‘Azeqah fényei
The lights of Azekah

Summary/Abstract: Old Testament Studies often come up against historical issues that always pose particularly difficult problems due to the basically non-historical focus of the biblical text. This is more than usually true for the stormy decades before the Babylonian captivity. One of the items in the archives of the commander of Lachis says that those in Lachis kept in touch with the neighbouring fortresses through smoke signals. According to the customary and more or less accepted interpretation of the text, the light signals of the fortress of Azakah could not be seen in Lachis because the Babylonian troops had captured that place. The Lachis letter under discussion thus would come from the tragic moments before the end. The examination of the letter, however, strongly substantiates the claim that what could not be seen from Lachis was not the light signal of Azekah, but the fortress of Azekah itself. The topographical interpretation of this statement and the analysis of biblical and other written material throws a new light on this brief but important text of pre-captivity Hebrew epigraphy.

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