Panamuwa Inscription
Ancient Near East
My father, Panamuwa— Because of the loyalty of his father, the gods of Ya’di delivered him from destruction which was in the house of his father. And the god Hadad stood with him. He set his throne. He destroyed the house of his father. He killed his father Barṣūr and seventy brothers of his father. But my father mounted a chariot and ruled. He pierced Panamuwa. He filled the prisons. He made ruined cities more numerous than inhabited ones.
Date: 733 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Judges 1:7
Hebrew Bible
6 When Adoni-Bezek ran away, they chased him and captured him. Then they cut off his thumbs and big toes. 7 Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, with thumbs and big toes cut off, used to lick up food scraps under my table. God has repaid me for what I did to them.” They brought him to Jerusalem, where he died. 8 The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem and captured it. They put the sword to it and set the city on fire.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
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Notes and References
"... Just as his numerous progeny and donkeys are indicative of royal behavior (see above), the number seventy in 12:14 may carry the same connotation. The number seventy frequently occurs as a figure of speech in royal contexts in both the Hebrew Bible (compare Judges 1:7; 8:30; 9:2, 5, 18, 24, 56; 2 Kings 10:1, 6–7) and ancient Near Eastern texts. (See the Ba'lu Myth and the Panamuwa Inscription as well as the partially reconstructed lacunae of the Zakkur Stele and the Tel Dan stele) Therefore, it may be more than coincidental that the total number for the years of service by the minor judges (i.e. 23 + 22 + 7 + 10 + 8 in the Masoretic Text) comes to no more or less than seventy ..."
Way, Kenneth C.
The Meaning of the Minor Judges: Understanding the Bible's Shortest Stories
(pp. 275-85) JETS 61/2, 2018
* 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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