Zedekiah's Covenant (34:1-22) 565meted out by Yahweh is stated in metaphorical terms: the men will become
the calf cut in two because they violated the covenant. It is not necessary to
render the curse as a comparison, which requires emendation to "like a calf"
(pace Ehrlich 1912: 331; Volz; Rudolph). The difference is slight. In an Akka-
dian Treaty betweenAshurnirari Vof Assyria (753-746 B.c.) and Mati'ilu of Ar-
pad, which was ratified by a lamb sacrifice, both simile and metaphor occur.
The curse begins with this simile:If Mati'ilu sins against (this) treaty made under oath by the gods, then, jusl
as this spring lamb, brought from its fold, will not return to its fold
... Mati'ilu, together with his sons, daughters, officials, and people of his
land ... will not return to his country.Then comes a shift to metaphor:This head is not the head of a lamb, it is the head of Mati'ilu, it is the head
of his sons, his officials, and the people of his land.
(ANET^3 532; cf. Luckenbill 1926: 266 ##752, 753)A number of ANE treaties corroborate the ceremony here described (D. Mc-
Carthy 1963: 51-79). In another eighth-century treaty, this one in Aramaic be-
tween Bar-gaya of Katak and Mati'ilu of Arpad (Sefire I A 40), the curse
attending the rite states: "[As] this calf is cut up, thus Matti eel and his nobles
shall be cut up" (ANET^3 660; CS II 214; Fitzmyer 1961: 181, 185; Beyerlin
1978: 260). Seic also, from the same general period, clauses in the Vassal Trea-
ties of Esarhaddon (ANET^3 539 #70; Wiseman 1958a: 69-72 ##551-54). A mil-
lennium earlier, in a letter sent to King Zimri-lim of Mari ( 1730-1697 B.C. ), we
hear of a treaty involving the symbolic rite of slaying a she-ass (Noth l 966a:
108-17; Malamat 199 5). From this earlier period is also the Abban-Iarimlim
Treaty from Alalakh (modern Acana, Turkey), dated to the eighteenth century
B.C., where the slaying of a sheep accompanies a self-imprecation oath (Wise-
man 1958b; D. McCarthy 1963: 52-53). The text (lines 49-43) reads: "Abban
placed himself under oath to larimlim, and had cut the neck of a sheep (say-
ing), '(Let me so die) if I take back that which I gave you!"'
The oath ratified the treaty, and we can assume that an oath was taken at the
covenant ceremony here (Calvin; McCarthy 1963: 55-57; Weinfeld 1990: 57;
idem, "berfth," TDOT 2: 256, 259-61). The people, by walking between the
severed parts of the animal, consented to similar treatment should they break
the covenant. Classical sources, too, attest to self-imprecation oaths in ceremo-
nies of this type. Livy (xxi 45) reports a situation where Hannibal, in order to
get his troops to fight an upcoming battle, promised among other things free-
dom for slaves who had come with their masters. To fortify this promise, he
took hold of a lamb, swore an oath to the effect that the gods could slay him
even as he was now about to slay this lamb, then killed the lamb with a stone
to the head. See also another ceremony described in Livy i 24.