Israel Discovers Ancient Seal From First Temple Period

Israeli archaeologists have found a stone seal from 2,700 years ago, when the Biblical First Temple was still standing, again affirming the reality of the Biblical history of Jerusalem.

“This singular find joins the list of countless archeological discoveries in the City of David – the historic site of Biblical Jerusalem – affirming Jerusalem’s Biblical heritage,” Ze’ev Orenstein, director of International Affairs for the City of David Foundation, told Fox News of the seal found near the southern wall of the Temple Mount, adding, “It similarly serves as yet another affirmation of the thousands-of-year-old bond rooting the Jewish people in Jerusalem – not simply as a matter of faith, but as a matter of fact.”

“The seal, made of black stone, is one of the most beautiful ever discovered in excavations in ancient Jerusalem, and is executed at the highest artistic level,” Dr. Yuval Baruch and Navot Rom of the Israel Antiquities Authority stated. The name “LeYehoʼezer ben Hoshʼayahu” is inscribed on the seal.

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“Contrary to what may be commonly thought, it seems that literacy in this period was not the realm only of society’s elite,” Baruch continued. “People knew how to read and write – at least at the basic level, for the needs of commerce. The figure of a winged man in a distinct Neo-Assyrian style is unique and very rare in the glyphic styles of the late First Temple period. The influence of the Assyrian Empire, which had conquered the entire region, is clearly evident here.”

“The researchers believe that the object, upon which originally the demon image alone appeared, was worn as an amulet around the neck of a man named Hoshʼayahu, who held a senior position in the Kingdom of Judah’s administration,” VIN News reported. “The hypothesis is that upon Hoshʼayahu’s passing, his son Yehoʼezer inherited the seal…”

The name Yehoʼezer appears in the Bible in Chronicles I 12:7 in its abbreviated form, Yoʼezer, named as a warrior for King David before he was king and was in hiding.

“Also, in the book of Yirmiyahu (43:2), describing the events of this very period, a person is mentioned with a parallel name, Azariah ben Hoshʼaya. The two parts of his first name are written in reverse order to the seal owner’s name, and his second name is the same, appearing in its abbreviated form. This writing form in the text fits the name on the newly discovered seal and it is thus appropriate for this time period,” VIN News added.

Palestinians often insist that the Jewish claim of the Biblical Temples on the Temple Mount is false; in June 2022, the prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Mohammed Shtayyeh, said that the Jews of Israel have never proven that the Biblical Temples stood in Jerusalem.

Yet as far back as 1924, even the Supreme Muslim Council, headed by the infamous Jew-hater Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin Aa-Husseini, published a guide to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the site of the Biblical Temples of Israel, which admitted of the Temple Mount, “Its identity of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.”

In February 2018, archaeologists announced that they found physical evidence corroborating the existence of the Biblical prophet Isaiah.

Writing in Biblical Archaeology Review, Eilat Mazar, who headed the dig at which the discovery was found, described the evidence. According to The Daily Beast, Mazar stated that it was “a small piece of clay (an impression left by a seal), a mere 0.4 inches long, which appears to bear the inscription ‘Isaiah the prophet.’”

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The discovery came as part of the excavations at the Ophel excavation in Jerusalem, which had already yielded a 2,700-year-old clay seal impression that had belonged to the governor of Jerusalem, thus proving that the Jewish people had an administrative presence almost three thousand years ago and that Biblical administrative structures were genuine.

Mazar wrote that the new find, one of the many clay seal impressions known as bullae found at the site, was near the bullae already discovered to have a mark from a seal of the Biblical King Hezekiah. He noted, “alongside the bullae of Hezekiah … [were] 22 additional bullae … among these is the bulla of ‘Yesha‘yah[u] Nvy[?].’” That is Hebrew for Isaiah the Prophet.

According to the Book of Isaiah, the prophet lived from the 8th century B.C. to the 7th century B.C. during the reign of King Hezekiah, who was regarded as the greatest king the Jewish people had except for King David.

In April 2019, The Daily Wire reported:

A clay seal found in Jerusalem has given further evidence of the reign of the famed Biblical Jewish King Josiah, who is noteworthy in Jewish history as the king who brought the Jewish people back to observance of the Torah after the nefarious reign of his predecessor Manasseh.

Discovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University, the seal was found underneath a current-day car park; the archaeological team found evidence of a large building that featured ornate architecture and tiled floors that was later burned by the Babylonians when they conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Those features enabled archaeologists to identify the building as an administrative center for the Jewish government of the king.