The Lachish letters — "we are watching for the signals of Lachish"
Letters from the last weeks of Judah, found in the ash of the gate they were written in, name the two cities Jeremiah names — one of them apparently already dark.
Confirmé par le terrainInscriptionc. 588 BC
Military dispatches written in ink on potsherds, found in the burnt debris of the gate. Letter IV reports watching for the fire-signals of Lachish "because we cannot see Azekah". Jeremiah, writing in the same months, says the king of Babylon's army was fighting against Jerusalem, Lachish and Azekah — "for these defenced cities remained."
We are watching for the fire-signals of Lachish, according to all the signs which my lord has given, for we cannot see Azekah.
- Découvert
- The gate guardroom at Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir), Israel, 1935 — James Starkey's excavation
- Conservé à
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem; British Museum, London
- Langue
- Hebrew
- Comment il nous est parvenu
- Fouillé, ou encore debout là où il fut bâti.
Ce qu'elle montre
The letters name no biblical figure with certainty. What they show is the situation Jeremiah describes, in the right place, at the right moment.
Ce qu'en font les historiens
One of the largest corpora of pre-exilic Hebrew prose; standard in the study of Hebrew epigraphy and of the Babylonian campaign.
Dans l'Écriture
Se rattache à
Sources
- Torczyner, Lachish I: The Lachish Letters (1938)
Ces textes sont pour l'instant en anglais. Les traductions suivront.