Francesca Stavrakopoulou, «Exploring the Garden of Uzza: Death, Burial and Ideologies of Kingship», Vol. 87 (2006) 1-21
The Garden of Uzza (2 Kgs 21,18.26) is commonly regarded as a pleasure garden
in or near Jerusalem which came to be used as a royal burial ground once the tombs
in the City of David had become full. However, in this article it is argued that the
religious and cultic significance of royal garden burials has been widely
overlooked. In drawing upon comparative evidence from the ancient Near East, it
is proposed that mortuary gardens played an ideological role within perceptions of
Judahite kingship. Biblical texts such as Isa 65,3-4; 66,17 and perhaps 1,29-30 refer
not to goddess worship, but to practices and sacred sites devoted to the royal dead.
4 Francesca Stavrakopoulou
those of his more favoured ancestors in the City of David (10). This is
supported by Jer 22,19 and 36,30, in which Jehoiakim is divinely
threatened with a dishonourable burial.
In spite of his recognition that the Garden of Uzza carries negative
ideological connotations, Na’aman is not discouraged in seeking to
identify the garden as an historical location. As indicated above, the
apparent correlation of the Garden of Uzza with a palace garden in 2
Kgs 21,18 prompts him to assume that the Garden of Uzza and the
King’s Garden mentioned in 25,4; Jer 39,4; 52,7 and Neh 3,15 are one
and the same. This in turn enables him to locate the Garden of Uzza
not in the city, but just beyond the walls of Jerusalem, in accordance
with details gleaned from biblical descriptions of the city walls in Neh
2,14-15 and 3,15-16 (11). Yet his uncritical assumption of the historicity
of the biblical accounts renders this proposal problematic. Discerning
the historical reliability of the biblical material pertaining to royal
burial sites is notoriously difficult, particularly in view of the
theological and ideological tendencies of the biblical traditions as
reflected in MT and the Versions. Though there is a valid place for
historical reconstruction in scholarly discussions of the burial places
of Judah’s monarchs, archaeological evidence for distinctly royal
tombs in and around Jerusalem remains elusive. More specifically, it is
unwise to subject the biblical Garden of Uzza merely to simplistic tests
of topographical hypotheses, for it is likely that a number of religious
and ideological concepts underlie the biblical references to this garden.
Accordingly, it is proposed here that the biblical claim of royal burial
in this location is more complex, and far more significant, than is
generally recognized.
In discussing the Garden of Uzza, scholarship has tended to focus
upon the mysterious az[ in whose name the garden would appear to be
designated. Commentators generally adopt one of three positions: first,
that the name is a contracted form of that of the diseased Judahite king
Uzziah (hyz[) — itself a variant of the name Azariah (hyrz[) — whose
garden was utilised for the burials of Manasseh and Amon (12); second,
(10) STAVRAKOPOULOU, King Manasseh, 40; see also S. DELAMARTER, “The
Vilification of Jehoiakim (a.k.a. Eliakim and Joiakim) in Early Judaismâ€, The
Function of Scripture in Early Jewish and Christian Tradition (eds. C.A. EVANS
– J.A. SANDERS) (JSNTSS 154/SSEJC 6; Sheffield 1998) 190-204, esp. 196-198.
(11) “Death Formulaeâ€, 249-250; cf. M. AVI-YONAH, “The Walls of
Nehemiah – A Minimalist Viewâ€, IEJ 4 (1954) 239-248.
(12) S. YEIVIN, “The Sepulchres of the Kings of the House of Davidâ€, JNES 7
(1948) 30-45, esp. 33-35.
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