Esarhaddon Succession Treaty
Treaty at Tell Tayinat
Ancient Near East
Whoever changes, neglects, violates, or voids the oath of this tablet and transgresses against the father, the lord, and the adê of the great gods and breaks their entire oath, or whoever discards this adê-tablet, a tablet of Aššur, king of the gods, and the great gods, my lords, or whoever removes the statue of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, the statue of Assurbanipal, the great crown prince designate, or the statues of his brothers and his sons which are over him—you will guard like your god this sealed tablet of the great ruler on which is written the adê of Assurbanipal, the great crown prince designate, the son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, your lord, which is sealed with the seal of Aššur, king of the gods, and which is set up before you. May Aramiš, lord of the city and land of Qarnê and lord of the city and land of Azaʾi, fill you with green water. May Adad and Šāla of Kurbaʾil create piercing pain and ill health everywhere in your land. May Šarrat-Ekron make a worm fall from your insides. Just as a shoot is ... and seeds and the sikkitu of beer are placed within, and just as these seeds do not sprout, and the sikkitu of beer does not turn to its …, may your name, your seed, and the seed of your brothers and your sons completely disappear from the face of the earth.
Date: 672 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Deuteronomy 9:14
Hebrew Bible
13 Moreover, he said to me, “I have taken note of these people; they are a stubborn lot! 14 Stand aside and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are.” 15 So I turned and went down the mountain while it was blazing with fire; the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Notes and References
"... Noteworthy are the iconic and textual associations in the golden calf narrative when Moses beseeches YHWH to forgive Israel for making “gods of gold” and, if not, to “blot me out from the document that you wrote.” The root mḥh, here translated as “blot out,” appears elsewhere in the West semitic corpus in reference to inscription effacement, as, for example, in the reciprocal curse against text effacement in the ʾAḥirom sarcophagus (“may his inscription be effaced”). These observations recall a wider range of biblical traditions concerning the “blotting out” of names and memories of people and places (Exodus 17:14; Deuteronomy 25:19; 2 Kings 14:27; 2 Kings 21:13; Psalm 9:6; Deuteronomy 29:19; Deuteronomy 9:14; Deuteronomy 25:6; Judges 21:17; Psalm 109:13; Psalm 69:29). This same root mḥh also appears in Numbers 5:23 in the context of the ritual ordeal for the accused adulteress, in which written curses are “blotted off” into water and then given to the suspected adulteress to drink ..."
May, Natalie Naomi
Iconoclasm and Text Destruction in the Ancient Near East and Beyond
(pp. 333-334) The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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