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July 3, 2007

Here's to a Life Full of Length of Days

The other day I discussed a Hebrew epigraphic text from Kuntillet Ajrud. In that post, I dealt with a minor but potentially important point of grammar. However, that point of grammar is not the most interesting thing about Kuntillet Ajrud 7. As I said then, it contains some traditional language. While there are variations on this traditional language, the basic elements are "filled" with "days" and some times "lengthen days" or "length of days." But there are many closely related examples that do not use the verb of "fill." Assuming there was a standard formulation of the expression it is hard to know exactly what it was and the assumption itself is questionable. Zevit, 374, following others, points to one form of this traditional language in his study of Ajrud 7. I thought I'd take a look the subject myself.

I will start my review with the two lines of the Kuntillet Ajrud 7 text and then look at a few examples from the Hebrew Bible. Then I will look at letter in Ugaritic, a Phoenician text from Karatepe, an Aramaic text from Nerab and a few Akkadian examples. These Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic and Akkadian examples all contain important elements of the traditional expression but without the verb "fill."

[If you see squares, rectangles or something else that doesn't look right, please install the Charis SIL font.]

Ajrud 7
(I follow Zevit, 373, which differs from Gogel, 413, in several important ways)

1) t]ʾrk . ymm wyšbʿw[ . wy]tnww . l[y]hwh [.] tymn . wl[ ] ʾšrt[
]lengthen days and they will be filled [and they] will give to [Y]HWH Teiman and to Asherat[

2) ] hyțh . yhwh . b˹t˺y[mn ]
] do good, YHWH in Tei[man]

I'm not sure we need to reconstruct the t at the beginning of line 1. If not, I would simply read "length of days" as in Psalm 91:16 and the Ugaritic, Phoenician and Akkadian examples below. (Oh yeah, the association of "length of days" and "filled" may not even be the most interesting thing about Kuntillet Ajrud 7. The uninitiated may have noticed that YHWH and Asherat are mentioned together. And this is not the only place where you find them mentioned together. But that is a post for another day.)

If you have doubt about the close relationship here between "lengthen days" (or just "length of days") and "they will be filled" (or with their meaning), check out the following examples from the Hebrew Bible. Of these Psalm 91:16 is the closed match to Kuntillet Ajrud 7. I present it first followed by a few other examples.

Psalm 91:16
אֹרֶךְ יָמִים אַשְׂבִּיעֵהוּ וְאַרְאֵהוּ בִּישׁוּעָתִי
(With) length of days I will fill them and show them my salvation.

Genesis 35:29a
וַיִּגְוַע יִצְחָק וַיָּמָת וַיֵּאָסֶף אֶל-עַמָּיו זָקֵן וּשְׂבַע יָמִים
And Isaac perished; he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days.

Compare this with Genesis 25:8 on the death of Abraham. Many interpreters read, "full of years" in Genesis 25:8. But some manuscripts, the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) and a few other ancient versions read "full of days."

Job 42:17
וַיָּמָת אִיּוֹב זָקֵן וּשְׂבַע יָמִים
And Job died old and full of days.

I Chronicles 29:28a
וַיָּמָת בְּשֵׂיבָה טוֹבָה שְׂבַע יָמִים עֹשֶׁר וְכָבוֹד
And he [David] died at a good old age, full of days, riches and honor.

Now let's take a look at part of the Ugarit letter, KTU 2.23, with an eye to Kuntillet Ajrud 7 and Psalm 91:16. I start at the end of line 18 and continue through line 25

Ugaritic KTU 2.23:18b-25
. . . a]rš
I] ask

l . pn bʿ[l . ] ṣpn, bʿly
before Ba'a[l] Saphon, my lord,

w . urk . ym . bʿly
for length of the days of my lord

l. pn . amn . w . l . pn
before Amon and before

il . mṣrm . dt . tģrn
the gods of Egypt who protect

npš . špš [ . ] mlk
the soul of the Sun, the great [] king,

rb . bʿly
my lord.

Notice urk . ym . bʿly, "length of days of my lord," in line 20. While we do not see the verb *ŠBʿ we do see the equation between "length of days" and old age. The lines preceding line 18 are badly broken. However, it appears that the section immediately before KTU 2:23:18b-25 also begins with arš, "I ask" (line 16), and ends with ḥy npš, "living soul" (or something like that), at the beginning of line 18. Long ago, Dahood, 174-175, noted the "parallel" usage of ḥy in KTU 2.23:18 and urk . ym in KTU 2.23:20 and similar "parallel" usages in Psalms 21:5 (21:4 in most translations), Psalm 23:6, Deuteronomy 30:20 and Proverbs 3:2. I put "parallel" in quotes because "parallel" is a technical term when applied to certain Semitic poetry, but KTU 2.23 is clearly not poetry and the Deuteronomy 30:20 is likely best understood as prose or at least not poetry in the technical sense.

KTU 2.23:18b-25 and presumably the preceding section are narrative reports of prayers for the life of the Sun, the great king, meaning here the Pharaoh of Egypt. In the case of KTU 2.23:18b-25 the prayer is addressed to Ba'al Saphon. Did the originator of this letter actually offer these prayers? Who knows? He surely wants the Pharaoh to think that he did.

The Karatepe Bilingual Inscriptions
Another example of "length of days" meaning "long life" comes from the Phoenician portion of the Karatepe bilingual inscriptions. These once nearly identical inscriptions are from the 8th century BCE or there about. In other words, they date to within a century of the Kuntillet Ajrud texts. But Karatepe, in south central Turkey, is about 470 miles as the crow flies to the north of Kuntillet Ajrud, which is in the northern Sinai desert. I will use the A instantiation of the Karatepe inscription (KAI 26A). KAI 26 A iii 4b-6 reads, "May Baal KRNTRYŠ and all the gods of the city (give to) Azitiwada length of days (ארך ימם), and great (many) years, and domination(?), and powerful strength above every king!" These words are part of a "benediction" or blessing expressing desire for the well being of the rebuilt city and its builder king. They follow instructions for a yearly celebration ritual commemorating the refounding of city. The complete "benediction" or blessing, of which KAI 26 A iii 4b-6 is only a part, is followed by a curse against any king who would pull down the gate upon which the inscription is written.

An Aramaic Inscription from Nerab
Certainly related to these examples is KAI 226, an Aramaic inscription from Nerab southeast of Aleppo. This inscription may be from the 7th century BCE. Line 3 reads,

שמני שם טב והארך יומי
He gave me a good name and lengthened my days

Here we have a verbal expression that clearly means "gave me a long life." Job 29:18 is another example of the use of ארך as a verb (אַרְבֶּה יָמִים).

A Moment to Reflect
Like is so often the case, we have an group of cognate expressions, some examples of which are older than the Amarna age (see below), that are still in use in the 8th century BCE, low chronology, at Ajrud 7 and at about the same time at Karatepe and still seen in some passages from the Hebrew Bible (Chronicles 29:28, to pick an example that should not arouse too much controversy) that most scholars consider "late."

Akkadian Usage
However, how the "lengths of days" idiom came into Hebrew may be far more complicated than one might infer from what I have written so far. The expression ūmū arkūtu, "long days," meaning a long life also occurs in Akkadian. In an Old Babylonian text, we read ūmū arkūtum, "long days," "a long life" in contrast to ūmū iṣûtum "few days," "short life." And on a Middle Babylonian (Assyrian?) building inscription we read, "May he (Marduk) grant long days to my lord (bēlija ūmū arkūtu) Aššur-uballit." Notice that this passage also appears in the form of a prayer for long life. Compare this with urk . ym . bʿly in KTU 2:23:20. Many scholars believe that some or all of letters written in Ugaritic are translations from Akkadian. The use of ūmū arkūtu to mean a long life continues into Neo-Babylonian/Assyrian times. (Note: I have not as yet checked out the actual Akkadian texts. I do plan to the next time I am at UCLA's library. The examples above are from CAD A part II, 285.)

A Final Worry
So is "long days" meaning "a long life" such a universal usage that we should expect it just about anywhere? I think the answer is no. While I have only taken a very cursory look as Sumerian and Egyptian usage, I have not found any examples. I plan to look more systematically as a background activity. If you know of any, please let me know. I also tried to find such a usage in classical Greek. Using Jones and McKenzie (aka Liddell and Scott), I looked up μακρος and μηκος (length) and several derivatives. I looked for occasions where one of these was associated with ημερα (day) or the like. One can see such an association in the LXX translations of some of the Biblical passages cited above. But, while μηκος was used in the context of time, I found no cases where μηκος, etc, was used in connection with ημερα (ημερων) to mean "long life" in Classical Greek. I do not currently have the capability of searching the TLG Canon of Greek Authors and Works database so I may well have missed something.

So here's to your lengthened days.

References:

Posted by Duane Smith at July 3, 2007 9:23 AM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |

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