Rab-shakeh

The title of the ofticer sent by Sennacherib with the Tartan and the Rab-saris to demand the surrender of Jerusalem, at that time besieged by the Assyrian forces (2 K 18"- '"• ^■^- " 19'- ^ Is 36, ■• "■<■'■ 22 37''- »). He came, with a great army, accompanied by the other dignitaries w ho are men- tioned, from Lachish, and ' called to the king.' In response to the summons, the officials of Hezekiah's court replied, and the Rab-shakeh pronounced to them a long and insolent message to their royal master, increasing the violence of his tone when requested to speak in Aramaic, and not in Hebrew ' in the ears of all the people that are on the wall.' From this it will be seen that this official was one of some attainments, as, besides his native Assyrian, he must have known Hebrew very well ; and the remonstrance of the Jewish representatives of the king who were parle3"ing with him implies that lie knew Aramaic also, probably because it was the language of a large section of the Assyrian people, and therefore, in a sense, a second mother-ton^'ue to him. The lirst opinion of scholars concerning the title Rab-shakeh was that it meant ' chief of the cupbearers'; but there must have been con- siderable doubt as to the correctness of this render- ing, as such an official would hardly have been sent on an errand of this kind. When, therefore, the cuneiform inscriptions began to be more thoroughly studied, the suggestion was made that the Rab-shakeh of the passages quoted was the same as the rab-saki of the texts. This word is a compound, consisting of rab, const, case of rabu, ' chief,' = the Heb. 21, and saki, plural of sakn, from the Akkad. aagn, ' head,' the whole meaning ' chief of the heads,' or ' captains' (cf. Kab-SARIS). The list of names of officials printed in IVAI ii. pi. 31, No. 2, mentions the rab-siiki between the rah-iumtjar or rab seqar ('chief of the supply?') and the saki or riic, 'officers' or 'captains.' In the time of Tiglath-pileser the Sut-saki who was sent to Tyre as rab-saki received tribute from Metenna 01 that city, from which it may be con- cluded that the Rab-shakeh or Rabsaki was a military ollicer of high rank, regaided as possess- ing some abilitj' as a diplomat. The Ricb-kisir, 'chief of a force,' also often bore this title (tablet K 1359, col. i. 36, ii. 7, 10, iii. I, iv. 11). See Schrader, KAT'^ 319, 320 [COT ii. 3, 4]; Sayce, UCM 441, 442. T. G. PiNCIlES. RACA occurs Mt 5- only, and in its Greek form is variously spelt — /Ja\(i (SVIl, witli cod. Ii), jxix^ (Tisch. witli codd. j<D). It is the Aramaic, Kjn, a form of js'i 'empty' (Heb. p"!), the first o in the Greek being due to a Galiliean change. The X in Tischendorf's spilling is, like the lirst x in 'AxeXSa^djc (Ac 1'", codd. ^k), due to the assi- milation in the pronunciation of l^oph to the aspirated Kapk (Dalinan, Gramm. des Jiid.-I'ol. AramaUch, pp. GO, 138,304). liaca appears to be a word of contempt, 'empty,' so ' worthle.ss,' in- tellectually rather than morally, like the worthless (P"!), empty-headed fellows whom Abinielech at Shechiin hired to be his followers, Jg 9^ ; like the Kent, Ja 2-'°, the empty-head, who boasts of a faith which is intellectual only ; or like the ' ignorant,' called by the Rabbis kij'I, because, for • See Oesenius (Treitcllcs' tr), i.v. Luther's translation is generally, in accordance with this, Eruchenkf, 192 RACAL KACHEL examiile, they could not conceive how God could builil the gates of Jeiasaleni of gems 30 cubits liigh and 3U cubits broad (EdcrsUeini, Life and Times of Jesus, i. 538). Obviously, as rebuked by Christ, it is an advance upon mere angry feeling {6iriL^lili(voi), in projiortion as utterance is less self- controlled than silence ; and, on the other hand, it does not betray so complete a loss of self-control as the word of clinuix, the more positive fiwpi, 'fool,' i.e. godless, good, despising fool, moral reprobate. I5ut the precise force of Raca, as compared with that of repressed anger and of ' fool,' cannot be estimated apart from the gradations of court or penalty from which Christ draws His analogical illustrations ; and these gradations are too readily taken for granted as historical and intelligible, even by some of the foremost commentators in England and in Germany. It is quite commonly assumed (1) that Christ uses Kpltns for the local or provincial court in a Jewish town or village ; (2) that such a court could try cases of murder ; (3) that it could punish the murderer, but only with the sword ; (4) that the Sanhedrin (avpiopiou) alone could inilict 'the more painful and degrading pun- ishment of stoning'; (5) that 7^e^fa tov tti'/jos was the valley of Hinnom, and that in it the corpses of criminals were burned, the most degrading and most abhon-ed punishment of all. But, as a matter of fact, there is, outside this passage itself, no trustworthy evidence for any of these assump- tions (see, tor instance, GEHENNA, vol. ii. p. 119''). It is true that the Talmud may be quoted for the second assumption (cf. Sanhedrin i. 4, as referred to in Schiirer, HJP II. i. 154) ; but this evidence is shaken, first, by the extreme improbability of the statement in the light of the fact that no execution was permitted, even to the Sanhedrin, except by consent of the Procurator (cf. Jn 18^'); ind secondly, by the important qualification that the Talmud is often purely academic, speaking of things that ought to be as though they were. The Talmudic passage just cited was not written down till the 2nd cent. A.D., and represents what, in the opinion of the Rabbis, ought to be the pro- cedure, and what would be in an ideal Judah under Rabliinical nile. The same statement is made by Maimonides 1000 years later, when it could not be historically true.t Accordingly, it appears im- possible to estimate, with any confidence, the exact relations of 'the judgment,' 'the council,' 'the gehenna of fire,' in our Lord's picture, and there- fore, so far, the exact relations of the three stages of anger. Two salient points, however, emerge like headlands out of the mist. (1) Christ hands over all anger, even silent anger, to be tried as a murderous act, to be tried (it should be added) on its merits (cf. ti'oxoj rg Kpicei), and not ipso facto and at once condemned. (2) Christ is no verbal Pharisee. That it is not the utterance of a word, but the spirit of the utterance, that is reprehended, is jilain from the fact that He can use okjtjtoi, a \\(ii(l, like St. James's kcv^, practically identical with Raca, when rebuking the spiritual dulness of two of His immediate followers (Lk 24-'>). J. Massie.