Tabeel

The name Tabeel is borne by two distinct figures in scripture: a Persian-period official whose letter to Artaxerxes opens a chapter of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the father of an unnamed man whom the kings of Syria and Israel proposed to set on the throne of Judah in place of Ahaz.

The Persian-period Official

Tabeel is named with several others in the company that wrote against Jerusalem during the days of Artaxerxes: "And in the days of Artaxerxes: Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his fellow slaves, wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian [character], and set forth in the Syrian [tongue]" (Ezr 4:7). The verse fixes the language of the letter — Aramaic, given in the bracketed gloss as Syrian — and gathers Tabeel into the small list of named officials whose correspondence triggered the next phase of imperial response to the rebuilding of the city.

The Father of the Would-be King

In the days of Ahaz of Judah, the kings of Syria and Israel marched up to Jerusalem with a plan to depose the Davidic king and replace him with a man of their own choosing — the son of Tabeel: "Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach in it for us, and set up a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeel" (Isa 7:6). The plotters' speech is reported in their own voice, and Tabeel is named only as the father of the man they intended to enthrone. Whose son he was, and from what household, the text does not say.