King-Slapping Ceremonies and the Original Redcoats

Old Testament background continues to fascinate. I’ve recently come across two customs from the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires that once again prove that the past is truly a foreign land. This type of material is interesting because it adds more texture and color (here literally) to ancient history. It reminds us that these were real people, just like us, with their own complex traditions and cultures – that they were just as fully alive as we are. Not unlike the effect of seeing old black and white footage restored in color for the first time, these details help the stories, carvings, and statues feel more real. That in turn helps guard us from treating the Old Testament narratives as more like myth and less like actual history that we ourselves are connected to.

Micah 5:1, strike the judge of Israel on the cheek. This may allude to a ritual in the Mesopotamian Akitu festival known as the royal negative confession (with “judge” here referring to the Israelite king). A third-century-BC Seleucid source describes how, in this ritual, the high priest would stand before a statue of Marduk and recite the Enuma Elish (the Babylonian creation epic) in order to emphasize Marduk’s superiority over other gods as well as his creation of all things, including mankind. After the temple was cleansed, the priest would take the royal insignia from the king, slap his face, and force him to kneel before the statue of the god. The king was then to confirm that he had not misused the power given him by Marduk nor violated the welfare of Babylon or Marduk. The high priest would then slap the king again and force him to cry, possibly to demonstrate his contrition. After this, the king’s authority would be restored.

Nahum 2:3, shield is … red. The palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh depicts the typical Assyrian shields of his day, such as those used in his conquest of the Judahite city of Lachish in 701 BC. According to the early fourth-century-BC Greek historian Xenophon, armies of Assyria, Babylon, and Media typically dressed in blood-like scarlet in order to intimidate their enemies.

ESV Archaeology Study Bible, pp. 1289, 1296

So the next time you are reading an Old Testament account of Nebuchadnezzar, imagine him at the head of a column of soldiers who are dressed in blood-like scarlet – and he himself with blood-shot eyes because his high priest recently slapped him until he cried.

We probably have some updating of the Sunday school flannel boards to do.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons