) Israeli Hebrew (SIH) has undergone a number of splits and mergers in its development from Biblical Hebrew .
- BH /b/ had two allophones, [b] and [v]; the [v] allophone has merged with /w/ into SIH /v/
- BH /k/ had two allophones, [k] and [x]; the [k] allophone has merged with /q/ into SIH /k/, while the [x] allophone has merged with into SIH /x/
- BH /t/ and have merged into SIH /t/
- BH and have merged into SIH
- BH /p/ had two allophones, [p] and [f]; the incorporation of loanwords into Modern Hebrew has probably resulted in a split, so that /p/ and /f/ are separate phonemes

Grammar

See main article Hebrew grammar Hebrew grammar is mostly analytical, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than grammatical cases. However inflection does play an important role in the formation of the verbs, nouns and the genitive construct, which is called "smikhut". Words in smikhut are often combined with hyphens.
Writing system
Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet. Modern scripts are based on the "square" letter form. A similar system is used in handwriting, but the letters tend to be more circular in their character, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents. Biblical Hebrew text contains nothing but consonants and spaces, and most modern Hebrew texts contain only consonants, spaces and western-style punctuation. A pointing system (nikud, from the root word meaning "points" or "dots") developed around the 5th Century C.E. is used to indicate vowels and syllabic stresses in some religious books, and is almost always found in modern poetry, children's literature, and texts for beginning students of Hebrew. The system is also used sparingly to avoid certain ambiguities of meaning — such as when context is insufficient to distinguish between two identically spelled words — and in the transliteration of foreign names. All Hebrew consonant phonemes are represented by a single letter. Although a single letter might represent two phonemes — the letter "bet," for example, represents both /b/ and /v/ — the two sounds are always related "hard" (plosive) and "soft" (fricative) forms, their pronunciaton being very often determined by context. In fully pointed texts, the hard form normally has a dot, known as a dagesh, in its center. The letters hei, vav and yud can represent consonantal sounds (/h/, /v/ and /j/, respectively) or serve as a markers for vowels. In the latter case, these letters are called "emot qria" ("matres lectionis" in Latin, "mothers of reading" in English). The letter hei at the end of a word usually indicates a final /a/, which in turn is usually indicative of feminine gender. Vav may represent /o/ or /u/, and yod may represent /i/. There is no consonantal marker for /e/. In some modern Israeli texts, the letter alef is used to indicate long /a/ sounds in foreign names, particularly those of Arabic origin. Terminal syllabic emphasis is most common. Fully pointed texts will note variations with a vertical line placed underneath the first consonant of the emphasized syllable, to the left of the vowel mark if there is one.
Romanization
See also Romanization of Hebrew The Hebrew language is normally written in the Hebrew alphabet. Due to publishing difficulties, and the unfamiliarity of many readers with the alphabet, there are many ways of transcribing Hebrew into Roman letters. The most accurate method is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is used (in a simplified ASCII form) in the section concerned with Phonology, to describe the sounds of the Hebrew language. However, the IPA is not well known, and is often considered cumbersome for transcribing pronunciations for a general audience. Therefore this article uses a different system to express Hebrew pronunciation, and at least some orthographic peculiarities. The system comes down to the following:
- The letter tzadi (צ) is transcribed by "c" so that it could be distinguished from other combinations of /t/ and /s/, although "ts" or "tz" is usually acceptable.
- The letter ‘ayin (ע) is transcribed ', the same as alef. In word-final position, this phoneme is always preceded by the vowel /a/.
- The letter shin (ש) is transcribed by "sh", and the letter sin as "s".
- Both the letter tav (ת) and the letter tet (ט) are transcribed by "t".
- The letter he (ה) at the end of a word, in those cases where it marks feminine gender, is transcribed by "ah" (it is read /a/).
- The letter chet (ח) is usually transcribed by "ch" as there is no "ch" sound in hebrew. "kh" is usually acceptable but not as common. "h" is occasionally used but often avoided as "h" is also used for he (ה).
- The letter qof (ק) is transcribed by "q" (it is pronounced /k/ by many speakers).
- Single-letter prepositions and the definite article are separated with a dash (-) from their subject.
- Stresses and schwas are not marked.
- The vowels are always written.
- The letter yod is usually transcribed by "y".
See also

- Common phrases in Hebrew
- Cantillation
- Hebrew alphabet
- Niqqud (vowel points)
- Samaritan Hebrew
- The study of Hebrew
- Hebrew literature
Notes
# [http://www.jewishmag.com/43mag/ben-yehuda/ben-yehuda.htm Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Resurgence of the Hebrew Language] by Libby Kantorwitz # [http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/ZA/SiteE/pShowView.aspx?GM=Y&ID=48&Teur=Protest%20against%20the%20suppression%20of%20Hebrew%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union%20%201930-1931 Protest against the suppression of Hebrew in the Soviet Union 1930-1931] signed by Albert Einstein, among others # Robert Hetzron. (1987). Hebrew. In The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-520521-9.
External links

- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=heb Ethnologue report for Hebrew]
- [http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/english.html Academy of Hebrew Language], the Institute which prescribes standards for modern Hebrew grammar, orthography, transliteration, and punctuation based upon the study of Hebrew's historical development.
- History of the Hebrew Language
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/history_of_hebrew.htm History of the Hebrew Language Steinberg]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/rabin_he.htm Short History of the Hebrew Language Rabin]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/israeli_hebrew_tene.htm Israeli Hebrew Tene]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/israel_lang_policy_rosen.htm Israel Language Policy and Linguistics Rosén]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/hebrew_words_history.htm Words and their History Kutscher]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/hebrew_slang_sappan.htm Hebrew Slang and Foreign Loan Words Sappan ]
- Grammars
- [http://foundationstone.com.au/HtmlSupport/FrameSupport/onlineHebrewTutorialFrame.html Online Hebrew Tutorial] (foundationstone)
- [http://perso.wanadoo.fr/babel-site/ Hebrew is easy] (babel-site)
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/gk_cont.htm Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar]
- Dictionaries
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon1/index.htm Root-based] (Maskilon)
- [http://milon.morfix.co.il/ Word-search] English-Hebrew and Hebrew-English (Morfix)
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon3/index.htm Hebrew-English] (Maskilon)
- [http://www.faithofgod.net/davar/ Hebrew-English] (DAVAR freeware, english)
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Hebrew-english/ Hebrew-English] (Webster's Rosetta Edition)
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon4/index.htm English-Hebrew] (Maskilon)
- General
- [http://www.yiwoodmere.org/library/cybrary/hebrew.html Learning Hebrew - Links], Young Israel
- [http://www.yomanim.com Hebrew Writings and Diaries]
- [http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/katmandu/hebrew/atoc.html Hebrew Abbreviations], Princeton University Library
- [http://www.mikledet.com Mikledet.com]: Send Hebrew emails without having a Hebrew keyboard.
- [http://www.amhaaretz.org/translit/ Hebrew translit]: type in Hebrew using an English keyboard
- Category:Jewish languages Category:Judaism Category:Guttural R Category:Semitic languages Category:Canaanite languages Category:Languages of Israel ko:히브리어 ja:ヘブライ語 simple:Hebrew language th:ภาษาฮีบรู

Kingdom of Judah

The Kingdom of Judah (Hebrew מַלְכוּת יְהוּדָה, Standard Hebrew Malḫut Yəhuda, Tiberian Hebrew Malḵûṯ Yəhûḏāh) in the times of the Hebrew Bible, was the nation formed from the territories of the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin after the Kingdom of Israel was divided, and was named after Judah, son of Jacob (Israel). The name Judah itself means Praise of God. God. The territory of the Kingdom of Judah is marked light-green.]] Judah is often referred to as the Southern Kingdom to distinguish it from the Northern Kingdom (being the Kingdom of Israel) after the division of the Kingdom. Its capital was Jerusalem. See History of ancient Israel and Judah. When the disruption took place at Shechem, at first only the tribe of Judah followed the house of David. But very soon after the tribe of Benjamin joined the tribe of Judah, and Jerusalem became the capital of the new kingdom (Joshua 18:28), which was called the kingdom of Judah. For the first sixty years the kings of Judah aimed at re-establishing their authority over the kingdom of the other ten tribes, so that there was a state of perpetual war between them. For the following eighty years there was no open war between them. For the most part they were in friendly alliance, co-operating against their common enemies, especially against Damascus. For about another century and a half Judah had a somewhat checkered existence after the termination of the kingdom of Israel till its final overthrow in the destruction of the temple (586 BC) by Nebuzar-adan, who was captain of Nebuchadnezzar's body-guard (2 Kings 25:8-21). The kingdom maintained a separate existence for three hundred and eighty-nine years. It occupied an area of about 8,900 km² (3,435 square miles).

The Kings of Judah

For this period, most historians follow the chronology established by William F. Albright, by Edwin R. Thiele, or by Gershon Galil, all of which are shown below. All dates are BCE.

Notes

#Hezekiah: contemporary with Sennacherib of Assyria, and Merodach-baladan of Babylon. #Zedekiah: King during the second rebellion (588–586 BCE). Jerusalem was captured after a lengthy siege, the temple burnt, Zedekiah taken into exile and Judah was reduced to a province. Nebuchadnezzar had left Gedaliah as his governor, who was killed in one last revolt, and the few members of the ruling classes left from the kingdom of Judah took the prophets Jeremiah and Baruch with them as they fled to sanctuary in Egypt.

From the end of the kingdom to the present

After the end of the ancient kingdom the area passed into foreign rule, apart from brief periods, under the following powers: 587–539 BC: Babylonian Empire 539–332 BC: Persian Empire 332–305 BC: Empire of Alexander the Great 305–198 BC: Ptolemaids 198–141 BC: Seleucids 141–37 BC: The Hasmonean state in Israel established by the Maccabees, since 63 BC under Roman supremacy 37 BC–AD 70: Herodian Dynasty ruling Judea under Roman supremacy (37 BC-6 AD, 41-44 AD), interchanging with direct Roman rule (6-41, 44-66). This ended in the first Jewish Revolt of 66 - 73, which saw the Temple destroyed in 70. AD 70–395: province of Roman Empire first called Judea, after 135 called Palestine. In 395 the Roman Empire is split into a Western and an Eastern part. 395–638: Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire 638–1099: Arab Caliphates and subject rulers 1099–1187: Crusader states, most notably the Kingdom of Jerusalem 1187–1260: dominated by the Ayyubides of Egypt 1260–1516: dominated by the Mamluks of Egypt 1516–1917: Ottoman Turks, having previously conquered the Byzantine Empire in 1453 1918–1948: British mandate of Palestine under, first, League of Nations, then, successor United Nations; the Emirate of Trans-Jordan was separated from the rest of Palestine in 1922, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan became independent upon the expiration of the League of Nations Mandate in 1946. May 1948 to present: independent State of Israel 1948-1967 the West Bank was occupied by and in 1950 annexed to Jordan 1967 to present: the West Bank occupied by Israel in the Six Day War, since 1994 a semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority governs territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

External links

- [http://www.complete-bible-genealogy.com/judah_israel_kings.htm Complete Bible Genealogy] A synchronized chart of the kings of Judah and Israel Category:Ancient Israel and Judah Judah, Kingdom of ja:ユダ王国 ko:유다 왕국

ABI

ABI is an acronym for:
- Ankle-Brachial Index, a measure of peripheral vascular disease
- Application binary interface
- Applied Biosystems
- Association of British Insurers
- The IATA airport code for the airport in Abilene, Texas
- Abitur, a diploma for university-entrance in Germany (colloquially used)
- Acquired Brain Injury, damage to the brain acquired after birth
- Abi is the name given in 2 Kings 18:2 to the mother of Hezekiah, king of Judah

Abia

Abia - my father is the Lord, the Greek form of Abijah, or Abijam (Matt. 1:7), instead of Abiah (1 Chr. 7:8). In Luke 1:5, the name refers to the head of the eighth of the twenty-four courses into which David divided the priests (1 Chr. 24:10). Category:Hebrew Bible/Tanakh Category:New Testament

Books of Chronicles

:("Book of Chronicles" is also an alternate name for the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493) The Book of Chronicles is a book in the Hebrew Bible (also see Old Testament). It was originally written as one book, but in the Septuagint (LXX), the book appears in two parts, and in the fifteenth century, it began appearing in two parts in Hebrew Bibles. This division into two parts may be in accordance with more manageable scroll sizes, and thus in Christian bibles it is usually published in two parts, I Chronicles and II Chronicles. In Hebrew the title of this book is Divre Hayyamim, i.e., "History of the Days." Jerome, in his Latin translation of the Bible (Vulgate), titled this book Chronicon; in English this word translates as "Chronicles." In the Greek Septuagint the book is also divided into two parts; here it bears the title Paraleipomêna, i.e., "things omitted," or "supplements," because it contains details not found in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings. In the Douai Bible translation the books are accordingly styled the "Books of Paralipomenon." Some divide the book into four parts: #The first nine chapters of Book I contain a list of genealogies in the line of Israel down to the time of King David. #The remainder of the first book contains a history of the reign of David. #The first nine chapters of Book II contain the history of the reign of King Solomon. #The remaining chapters of the second book contain the history of the separate Kingdom of Judah to the time of the return from Babylonian exile. Others, though, divide the book into three parts, combining the sections treating David and Solomon since they represented rule over all the tribes of Israel. The time of the composition of the Chronicles is believed to have been subsequent to the Babylonian Captivity, probably between 450 and 435 B.C.. The contents of this twofold book, both as to matter and form, correspond closely with this idea. The close of the book records the proclamation of Cyrus the Great permitting the Jews to return to their own land, and this forms the opening passage of the Book of Ezra, which is viewed as a continuation of the Chronicles, together with the Book of Nehemiah. The peculiar form of the language, being Hebrew in vocabulary but Aramaean in its general character, harmonizes also with that of the other books which were written after the Exile. The author was likely contemporary with Zerubbabel, details of whose family history are given (1 Chronicles 3:19). According to Jewish tradition, Ezra the scribe was regarded as the author of Chronicles. There are many points of resemblance between Chronicles and the Book of Ezra which seem to confirm this opinion. The conclusion of the one and the beginning of the other are almost identical in expression. In their general scope and design these books are not so much historical as didactic. The principal aim of the writer appears to be to present moral and religious truth. He does not give prominence to political occurrences, as is done in Samuel and Kings, but to religious institutions, such as the details of the temple service. "The genealogies, so uninteresting to most modern readers, were really an important part of the public records of the Hebrew state. They were the basis on which not only the land was distributed and held, but the public services of the temple were arranged and conducted, the Levites and their descendants alone, as is well known, being entitled and first fruits set apart for that purpose." The Chronicles are an epitome of the sacred history from the days of Adam down to the return from Babylonian Exile, a period of about 3,500 years. The writer gathers up "the threads of the old national life broken by the Captivity." In the Hebrew bible, where the book of Chronicles is usually the last book, it can be said to fulfil a role similar to the end credits of a modern movie: To mention all those also-rans without whom the preceding wouldn't have been possible. The sources whence the chronicler compiled his work were public records, registers, and genealogical tables belonging to the Jews. These are referred to in the course of the book (1 Chr. 27:24; 29:29; 2 Chr. 9:29; 12:15; 13:22; 20:34; 24:27; 26:22; 32:32; 33:18, 19; 27:7; 35:25). There are in Chronicles, and the books of Samuel and Kings, forty parallels, often verbal, proving that the writer of Chronicles both knew and used those other books (1 Chr. 17:18; comp. 2 Samuel 7:18-20; 1 Chr. 19; comp. 2 Samuel 10, etc.). As compared with Samuel and Kings, the Book of Chronicles omits many particulars there recorded (2 Sam. 6:20-23; 9; 11; 14-19, etc.), and includes many things peculiar to itself (1 Chr. 12; 22; 23-26; 27; 28; 29, etc.). Often the Chronicles paint a somewhat more positive picture of the same events, in comparison to the (compared to other books of their time) unusually critical books of Samuel and Kings. This corresponds to their time of composition: Samuel and Kings were probably completed during the exile, at a time when the history of the freshly wiped out Hebrew kingdoms was still fresh in the mind of the writers, and it was largely considered a colossal failure. The Chronicles, on the other hand, were written much later, after the restitution of the Jewish community in Palestine, at a time when the kingdoms were beginning to be regarded as the nostalgic, rosy-coloured past, something to be at least partially imitated, not something to be avoided. In general, modern scholars consider Samuel and Kings, which were written earlier, to provide more reliable history than Chronicles. Twenty whole chapters of the Chronicles, and twenty-four parts of chapters, are occupied with matters not found elsewhere. It also records many things in fuller detail, as (e.g.) the list of David's heroes (1 Chr. 12:1-37), the removal of the ark from Kirjath-jearim to Mount Zion (1 Chr. 13; 15:2-24; 16:4-43; comp. 2 Sam. 6), Uzziah's tzaraas (commonly translated as "leprosy") and its cause (2 Chr. 26:16-21; comp. 2 Kings 15:5), etc. It has also been observed that another peculiarity of the book is that it substitutes more modern and more common expressions for those that had then become unusual or obsolete. This is seen particularly in the substitution of modern names of places, such as were in use in the writer's day, for the old names; thus Gezer (1 Chr. 20:4) is used instead of Gob (2 Sam. 21:18), etc. The Books of Chronicles are ranked among the Kethubim, the third section of the Tanach, and they usually occupy the final position in Hebrew bibles, although some Hebrew bibles place Chronicles at the first of the Kethubim. They are alluded to, though not directly quoted, in the New Testament (Hebrews 5:4; Matthew 12:42; 23:35; Luke 1:5; 11:31, 51).

External links

- Jewish translations:
- [http://www.chabad.org/library/archive/LibraryArchive2.asp?AID=15776 Divrei Hayamim I - Chronicles I (Judaica Press)] translation with Rashi's commentary at Chabad.org
- [http://www.chabad.org/library/archive/LibraryArchive2.asp?AID=15777 Divrei Hayamim II - Chronicles II (Judaica Press)] translation with Rashi's commentary at Chabad.org
- Christian translations:
- [http://www.anova.org/sev/htm/hb/13_1chronicles.htm 1 Chronicles at The Great Books] (New Revised Standard Version)
- [http://www.anova.org/sev/htm/hb/14_2chronicles.htm 2 Chronicles at The Great Books] (New Revised Standard Version)
-
-
- [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible%2C_English%2C_King_James%2C_1_Chronicles 1 Chronicles at Wikisource] (Authorised King James Version)
- [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible%2C_English%2C_King_James%2C_2_Chronicles 2 Chronicles at Wikisource] (Authorised King James Version) ---- Chronicles, Books of Chronicles ko:역대기 상 ja:歴代誌

William F. Albright

William Foxwell Albright (May 24, 1891–September 19/September 20, 1971) was an evangelical American Methodist archaeologist, biblical scholar, linguist and expert on ceramics. He was born in Coquimbo, Chile to Protestant missionaries Wilbur Finley and Zephine Viola Foxwell Albright, the eldest of six. He married Dr. Ruth Norton in 1921 in Jerusalem. The couple had four sons. Albright received his Ph.D. in 1913 from Johns Hopkins University, where he later taught from 1929 to 1959 and was director of the American school of Oriental Research at Johns Hopkins. One of his major achievements was confirming the authenticity of the Dead Sea Scrolls following their discovery. In 1923 he made the first significant excavation of a tumulus near Jerusalem--possibly the site where an ancient king of Judah was memorialized. Another noteworthy contribution he made to the field of Biblical archaeology was his study of the LMLK seals and the impact it had on other researchers from 1925-1960 (Grena, 2004, pp. 149-78). He edited the Anchor Bible volumes on Jeremiah, Matthew, and Revelation; his books include Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, The Archaeology of Palestine: From the Stone Age to Christianity, and The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra. The W. F. Albright institute of Archaeological research, a branch of the American Schools of Oriental Research is located in Jerusalem.

References

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-

External links

- [http://aiar.org/ Official AIAR website]
- [http://www.BiblicalArcheology.Net Resources on Biblical Archaeology] Albright, William F. Albright, William F. Albright, William F. Albright, William F. Albright, William F. Albright, William F.

715 BCE

Centuries: 9th century BC - 8th century BC - 7th century BC Decades: 760s BC 750s BC 740s BC 730s BC 720s BC - 710s BC - 700s BC 690s BC 680s BC 670s BC 660s BC ----

Events and trends

- Judah, Tyre and Sidon revolt against Assyria
- 719 BC - Zhou Huan Wang of the Zhou Dynasty becomes ruler of China.
- 718 BC - Gyges becomes the ruler of Lydia.
- 717 BC - Assyrian king Sargon conquers the Hittites stronghold of Carchemish
- 717 BC - Sargon founds a new capital for Assyria at Dur-Sharrukin.
- 716 BC - Roman legend marks this as the date that Romulus ended his rule.
- 715 BC - Start of the reign of Roman King Numa Pompilius
- 713 BC - Numa Pompilius reforms the Roman calendar
- 712 BC - Numa Pompilius creates the office of Pontifex Maximus

Significant people

- 721 BC - Shabaka succeeds his father Piye as king of the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt
- 715 BC - Osorkon IV dies, ending the Twenty-second dynasty of Egypt
- 720 BC - Shabaka kills Bakenranef (Bocchoris), ending the Twenty-fourth Dynasty of Egypt
- 713 BC - Birth of semi-legendary Zamolxis in Dacia. Category:710s BC

687 BCE

Centuries: 8th century BC - 7th century BC - 6th century BC Decades: 730s BC 720s BC 710s BC 700s BC 690s BC - 680s BC - 670s BC 660s BC 650s BC 640s BC 630s BC ----

Events and trends

- 689 BC - King Sennacherib of Assyria sacks Babylon
- 687 BC - Gyges becomes king of Lydia
- 687 BC - Hezekiah succeeded by Manasseh as king of Judah
- 682 BC - Death of Zhou zhuang wang, King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.
- 681 BC - Zhou li wang becomes King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.
- 681 BC - Esarhaddon succeeds Sennacherib as king of Assyria.

Significant people

- ca. 680 BC - the Greek poet Archilochos is born on the island of Paros Category:680s BC

716 BCE

Centuries: 9th century BC - 8th century BC - 7th century BC Decades: 760s BC 750s BC 740s BC 730s BC 720s BC - 710s BC - 700s BC 690s BC 680s BC 670s BC 660s BC ----

Events and trends

Significant people

Book of Isaiah

Isaiah (Hebrew ישׁעיהו Yeshayahu or Yəša‘ăyāhû) is a book of the Jewish Hebrew Bible as well as the Christian Old Testament, containing prophecies attributed to Isaiah. This book is often seen by scholars as being divided into at least two sections. The first section, consisting of chapters 1-39, is generally accepted as being written by the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem, or by his followers who took down his words. The second section, chapters 40-66, is of more debatable origin, as will be described further below. Isaiah’s messages assume we know something of the rest of the Bible, particularly the earlier books of the Old Testament. He affirms that God is determined to take and keep a people for himself. Isaiah sees this as self-evident, seeing as God bothered with an unattractive bunch of slaves in Egypt, who incessantly grumbled while he was rescuing them. The descendents were no better - they were the thankless unfaithful men and women of Isaiah’s time. It is only the covenant love of God that explains it. God has determined to save and no one can stop him from doing it. He has chosen a people to praise and serve him, a people he calls out of bondage into a loving relationship with him. God has committed himself to these people and so they have hope who remain faithful to him (Isaiah 54:10 declares God’s steadfast resolve). The doctrine of election arises again in Isaiah. There is also the doctrine of the remnant – not all Israel are of Israel (see Isaiah 1:9 for example). Those who remain faithful are very few, like a flag-pole on a hilltop (Isaiah 30:17), or the stump of a tree that has been chopped down (6:13), gleanings or the few olives left at the top of a tree (17:6). But God will never cast his elect away (41:8-9, or 42:18-44:5).

Content

The first 39 chapters of Isaiah consist primarily of prophecies of the judgments awaiting nations that are persecuting Judah. These nations include Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Syria, Israel (the northern kingdom), Ethiopia, Egypt, Arabia, and Phoenicia. The prophecies concerning them can be summarized as saying that God is the God of the whole earth, and that nations which think of themselves as secure in their own power and might will be conquered by other nations, at God's command. The judgments, however, are not only against those who persecute Isaiah's country, Judah. Chapters 1-5 and 28-29 prophesy judgment against Judah itself. Judah thinks itself safe because of its covenant relationship with God, the God of all the earth. However, God tells Judah, through Isaiah, that the covenant cannot protect them when they have broken it by idolatry, the worship of other gods, and by acts of injustice and cruelty, which oppose God's law. Some exceptions to this overall foretelling of doom do occur, throughout the early chapters of the book. Chapter 6 describes Isaiah's call to be a prophet of God. Chapters 35-39 provide historical material about King Hezekiah and his triumph of faith in God. Chapters 24-34, while too complex to characterize easily, are primarily concerned with prophecies of a "Messiah," a person anointed or given power by God, and of the Messiah's kingdom, where justice and righteousness will reign. This section is seen by Jews as describing an actual king, a descendant of their great king, David, who will make Judah a great kingdom and Jerusalem a truly holy city. It is traditionally seen by Christians as describing Jesus, who was descended from David, and who, they believe, began a non-political kingdom of justice which will one day encompass the whole earth. At present, this kingdom has more reality in non-physical planes than in the material world. A number of modern scholars believe that it describes, in somewhat idealized terms, King Hezekiah, who was a descendant of David, and who tried to make Jerusalem into a holy city. The prophecy continues with what some have called “The Book of Comfort” which begins in chapter 40 and completes the writing. In the first eight chapters of this book of comfort, Isaiah prophesies the deliverance of the Jews from the hands of the Babylonians and restoration of Israel as a unified nation in the land promised to them by Yahweh. Isaiah reaffirms that the Jews are indeed the chosen people of Yahweh in chapter 44 and that Yahweh is the only God for the Jews as he will show his power over the gods of Babylon in due time in chapter 46. It is of much interest to note that in chapter 45:1, the Persian ruler Cyrus is named as the person of power who will overthrow the Babylonians and allow the return of Israel to their original land. The remaining chapters of the book contain prophecies of the future glory of Zion under the rule of a righteous servant (52 & 54). There is much complex prophecy about this servant that is written in a very poetic language. Although there is still the mention of judgment of false worshippers and idolaters (65 & 66), the book ends with a message of hope of a righteous ruler who extends salvation to his righteous subjects living in the Lord’s kingdom on earth.

Historical setting for Isaiah

Isaiah lived during the late 8th and early 9th centuries BCE, which was a difficult period in the history of Jerusalem. He was part of the upper class but urged care of the downtrodden. At the end, he was loyal to King Hezekiah, but disagreed with the King's attempts to forge alliances with Egypt and Babylon in response to the Assyrian threat. Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of four kings -- Uzziah (Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Legend has it that he was martyred during the reign of Manasseh, who came to the throne in 687 BCE. That he is described as having ready access to the kings would suggest an aristocratic origin. This was the time of the divided kingdom, with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. There was prosperity for both kingdoms during Isaiah’s youth with little foreign interference. Jeroboam II ruled in the north and Uzziah in the south. The small kingdoms of Palestine, as well as Syria, were under the influence of Egypt. However, in 745 BCE, Tiglath-pileser III came to the throne of Assyria. He was interested in Assyrian expansionism, especially to the west. Tiglath-pileser took Samaria and a lot of Galilee in 732. Shalmenezer V (727-722) and then, Sargon II (722-705) attacked Samaria. Samaria fell in 722, this marking the end of the Northern Kingdom of Israel forever, as its population was taken into exile and dispersed amongst Assyrian provinces. It is as a result of this exile that reference is made to Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Egypt recovered to a degree around the end of the century and Babylon exerted some independence as well. Because of this, Judah and other states rebelled against Assyria, only to have Sennacherib (705-681) invade and capture 46 Judean towns. Isaiah reports that Jerusalem was spared when God miraculously struck down the Assyrian army besieging it. The Syro-Ephraimite War: Because of the threat from Tiglath-pileser, the leaders of Syria and Israel tried to force Judah to ally with them around 734 BCE. Ahaz was on the throne of Judah then. He was advised by Isaiah to trust in the Lord, but, instead, he called to Assyria for help. Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria attacked Judah and inflicted damage on it before Assyria came to its aid, but there would be more serious religious consequences of Ahaz’s refusal to accept the Lord’s guidance through Isaiah. Fall of Syria and Samaria: Damascus, capital of Syria, was taken by the Assyrians in 732. Tiglath –pileser died in 727, raising false hopes for the Palestinian countries. Ahaz died a year later. Isaiah warned Philistia and the other countries not to revolt against Assyria. Hoshea, then king of Samaria, withheld tribute to Assyria. Consequently, Shalmenezer V laid siege to Samaria for 3 years, and his successor, Sargon II, took the city and deported 27,000 Israelites to northern parts of the Assyrian empire. There was peace in the area for 10 years or so , but then, Sargon returned in 711 to crush a coalition of Egypt and the Philistines. Judah had stayed out of this conflict, Hezekiah wisely listening to Isaiah’s advice. Hezekiah and Sennacherib: Sennacherib came to the throne of Assyria in 705. He had trouble immediately – with Ethiopian monarchs in Egypt and with the Babylonian leader, Merodach-Baladan. Despite Isaiah’s warnings, Hezekiah became involved as well. The Assyrians invaded the area, taking 46 towns before putting Jerusalem under siege. Isaiah persuaded Hezekiah to trust in the Lord and Jerusalem was spared. Babylon: Merodach-Baladan took power in Babylon in 721. Sargon entered Babylon without a fight in 711, but after Sargon’s death, Merodach-Baladan rebelled against Sennacherib. Babylon was defeated this time but would revive in another century to defeat Assyria and subjugate the Jews and destroy Jerusalem.

Themes

Jerusalem Isaiah is concerned with the connection between worship and ethical behavior. One of his major themes is God's refusal to accept the ritual worship of those who are treating others with cruelty and injustice. Isaiah speaks also of idolatry, which was common at the time. The Canaanite worship, which involved fertility rites, including sexual practices forbidden by Jewish law, had become popular among the Jewish people. Isaiah picks up on a theme used by other prophets and tells Judah that the nation of Israel is like a wife who is committing adultery, having run away from her true husband, God. An important theme is that God is the God of the whole earth. Many gods of the time were believed to be local gods or national gods who could participate in warfare and be defeated by each other. The concern of these gods was the protection of their own particular nations. Isaiah's God is a conceived as the only true god, and the god of all humankind, not just the Israelite nation. No one can defeat God; if God's people suffer defeat in battle, it is only because God chooses for that to happen. Furthermore, God is concerned with more than the Jewish people. God has called Judah and Israel His covenant people for the specific purpose of teaching the world about Him. A unifying theme found throughout the Book of Isaiah is the use of the expression of "the Holy One of Israel". This is a title for God that is found 12 times in chapters 1-39 and 14 times in chapters 40-66. This expression is unique within the Old Testament to the book of Isaiah which suggests that, although scholars believe that the book of Isaiah was written in various sections by different authors, the work was intended to be a unified body evidenced with the attention to literary consistency. A final thematic goal that Isaiah constantly leans toward throughout the writing is the establishment of God's kingdom on earth, with rulers and subjects to who strive to live by the will of God.

Scholarly issues

One of the most critically debated issues in Isaiah is the thought of more than a single author. Not many scholars will give more than three authors, dividing the sections as below. For those who hold the two-author hypothesis, the divide is at Isaiah 39. This seems to be the most widely held view - that Isaiah was written by two different prophets - one from the eighth century BCE, and the other from the post-exilic period. Still other scholars hold to a third division at Isaiah 55, saying that we have yet another later addition to the book of Isaiah. The objections to single authorship of the book of Isaiah are as follows: #Anonymity→ That is to say that Isaiah’s name is suddenly not used from chapter 40-66. #Style → There is a sudden change in the mood of the book from Isaiah after chapter 40. #Historical Situation → If this were one man, then he would have to have intimate knowledge of a time 150 years after his life. There are others who maintain the unity of Isaiah. They will quote Josephus as attributing both sections of the book of Isaiah to a single author. Another unifying theme found throughout the entire writing is the use of the expression of "the Holy One of Israel"; this is a title for Yahweh. As stated under themes, it occurs almost equally in both ‘sections’ of Isaiah. As well as this, 13.1-14.27 presents a very similar, but miniature, prophetic oracle to chapters 40-48. It is specifically headed as from Isaiah, son of Amoz, and the language abounds in expressions paralleled with chapters 1-39. These and other considerations have led most modern critical scholars to conclude that the book of Isaiah, in its present form, is the result of an extensive editing process, in which the promises of God's salvation are re-interpreted and claimed for the Judean people through the history of their exile and return to the land of Judah. Since it is probably useless to try to reconstruct a precise account of the history of the book's composition, Biblical scholars such as Brevard Childs have argued for reading the book as a literary unity. Current research is exploring the book's intertextuality, the allusions and references later editors made to connect the different layers of the book. Other scholars dispute these conclusions and argue for the unity of the composition of the book. They argue that the diversity of subjects treated and the peculiarities of the prophet's position at the time the prophecies were uttered can sufficiently account for the differences in style, theme, and language. They also argue that there is enough similarity in language and style, in thought and image and rhetorical ornament, throughout the book to support their position. Furthermore, when the Septuagint version was made (about 250 BC) the entire contents of the book were ascribed to Isaiah, the son of Amoz. In the time of Jesus the book existed in its present form. Many prophecies in the disputed portions are quoted in the New Testament as the words of Isaiah (Matthew 3:3; Luke 3:4-6; 4:16-41; John 12:38; Acts 8:28; Romans 10:16-21).

Use in the New Testament

Isaiah was quoted extensively by the authors of the New Testament. A selection of such quotations is discussed here.

Principal passages

One of the most famous quotations from Isaiah in the New Testament is the citation of Isa. 7:14 in Matt. 1:23. This passage is a prophecy about a "virgin" who shall bear a child. Matthew states that this passage refers to the birth of Jesus. Modern scholars believe that the prophecy originally referred to a young woman of Isaiah's own day, who was not necessarily a virgin, in modern terms; the context indicates that she would have her child within the year. Isaiah 61:6 is cited in 1 Peter 2:9. Isaiah prophesies that Israel will become a holy priesthood in which everyone serves the Lord. Peter applies this to the Christian Church. Romans 9:27-29, in discussing the history of Israel's relationship with God, quotes Isaiah 1:9 and Isaiah 10:22-23. Following that, in Romans 9:33, Paul refers to Isaiah 8:14 and 28:16, and applies them to Jesus, the precious stone over which Israel stumbles. Isaiah 6:9 is echoed in Matthew 13:14-15 and in Mark 4:12, where a reference to the telling of God's truth in stories, so that people will see but not see the point, and hear but not hear the meaning, is applied to Jesus, who was known for his parables, or stories which told God's truths. Isaiah 8:12 is cited in 1 Peter 3:14, as Peter counsels Christians to be unafraid, as Isaiah counselled the Jews who trusted God to be unafraid. In 1 Peter 1:24-25, asserting the enduring value of the Scriptures, Peter refers to Isaiah 40:6-8. In 1 Peter 2:6-8, he, like Paul, uses Isaiah 8:14 and 28:16 to refer to Jesus. Isaiah 8:17-18 are cited in Hebrews 2:13. Isaiah 9:1 is cited in Matthew 4:15-16, as Matthew applies the prophecy of a light shining to those in darkness to Jesus' ministry in the parts of the country described in the passage.

Additional passages

Some other Isaiah passages are listed below, with the comparable New Testament passage(s) following each one, indented and in italics. Is. 1:9 If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we would have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah. ::Rom. 9:29 And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left survivors to us, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.” Is. 6:9 And he said, “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’ ::Matt. 13:14, 15 With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.’ ::Mark 4:12 in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’” Is. 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. :Matt. 1:23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” Is. 8:12 Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what it fears, or be in dread. ::1Pet. 3:14, 15 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; Is. 8:14 He will become a sanctuary, a stone one strikes against; for both houses of Israel he will become a rock one stumbles over—a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ::Rom. 9:33 as it is written, “See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” Is. 8:17 I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. ::Heb. 2:13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Here am I and the children whom God has given me.” Is. 9:1 ¶ But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. ::Matt. 4:15, 16 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of theGentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” Is. 10:22 For though your people Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. ::Rom. 9:27, 28 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.” Is. 11:10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. ::Rom. 15:12 and again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles shall hope.” Is. 13:10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. ::Matt. 24:29 “Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Is. 21:9 Look, there they come, riders, horsemen in pairs!” Then he responded, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground.” ::Rev. 18:2 He called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul and hateful bird, a haunt of every foul and hateful beast. Is. 22:13 but instead there was joy and festivity, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating meat and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” ::1Cor. 15:32 If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Is. 25:8 Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. ::1Cor. 15:54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” ::Rev. 7:17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Is. 26:19 Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead. ::Matt. 11:5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. ::Luke 7:22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. Is. 28:11 Truly, with stammering lip and with alien tongue he will speak to this people, ::1 Cor. 14:21 In the law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people; yet even then they will not listen to me,” says the Lord. Is. 28:16 therefore thus says the Lord GOD, See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: “One who trusts will not panic.” ::Rom. 9:33 as it is written, “See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” ::Rom. 10:11 The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” Is. 29:10 For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep; he has closed your eyes, you prophets, and covered your heads, you seers. ::Rom.11:8 as it is written, “God gave them a slow spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” Is. 29:13 The Lord said: Because these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote; ::Matt. 15:8, 9 ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’” ::Mark 7:6, 7 He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ Is. 29:14 so I will again do amazing things with this people, shocking and amazing. The wisdom of their wise shall perish, and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden. ::1Cor. 1:19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Is. 29:16 You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay? Shall the thing made say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of the one who formed it, “He has no understanding”? ::Rom. 9:20 But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?” Is. 52:5 Now therefore what am I doing here, says the LORD, seeing that my people are taken away without cause? Their rulers howl, says the LORD, and continually, all day long, my name is despised. ::Rom. 2:24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” Is. 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” ::Rom. 10:15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Is. 52:11 Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of it, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the LORD. ::2 Cor. 6:17 Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclea