Biblical Archeology: Prophet and the Earthquake

by Rabbi Leibel Reznick

The historicity of Balaam, the non-Jewish prophet.

One of the more enigmatic Biblical figures is the prophet Balaam. The Bible first
introduced him to us as the Israelite nation was encamped in the Plains of
Moab, on their way to the Promised Land. The Moabite king, fearing an attack
by the Israelites, summoned Balaam to come and curse the Children of Israel. In
the end, Balaam does not curse the Israelites but bestows blessings upon them.
[1]

The Talmud [2] tells us that earlier Balaam had been an adviser to the pharaoh
who enslaved the Children of Israel and sought to destroy their male children. In
fact, the plan to destroy the Israelites was masterminded by Balaam. The third
century BCE Greco-Egyptian historian, Manetho, also mentions that it was the
prophet-adviser to the pharaoh who instigated the enslavement of the Jewish
People.[3] (Do I mean to say that there is an ancient extra-Biblical source that
refers to the enslavement of the Israelites? Yes, but that issue deserves an
article all by itself.)

Not only did Balaam reside near the land of Moab and in Egypt, but Midrashic
sources also place him in Aram[4], modern-day Syria, and in the Aegean isles
[5], and in Cush, modern-day Ethiopia [6]. Balaam was an itinerant prophet with
a far-reaching reputation.[7] Due to Balaam's renowned preeminence, we would
expect that some mention of Balaam would be found in some ancient nation's
records. And indeed, our expectations will not be disappointed.
Balaam was the grandson of Laban the
Aramean. [8].The patriarch Jacob lived in
Aram and married the two daughters of
Laban, Leah and Rachel. Jacob
shepherded the flocks of his father-in-law
for many years. As Jacob and his wives
were returning to the land of Canaan, they
stopped for a while in the land of Moab in
the settlement later to be called Succoth. [9]
Archaeologists believe that the Jordanian
hill called Tel Deir Alla is the site of Biblical
Succoth. And, it was here in Tel Deir Alla that evidence of Balaam was found.

An expedition led by Professor Henk J. Franken of the University of Leiden was

excavating in Deir Alla in March of 1967. The workers were cleaning up some
debris from the day's work when someone noticed what seemed to be traces of
lettering on fragments of plaster that littered the floor. For archaeologists, the
most exciting find is not gold or silver, but writings! Professor Franken was
overjoyed at this unexpected discovery.

The weather during that time of year was capricious. One day heavy rains fell;
the next day a drying wind filled the air. Neither of these was good for the fragile
pieces of plaster. Hastily, a tent was erected to protect the area from the
elements. There were still two more weeks of excavation work that had been
planned, but all digging stopped. All attention was focused on the writing.

Reports of the discovery spread

throughout the archaeological
community. Scholars representing
the United States, Jordan, France,
Germany and Holland came to
examine the fragments. One
fragment had written on it in bold
letters the words: "the prophet,
Balaam son of Beor."

It took approximately ten years to

assemble the piles of plaster
fragments, jigsaw puzzle style, into a coherent text. Eventually, a chilling
prophecy emerged. It reads:
Inscription of Balaam son of Beor,
the prophet, man of the gods.
Behold, the gods came to him at night,
and [spoke to] him according to these words,
and they said to [Balaa]m son of Beor thus:
"The [Light] has shone its last;
the Fire for [judgment] has shone."

And Balaam arose in the morning,

[ ] days,
[],
and cou[ld not eat],
and he wept bitter tears.
And his people came up to him
and they [said] to Balaam son of Beor:
"Why are you fasting and why are
you weeping?"

And he said to them:

"Return! I shall tell you what
the gods (shaddayim) are [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]
Go on, consider the doings of the gods."

The gods have gathered together,

and the(shaddayim) gods have met in assembly,
and they have said to [.......]:
"Sew up, bolt shut the sky with your cloud!
Let darkness be there, and not brightness,
gloom and not radiance;
Yes, strike terror with the cloud of darkness,
and do not remove it ever

[...] hawk, swift, bat,

eagle, and pelican, vultures,
ostrich, stork, young of falcons,
and owl, chicks of heron, dove,
bird-of-prey, pigeon and sparrow. [10]

In order to date the inscription, the fragments were subjected to radio-carbon

dating tests. The results indicated that the inscriptions were to be dated circa
800 BCE, plus or minus 70 years, with an accuracy probability of 66%. [11] The
probability rate of only 66% of a 800 BCE. date is not very reassuring. Initial
paleographic studies, based on the shapes and forms of the letters, seemed to
support this general time period. [12] However, recently, scholars have lowered
the date closer to 600 BCE. [13] This suggestion is based on a connection
between the handwriting style of the Deir Alla inscription and certain Ammonite
inscriptions of the seventh century BCE.

Admittedly, there is a 500 year gap between the time the Biblical Balaam is
assumed to have lived and when this inscription was written; yet the inscription
can easily be seen as a demonstration that the memory of Balaam the seer
survived long after his demise. It is likely that his prophecies were written and
handed down for generations, in much the same way the epics of Homer were
written and transmitted for hundreds of years.

There are a number of other important factors of the Tel Deir Alla inscription that
coincide with the Biblical and Midrashic texts:

The "international, freelance prophet," Balaam, prophesied in Moab,

among other places. The Tel Deir Alla inscription was found in
Moabite territory.

Balaam was originally from Aram. The text of the inscription is in an

Aramaic dialect rather than in the language of the Moabites. For
example, the opening line refers to Balaam the son of Beor. The
word "son" in Moabite would be similar to the Hebrew "bn" but the
inscription reads "br" which is the Aramaic equivalent. [14]

The God of Israel is known by many names. The most common

name is YHVH which appears over 1,500 times in the Torah. The
name Elo-him is used over 200 times. One of the least used names
is Sh-ddai which appears only 10 times, mostly in Genesis, in
connection with the forefathers of Israel. In the book of Numbers the
name Sh-ddai appears only twice, both times in connection to the
prophecy of Balaam. In the Tel Deir Alla inscription the name Sh-ddai
also appears twice, in the plural form as Shaddayin, the term which
Balaam, a polytheist, would naturally prefer.

It is clear that the Tel Deir Alla inscription of Balaam is foretelling

doom for the Moabites. In the book of Numbers (23:24) we find
 Balaam telling the Moabite nation of their impending demise.
"Behold, the [Israelite] nation will arise like a lion cub and raise itself
like a lion; it will not lie down until it consumes prey and drinks the
blood of the slain." In the next chapter Balaam says, "A star has
issued from Jacob and a scepter-bearer has risen from Israel and he
shall pierce the nobles of Moab..." (Numbers 24:17)

The plaster inscription in Tel Deir Alla came from a wall of a building that was
destroyed by an earthquake. [15] How can an archaeologist tell if a city or
building was razed by an invading army or if it was due to an earthquake? There
are several telltale signs. An invading army will knock down walls in all
directions, haphazardly, smashing them in sections to demolish them. Stones of
a wall that was toppled by an earthquake will generally tumble in the direction of
the force of the tremor, and they will fall as a complete unit, almost as if the wall
was constructed whole, horizontally upon the ground. Moreover, an invading
army will destroy buildings without knocking down every wall entirely. Damage
alone suffices to vanquish a city. Earthquakes are less forgiving, collapsing the
buildings almost entirely.

If a circa 600-650 BCE date is correct for the collapse of the plaster inscription at
Tel Deir Alla, the earthquake that destroyed the building was, in fact, recorded
twice in Tanach (Books of the Prophets):

1) The book of Amos begins with, "The words of Amos, who was one of the
herders of Tekoa, who saw visions concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king
of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, king of Israel, two years before the
earthquake." (1:1)

2) In the book of Zechariah, the prophet says, "...and you will flee as you fled
from the earthquake that was in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah." (14:5)

According to Biblical chronology, Uzziah reigned from 645 BCE - 593 BCE and
Jeroboam reigned from 647 BCE - 607 BCE [16] The earthquake occurred when
both Uzziah and Jeroboam were kings. That would be between 645 BCE - 607
BCE. The date fits perfectly with the latest paleographic analysis of the Deir Alla
inscription.

The Deir Allah inscription not only attests to the historicity of Balaam but is also
dramatic evidence of the earthquake in the days of Uzziah and Jeroboam. Two
for the price of one.
Endnotes

[1] See Numbers 22.

[2] Sanhedrin 106a
[3] Quoted in Josephus Flavius' Contra Apion Book I, paragraph 26
[4] Rashi Sanhedrin 105a "Tanah.
[5] Sefer HaYashar chapter 61
[6] Sefer HaYashar 70
[7] Berayshis Rabbah 65:20
[8] Rashi Sanhedrin 105a "Tanah"
[9] Genesis 33:17. Not to be confused with another city by the same name located in Egypt.
[10] Jacob Hoftijzer and Gerrit van der Kooij, maic Texts from Deir 'AllaTDA ), (Leiden, 1976), p.
18. See also Henk J. Franken, "ts from the Persian Period from Tel Deir 'Alla,tus Testamentum
( VT ) 17 (1967), pp. 480-481.
[11] Extract from the archaeological notes published in Jacob Hoftijzer and Gerrit van der Kooij,
Aramaic Texts from Deir 'Alla ( ATDA ), (Leiden, 1976), p. 16.
[12] BAR 11:05 1985
[13] See Jo Ann Hackett, The Balaam Text from Deir 'Alla (Chico, California, 1984), p. 19
[14]

http://www.judaic.org/bible/balaq1.pdf

[15] André Lemaire Editor,

"Fragments from the Book of Balaam Found at Deir Alla, BAR 11:05 (Sep/Oct 1985), Biblical
Archaeology Society
[16] based on Shlomo Rottenberg's

Author Biography:
Rabbi Leibel Reznick has been a senior lecturer in Talmudic
studies in Rockland County, New York for the past 25 years. He
has authored three books (The Holy Temple Revisited, A Time
to Weep, and The Mystery of Bar Kokhba) and over 100
magazine and newspaper articles on Jewish History,
archaeology, and religious and social issues.