The Jehoiachin Code in Scripture’s Priestly Benediction* 1. The Case for Biblical Codes According to historian David Kahn, the use of codes is as ancient and widespread as civilization. He says, “It must be that as soon as culture has reached a certain level, probably measured by its literacy, cryptography appears spontaneously … Human needs for privacy … must inevitably lead to cryptography wherever men thrive and wherever they write” (1). There are numerous examples. A Mesopotamian tablet dating from 1500 B.C.E. employed special writing symbols to guard pottery-glazing secrets (2). Sixth-century-B.C.E. Neo-Babylonian scribes often used a cryptogram that substituted numbers for characters when affixing their names to documents (3). The K˝ma-s¨tra, an early Hindu work, listed coding and deciphering as arts women should practice (4). An Indian text from the fourth century B.C.E. advised ambassadors to employ cryptanalysis to obtain intelligence (5). Both Augustus and Julius Caesar used ciphers (6). Today the system in which letters are replaced by others further down the alphabet is still known as a Caesar code (7). A lengthy fourth-century-B.C.E. Egyptian papyrus written in demotic script proved to have been an Aramaic cryptogram pertaining to a Syrian mystery cult (8). Fifth-century Spartans used batons of various thicknesses called skytales. The sender wrote his message on a strip of parchment or leather wrapped around the baton. The recipient could then decode the message by winding it around a skytale of the same thickness (9). The Babylonian Exile began when Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and deported its leading citizens. After he returned to punish a revolt eleven years later, the Babylonians spent several years leisurely ravaging the land. When the smoke had cleared from Judah’s charred cities, its citizens were spread across the Near East. They fled to Egypt and to neighboring Moab, Ammon, and Edom. The presence of Jewish tribes in Arabia could date from (*) Part of the material included in this article will appear in a book with the working title The Scholar’s Guide to the Babylonian Exile to be published by Wipf and Stock in early 2008. (1) D. KAHN, Codebreakers (New York 1996) 84. (2) C.J. GADD – R.C. THOMPSON, “A Middle-Babylonian Chemical Text”, Iraq 3 (1936) 87-96. (3) E. LEICHTY, “The Colophon”, Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim (ed. R.D. BIGGS ET AL.) (Chicago 1964) 152. (4) V˝tsy˝yana, Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra (ed. L. DANE) (Rochester, VT 2003) 34. (5) Kaut≤ilya, Artha¢˝stra (ed. R. SHAMASASTRY) (Mysore 1951) I, chaps. 12 and 16 (at 21 and 31). Cited by KAHN, Codebreakers, 1001. (6) Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars (trans. A. THOMSON) (London 1926) 37, 134. (7) KAHN, Codebreakers, 84. (8) R. BOWMAN, “An Aramaic Religious Text in Cryptogram”, JNES 3 (1944) 219-227. (9) Plutarch, Lives (ed. A.H. CLOUGH) (New YORK 1992) 597–598.