Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History - International Voices ...

252 | WOMEN AT WORK IN THE DTRH
elements (serve the king, stand at his service, be his officer, lie at his bosom)
makes it hard to rescue her from the bedroom and have her at an office. All the
harder since the connection with the only other term of the same stem in the
Hebrew Bible has recently been challenged. To this connection we turn next.
Unlike Abishag, the one ןכס mentioned in the Hebrew Bible has nothing to
do with the king’s bed (Isa 22:15–16):
15 Thus says YHWH, the Lord of hosts:
Come, go אזה ןכסה־לא
to Shebna, who is supervisor of the household, and say,
16 “What are you doing here and whom do you have here,
that you have hewn here a tomb for yourself,
cutting a tomb on the heights, carving in the rock a dwelling place?”
Recent bibliography on this passage is scant. Between 1901 and 1905 three
articles dealt with Shebna. Although their main concern was the relationship of
the Shebna of Isa 22 with the one in Isa 36–37, some hints can be picked up
from their view of this official. Kamphausen opined that they all refer to the
same person, “he having been first the manager of Hezekiah’s household and
afterward state secretary”; and “an exalted secular official,” as biblical examples
such as 2 Kgs 15:5 show. 48 Fullerton proposed that there was a general
consensus as to the meaning of the text, namely that Shebna had no claim
(“what do you have here? whom do you have here?”) perhaps because he was a
foreigner. The title, he stated, “seems to be a general title, and does not allow us
to determine what particular office he filled.” 49 One year later Koenig
complemented Fullerton’s analysis by stating that where he disagreed was that
“this” in God’s command to Isaiah “cannot ‘suggest that the personality of the
official was well known,’” but it “rather has the function here of pointing toward
a contemptible personage,” which Koenig expressed in this characterization.
The arrogant character of Shebna is also probably expressed by the choice of
the phrase ha-sôkhēn,[ 1 ] for ןכס in the Phoenician means “to care for, to
administer,”[ 2 ] and sakânu in the Tell-el-Amarna letters has the sense of “to
care for.”[ 3 ] If sôkhēn had been “a general title” (Fullerton, p. 622), it would
probably occur more frequently ....
I may say, in passing, that the idea that Shebna was a foreigner who
possibly had been brought from Damascus by Ahaz (cf. II Kings 16:10ff.; Isa.
2:6) may be indicated by the א in אנבשׁ. 50
48 A. Kamphausen, “Isaiah’s Prophecy concerning the Major-domo of King Hezekiah,” AJT 5
(1901): 50, 51. See also his review of earlier scholarship, 57–8.
49 K. Fullerton, “A New Chapter Out of the Life of Isaiah,” AJT 9 (1905): 622.
50 E. Koenig, “Shebna and Eliakim,” AJT 10 (1906): 675–6. His notes refer to: [ 1 ] “hasokheneth
Abishag of Shunem (I Kings 1:2).,” [ 2 ] to “Bloch, Phoenisisches Glossar, sub voce.,” and [ 3 ] to