Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon

Émile Puech

Although the writing on the ostracon is poorly preserved and difficult to read, Émile Puech of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française proposed that it be read:

1 ʾl tʿšq wʿbd ʾ[l] ... [b]zh

2 špṭ wbk ʾlm[n] špṭ

3 bgr wbʿll qṣm yḥd

4 ʾ[d]m wšrm ysd mlk

5 ḥrm (ššm?) ʿbdm mdrt

1 Do not oppress, and serve God … despoiled him/her

2 The judge and the widow wept; he had the power

3 over the resident alien and the child, he eliminated them together

4 The men and the chiefs/officers have established a king

5 He marked 60 [?] servants among the communities/habitations/generations

and understood the ostracon as a locally written copy of a message from the capital informing a local official of the ascent of Saul to the throne.[5] Puech considered the language to be Canaanite or Hebrew without Philistine influence.[6]

Gershon Galil

Gershon Galil of Haifa University proposed the following translation:

1 ʾl tʿs wʿbd ʾ[t] ...

2 špṭ [ʿ]b[d] wʿlm[n] špṭ ^yt[m]

3 [w]gr [r]b ʿll rb [d]l w

4 ʾ[l]mn šqm ybd mlk

5 ʿ[b]yn [w]ʿbd šk gr t[mk]

1 you shall not do [it], but worship (the god) [El]

2 Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]

3 [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]

4 the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king

5 Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.[1]

Haifa U press release

On January 10, 2010, the University of Haifa issued a press release stating that the text was a social statement relating to slaves, widows and orphans. According to this interpretation, the text "uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as ‘śh (עשה) ("did") and ‘bd (עבד) ("worked"), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah ("widow") are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages. The content itself, it is argued, was also unfamiliar to all the cultures in the region other than that of Hebrew society. It was further maintained that the present inscription yielded social elements similar to those found in the biblical prophecies, markedly different from those current in other cultures, which write of the glorification of the gods and taking care of their physical needs."[1][4] Gershon Galil claims that the language of the inscription is Hebrew and that 8 out of 18 words written on the inscription are exclusively biblical. He also claimed that 30 major archeological scholars do support this thesis.[7]

Rollston and Misgav

Other readings are possible, however, and the official excavation report presented many possible reconstructions of the letters without attempting a translation.[8]

According to the epigraphist Haggai Misgav, the language of the ostracon is Hebrew. In contrast to the Qeyafa ostracon, the short inscription known from Tell es-Safi contains Indo-European, not Semitic names.[9]

The inscription is written left to right in a script which is probably Early Alphabetic/Proto Phoenician,[8][10] though Christopher Rollston and Demsky consider that it might be written vertically.[10] Early Alphabetic differs from old Hebrew script and its immediate ancestor.[10] Rollston also disputes the claim that the language is Hebrew, arguing that the words alleged to be indicative of Hebrew either appear in other languages or don't actually appear in the inscription.[10]

Alan Millard

Millard believes the language of the inscription is Hebrew, Canaanite, Phoenician or Moabite and it most likely consists of a list of names written by someone unused to writing.[11]

Levy and Pluquet

Levy and Pluquet, by using a computer-assisted approach, give several readings as a list of personal names.[12]