Suzerainty

Suzerainty is the relationship between a stronger king, the suzerain, and a weaker king, the vassal, who keeps his own throne but answers to the suzerain. It let a great power dominate its neighbors without conquering and governing them. It also let the weaker kingdom keep its own king, laws, language and gods.

The relationship was set out in a treaty written by the suzerain. Such treaties are best known from the Hittite treaties and later Assyrian ones, and they follow a common form:

• the suzerain names himself and the vassal;
• he recounts what he has already done for the vassal;
• he lays down the terms;
• he calls the gods as witnesses;
• he lists blessings for keeping the treaty and curses for breaking it.

The treaty was deposited in a temple and read aloud at set times. The same pattern shapes God's covenant with Israel at Sinai and in Deuteronomy.

The vassal's chief duty was tribute: a yearly payment of silver, gold, goods or livestock, and sometimes troops. Mesha of Moab paid Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams (2 Kings 3:4; see the Mesha Stele). In return the suzerain promised protection.

The vassal ran its own internal affairs but not its foreign policy. It had to treat the suzerain's friends and enemies as its own, and could make no separate alliances. Withholding tribute or seeking another protector was rebellion. That is how Hezekiah's refusal to serve Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:7, 13-16) and Zedekiah's appeal to Egypt (Ezekiel 17:15) were treated.

A client state is different. It leans on a stronger power for protection or help but has made no such treaty and keeps its freedom of action, as when Judah looked to Egypt for help against Assyria (Isaiah 30:1-5; 31:1).

On the map, vassal kingdoms are drawn as their own kingdoms under a dashed overlay in the suzerain's color. See how the map's regions are drawn.