A beautiful 2,700-year-old stone seal was recently unearthed near the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount in excavations in the Davidson Archaeological Garden. The black stone seal depicts a winged figure and bears the Paleo-Hebrew inscription “LeYehoʼezer ben Hoshʼayahu.” It has a hole drilled through it from top to bottom so that it could be attached to a chain or worn around one’s neck. The spectacular winged figure contrasts with the inscription, which is relatively sloppy. Scholars hypothesize that the seal once belonged to an important figure in the courts of the kingdom of Judah named Hoshʼayahu and that upon his death, his son, LeYehoʼezer, inscribed his name and his father’s on it. These names appear in the Bible: in 1 Chronicles 12:6, Joezer/Yo’ezer (an abbreviated form of Yeho-ezer) is listed as one of David’s mighty men, and in Jeremiah 43:2, Azariah son of Hoshʼaya (a shortened form of Hoshʼayahu) is one of the insolent men who accuses the prophet Jeremiah of lying. The inscription indicates that these names were used in the Iron Age in the kingdom of Judah as the Bible describes. Furthermore, if it was indeed Yehoʼezer himself who engraved the names on the seal, it is evidence of literacy at this period in Judah’s history.
OFF-SITE LINKS:
- https://www.timesofisrael.com/extremely-rare-beautiful-first-temple-era-genie-seal-discovered-in-jerusalem/
- https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-816895
Read more BREAKING NEWS articles here: https://biblearchaeology.org/current-events-list
