Since 2009, a team of archaeologists has been excavating an area of Jerusalem to the south of the Temple Mount knows as the Ophel, where they believe they have found a royal palace complex mentioned at various points in the Bible and perhaps first constructed by King Solomon. Sifting through a pile of debris that appears to have been left undisturbed since biblical times, they have discovered clay seals known as bullae, which were used to stamp letters and documents. Eilat Mazar, the excavation’s director, writes:

Each of the Hebrew bullae, measuring about 0.4 inches in diameter, had been stamped with a seal bearing the name of its owner. . . . Among the bullae found in the debris, only five show papyrus negative impressions on their reverse side. One of these is the bulla impressed with the personal seal of King Hezekiah. Seven of the bullae, . . . all with coarsely woven linen negative impressions on the reverse, appear to have belonged to the relatives of an important individual named Bes. . . .

Alongside the bullae of Hezekiah and the Bes family, 22 additional bullae with Hebrew names were found. Among these is the bulla of “Yeshayah[u] n-v-y[?].” The obvious initial translation, as surprising as it might seem, suggests that this belonged to the prophet [navi] Isaiah [in Hebrew, Y’shayahu]. Naturally, this bulla is far more intriguing than all the others found adjacent to Hezekiah’s bulla.

According to the books of Kings, Isaiah, and Chronicles, Isaiah prophesied during the reign of King Hezekiah, in the late-8th and early-7th centuries BCE, and the two figures are closely associated in the biblical narrative. Although Hezekiah’s historicity has been confirmed by previous archaeological discoveries and contemporary Assyrian sources, this bulla would be the first extrabiblical evidence of Isaiah. Yet, although experts seem certain that the inscription refers to someone named Isaiah, the interpretation of the second word is unclear, especially since letters may be missing. Mazar explains the arguments for and against reading it as “prophet,” noting that “finding a seal impression of the prophet Isaiah next to that of King Hezekiah should not be unexpected.”

While I’ve seen much speculation—some reasonable and well informed, some quite the opposite—about why Jerusalem chose Friday morning to begin its campaign against Iran, the most obvious explanation seems to be the most convincing. First, 60 days had passed since President Trump warned that Tehran had 60 days to reach an agreement with the U.S. over its nuclear program. Second, Israeli intelligence was convinced that Iran was too close to developing nuclear weapons to delay military action any longer. Edward Luttwak explains why Israel was wise to attack:

Iran was adding more and more centrifuges in increasingly vast facilities at enormous expense, which made no sense at all if the aim was to generate energy. . . . It might be hoped that Israel’s own nuclear weapons could deter an Iranian nuclear attack against its own territory. But a nuclear Iran would dominate the entire Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, with which Israel has full diplomatic relations, as well as Saudi Arabia with which Israel hopes to have full relations in the near future.

Luttwak also considers the military feats the IDF and Mossad have accomplished in the past few days:

To reach all [its] targets, Israel had to deal with the range-payload problem that its air force first overcame in 1967, when it destroyed the air forces of three Arab states in a single day. . . . This time, too, impossible solutions were found for the range problem, including the use of 65-year-old airliners converted into tankers (Boeing is years later in delivering its own). To be able to use its short-range F-16s, Israel developed the “Rampage” air-launched missile, which flies upward on a ballistic trajectory, gaining range by gliding down to the target. That should make accuracy impossible—but once again, Israeli developers overcame the odds.