The blessings and curses formulae in Deuteronomy 27–28 reveal a rich, complex and innovative interaction with ancient Near Eastern and Achaemenid parallels.
An inscription in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian, carved onto Mount Behistun in Persia, tells the story of Darius I, and how he became king of Persia, and what is required of loyal subjects. The tallest figure on the bottom is Darius, stepping upon a foe; in the middle is a winged divine figure, likely representing Ahura-Mazda, the Zoroastrian God. Wikimedia
Published: October 9, 2022
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
Editor’s note: On this ritual and its function within Deuteronomy, see Melissa Ramos, “The Making of a Covenant: The Book of Deuteronomy,” TheTorah (2022).
While the curses in chapters 27 and 28 are now presented consecutively, perhaps even as part of the same ritual, many scholars see chapter 27 originating as a different source and placed here by the editor of Deuteronomy to connect the two collections of curses. See, e.g., See Menahem Haran, האסופה המקראית: תהליכי הגיבוש עד סוף ימי בית שני ושינויי הצורה עד מוצאי ימי הביניים [The Biblical Collection: Its Consolidation to the End of the Second Temple Times and Changes of Form to the End of the Middle Ages] (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Magnes Press, 2003), 2.41–43, 60–61.
The Šurpu incantation list is the longest such list known from the ANE. This ritual of “burning” derives its name from the fact that a person’s sins were represented by various materials, which were then burnt to symbolize their annihilation.
See Erica Reiner, Šurpu: A Collection of Sumerian and Akkadian Incantations (Osnabrück: Biblio-Verlag, 1970), 13–18. See also Melissa D. Ramos, Ritual in Deuteronomy: The Performance of Doom (London: Routledge, 2021), esp. 79–82. Editor’s note: For a brief discussion of the Šurpu incantations, see Yitzhaq Feder, “Confessing Sins You Didn’t Commit,” TheTorah (2021).
Trans. Erica Reiner, Šurpu: A Collection of Sumerian and Akkadian Incantations, AfOB (Graz: Selbstverlage des Herausgebers, 1958).
Deuteronomy’s curses for sexual sins also include bestiality (v. 21), incest (v. 22), and intercourse with one’s mother-in-law (v. 23).
The connection was first suggested in Donald J. Wiseman, “The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon,” Iraq 20 (1958): 1–99. In older scholarly literature, this text is called “The Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon” (VTE).
The various sources available to us mention the 12th, 16th, or 18th of Ayyar (March/April) 672 B.C.E. This is probably due to the fact that the treaty was signed in different locations within the empire at different times.
Editor’s note: On the parallels in structure and themes between Deuteronomy and EST, see Deena Grant, “Loving God Beyond the Way You Love Ashurbanipal,” TheTorah (2016).
See discussion in Karen Radner, “Assyrische tuppi ade als Vorbild für Deuteronomium 28,20–44?,” in Die Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerke: Redaktions- und Religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven Zur Deuteronomismus -Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten, ed. Jan Christian Gertz, Doris Prechel, Konrad Schmid and Markus Witte (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006), 354–375 [374–375].
The degree of dependence between these two sources is debated. For a clear presentation of the various viewpoints, see Carly I. Crouch, Israel and the Assyrians: Deuteronomy, the succession treaty of Esarhaddon, and the nature of subversion (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014), esp. 47–92.
“Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty,” ORACC (adapted from Simo Parpola and Kazuko Watanabe, eds., Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths, State Archives of Assyria 2 [Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988]).
This is the ketiv (written form) of the text. The qere reads יִשְׁכָּבֶנָּה, clearly a case of censorship, to avoid someone reading a vulgar word out loud in the synagogue. Editor’s note: For another case of this type of censorship, see Zev Farber, “Unspoken Hemorrhoids: Making the Torah Reading Polite,” TheTorah (2016).
It is possible that both texts simply follow the same blueprint and include curses which may have been standard in ANE covenant-making—at least from the Neo-Assyrian period on—but it seems more likely that EST more directly or indirectly influenced Deuteronomy.
Jan Dušek, “Dating the Aramaic Stele Sefire I,” Aramaic Studies 17 (2019): 1–14. On various attempts to identify KTK, see Nadav Na'aman, “Looking for KTK,” Die Welt des Orients 9.2 (1978): 220-39, and Jan Dušek, “‘Aram’ in the Aramaic Inscriptions from Sefire,” Aramaic Studies 15.1 (2017): 1-22.
Following the principle of lectio brevior potior, “the shorter reading is stronger”: when comparing two or more manuscripts of a text, the shorter version is probably earlier, because scribes tended to add to existing texts rather than delete from them. Joseph Naveh,״זמנה של הכתובת מתל פחיריה: ניתוח פליאוגראפי של הנוסח הארמי״ [The Date of the Tell Fekherye Inscription], Shnaton 5/6 (1982): 131–140. The inscription appears on a statue of the king of Guzana, written in both Akkadian and Aramaic. The curses target anyone who would vandalize the statue.
The concept of “many” is symbolized by the number seven in Sefire. Deuteronomy and Tell Fekheriye express this idea through the word רב, “much,” or through a plural noun.
“The Inscriptions of Bar-Gaʾyah and Matiʿel from Sefire,” trans. Joseph A. Fitzmyer (The Context of Scripture 2.82).
Takamitsu Muraoka, “The Tell-Fekherye Bilingual Inscription and Early Aramaic,” AbrN 22 (1984): 79–117.
Editor’s note: See discussion in Pamela Barmash, “The Novel Introduction of Blessings into our Treaty with God,” TheTorah (2014).
The biblical text conserves a strong memory of direct contact between Hittites and Judeans (famous examples include Uriah the Hittite in 2 Sam 11–12, and Abraham’s purchase of the cave of Machpelah in Hebron from Ephron the Hittite in Gen 23). Hittite presence in Palestine is also corroborated by archeology, see Amir Gilan, "Hittites in Canaan? The Archaeological evidence," BN.NF 156 (2013): 39–52.
The latter also employs an ’arur “cursed be” formula similar to that of Deuteronomy 27. Editor’s note: For an assessment of the relevance of the Hittite treaties to biblical studies and to the dating of Deuteronomy, see Yitzhaq Feder, “The Significance of Hittite Treaties for Biblical Studies and Orthodox Judaism,” TheTorah (2014).
R. Schmitt, “BISOTUN iii. Darius’s Inscriptions,” Encyclopedia Iranica.
DB IV:92 (Roland G. Kent, Old Persian Grammar, Texts, Lexicon [New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1950], 132).
I am currently producing a new critical edition of this scroll to appear in Brill’s DSSE series.
For reasons of space, I have included only one example each of blessings and curses and removed the condition (protasis).
Translations are taken from, Chul-Hyun Bae, Comparative Studies of King Darius’s Bisitun Inscription, Ph.D. diss. (Harvard University, 2001).
Ramos, Ritual in Deuteronomy, 28.
This varnish was still found in the archeological excavations of the site; see William Sandys Wright Vaux, Nineveh and Persepolis: An Historical Sketch of Ancient Assyria and Persia, with an Account of the Recent Researches in Those Countries (London: Arthur Hall, Virtue & Co., 1850), 372.
Behistun is located on the caravan road on the north side of the age-old caravan trail and main military route from Babylon and Baghdad over the Zagros mountains to Hamadān.
The mandate in the ritual to write down כָּל דִּבְרֵי הַתּוֹרָה הַזֹּאת, “all the words of this Torah” (27:3, 8), was understood by some ancient commentators to refer to the blessings and curses, in chapters 27–28 (see e.g., Josephus, Ant. 4.307–308). It would be reasonable to assume to that each of the “large stones” on which the proclamation is to be written would have carried an identical copy of the text, as was the standard practice in the ancient Near East as well as in Judean legal transactions (cf. Jeremiah 32:9–14). The Samaritan Pentateuch, Qumran, and certain witnesses of Old Greek and Old Latin locate these stones on Mount Gerizim instead of Mount Ebal. See Gary N. Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 202–203.
As much as these formulae were undoubtedly directly or indirectly interdependent on one another, none of them can be reduced to a facsimile of the other. All engaged in adaptation, interpretation and, at times, polemics with their sources of influence.
These include: “a people holy to himself” (Deut 28:9a); “the land that YHWH swore to your fathers to give you” (Deut 28:11c); “the diseases of Egypt” (Deut 28:60a); and the motif of exile.
Even the Hippocratic oath (5th–3rd century B.C.E.) has features that are found in oaths that are over a thousand years older: “Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me,” showing the temporal and geographic extent of adoption of these formulae.
These earlier sources provide us, in certain cases, a terminus a quo, or earliest possible date, for a particular section of material.
