Deuteronomy and the Hittite Treaties
By John Hooper
One of the books recently sent to me for review is called The Covenantal Life – appreciating the beauty of theology and community. It is written by Sarah Ivill, was published in 2018 by Reformation Heritage Books and is intended primarily for women. According to the foreword, written by her pastor, Kevin DeYoung, of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, Ivill is active in ministering to women and her “classes for women … are usually packed out.”
The author’s aim is the worthy one of directing her readers away from the individualism that characterizes much of the Christian scene today and reviving “a robust knowledge of Reformed theology, which, rightly understood, is covenant theology.” It is her conviction that “Such a robust understanding of covenant theology should in turn lead to a rich engagement with the covenant community [by which she means the church – JH].”
I do not intend to review the book apart from saying that as a basic introduction to covenant theology and its practical implications for the believer, it is helpful, particularly for mothers in Israel. There is just one small section that I find particularly troubling. Running between pages 17 and 20, it is headed “A Covenant Book.”
On page 18 Ivill reminds us that God “has graciously chosen to reveal Himself and His will to His people through a covenant book – the written words of Scripture.” So far, so good. Then, to help readers “better understand the Bible as a covenant book,” she focusses on the book of Deuteronomy and perpetuates a theory that has been around for seventy or more years. It is summarised in her uncompromising statement on page 19 that “Deuteronomy is patterned after the Hittite treaties of the second millennium BC.”
Background
This theory first came to prominence during the mid-1950s in the writings of American scholar, George E. Mendenhall. He had drawn on the work of a Slovenian historian and university lecturer, Victor Korošec, published in 1931. In the 1960s the theory was taken up by another American, the presbyterian theologian Meredith Kline in his book Treaty of the Great King – The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy, published in 1962. Ten years later Kline was able to write, “the acknowledgement that Deuteronomy is a clear example of the treaty pattern is now common.” Since then, it has appeared with approval in the popular Lion Handbook to the Bible and in evangelical commentaries such as those by J. A. Thompson for IVP in 1974, Allan Harman for Christian Focus in 2001, and John Currid for Evangelical Press in 2006. It is now restated by Sarah Ivill in 2018.
Clearly it is a theory that has gained traction in Reformed and evangelical circles and is associated with highly respected names, so it is quite likely that readers will have come across it. If Ivill’s book is typical, after all these years it is no longer viewed as a theory but assumed to be fact. Is this appropriate? Is it consistent with a high view of Scripture? A more critical look at it is long overdue.
Resemblance
In summary, scholars have noted a “remarkable resemblance between God’s covenant with Israel and the suzerainty (also called vassal) type of international treaty found in the ancient Near East”. Perhaps, before we go on, a brief description of this kind of political arrangement might be helpful. Among the dominant kings, known as ‘suzerains,’ were those of powerful nations such as Egypt, Assyria and the Hittite empire, which occupied the eastern part of modern Turkey. Vassal kings were those reigning over smaller territories and who sought the protection of their larger and stronger neighbours. The arrangement would be formalised by the making of a treaty and the suzerain’s sphere of influence would increase accordingly. This gave rise to what one academic has called “a two-tier brotherhood of kings.” In this political environment Israel stood alone since she was to trust solely in her faithful covenant God for protection and not to enter into league with neighbouring nations like Egypt and Assyria (e.g. see Isaiah 30:1-7 and chap. 31).
It is claimed that the book of Deuteronomy, along with other passages where the covenant relationship between Jehovah and His people is described, such as Exodus 20 and Joshua 24, bears striking similarity with Hittite suzerainty treaties of the second millennium BC. Kline noted, “There are many interesting parallels to specific biblical requirements among the treaty stipulations”. John D. Currid goes further: “Obviously, the form and structure of the book of Deuteronomy are the same as for the second-millennium treaty documents of the Ancient Near East”. He goes on to say, “The parallel also demonstrates that the book of Deuteronomy is an official document ratifying the formal covenant relationship between Yahweh as King and Israel as vassal.”
Among writers who take this view there is not unanimity as to the details. There tends to be little agreement as to which chapters and verses of Deuteronomy fit which parts of the Hittite scheme. According to Kline there are five sections while others find six or seven. Here, for the sake of illustration, I have used Currid’s scheme:
Section of Hittite treaty Passage in Deuteronomy
- Preamble 1:1-8
- Historical prologue 1:9 to 4:43
- Stipulations 4:44 to 26:19
- Sanctions (blessings and curses) 27:1 to 29:1
- Statement of display 27:1-4
- Oath of allegiance 29:2 to 30:20
- Witness clause 31:1 to 32:47
Dating Deuteronomy
One might well ask why evangelical and Reformed writers find the theory attractive. The main reasons are that it helps to confirm an early date for Deuteronomy, demonstrates the unity of the book, and supports the authorship of Moses. This is in opposition to liberals and higher critics who claim the book has many sources and date it much later, somewhere between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, which would place it around the time of the Babylonian exile, long after Moses. Interestingly, one who pushed hard for this much later date was S. R. Driver, a member of the Old Testament Revision Committee of the Revised Version.
Those who support a later date hold that “the book of the law” found in the reign of Josiah (2 Kings 22:8) was the book of Deuteronomy and, crucially, that the book was new at that time. It is alleged that Deuteronomy 12 also points to a date contemporary with King Josiah. The conservative argument, however, contends that if Deuteronomy was based on second millennium Hittite treaties, it has to be much older.
But do the date and Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy rest on vassal treaties of any century? The book itself has sufficient internal evidence to confirm Moses as its human author (see 1:1,3,5; 22:18; 27:11; 31:9; 31:22,30; 32:44,45; 33:1), and its writing was contemporaneous with the events described. No fewer than seventy times over the course of the thirty-four chapters does Moses use the expression “this day.” We hardly need Hittite treaties to help us prove that Deuteronomy is not a book written hundreds of years after the event.
In any case, some scholars undermine the Hittite treaty theory by claiming to demonstrate that Deuteronomy is directly dependent on vassal treaties of the early seventh century BC. This suggests that building a case on archaeological scholarship is rather like building a house on shifting sand.
Inspiration
Thinking of this kind goes on all of the time in the universities among liberal scholars, and the arguments run to and fro. Another example is the book of Lamentations, which is said to show similarities with ancient Sumerian texts from 1500 years earlier and 500 miles distant. If similarities exist, and it would appear that they do, we are faced with a probing question: what are the implications for the doctrine of Scripture? Under that ‘doctrine of Scripture’ umbrella are the plenary, verbal inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, and we must also include our understanding of Scripture as divine revelation because if the basic structure of Deuteronomy came from the Hittites, how can it be said to have been revealed by God? Either we maintain a vigorous hold on the traditional, Protestant doctrine and interpret the scientific findings accordingly, or we give ground and weaken our doctrine of Scripture.
We have some sympathy with the writer who says, “Enthusiasm for ANE [Ancient Near East] parallels should halt at forcing the inspired text into a comparative-cultures straight-jacket!” However, resemblances between Biblical and extra-Biblical documents need not surprise us, nor yet cause alarm. This is because the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture takes account of the circumstances, times and cultures in which the human penmen wrote. God breathed forth the word of Scripture in keeping with His gracious and providential preparation of those men. We know from Scripture itself that Moses was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22), so it may be that somewhere in the Pentateuch his Egyptian education emerges in the writing style. But the over-arching principle that governs the authorship of Scripture is this: “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). The relationship between the divine Author and the human penmen is explained by Peter, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). The Bible is the word of God.
Which came first?
The question to be considered is this: Which came first, God’s covenant or the Hittite treaties? Which had influence over the other? God’s covenant of grace is to be traced back to eternity within the counsels of the holy Trinity. We see God revealing His gracious covenantal dealings with man in the garden of Eden and we see Him renewing His covenant by special revelation to Noah. Notice the terms revealing and revelation. Then, having been revealed to Noah, it was transmitted to his children and to their posterity, among whom were the peoples of the Ancient Near East, including the Hittites.
It should not surprise us, then, that the concept of ‘covenant’ was known to the Hittites and used by them in their dealings with other nations and the peoples whom they subdued. Whatever covenant idea developed among them, it may well have preserved some ‘memory’ of the divine original passed down by oral tradition. That oral tradition, however, was outside of God’s covenant people, a people blessed with His presence, His love and favour, and who were the recipients of His revelation. Hence, outside of that ‘covenant community,’ any notion of ‘covenant’ would have become corrupted over the generations. We find a similar effect in the account of the flood being corrupted to give us the Babylonian flood stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and there are others.
The following contribution to the Puritanboard.com blog surely hits the mark with an apt illustration. The writer is anonymous, but using the nom de plume Semper Fidelis he says,
I find the treaties interesting and don’t doubt the similarities but it’s sort of like the sun, a tree, and a shadow. The sun casts light on a tree and we can see the tree clearly but it also casts a shadow behind it. I see the tree as the Covenant and the shadow being the ANE treaties. What I see Klineans doing is looking at the shadow that fallen men understood and using it to describe the tree.
Interpreting Deuteronomy and other passages as though the Biblical covenants are patterned after Hittite treaties, and thinking that we can better understand them by studying texts from the ancient near east, is an example of backward thinking. It is putting the cart before the proverbial horse. In reality, Hittite covenants are but faded shadows or silhouettes of the reality. Semper Fidelis goes on to say,
Meanwhile, we have the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth and I trust the apprehension of the covenant of grace from a saint in the 17th Century more than I trust the contemporary understanding of the covenant by a Hittite at the time of Moses.
Scripture’s internal evidence
Scripture is plain in and of itself. It does not need outside information, such as that drawn from archaeological digs, and the theories of scholars to make it clear. Nor should we fear that ancient documents yet to be dug up will force the church into rewriting its centuries-old understanding of Scripture and the matchless divine covenant it reveals.
Apart from anything else, it is puzzling as to how Hittite influence could have crept in. Scripture enables us to trace the life of Moses from his birth in Egypt to keeping his father-in-law’s sheep in Midian, then to the wilderness and on to the plains of Moab, where he penned Deuteronomy, but when and where would he have had contact with Hittites?
This brings us to the powerful internal evidence of Scripture. The theory we are considering does not sit at all comfortably with the Biblical testimony regarding the Hittites (emphasis added):
- Exodus 23:28 “And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.”
- Exodus 33:2 “And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite….”
- Exodus 34:11 “Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite….”
- Deuteronomy 7:1 “When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites….”
- Deuteronomy 20:17 “But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.”
- Joshua 3:10 “And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites….”
- Joshua 24:11 “And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I delivered them into your hand.”
These passages make it abundantly clear that the Hittites were among the enemies of God and of His people, and any association with them was against His expressly revealed will. The Israelites were to drive them out! They were to have nothing to do with them! To think that God’s own glorious covenant with His people is informed by the covenant arrangements of the Hittites with other heathen nations whom they subdued goes completely against the holy, impeccable character of God. We have noted too that Israel was commanded by God not to seek the protection of powerful nations such as Egypt and Assyria. She was to “dwell in safety alone” (Deuteronomy 33:28; also 12:10-12 and Leviticus 25:18,19). If we are not careful, we will make God a hypocrite. It is inconceivable.
Like Scripture itself, the covenant idea originated in God. It was given to Israel by revelation and kept pure by Him through all the generations of His covenant people. We see it also in His covenant with Abraham, David (though one can find scholarly articles alleging that these too mirror ANE treaties), and finally in the new covenant. It did not form in the minds of fallen men, much less the heathen peoples of the Ancient Near East. It came from heaven.
Biblical authority
We should consider too the impact the Hittite treaty theory has on the authority of Scripture. Remember that when we speak of scriptural authority, it is the authority of God in Scripture that we mean. It is an authority that reigns over everything else, including human scholarship, archaeological findings and scientific data.
The Bible League has a long history of interest in archaeology. Many addresses at Annual Meetings and articles in the Quarterly have been taken up with news of discoveries in the Near East, but there is always a need for caution. Professor Donald Wiseman (1918-2010), a highly influential and internationally respected archaeologist who addressed the Bible League Annual Meeting on three occasions in the 1950s, understood that. He believed that a relationship existed between Old Testament treaties and those of the Hittites and Assyrians, but as an evangelical he understood the limitations of his field. In 1951 he said, “In the Bible we are dealing with a unique book and a unique type of knowledge – revelation by the Source of all true wisdom.” He went on to say, “We are not defending the Bible for the Bible speaks clearly for itself. We must realise the limitations of archaeology as of any branch of science … Beware of rushing into any interpretation of Scripture on the basis of conjectures.”
The point surely is this, that it is not essential for a believer to know the latest archaeological findings to arrive at a correct understanding of Scripture. A believer does not need to know about ANE suzerain treaties in order to understand the book of Deuteronomy. If that were the case, the Bible must have been a very dark book before the nineteenth century. On the contrary, it is probably fair to say that the finest sermons preached and commentaries written pre-date the burgeoning of archaeology.
Covenant of grace
Finally, we ought to consider briefly the character of the covenant because here too resemblances between Deuteronomy and Hittite treaties have been identified by scholars, but once again this should not worry us. As already mentioned, we are not to engage in backward thinking but remember that the Hittite treaties, at best, were faint shadows of the perfect original, God’s everlasting covenant of grace. Fundamentally, the relationship between Jehovah and the children of Israel was not that of suzerain and vassal but of a father with his children and friend with his friend. It was a relationship of love and of grace, as is evident from the book of Deuteronomy itself.
Throughout the book it is evident that the people belong to Jehovah by redemption (15:15; 21:8; 24:18). He has set His love upon them, even from eternity (7:6-9; 10:15). Rather than bringing them into subjection, as vassals to their suzerain, He has brought them out of subjection (5:6; 6:12; 26:8-9). Jehovah is their father and they are His children (14:1; 32:6-7). The land is theirs by gift (8:10; 28:52) and Jehovah will bring them into it (6:10; 8:7; 30:5). It is theirs by His free grace (9:5-6) and obedience is the response to Him of their grateful, circumcised hearts (10:16,21-11:1; 30:6,11-14). Above all, as so many of these passages confirm, God’s covenant is a spiritual covenant.
Conclusion
From page 20, Sarah Ivill makes no further mention of Hittite treaties, but why is it that reputable evangelical and Reformed publishers promote in their books ideas such as this, compromising historic interpretations of Scripture and undermining the doctrine of Scripture itself? Why do authors adopt these ideas uncritically? Do writers and publishers not realise that, perhaps unwittingly, they are giving credence to the theories of nineteenth century higher critics and later liberal scholarship? It is disappointing that editorial policies allow these ideas to go unchecked.
John Hooper