The Jehoiachin Code in Scripture’s Priestly Benediction 243 a copying error by omitting five words, or chose to abridge the full benediction. Barkay thinks “the shortened text may be a paraphrase based on the complete version” (30). A final matter is whether the amulets also contain significant levels of Jehoiachin coding. Ketef Hinnom I has only six of the benediction’s fifteen words, so we must concentrate upon Ketef Hinnom II, which has ten (the initial seven and the final three words of the MT’s text) (31). To make the MT and the Ketef Hinnom II texts of equal fifteen-word length, the amulet’s five preceding words were added to the ten-word benediction. Here are those fifteen words: µçl ˚l µçyw ˚yla wynp hwhy ray ˚rmçy hwhy ˚rby [rb r[ghw rz[h hwhyl ah These yield just twenty-two coded spellings of the Jehoiachin versions, compared to eighty-seven for the MT text of Num 6,24-26 (32). In fact, the amulet’s spellings produced not a single A or B value for the names rated as such in the Priestly Benediction. Significantly, the coded spellings that did survive came from the original benediction, while the first five amulet words initiated no Jehoiachin codes. The Ketef Hinnom scribe drastically reduced the hidden spellings by leaving out five of the benediction’s words as well as several of its original letters (the omitted waws matter, the kaph does not). The best explanation is that he or she knew nothing about the Priestly Benediction’s Jehoiachin coding. Now to the date of the amulets. Coding proves that Jehoiachin is the subject of the Priestly Benediction (33). This author argues elsewhere that the Judean died as a substitute king of Babylon (34). If he did, Jehoiachin would have been killed in April of 561 B.C.E., just after his release from prison (35). Alternatively, Jehoiachin may have lived a few years after 561 — perhaps into the 550s. It would follow that the benediction memorializing him came soon afterward, either in 561 or in the 550s. These considerations in turn place an upper limit on the Ketef Hinnom amulets. That limit is the fourth or fifth decade of the sixth century, and perhaps the plaques were made well after that. Another consideration is that the scribe who carved the second amulet did not know about the benediction’s concealed spellings. This knowledge (30) BARKAY, “The Priestly Benediction”, 166. (31) Page 68 of BARKAY – LUNDBERG – VAUGHN – ZUCKERMAN, “Amulets from Ketef Hinnom”, shows the painstaking reconstruction of Ketef Hinnom II. (32) Jehoiachin coded spellings on the amulet begin at words 5 through 11. Text-word intervals are in parentheses. The initial words for ˆykywy and hynwky are: (1) 6, 7, 8, 9; hynky: (1) 7, 8, 9, 10; ˆykwhy: (1) 6, 7, 8; whynk: (1) 7, 9, 10; ˆkwy: (1) 8, 9, 10, 11. Non-Jehoiachin spellings are yçwk: (1) 6, 10, 11, 12 and (2) 2, 4, 6, 8; whynkç: (1) 6, 7, 8, 10; whylky: (1) 7, 8, 9, 10 and (2) 2, 4. (33) As an aside, an individual is clearly the subject of Num 6,24-26 because six of its fifteen words use the second-person singular. (34) P. KAVANAGH, Secrets of the Jewish Exile (Tarentum, PA 2005) 54-69. A new book from Wipf and Stock Publishers also will argue that Jehoiachin died as a substitute king. (35) 2 Kgs 25,27 provides the release date and R.A. PARKER – W.H. DUBBERSTEIN, Babylonian Chronology: 626 B.C.– A.D. 75 (Providence 1956) 28 supplies the basis for Julian dating.