Lachish “Letter” 2 (BM 125702): A Polite Letter, an Accreditation Pass, or a Text Used to Teach Letter Writing? ALICE MANDELL Lachish 2 is typically described as an enigmatic letter, one that consists mainly of the protocol lan- guage used in letter introductions. However, past studies have wrestled with Lines 5–6 of this letter, and noted the linguistic crux posed by the verb ybkr. The present study argues that while Lachish 2 looks like a letter, it plays a different role than letters are traditionally conceived to do (as written com- munication media that articulate the words of a sender to a recipient). This text’s form, organization, and focus on formulae, and its lack of clear message suggest that Lachish 2 was used as an instructional tool that outlines a letter’s organization and sample epistolary formulae, serving perhaps as a template. This ostracon offers insight into both the practice of letter writing as seen from the internal perspective of a writer, and into education in the process of letter writing in the later days of the Judean monarchy. Keywords: Lachish; Hebrew Letters; scribalism; scribal education; Judah; Northwest Semitic inscriptions M ost scholars have interpreted Lachish 2 as a let- ter because it looks like a letter. 1 It opens with the standard introduction used in letters and it identifies a recipient, Yaʾush (Line 1). This official is also known from Lachish 6:1 and possibly Lachish 3:2, which are ostraca that were inscribed on sherds from the same holemouth vessel as Lachish 2 (Torczyner et al. 1938: 38, 184, 204, 220; Tufnell, Murray, and Diringer 1953: 129, 316; Zammit 2016: 290–91). The text then has greeting and deferential formulae appropriate in a letter to a higher- status person (Lines 1b–5a). However, the content of the body of this “letter” in Lines 5b–6 does not have a clear com- municative function related to defense or to administration (unlike Lachish 3, 4, 6, 9, 13). Lines 5b–6 are ill-understood due to two issues: 1) the verb ybkr (Line 5) is a linguistic crux, and 2) the concluding clause (Line 6) does not make sense when read as message sent to a superior officer. 2 As a result, Lachish 2 is often analyzed as a polite letter, one that functioned pragmatically as a means of affirming the pro- fessional relationship between the two parties involved. 3 The few interpretations that actively seek to contextualize its sparse content in Judean military operations, however, do not resolve the linguistic crux in Line 5, nor do they of- fer a compelling explanation of why it is that this text con- sists of mainly epistolary formulae. 4 Alice Mandell: Johns Hopkins University, Department of Near Eastern Studies, 113 Gilman Hall, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, amandel5@jhu.edu Electronically Published August 30, 2022. Bulletin of ASOR, volume 388, November 2022. © 2022 American Society of Overseas Research. All rights reserved. Published by The University of Chicago Press for ASOR. https://doi.org/10.1086/720868 1 Michael Trapp defines a letter as “a written message from one per- son (or set of people) to another, requiring to be set down in a tangible medium, which itself is to be physically conveyed from sender(s) to re- cipient(s)”; it includes formulae specifying the people involved as well as “conventional formulae of salutation”; it also presumes distance that prevents direct communication via “unmediated voice or gesture” (2003: 1). See, too, Lindenberger 2003: 4, and Pardee et al. 1982: 2. 2 Shmuel Ah ̣ ituv writes, “This letter ... is mostly formulas of blessing and submission. The final clause deals with a matter known to the writer and presumably to the recipient, but of which we can not know. A great deal hinges on the interpretation of the verb in line 5” (2008: 59). 3 William F. Albright wrote: “The last sentence sounds cryptic, but is presumably a polite way of saying that the writer cannot answer the question which Yaʾosh had previously put to him. The writer may also be hinting that Yaʾosh ought to know it himself ” (1936: 12). 4 One view is that Lachish 2 refers to a previous letter, with the un- derstanding that the statements lʾ ydʿth in Lachish 3:8 and Lachish 2:6