298 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSin the reign of Jehoiakim, when Judah's treaties with Egypt were still in effect
(Weiser; Holladay). A fifteenth-century B.C. treaty between Ir-Addu and Niq-
mepa, from Alalakh, makes provision for extradition (Wiseman 1953: 26-30;
CS II 329-31); so also an Egyptian treaty between Ramses II and Hattusilis III
of the Hittites (ca. 1280 B.c.), which contains a mutual extradition clause
(Jirku 1921: 148;ANET^3 200-201, 203).
and he struck him down with the sword. No trial here; no chance for sympa-
thetic princes to intervene if they had wanted to. Documentation of a prophet
being murdered is unusual in the OT (2 Chr 24:20-22), although we learn
from later Jewish and Christian sources that it happened more than once. The
killing of prophets is painfully recalled in the NT (Matt 23:37; Luke 11:47-51;
Acts 7: 5 2; Heb 11: 3 7) and in later Jewish tradition, which contains legends
about prophets who suffered martyrdom, e.g., The Lives of the Prophets (Torrey
1946; Charlesworth 198 5: 3 79-99) and the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah
(Charlesworth 1985: 143-76).
King Jehoiakim ... cast his dead body into the graves of the common people.
An indignity surpassed only by what Jehoiakim himself would have to bear
(22:18-19; 36:30). Whether Uriah was left unburied is unclear. He was, in any
event, brought without ceremony to a burial ground ill suited for a true
prophet of Yahweh. In 2 Kgs 23:6 the cemetery for the common people is said
to be located in the Kidron Valley, between the Temple area and the Mount of
Olives, which is an area containing graves even today. The LXX has "the tomb
(to mnema) of the sons of his people," which destroys the sense by implying a
family grave (Giesebrecht; Duhm).
the common people. Hebrew bene ha<am, lit., "the sons of the people" (see
Note for 17:19).
- But the hand of Ahikam son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah. This con-
cludes the narrator's report of Jeremiah's trial, stating the outcome in a way
similar to the wrap-up of the Hananiah episode in 28: 17. Other like sum-
mary statements occur in 36:8 and 32. Jeremiah presumably walked away
from his trial. Ahikam, a member of the royal house under Josiah (2 Kgs
22:12, 14), was the son of Shaphan, the scribe who figured prominently in
the finding of the law-book in the Temple (2 Kgs 22:3-20) and who was prob-
ably head of a scribal school located there. The Shaphan scribal family had
lifelong ties with Jeremiah (Skinner 1926: I 07; Muilenburg l 970a: 227-28,
231). Ahikam is now serving Jehoiakim, in which capacity he is able to pro-
tect Jeremiah. He may have been one of the princes sitting at the New Gate
who voted for Jeremiah's acquittal. Luria ( 1982) traces the Shaphan family
back two generations to Meshullam, the grandfather, and Azaliah, the father
(2 Kgs 22: 3 ), citing also a Rabbinic tradition that Shaphan played a crucial
role in preserving the Torah. A seal has turned up that may have belonged to
Shaphan's father, Azaliah (Avigad 1997: 79, #90; Heltzer 2000: 105). It reads,
"Belonging to A~alyahu, the son of Mefollam," which corresponds to Sha-
phan's double patronym in 2 Kgs 22:3. On the Shaphan family of scribes, see
the chart below.