Summary: After a decade of research, the first-of-its-kind “monumental” inscription about King Hezekiah has been deciphered, giving further credibility to the Bible and its historical accounts.
As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? Hezekiah rested with his ancestors. And Manasseh, his son, succeeded him as king.
– 2 Kings 20:20a (NIV)
Inscription Finally Deciphered After Ten Years
After a decade of research, Israeli archeologists have deciphered an 8th century BC inscription found on a palm size stone tablet. The artifact was discovered during excavations at Jerusalem’s City of David National Park in 2007 but wasn’t officially deciphered until recently.
The inscription references King Hezekiah and his accomplishments, paralleling the biblical passage in 2 Kings 20. Hezekiah is noted several times throughout the Bible in regard to the construction of pools and tunnels and the discovery of the inscribed stone was made at just such a “pool” location in the Gihon Spring area. Hezekiah is also noted as doing “what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done” (2 Chron. 29:2).
The limestone fragment was found by Eli Shukron and Ronny Reich near a man-made pool in the Siloam tunnel within a refuse pile filled with pottery shards dating to the 8th century BC, as well as dirt and stones. Up until an announcement in October, a decisive connection had not been made between the inscription, King Hezekiah and the pool by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
Old Hebrew Script
The small but significant stone fragment measures about 5.3 inches long by 3.8 inches wide. There are two lines of writing containing six letters inscribed in Old Hebrew script.
The three letters of the first line of the inscription, (z)q y h, are part of a single word which has been reconstructed as:
ח]זקיה] / [H]zqyh / [He]zekiah.
The initial letter h/ח is missing. Note that Hebrew is read from right to left and doesn’t contain vowels.
The first word of the second line includes the two letters kh and is reconstructed as:
ב]רכה] / [br]kh / bricha (berecha) or pool in English.
Again, the initial letter is broken off. Then, there is a dot that follows and a third letter. The dot was used to separate words so the third letter is the start of a new word.
Prof. Gershon Galil, head of the Institute for Biblical Studies and Ancient History at Haifa University, and Eli Shukron, from the Bible and Ancient History research institute have concluded the full inscription was:
“Hezekiah made the pool in Jerusalem.”
A parallel passage found in 2 Kings 20:20 reads:
“As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city…” (NIV)
Since the news of this discovery, epigrapher Dr. Peter van der Veen of Germany’s Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz has pointed out that in 2009 he came to a similar conclusion about Hezekiah’s identification on the inscription. However, because the publication was in German (“König Hiskia in einer neuen Inschrift aus Jerusalem?” in the 2009 Studium Integrale Journal 16, pp. 51-52), it did not become widely known in other circles.
How Does This Discovery Change Things?
Experts believe that the broken stone was once a part of a monumental inscription written on a large public building.
“This is an extremely important discovery that changes [some basic assumptions of] research, since until today it was commonly accepted that the kings of Israel and Judah, unlike the kings of the ancient Middle East, did not make themselves royal inscriptions and monuments… to commemorate their achievements,” said Galil.
“The Israeli kings were indeed mentioned in extra-biblical Assyrian, Babylonian, Aramaic, Moabite inscriptions as well as on Hebrew seal impressions,” added Galil, “but this is the first time that a fragment of a monumental Hebrew royal inscription has been deciphered that mentions the name of the king whose achievements were detailed in it.”
“The discovery strengthens the approach of researchers who emphasize the reliability of the Bible, since it teaches that right in front of the eyes of the Bible’s authors stood monuments with royal inscriptions… [engraved at the very] time of the kings mentioned in the Bible,” he continued.
According to Eli Shukron, the archeologist in charge of the dig, “Hezekiah’s inscription also supports the assumption that additional inscriptions from Jerusalem were composed in Hezekiah’s time by the same scribes, including other inscriptions found in the City of David National Park.”
Several additional written artifacts from that era, and others still to be found, will now be looked at in a new light because of this discovery.
Links to Other Inscriptions
This “new” inscription has been linked with a fragment found further south of the Gihon Spring in 1978 by famous archaeologist Yigal Shiloh. The same type of limestone and lettering are used on both inscriptions. This text fragment includes the word “seventeen/seventeenth” which may connect to the “new” inscription and reference Hezekiah’s seventeenth year of reign in 709 BC. Hezekiah reigned for a total of 29 years (2 Kings 18:2).
The shape of the letters also closely resembles the letters of the Siloam Inscription discovered in Hezekiah’s Tunnel. The Siloam Inscription describes how the tunnel was constructed by digging from opposite ends and meeting in the middle. The tunnel was built to carry water into the city so that the attacking Assyrians led by Sennacherib could not cut off Jerusalem’s water supply.
Archeological Evidence for King Hezekiah
Evidence for the biblical accounts of King Hezekiah have been found before in other archeological excavations as well. During an excavation in 2017 at Tel Lachish National Park, 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem, archeologists found the remains of an ancient altar dated to the time of Hezekiah. The prosperous, ancient city of Lachish is mentioned at least two dozen times in the Bible and was destroyed around 700 BC by the Assyrians.
Archeologists uncovered an altar’s horns that had been purposefully cut off, possibly during Hezekiah’s reign because of his religious reform. The book of 2 Kings says, “[Hezekiah] removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles” (18:4 NIV).
Sa’ar Ganor, the director of the Lachish excavation, explained in a statement that “it is most interesting that the horns on the altar were intentionally truncated. That is probably evidence of the religious reform attributed to King Hezekiah, whereby religious worship was centralized in Jerusalem and the cultic high places that were built outside the capital were destroyed.”
“Before our very eyes these new finds become the biblical verses themselves and speak in their voice,” added Ze’ev Elkin, the Minister of Jerusalem and Heritage and Environmental Protection.
Archaeologists also uncovered a stone toilet purposely placed in one of the chambers at the gate of Lachish. Most likely it was put there to defile the former altar, in the same way Jehu desecrated a Baal temple by turning it into a public bathroom, according to the biblical account found in 2 Kings 10:27. “They demolished the sacred stone of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal, and people have used it for a latrine to this day.”
In 2015, the first seal impression (or bulla) found by archaeologists bearing the name of a king from Israel or Judah was discovered in Jerusalem. Coming in at just over a centimeter in diameter, it made big waves in the field of archaeology. The seal inscribed with King Hezekiah’s name was revealed by wet sifting material found in a dump pile next to a 10th century BC royal building at the base of the southern wall of the Temple Mount. Seals on rings or necklaces were often used to impress insignia into soft clay to secure the strings binding rolls of documents or to mark trade goods.
The team headed by the late Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem translated the 8th century BC Hebrew inscription to read: “Belonging to Hezekiah [son of] Ahaz king of Judah.”
Jerusalem’s Violent History Affects Remains
Throughout history, Jerusalem has been one of the most attacked, demolished, reconstructed and re-demolished cities on Earth and this has directly affected the preservation of remains. Researchers suggest that this “new” inscription could have been broken purposefully as a result of damnatio memoriae (Latin for “condemnation of memory”). This was a common practice of rulers who opposed their predecessors.
Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, succeeded him as king but rejected his father’s worship of God during the first part of his reign. He is described as doing “more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites” (2 Kings 21:9b).
He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. He built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put my Name.” In the two courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced divination, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord. – 1 Kings 21:3-6
It wouldn’t be a far-fetched notion that Manasseh also destroyed his father’s monumental inscription.
Conclusion
The deciphering of this stone inscription bearing the name of Hezekiah is exciting news for Bible believers who are often confronted by skeptical scholars claiming that only minimal evidence has been found for biblical accounts. The more archeological discoveries made, the more the Bible stands up as a trustworthy, historical document. Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Fragment of ancient inscription found in Jerusalem, now deciphered to be honoring King Hezekiah’s accomplishments. (credit: Israel Antiquities Authority)
