Bible Synapse
Ketef Hinnom scrolls
Inscription · c. 600 BC · Assyria and Babylon · also called Ketef Hinnom amulets, Silver scrolls
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. 600 BC (the inscriptions (by their script and setting))
- Found
- Ketef Hinnom, Jerusalem, 1979. Found in 1979 in the repository under Chamber 25 of Cave 24, a rock-cut family tomb, in excavations directed by Gabriel Barkay. A 13-year-old volunteer’s chance find showed that a fallen ceiling had sealed the deposit.
- Now
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Passages
- Numbers 6:24–26, Deuteronomy 7:9
What it is
Two tiny sheets of silver, rolled up and worn as amulets, found among more than a thousand objects in a family tomb outside Jerusalem. Unrolled, the larger (KH1) measures about 27 × 97 mm and the smaller (KH2) about 11 × 39 mm. Both are engraved in the old Hebrew script with blessings close to Numbers 6: that YHWH may bless and keep the wearer and make his face shine. KH1 also speaks of YHWH keeping covenant and grace with those who love him and keep his commandments, and KH2 calls him the one who drives out evil.
How it connects to the Bible
The amulets carry wording very close to the priestly blessing, “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee” (Numbers 6:24–26), and KH1’s phrases echo Deuteronomy 7:9. On the usual dating they are the oldest known texts that parallel a passage of the Hebrew Bible, centuries older than the Dead Sea Scrolls, and they show this blessing in use before the Babylonian exile.
What scholars debate
Most scholars, supported by a fresh study of the amulets published in 2004, date them to about 600 BC, before the destruction of Jerusalem. Johannes Renz and Wolfgang Röllig argued that a date as late as the 3rd or 2nd century BC could not be ruled out.