摘要：Esarhaddon’s Succession Oath Documents (ESOD) are presently known through: the Nimrud version (more than nine copies) published in 1958, the Aššur version (three fragments) published in 1939-1940 and 2009, and the Tayinat version excavated in Tell Tayinat (ancient Kunalia; Turkey) in 2009 and published in 2012. At least both the Nimrud and the Tayinat version have nearly the same text, except for the lines in §1 concerning the recipients of the Documents. While the Nimrud version is addressed to the small rulers in the district of ‘Media’ with their respective personal names, the Tayinat version was issued to the Assyrian governor of Kunalia along with sixteen other titles without any personal names. There seem to be several templates of the ESOD, which vary according to the different recipients. The first verb of §30 has turned out to be in the indicative, not in the subjunctive as the present author had expected before (in Watanabe 1987), and an improved translation of the whole section can now be undertaken. In §34, it is proclaimed: “Aššur is your god! Aššurbanipal is your lord!” And from the lines in §35 restored by the Tayinat version, we can understand the demand that the sealed tablet of the ESOD should be honoured (protected) ‘as your (own) god.’ Although we don’t know the exact reason why the Nimrud version was found in Nimrud, the fact that the Tayinat version was excavated in situ , on the podium in the back chamber of the precinct, convinces us that other tablets must have in principle been enshrined all throughout the largest Assyrian domination, which could have served as effective background for Josiah’s reformation and the establishment of monotheism based on the written covenant. Furthermore, the demand of exclusive loyalty to Aššurbanipal in the ESOD has possibly been transferred to the demand of exclusive adoration of Yahweh.
