To date, one contemplating the relationship of sociolinguistics to extrabiblical Hebrew encounters a paucity of recent ideas on the matter. This void is understandable because we possess so few Hebrew inscriptions. Furthermore, we cannot avail ourselves of native speakers so as to inquire how they perceive the social implications of their speech. Nevertheless, one cannot fail to realize the potential of studying Hebrew inscriptions to develop and test sociolinguistic theories. This paper is one such attempt to remedy the silence on the subject by discussing the phenomenon of linguistic politeness as observed in early Hebrew epistolary texts. Since the majority of coherent inscriptions are made up of letters, it is by taking into account this specific mode of epistolary correspondence that one has the advantage to gain new insight into the language of politeness as construed in ancient Hebrew. Posed as a question, one may ask, "How do letters comprise unique incarnations of politeness behavior?" Letters, in comparison to literary documents, are more immediately bound to the circumstances and events of their social milieu. The sender of a letter may be reporting the nature of events which occurred only days ago (or even less than a day ago as in the case of some of the Lachish Letters). Therefore, inasmuch as we are able to interpret them adequately, letters are direct vistas into society, unmediated by the alloying voices and hands of past literary tradents. However large the textual corpus of the Hebrew Bible may be, situating its use of language within its immediate social environs is impeded by the reality that it has been passed down to us through tradition.
