Tyre’s “70 Years” in Isaiah 23,15-18 415 of Assyrian royal policy towards Babylon, represented by Marduk’s inversion of the cuneiform symbol for the number 70 to the symbol representing 11, the same period of time that had elapsed between Sennacherib’s destruction of the city and Esarhaddon’s efforts to restore it. Through the rhetoric of the inscription, Esarhaddon’s political strategy — a radical departure from that of previous Assyrian rulers who secured hegemony over Babylon through force — became a matter of divine will. The selection of the number 70 in the context of the Black Stone inscription is therefore not a matter of esoteric stereotyped coding but was deployed for utilitarian rhetorical purposes (16). It is almost certainly the case that Esarhaddon’s Babylonian policies were made a matter of public discourse throughout the Assyrian world, and that the Black Stone inscription was well known among the elite of Judah (17). The Jeremianic texts that relate to the deportation of 597 — which counted among its numbers the educated classes of Judah once affiliated with the Josianic court — make strong reference to this inscription and deploy the same scribal features for rhetorical, political and hermeneutical purposes. The prophet urges his audience to follow YHWH’s command to build in Babylon (Jer 29,5- 7.10) just as Esarhaddon had followed Marduk’s command to do the same and to obviously successful ends, as the prophet’s audience was now under Babylonian hegemony. Likewise, the people will be restored to their homes when YHWH inverts Babylon’s dominance (via the atbash code in Jer 51,41), just as the curse against Babylon was repealed by Marduk’s inversion of the cuneiform symbol for the number 70 (18). The socio-historical background to the 70-year reference in Jeremiah must inform our reading of the similar notice in Isa 23,15-18 and our efforts to ascribe to it a specific compositional date. The Josianic literature grants Esarhaddon a particularly important position. Esarhaddon’s rise to kingship is presented as the direct result of his father Sennacherib’s campaign against Jerusalem, and the closing account of the crisis with Assyria in II Reg 19 applies the same royal succession formula to Esarhaddon that is otherwise reserved for Israelite or Judean kings. The Deuteronomistic embrace of Ephraimite traditions and the presentation of Josiah as Israel’s ultimate king follows Esarhaddon’s embracing of Babylonian royal theology and his presentation as the ultimate Babylonian king (19). Both monarchs attempted to mend socio-political fences through religious ecumenicalism (20). Finally, as is widely recognized, the literary form of the Deuteronomic text is based upon (16) See LEUCHTER, “Jeremiah’s 70 Year Prophecy”, 509-511, for a detailed discussion. (17) LEUCHTER, “Jeremiah’s 70 Year Prophecy”, 511-516. (18) LEUCHTER, ibid. (19) For the Deuteronomistic interest in Ephraimite tradition, see M. WEINFELD, Deuteronomy 1–11 (AB; New York – London – Toronto – Sydney – Auckland 1991) 44-57. (20) It is perhaps for this reason that the author of Ezra 4,2 ascribes the settlement of foreigners into the north to Esarhaddon, subsuming earlier neo-Assyrian repopulation activities under the umbrella of Esarhaddon’s influence on Judean historical tradition. P.R. Ackroyd (Exile and Restoration [London 1968] 150-151) suggests that this is a matter of confusion on the part of the author, though J.M. MYERS (Ezra-Nehemiah [AB, Garden City, NY 1965] 35) suggests that this relates to populations settled by earlier Assyrian kings who permeated into Judah during the neo-Babylonian period. In this case, the matter is less one of confusion than of a telescoping of figures and events for hermeneutical purposes.