A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

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1.4 Legal Ostraca

Two such documents have survived dealing with legal matters. One,

the Meßad Hashavyahu letter, is a plea from a worker to an official

asking for his cloak back. The other is a plea from a childless widow

for possession of her husband’s field.^20

2. C AL^21

2.1 The King

The law collections are not royal documents: The Book of the Cove-

nant probably dates from the pre-monarchic period and has no men-

tion of a king; Deuteronomy, from late in the monarchy, wants a

very minimalist kingship The Deuteronomistic history of Judges-Kings

is not happy with Israel’s monarchy. Judges, which shows the des-

perate need for a king, nevertheless records anti-monarchic statements

as a foreshadowing of things to come. The Book of Samuel, which

describes the establishment of monarchy, also includes Samuel’s warn-

ing about kings: 2 Samuel, about David, demonstrates that monar-

chy will not solve the problems of exploitation that Judges revealed,

and Kings is openly censorious of the kings of Israel. Nevertheless,

the importance of the king in the judicial system comes through.

2.1.1 The Deuteronomic Ideal (Deut. 17:14 –20)

The people are to choose a king from Israel, excluding foreigners

(Deut. 17:14–15). He is not to keep many horses or trade with Egypt

for horses (Deut. 17:16) and is admonished not to have many wives

“so that his heart turn not astray” (Deut. 17:17) This is a critique

of the Solomonic kingship, for Solomon is remembered as keeping

fourteen hundred horses (1 Kings 10:26f.), and as having many wives,

who (according to 1 Kings 11) turned his heart astray. The king is

also to have a copy of “this teaching” (the Book of Deuteronomy)

(^20) See Bordreuil et al., “King’s Command and Widow’s Plea.” This article also
has a translation of the much-discussed Mesad Hashavyahu letter, which is studied
most recently by Pardee, “Me{ad Hashavyahu Texts.” For commentary, see Lemaire,
“Veuve sans enfants.. .”; Wagenaar, “ ‘Give in the Hand...’”
(^21) See Frymer-Kensky, “Israelite Law”; Boecker, Law and the Administration...;
Rüterswörden, Die Beamten.. .; Westbrook, “Biblical Law”; Avishur and Heltzer,
Royal Administration.. .; and Miller, “J as Constitutionalist...”
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