Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Valley of Elah. The Valley of Elah is the site of the well-known story of David and Goliath (1 Sam 17). The valley is about 18 miles southwest of Jerusalem, the ruins of Qeiyafa are on top of a hill that borders the valley to the north. The small settlement was protected by a casement wall and two gates, but was destroyed. The site is significant for several reasons. First, it is certainly an Israelite site dating to the early Iron age, or the kingdom of David. It is along the border of Judah and Philistia, indicating that there were indeed tensions along that border during the time of David requiring a military post to guard the valley.
The most significant artifact to be found at Qeiyafa is a small ostracon (pot sherd) with some early Hebrew writing on it. William Shea offers a unique translation of the text which recognizes that some of the letters are in fact pictograms. His suggested translation of the first two lines is a command to the king to “not make two servants of the judge and the prophet” (604). He suggests that the text was “written in a time of transition” from local judges and prophets to kings. These lines would be advice to a king to not usurp the tradition roles of the judges or the prophets. As Shea puts it, the judge and the prophet may have diminished in authority when the monarchy was established, but they were to continue “independent of the king” (610).
There are other suggested readings of the text, some differing a great deal from Shea’s reconstruction. For example, Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa renders the second and third line as“judge the slave and the widow and the orphan and the stranger.” Despite the variety of suggested readings, they all sound like advice to the king, whether that advice sounds like the voice of a prophet or a sage. After reading 2 Sam 23:1-7 and Prov 31:1-9, I would suggest that whatever the Qeiyafa Ostracon is, it represents advice to a young king on how to rule wisely. This advice reflects a transition from the rule of Judges to Kings, exactly as 1 Samuel records.