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Story of Ahikar

Critique • Quotes • Text

Story of Ahiquar on papyrusPapyrus fifth century BCE
Anonymous
Publication details ▽ Publication details △

Also known as
"Ahikar" or the "Words of Ahikar"

First publication
c. 600 BCE on papyrus, expanded and revised up to c. 200 BCE

Literary form
Story

Genres
Wisdom literature

Writing language
Aramaic

Writing places
Multiple Middle Eastern countries, including Syria, Egypt and Babylon

Length
Approx. 12,000 words

Notable lines

The story of Haiqar the Wise, Vizier of Sennacherib the King, and of Nadan, sister's son to Haiqar the Sage.

There was a Vizier in the days of King Sennacherib, son of Sarhadum, King of Assyria and Nineveh, a wise man named Haiqar, and he was Vizier of the king Sennacherib.

He had a fine fortune and much goods, and he was skilful, wise, a philosopher, in knowledge, in opinion and in government, and he had married sixty women, and had built a castle for each of them.

But with it all he had no child by any of these women, who might be his heir.

— First lines, translated by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr.

Then there came to him a voice saying, "Inasmuch as thou hast relied first of all on graven images, and hast offered sacrifices to them, for this reason thou Shalt remain childless thy life long.

But take Nadan thy sister's son, and make him thy child and teach him thy learning and thy good breeding, and at thy death he shall bury thee."

 

0 my son! desire not a woman bedizened with dress and with ointments, who is despicable and silly in her soul.

 

0 my son! desire not a woman bedizened with dress and with ointments, who is despicable and silly in her soul.

 

0 my boy! thou hast been to me like a man who took a stone, and threw it up to heaven to stone his Lord with it. And the stone did not hit, and did not reach high enough, but it became the cause of guilt and sin.

 

And when Nadan heard that speech from his uncle Haiqar, he swelled up immediately and became like a blown-out bladder.

And his limbs swelled and his legs and his feet and his side, and he was torn and his belly burst asunder and his entrails were scattered, and he perished, and died.

And his latter end was destruction, and he went to hell. For he who digs a pit for his brother shall fall into it; and he who sets up traps shall be caught in them.

 

This is what happened and what we found about the tale of Haiqar, and praise be to God for ever. Amen, and peace.

This chronicle is finished with the help of God, may He be exalted:

Amen, Amen, Amen.

— Last lines, translated by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr.

 

Critique • Quotes • Text