Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

NUZI*, NUZI TABLETS*

Town in northeastern Mesopotamia, about nine miles (14.5 kilometers) southwest of present-day Kirkuk. In ancient times the site was called Gasur, but the modern name is Yorgan Tepe. Excavations at Yorgan Tepe were carried out from 1925 to 1931 by an expedition of a number of cooperating archaeologists who made many interesting finds. But Yorgan Tepe is best known for its clay tablets, which primarily deal with business transactions.

In the third millennium BC the population of Gasur was largely Semitic, but by the middle of the second millennium, the inhabitants were Hurrians, and the name of the city had been changed from Gasur to Nuzi. The Hurrians are identified as the Horites of the Bible (cf. Gn 14:6; 36:20-21; Dt 2:12, 22).

Many clay tablets of the third millennium BC were unearthed, including one tablet inscribed with a map regarded as the oldest map in the world. The records also show that installment buying was practiced even then.

In the 15th to 14th centuries BC, Hurrian scribes wrote on thousands of clay tablets, mostly in the Babylonian language. These records provide much information about Near Eastern customs and legal practices, and shed light on the patriarchal period of the Bible.

The following examples may serve as illustrations of possible relationships between Nuzi and the Bible. In Nuzi a childless wife could give her handmaid to her husband so that the maid could bear children in the name of the wife. This practice was followed by Sarai, who gave her maid, Hagar, to her husband, Abram (Gn 16:1-4); by Rachel, who gave Bilhah to Jacob (30:1-8); and by Leah, who gave Zilpah to Jacob (vv 9-13). In such a case, the father had a responsibility to rear the child as the offspring of his legal wife, and the wife could not drive away the child. According to this rule, Sarai had no right to drive out Hagar’s son, Ishmael (cf. 16:4-6).

In Nuzi there was a law against the sale of property outside one’s own family. Several schemes were employed to circumvent this prohibition, including adoption and the exchange of property. In return for a guarantee of lifelong care and burial costs, a wealthy landowner would have himself “adopted” by landholding peasants so that he received their property. The records indicate that the very same man could be adopted by 300 or 400 peasants. A couple without children could legally adopt someone to provide for them in their old age and for their burial. The adopted person would be the heir to the property of his adopting parents; this may have been the relationship between Abram and his servant Eliezer (Gn 15:2). One could also exchange property of little value for valuable property. In some instances, the difference in value could be made up in money. At Nuzi a man named Tehip-tilla sold his inheritance rights in a grove to his brother, Kurpazah, in exchange for three sheep, paralleling Esau’s sale of his birthright to Jacob for a serving of stew (25:27-34).

In Nuzi an oral will or blessing given on one’s deathbed was legally binding and irrevocable. A man named Huya was lying on his sickbed at the point of death. He took the hand of his son, Tarmiya, and gave to him a woman, Sululi-Ishtar, to be his wife. Tarmiya’s two brothers challenged his claim in court, but the court recognized the validity of Tarmiya’s case. Although Jacob obtained the blessing of his blind and aged father by deception, Isaac had to stand by what he had done (Gn 27:33).

The Nuzi tablets also indicate that the person who had possession of the teraphim, or household gods, was the heir to the property of the owner of the idols. For this reason, Rachel took the teraphim of her father Laban (Gn 31:19), who was very disturbed over their disappearance (vv 30-35).

Another case of adoption parallels the relationship between Jacob and Laban. Nashwi adopted Wullu and gave his daughter, Nuhuya, to him in marriage. If Wullu married another wife, he would have to forfeit the property he had received from Nashwi. Laban also made a covenant with Jacob that he would not take a wife other than Laban’s two daughters, Leah and Rachel (Gn 31:50).