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.
Exploring the Garden of Uzza 9
5. who say, “Keep to yourself,
do not come near me,
for I am too holy for youâ€.
The garden setting of ritual activities in these verses is of a piece
with the broader Near Eastern cultural context, in which gardens held
a particular religious significance, as the foregoing discussion has
observed. Whilst the rather ambiguous nature of “sacrificing†(jbz) and
“burning incense†(rfq) in v. 3 can reveal little about the precise
function of these gardens as cult places (31), the activities in the
associated tombs are more telling. Several commentators propose that
the practices described in v. 4 are those of a cult of dead ancestors, in
which the participants are variously understood to worship, comme-
morate, placate, or communicate with their dead ancestors (32).
Certainly, a mortuary context is clearly indicated by the presence of
tombs (µyrbq), and there are good reasons to suggest that pigs were
animals closely associated with the underworld (33). Moreover, there is
a wealth of evidence attesting to the possibility that cultic feeding (of
the ancestors, the descendants, or both) played an important role in the
veneration or commemoration of the dead, as attested by the presence
of culinary vessels and food-stuffs in graves (34). Thus whatever the
(31) 1QIsaa attests a marked variant of v. 3, reading l[ µydy wqnyw twngb µyjbwz hmh
µynbah, “they sacrifice in the gardens and suck hands on the stonesâ€. Some
commentators have understood this as an allusion to ritualised sexual activity, a
view perhaps encouraged by the biblical association of trees with the language of
whoring elsewhere (e.g., Isa 57,3-5; Jer 3,6); see further ACKERMAN, Under Every
Green Tree, 169-173; B. SCHRAMM, The Opponents of Third Isaiah. Recon-
structing the Cultic History of the Restoration (JSOTSS 193; Sheffield 1995) 156.
For rfq, see D.V. EDELMAN, “The Meaning of qit≤t≤ˇrâ€, VT 35 (1985) 395-404.
(32) E.g., LEWIS, Cults of the Dead, 158-160; M.S. SMITH, The Early History of
God. Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient bred (Grand Rapids, MI –
Cambridge, UK 22002) 165, 170; J. BLENKINSOPP, Isaiah 56–66. A New Translation
with Introduction and Commentary (AB 19B; New York 2003) 271-272; cf. P.
VOLZ, Jesaja II. Zweite Hälfte: Kapitel 40–66 (KAT 9; Leipzig 1932) 282.
(33) R. DE VAUX, “Le sacrifice des porcsâ€, Von Ugarit nach Qumrân (eds. J.
HEMPEL – L. ROST) (BZAW 77; Berlin 1958) 250-265; F.J. STENDEBACH, “Das
Schweineopfer†BZ 18 (1974) 265; cf. W. HOUSTON, Purity and Monotheism.
Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical Law (JSOTSS 140; Sheffield 1993) 161-
168; ACKERMAN, Under Every Green Tree, 209-212; J.L.KOOLE, Isaiah Chapters
56–66 (HCOT; Leuven 2001) 416. Note also Isa 66,3, in which burning memorial
incense appears to be associated with cultic swine.
(34) R.E. COOLEY, “Gathered to His People: A Study of a Dothan Family
Tombâ€, The Living and Active Word of God. Studies in Honor of Samuel J.
Schultz (eds. M. INCH – R. YOUNGBLOOD) (Winona Lake, IN 1983) 47-58; BLOCH-
SMITH, Judahite Burial Practices, 105-108, 122-126. The occasional funerary
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