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In the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon, oath-breakers are cursed to the dishonor of lying unburied, their corpses eaten by dogs and pigs. In 2 Samuel, Rizpah keeps birds and wild animals away from her executed sons' bodies to prevent the same fate.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
The Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon §56
Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty (SAA 2 6)
Ancient Near East, Assyrian
472 May all the grea[t go]ds of heaven and earth who inhabit the universe and are mentioned by name in this tablet, strike you, look at you in anger and curse you grimly with a painful curse. 476 Above, may they take possession of your life; below, in the netherworld, may they make your ghost thirst for water. May shade and daylight always chase you away, and may you not find refuge in a hidden cor[ner]. May food and water abandon you; may want and famine, hunger and plague never be removed from you. 481 Before your very eyes may dogs and swine drag the teats of your young women and the penises of your young men to and fro in the squares of Assur; may the earth not receive your corpses but may your burial place be in the belly of a dog or a pig. 485 May your days be dark and your years dim, may darkness which is not to be brightened be declared as your fate. May your life end in exha[ustion and slee]plessness. 488 May an irresistible flood come up from the earth and devastate you; may anything good be forbidden to you, anything ill be your share; may tar and pitch be your food; may urine of an ass be your drink, may naphtha be your ointment, may duckweed be your covering. May demon, devil and evil spirit select your houses.
2 Samuel 21:10
Hebrew Bible
8 So the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah whom she had born to Saul, and the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab whom she had born to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite. 9 He turned them over to the Gibeonites, and they executed them on a hill before the Lord. The seven of them died together; they were put to death during harvest time—during the first days of the beginning of the barley harvest. 10 Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest until the rain fell on them, she did not allow the birds of the air to feed on them by day, nor the wild animals by night. 11 When David was told what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, Saul’s concubine, had done, 12 he went and took the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan from the leaders of Jabesh Gilead. (They had secretly taken them from the plaza at Beth Shan. It was there that Philistines publicly exposed their corpses after they had killed Saul at Gilboa.) 13 David brought the bones of Saul and of Jonathan his son from there; they also gathered up the bones of those who had been executed. 14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the grave of his father Kish. After they had done everything that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers for the land.
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Notes and References
“... The description of Rizpah ensuring that the decaying corpses of her two sons and Saul's five grandsons are kept intact (21:10) is quite shocking to present-day readers, but the same episode was certainly gruesome for the ancient Israelites as well. Rizpah keeps away the birds during the day and the animals at night to prevent the dead bodies of her relatives from being eaten. Biblical as well as extra-biblical evidence illustrates how horrifying the fate of the seven men was considered. [...] Similar curses also occur in other ancient Near Eastern texts, for instance in the Succession Treaty of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (681–669 bce): "may he (Ninurta or Palil) let eagle and vulture (?) eat your flesh" (§41, §59); "may dogs and swine eat your flesh" (§47); "may the earth not receive your corpses; may your burial place be in the belly of dog and pigs" (§56). Such curses explain Rizpah's tenacity, as described in the biblical story. ...”
* 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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