Royal Administration

Hezekiah made for himself…storehouses for the yield of grain, wine and oil; pens for all kinds of cattle; and sheepfolds.

2 Chronicles 32:27-28

Man holding a balance ready for use by the fingers of his right hand and a folded balance in his left. The circular balance pans are represented as if seen from above; Syro-Hittite stone relief, eighth century B.C.E.

Hezekiah, who ruled Judah in the late eighth century B.C.E., did as much as any king to administer the economy of his country. Standardizing measures and weights was part of a larger effort at centralization that also included suppressing outlying rivals to the Jerusalem Temple.

From his reign come thousands of large store jars stamped with special seals. The seals were inscribed lmlk, meaning "belonging to the king." They show a four-winged beetle or a two-winged sun disk and bear the name of one of four cities, Hebron, Ziph, Socoh or the unidentified mmst [hatch mark over s]. The jars might belong to a system of taxation, or the seal impressions could represent the state's guarantee of their capacity.

The winged beetle and sun disk were solar images from Egypt. However, even if the symbols were foreign in form, their meaning was indigenous. The prophet Malachi described Yahweh as the sun of righteousness with healing in his wings, and the use of solar imagery to represent Yahweh was at least as old as the tenth century.

Hezekiah's royal seals and seals of individuals from the late eighth century B.C.E. also show symbols of the sun, like the four-winged beetle on the red carnelian seal of Hananyahu.

Hezekiah also standardized the system of weights used in Judah. Some of the small limestone weights bear Egyptian hieratic numerals; on others the unit of weight is spelled out in Hebrew. At this time Hacksilber, cut-up pieces of silver and silver jewelry, was beginning to be used like money. Accurate small weights, conforming to a recognized standard and preferably inscribed, were crucial to the efficient functioning of a pre-monetary system in which Hacksilber had to be weighed out in exchange for goods.