In several places, the Tanach describes Arabia as the source of spices in Jerusalem. At Kings 1:10, the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon: “The queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame … She arrived in Jerusalem with … camels bearing בשמים—a great quantity of gold, and precious stones. When she came to Solomon, she asked him all that she had in mind. Solomon had answers for all her questions … She presented the king with 120 talents of gold, and a large quantity of בשמים, and precious stones; never again did such a vast quantity of בשם arrive as that which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon,” (see also the parallel verses at Chronicles 2, chapter 9.) Sheba (שׁבא) is southwestern Arabia—the modern Yemen.

Also, Jeremiah 6:20 refers to the levonah used in the Temple coming from this location: “Lamah zeh li levonah miSheva tavo … ” i.e., Why do I need sacrifices with spices from Sheba if your deeds are no good? See also the prediction at Isaiah 60:6.

Do we have any evidence that spices from Arabia made it into the Temple? Perhaps we do now!

An inscription was discovered in 2012, in the Ophel area, near the Temple. It is called “the Ophel Pithos inscription.” (A “pithos” is a storage vessel.) A few such broken vessels were discovered in this area at this time. Based on where they were found—embedded in a void in the bedrock—they can be dated to the 10th century BCE. One of these broken vessels had an inscription; seven letters survived. The 10th century BCE date makes it the earliest alphabetical inscription ever found in Jerusalem.

In the first decade after its discovery, it was assumed that the letters were Hebrew letters. A dozen researchers offered their interpretations, but none were convincing. In April 2023, epigrapher, Dr. Daniel Vainstub, published a new interpretation in the “Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology,” volume 4. His article is titled: “Incense from Sheba for the Jerusalem Temple.” (This journal is in English and is available online.)

Vainstub suggests that the inscription was written in the letters of Old South Arabic (which he calls “Ancient South Arabian” (ASA)). Vainstub then interpreted the letters as including a reference to “LDN H” (written in ASA letters). What is “LDN?” Vainstub believes that the reference is to the “ladanum plant” (Cistus ladaniferus). שׁחלת is mentioned as a required ingredient for קטרת incense at Exodus 30:34. Vainstub cites Jewish sources that interpret שׁחלת as “ladanum,” as I will now explain.

שׁחלת only appears this one time in Tanach. But Vainstub points out that the identification of ladanum with שׁחלת is made by Rabbi Saadiah Gaon (in some manuscripts of his tafsir), and mentioned as a possibility by Ibn Janach (page 340). It is also, perhaps, implicit in the Targum Pseudo-Yonatan. Vainstub cites other sources to support this interpretation as well.

(There is a very long note in “The Living Torah” on שׁחלת, citing many possible interpretations.)

That last letter, “H,” Vainstub viewed as an abbreviation for “hamesh,” indicating the volume of the vessel, 5 ephahs.

If Vainstub’s interpretation is correct, we would here have archaeological evidence of the trade of incense between the Arabian Peninsula and Jerusalem. Vainstub believes that the inscription was engraved on the vessel by someone from Arabia, who was stationed in Jerusalem and involved in this trade.

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Old South Arabic (what Vainstub calls “ASA”) is a Semitic language. Here is what I knew about this language before I read Vainstub’s article. What I quote below is from the leading work of Joseph Naveh, “Early History of the Alphabet” (Second Revised Edition, 1987), page 43: “Thousands of monumental inscriptions (inscriptions on stones, bronze or rocks) were found on the Arabian Peninsula, mainly in its south-western part … The latest Old South Arabic inscriptions date from the sixth century … However, scholars have no definite answer to the problem of the earliest appearance of these inscriptions. There are two main theories: Albright and other scholars believe that the earliest Old South Arabic inscriptions belong to the eighth century BCE; another school … gives a later date, i.e., the fifth century BCE.”

Naveh also wrote that some Old South Arabic inscriptions were discovered in Babylonia from the seventh century BCE and that two Old South Arabic letters were discovered on a jar at Tell el-Kheleifeh (near Eilat), from the eighth or seventh century BCE.

But Vainstub’s article explains that there have been new developments after Naveh’s work:

“Our knowledge of the ASA script and the languages spoken and written by the civilizations that developed in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula as of the end of the second millennium BCE has expanded enormously in recent decades.” One of the factors Vainstub mentions is carbon dating of palm-leaf stalks and wooden sticks engraved with ASA inscriptions. Before the above carbon analyses, “most ASA inscriptions were dated to the 8th century BCE; now, it has become clear that the two branches of ASA script … were in use in the southwest corner of the Arabian peninsula as early as the 11th century BCE … Our inscription is paleo graphically consistent with the most ancient known phases of ASA epigraphically—generally denoted ‘A1’ and ‘A2’ and spanning the late second millennium and the end of the ninth century BCE … ”

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Of course, Vainstub’s interpretation of the letters on this vessel may not be correct and perhaps the letters were Hebrew letters. (If they were Old South Arabic letters, they would be the earliest Old South Arabic letters to have been discovered in such a northern location.) Nevertheless, from his article I have learned that much of the Old South Arabic writing is centuries older than scholars previously thought. This has major ramifications for the etymology of words in Biblical Hebrew, as I will now explain.

We can often find cognates to difficult words in Biblical Hebrew by looking at classical Arabic. But classical Arabic is only from the seventh century CE—perhaps of only minimal relevance to biblical times. But, sometimes, we are lucky enough to have a cognate to our difficult biblical word in an Old South Arabic inscription. This new dating of much of the writing to the earlier centuries and rejection of the 5th century BCE dating gives much more relevance to what we find written in Old South Arabic. (I did not know this in my prior books, including my most recent one and will have to add this to a correction page.)

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I learned about Vainstub’s 2023 article from a 2024 issue of a new journal: “Let the Stones Speak.” This printed journal is published every two months by the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology, located in Jerusalem. The focus of the journal is the archaeology of Israel in biblical times. One can subscribe to this journal for free at their website, ArmstrongInstitute.org. (I would like to thank Chanan Cohen for telling me about this new journal.) It is published by non-Jews who are very supportive of Israel.

Mitchell First can be reached at [email protected]. Another article in this same edition of “Let the Stones Speak,” explains how the building of the First Temple can be dated to exactly 967 BCE. Dating the building of the First and Second Temples is a topic that is important to him, as many of you know.