Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

LACHISH LETTERS*

Collection of letters, sometimes described as “a supplement to Jeremiah,” which was J. L. Starkey’s most important discovery at Lachish. In 1935 he found 18 ostraca in a guardroom between the outer and inner gates of the city, in a layer of ash deposited by the fire that Nebuchadnezzar kindled when he destroyed the city. Probably the Chaldeans breached the walls late in 589 BC after the olive harvest, since numerous burned olive pits appear in the nearby ruins. Having taken this and other outlying towns, Nebuchadnezzar then laid siege to Jerusalem in January of 588. In 1938 three other letters were found at Lachish. Of uncertain date, these were short and fragmentary. All 21 of these texts were written in black carbon ink with a wood or reed stylus on pieces of broken pottery. The scribes used the Phoenician script, in which classical Hebrew was written.

Nearly all of the 21 documents were letters, and most of them were written by some subordinate officer at an outpost to the commander at Lachish. Unfortunately, only seven of the texts are sufficiently legible to make connected sense; on the others, only isolated sentences and words can be read. Some of the signs are blotted out and unfamiliar abbreviations and symbols are used. Scholars differ in their interpretations.

One of the most interesting of the letters is no. 4, which says, “We are watching for the fire signals of Lachish, according to all the signs which my lord has given, for we cannot see [the signals of] Azekah.” Jeremiah 34:7 mentions Lachish and Azekah (12 miles, or 19.3 kilometers, northeast of Lachish) as two of the last surviving cities of Judah. Now it would appear that Azekah too has fallen and the Chaldean noose is tightening on the Judean kingdom. However, the signals of Azekah temporarily may not have been visible for climatic or other reasons. It is important to note the external evidence here for the use of fire signals in ancient Israel. The Hebrew word for fire signal is the same as that used in Jeremiah 6:1.

Letter no. 6 alludes to the fact that the princes are weakening the hands of the people. Evidently this refers to some insubordination or defeatism. The text reads: “And behold the words of the princes are not good, but to weaken our hands and to slacken the hands of the men who are informed about them.” This is almost identical to the charge that some of the princes lodged against Jeremiah: “For he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them” (Jer 38:4, rsv).

Letter no. 3 refers to a journey of the Judean army commander to Egypt. Whether he went with an appeal for troops or supplies is not known. This allusion points to the intrigues of the pro-Egyptian party during the reign of Zedekiah. The reason for the present expedition must have been much different from that referred to in Jeremiah 26:20-23. Letter no. 3 also refers to a letter with a warning from a prophet. Efforts to identify this prophet as Uriah or Jeremiah have not been convincing.

Letters 2–6 refer to a defense that a certain Hoshaiah (a name that appears in Jer 42:1; 43:2), the writer of several of the Lachish texts, makes to his superior, Ya’osh. Though the charges are not always clear, they have something to do with reading confidential documents and presumably divulging some of the information contained therein. One scholar has suggested that this collection of letters in the Lachish guardhouse constituted a “file” used in the court-martial of Hoshaiah. The guardhouse was not only a military post but was also located by the gate where Palestinian trials were held in biblical times.

The Lachish letters have epigraphic, linguistic, and historical value for the Bible scholar. They indicate the kind of language and script the Hebrews were using in the age of Jeremiah, and they give information for textual criticism. They are firsthand documents of the disturbed political and military situation during the months before Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem, when Jeremiah was the leading prophet in Judah. They help to make possible a study of Hebrew proper names in the last days of the monarchy and provide numerous historical references (e.g., no. 20 refers to the ninth year of King Zedekiah).