{"id":52089,"date":"2019-03-26T00:54:55","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T22:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=52089"},"modified":"2022-10-17T17:51:44","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T14:51:44","slug":"as-heaven-and-earth-are-my-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/as-heaven-and-earth-are-my-witness\/","title":{"rendered":"As Heaven And Earth Are My Witness!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[555,384],"acf":{"old_id":"52089","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":44114,"related_cahpter":"183","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Ancient evidence of a desire for eternal validity","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In Deuteronomy 30:19, God once again declares, as God has already declared (in 4:26), &#8220;I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day.&#8221; To understand the role of these cosmic witnesses, we turn to the image above, a detail from the top, front side of one copy of the treaty imposed by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon upon his subjects in 672 BCE. The original image was produced by rolling a cylinder seal on the large clay tablet on which the treaty was recorded. According to the impressed cuneiform inscription, however, this is no ordinary cylinder seal. It is none other than the seal &#8220;Belonging to (the god) Assur; that of the City Hall.&#8221; Modern research informs us that the seal itself dates to the 19<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century BCE and would have been kept in the &#8220;city hall&#8221; of the ancient Assyrian capital city, Assur. In other words, when the god Assur&#8217;s cylinder seal was rolled across the middle of Esarhaddon&#8217;s treaty, it was over 1000 years old! <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the world of Esarhaddon&#8217;s treaty, the god Assur is a witness to the treaty between the human king and his subjects. This guarantees that the treaty would be eternally valid. Long after the king&#8217;s own passing, there would be a divine witness to ensure that its terms were being kept. Moreover, the presence of the deity as a witness ensures his consent to bringing about the cosmic penalties for treaty violation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a parallel manner, God invokes the heaven and earth. In the biblical context, they are certainly not deities, but they are permanently present to witness God&#8217;s treaty with Israel. \u00a0And, they play a crucial role in ensuring that the agricultural rewards (and, if necessary, punishments) come to pass. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image: \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum \/ Dominique Collon. Used by permission http:\/\/oracc.museum.upenn.edu\/nimrud\/images\/vte\/BM-132548-middlecomp-25cm.jpg\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":52090,"id":52090,"title":"dt30-BM-132548-middlecomp-25cm","filename":"dt30-BM-132548-middlecomp-25cm.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/dt30-BM-132548-middlecomp-25cm.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/as-heaven-and-earth-are-my-witness\/dt30-bm-132548-middlecomp-25cm\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"dt30-bm-132548-middlecomp-25cm","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":52089,"date":"2019-03-25 22:49:56","modified":"2019-03-25 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