Ancient Near Eastern Treaties Compared to Deuteronomy

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN TREATIES COMPARED TO DEUTERONOMY

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A Paper Submitted to Dr. John Meade Phoenix Seminary Phoenix, Arizona

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In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for BL502 – Survey of the Pentateuch

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by Andrew Harshman September 29th, 2015

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN TREATIES COMPARED TO DEUTERONOMY

Comparison of Outlines Treaty Between Suppiluliuma I of Hatti and Shattiwaza of Mittanni (A) Preamble §1, lines 1-2 Historical Introduction §16 Succession §7

Friendship and Alliance §8

Fugitives §9

Frontiers §10

Mutual Relations of Subordinates §11-12

Treaty Between Mursili II of Hatti and TuppiTeshshup of Amurru (B) Preamble §1

Treaty Between Muwattalli II of Hatti and Alaksandu of Wilus (C)

Treaty between Yahweh and the Israelites in Deuteronomy (D)

The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon (E)

Preamble §1

Preamble 1:1-1:5

Preamble 1-12

Historical Introduction §2-4 Mutual Loyalty; Tribute §5 Loyalty against Egypt §6 Offensive Alliance §7 Defensive Alliance §8-9 Relations of Subordinate to Agents of Great King §10 Fugitives §11

Historical Introduction §2-4 Succession §510

Historical Introduction 1:63:29 Mutual Loyalty 4:140

Divine Witnesses 13-40

Appeal of Royal Command §12 Fugitives (cont.) §13-15

Succession 41-61 One-sided Loyalty 62-107

Defensive Alliance §5-10 Offensive Alliance §11 Rumors §12-13

Offensive Alliance 7:1-26

Relations among Subordinates; Relations of Subordinate to Agents of Great King §14

Frontiers/Boundaries Revolts 162-211 12:22-32

Fugitives §15

Fugitives 19:1-13

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Relations of Israelites to Yahweh 11:1-32

Rumors 108-161

Rumors 13:1-18

Loyalty to King’s family line 212-376

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Deposition of Treaty §13a

Divine Witnesses of Hatti §13b Divine Witnesses of Mittanni §14 Curses §15 Blessings §16

Reading of Treaty Tablet §16 Divine Witnesses §1620

Divine Witnesses §1720

Curse §21 Blessing §22 Colophons

Curse §21a Blessing §21b Colophon

Deposition, Observing, and Knowing the Treaty 26:16-27:8 Levitical priests as Witnesses 27:9-26

Observing and Continuing the Treaty 377-413

Blessings 28:1-14 Curses 28:15-68

Curses 414-663 Colophon

The Hittite Treaties Compared to Deuteronomy These three Hittite treaties are from King Suppiluliuma I who reigned from 1344-1322 BC, his son, King Mursili II who reigned from 1321-1295 BC, and his son, King Muwattalli II who reigned from 1295-1272 BC.1 They all are very similar in length and literary structure to each other and have much in common with Deuteronomy.2 All four suzerain treaties, A-D, begin with a preamble stating who is making the treaty followed by a section on the historical background to the treaty being made. The next section is different. Treaties A and C have a section dealing with kingly succession while B and D instead have a section concerned with mutual loyalty of the lord and his subjects. An explanation why succession isn’t in Deuteronomy may be that there is no need because Yahweh isn’t like the earthly kings. He is their God. Having a section concerned with the loyalty of Yahweh to his people is a good replacement for the section dealing with kingly succession. The fourth section of these treaties convey how the lords are going to interact with the nations around them. This concerns the alliances that will be made, offensive attacks,

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For convenience, the treaties in the chart have all been labeled A-E and color coated.

Deuteronomy is much longer than treaties A,B,C, and E. For this reason, only the sections of Deuteronomy that had similarities to sections in the other treaties were put into the outline.

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and defensive plans. Deuteronomy only focuses on offensive attacks. The Israelites don’t have a nation of their own yet so they are not in a position to make alliances with other nations nor do they have a need for defensive plans. Their goal is to cross into the land of Canaan and be on the offensive attack. The next four sections concern the relation of the lords to their subjects, frontiers/boundaries of their land, rumors/treasonous acts against the lord/nation, and fugitives in the land. Each section occurs in Deuteronomy even though they differ in order from some of the Hittite treaties and each Hittite treaty has three of the four sections. Treaties A-D all have the sections on the relation of the lord to his subjects and fugitives in the land in common. Treaty A doesn’t include the section on rumors/treasonous acts; B and C are missing the section on frontiers/boundaries of the land. In Deuteronomy, not all of these sections are right up against each other. The relation of the Yahweh to the Israelites, the boundaries of their land, and rumors/treasonous acts all occur fairly close to each other in Ch. 11-13 but the section on fugitives isn’t until Ch. 19. The reason that this gap that isn’t in the Hittite treaties could be due to the fact that Deuteronomy is longer than the Hittite treaties and also because it covers topics in Ch. 14-18 that aren’t in the Hittite treaties. The last five sections are fairly similar in treaties A-D. They are deposition/reading/observing/knowing the treaty by the subjects, witnesses, curses, blessings, and the colophon. All the treaties except for B give instructions on how to continue the treaty. The people are to deposit it, write it down, read it, know it, or a combination of these four instructions. Each treaty has multiple witnesses to the treaty. In the Hittite treaties, the witnesses are the gods; in Yahweh’s treaty, the witnesses consist of Moses and the Levitical priests speaking for Yahweh to the whole nation of Israel. This is different from the other treaties

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because the Israelites were monotheists, only believing on one God, Yahweh. If they weren’t, instead of having the Levitical priests speak on behalf of Yahweh, this would have been the perfect place for other God’s or the divine council to show up. The three Hittite treaties start with curses and move to blessings. The treaty Yahweh makes with the Israelites starts with the blessings and moves to the curses. It should be noted though that all four treaties have blessings, something that is common in second millennium treaties, while the Esarhaddon Treaty excludes them.

The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon Compared to Deuteronomy Esarhaddon was king of Assyria from 681-669 BC. This suzerain treaty has similarities to Deuteronomy and the Hittite treaties in its literary structure. It also has the most differences of the five treaties. It begins with a preamble which is more like the preamble in Deuteronomy in style and length but it is not followed by a section with any historical background like treaties AD. Instead, the divine witness section follows it. This is out of order from the other four treaties which all place the divine witnesses towards the end, before the curses and blessings. Next comes the section on kingly succession which matches treaties A and C followed by a section on loyalty which matches B and D. The difference though between the loyalty sections in B and D and the loyalty section here is that the loyalty is mutual between the lord and his subjects in B and D. The lords and their subjects give each other mutual loyalty. In E, the loyalty is only onesided; the subjects are expected to be loyal to the king but there is no mention of the king being loyal to his subjects. In the next three sections on rumors, revolts, and loyalty to the king’s family line, only rumors is in B-D. Deuteronomy and the A-C Hittite treaties don’t cover topics concerning revolts and loyalty to the king’s family line.

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The end of the Esarhaddon treaty is similar to treaties A-D but is also missing some sections that the others treaties include. It is similar in that is has a section on how the subjects can observe and continue in following the treaty, curses, and a colophon. It is different in that it has already included a section on divine witnesses which was put towards the front of the treaty and it is lacking any blessings for the people who follow the treaty. The lack of blessings is consistent with the fact that throughout the rest of the treaty, there isn’t any attention given of the king’s response towards his people. This treaty is completely one-sided and doesn’t include any actions of the king towards his faithful subjects. It only focuses on the curses that will occur to the unfaithful subjects who don’t follow the treaty. It is interesting to note that the section on curses in this treaty is much more like the curses in Deuteronomy than the Hittite treaties. It is longer like Deuteronomy and includes many of the same types of curses. While for some, this is evidence that Deuteronomy borrowed from this treaty, it must be remembered that the Law Code of Hammurabi also has many of the same curses as Esarhaddon and Deuteronomy and was written around the 18th century BC. The curses in Hammurabi are just as long and share many similarities with both Esarhaddon and Deuteronomy. Just because Deuteronomy and Esarhaddon share similarities in curses doesn’t mean that Deuteronomy borrowed its material from Esarhaddon.

Conclusion It seems that there are many similarities in Ancient Near Eastern suzerain treaties from the second and first millennium BC but that there are also many differences. It’s these kind of studies that are done to help determine when Deuteronomy should be dated. While the goal of the paper was to compare these five treaties, it does have implications on the date of Deuteronomy. Since Deuteronomy shares many more similarities in literary structure and the

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topics it addresses with the Hittite treaties than the Esarhaddon treaty, this should be considered as evidence that Deuteronomy is more likely to have been written sometime in the mid to late second millennium BC than in the middle of the first millennium BC. It’s because of the similarities and differences in these treaties that people are able to get a better understanding of the context in which the Bible was written. This ultimately results in a better understanding of how Yahweh has worked with his people and has implications on how he is still working with them.