Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

S. Japhet / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 36-76 61
in Chr. Moreover, the word מדינה continued its existence in the language after
the Persian period, but in Chr. it is absent.
These finds are supported by a parallel text. The list of Neh. xi 3ff. is repeated
in 1 Chr. ix 2ff.120 Among the changes which the Chr. introduced in the list’s
heading we also find the transformation of אלה ראשי המדינה (“these are the
chiefs of the province”) into היושבים הראשונים (“the first to dwell again . . .”).
It follows that the absence of the term מדינה in Chr. is not due to a mere
coincidence; this conclusion is strengthened by the following.
סגנים .8
The word סגן is a loan word from Accadian121 and is found in Hebrew only from
the sixth century B.C. and onwards.122 It serves mainly as a title of certain officials
in the service of a foreign king, Babylonian or Persian, but it also becomes
a more general term, as a title of an official in general.123
The term is found in Ezr.-Neh. ten times, mostly in Nehemiah’s memoirs but
also elsewhere: Ezr. ix 2; Neh. ii 16; iv 14 (8), 19 (13); v. 7; vii 5; xii 40; xiii 11.
In Chr. we do not find the term סגנים at all. Moreover, there is a series
124 רב־טבחים of foreign titles which do occur in his sources such as
Chr. 125 but they are all missing in Chr. When the רב־שקה,‏ רב־סריס,‏ תרתן
describes the disaster which befell the Assyrian army he enlarges upon the
description of his sources and adds some titles to the narrative. But all of them
are taken from his own storehouse and the authentic titles are absent.
פחה .9
The term פחה as well is a loan word from Accadian. It is used mainly in
the Persian period and it is in the writings from this period that it is most
120) Cf. above, p. 352.
121) Cf. KBL, p. 649.
122) In addition to Ezr.-Neh., it occurs in Isa. xli 25; Jer. li 23, 28, 57; Ez. xxiii 6, 12, 23 and in Aramaic
‏.פחות in Dan. ii 48; iii, 2, 27; vi 8. In Jer. and Ez. it is always connected with
123) It has this general meaning in Ezr. ix 2 where it is parallel to ‏,שרים in Neh. xii 40, and presumably
also in Isa. xli 25.
124) 2 Ki. xxv 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 20. It is the title of Nebuzaradan, and is translated by RSV as “the
captain of the body guard” or “the captain of the guard”. All the description of his actions in Jerusalem,
given in 2 Ki. xxv is absent from Chr.
125) All these titles, in 2 Ki. xviii 17ff. are given in RSV in transliteration. The comparison of 2 Ki.
xviii 17 with its parallel text in Chr. shows that their omission is deliberate. (2 Chr. xxxii 9). The
name רב־שקה is repeated in this narrative in Kings eight times, but it is omitted in the parallel
account in Chr.