The Jehoiachin Code in Scripture’s Priestly Benediction 235 this time. Many Jews made it to nearby Samaria, which did not participate in Judah’s revolt. Trade may further have expanded the dispersion that war had begun. As the Exile wore on, Jewish merchants, centered in Babylonia and elsewhere, might in their travels have crisscrossed the ancient world. This supposition gains support from a trove of documents unearthed at Nippur. An archive of the Murashu family shows Jews were heavily involved in commercial activities during the century following the Exile (10). In a few years the Judeans had passed from a settled to a scattered people. That physical dispersion makes coded communication plausible, since those in the Diaspora would have wanted important questions answered. How soon would God liberate His exiles? What alliance was forming against Babylon? On which projects were captives laboring? Could Tyre withstand its siege or Egypt expel its invaders? Was Jehoiachin in prison and would David’s line endure? What was the state of worship at Jerusalem’s ruined temple and which priestly group held control? On an even more personal basis, virtually every refugee now had a relative someplace else. He or she would have been eager for news of that relative and that someplace else. These were questions of lively interest that often could not have been openly addressed. How would information have been gathered? Possibly Judeans had access to official sources within the Egyptian and Babylonian courts. A Joseph or a Daniel who had risen to high position could have contributed, as could scribes, merchants, travelers, and domestic servants. One can even imagine a network of couriers with stops and sources spanning the Fertile Crescent. Assuming there was a code, if writers encoded scripture, others would have had to decode it. Probably few exiles would have had the training to decode any scripture bulletins their communities might receive. That would have been a task for experts — scribes, priests, and Levites. Any decoding would have called for lots of counting and tabulation, and also for layout boards and word lists. It would have been difficult and tedious labor, best done by careful people working individually. Once decoded, the information would have been widely shared, though with due care to conceal that there was a code. If synagogues got their start during the Exile, they could have become centers of this work. Some of the kingdoms bordering Judah welcomed fugitive Jews, some tolerated them, and a few may have enslaved them or turned them away. But whatever the reception, the refugees’ new rulers were foreign rulers. To complicate matters, some of the places to which Jews fled either were governed by Babylon or allied with it. Nearby Samaria was a Babylonian province. Syria, to its north, had already fallen to Nebuchadnezzar. Edom had joined the Babylonians in their campaign against Judah. Whatever the extent of Babylonian influence, local officials would not have welcomed openly anti- Babylonian sentiments from Judean refugees. Coded scripture was a way for the exiles to express such views while staying on the better sides of their hosts. In Babylonia itself the risk must have been especially high. Ezekiel, King Jehoiachin, and other exiles lived under the eye of Nebuchadnezzar’s officials and informers, and perhaps were held directly responsible for happenings in (10) D.B. WEISBURG, “Murashu’s Sons”, EncJud XII, 529.