111 WHY ARE THE SINS OF EPHRAIM AND JOB BUNDLED? occurs in YOS 7, 88, which records three gatekeepers’ report of a success- ful chase after an escapee who drew an iron sword against his pursuers. After the adjudicators hear the gatekeepers’ statement, they inspect the sword. Then, the text reads (lines 22-23): “They tied up the iron sword, sealed it and deposited it in the Eanna (iškusū iknukū u ina Eanna ipqidū)”. Another text (YOS 7, 102) uses the same three verbs to describe how the authorities tie up, seal and deposit a letter that corroborates incriminating oral testimony. In two other examples, the authorities tie up and seal (iškusū u iknukū) a pair of iron shears that were used to breach a wall (YOS 7, 97) and the neck of a slaughtered stolen ox (YOS 7, 17). The actions described in these texts — tying and sealing ― are equiv- alent to what has been done to the sins in Hos 13,12 and Job 14,17. In other words, the sins are analogous to the various objects that the author- ities in the Eanna tie up. Therefore, even at the basic level of action per- formed, this analogy is preferable to the previously suggested parallels. One does not have to argue that when the Bible refers to binding and seal- ing sins, it actually means binding and sealing things that represent the sins. Instead, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the objects that are bound and sealed; sins, and not their representations, are the things that are bound 15. The real value of this comparison, however, lies beyond the attestation of tying and sealing. More fundamentally, the Neo-Babylonian parallel is preferable because it pertains not only to the actions performed but also to the setting in which they are performed. As was already suggested at the outset, Hos 13,12 and Job 14,17, even when read on their own, make sense when viewed through the lens of an adjudicatory procedure for the preservation of evidence. This is precisely the procedure that the Neo- Babylonian texts describe. The trial records attest to binding and sealing in the context of an evidentiary procedure, rather than in the realm of ac- counting (like the sealed clay bundle from Nuzi) or of document preser- vation (like the sealed bundles from Qumran) 16. Beyond this general, COLÒ , “Parerga Babylonica IX: Der Mostreprozeß des Gimillu, eines širku von Eanna”, ArOr 5 (1933) 73-77. For more recent discussion, with referen- ces to additional texts and secondary literature, see S.E. HOLTZ, Neo-Babylo- nian Court Procedure (Cuneiform Monographs 38; Leiden 2009) 272-275. 15 In support of the idea that sin, in the Hebrew Bible, is something that can actually be tied, note Anderson’s observations on sin’s “thingness” (Sin, x; also see Sin, 4). 16 On the methodological value of comparing “like with like”, see W.W. HALLO, “Compare and Contrast: The Contextual Approach to Biblical Liter- ature”, The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature. Scripture in Context III (eds. W.W. HALLO – B.W. JONES – G.L. MATTINGLY) (Ancient Near Eas- tern Texts and Studies 8; Lewiston, NY 1990) 8-9.