Blotting Out

In ancient Near Eastern treaties, the language of "blotting out" a name or memory was a formal, formulaic expression signaling total judgment and irreversible removal from existence or covenantal status. This phrasing appears across a wide range of treaty and legal literature, where the threat of name erasure served both as a curse against violators and as a warning to others. The Hebrew Bible preserves this formulaic usage in several texts, where divine judgment or covenantal breaches result in the "blotting out" of individuals, peoples, or even entire nations, aligning closely with broader ancient Near Eastern traditions of legal and ritual language. The concept became so important for the authors of the Hebrew Bible that the terminology began to become incorporated in places where it may not seem obvious or where no literal covenant is in context.