Extracted from the book The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, this is a synopsis of the events and character portrayed in the Christian Bible portion Referred to as the Old Testament
A dictionary definition of “myth” is “a traditional story…with a historical basis, serving usually to explain…origins of man…religious rites, etc.”
Here the word “myth” is used in the sense of the domain or container within which a people hold their worldview and can contain history, story and inspirational material.
A Saga of Four Generations
Source: Bible Unearthed pages 28-33
The book of Genesis describes Abraham as the archetypal man of faith and family patriarchy, originally coming from Ur in southern Mesopotamia and resettling with his family in the town of Haran, on one of the tributaries of the upper Euphrates. It is there that God appeared to him and commanded him, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:1-2) Obeying God’s words, Abraham took his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot, and departed for Canaan. He wandered with his flocks among the central hill country moving mainly between Shechem in the north, Bethel (near Jerusalem), and Hebron in the south, but also moving into the Negev, farther south.
During his travels, Abraham built altars to God in several places and gradually discovered the true nature of his destiny. God promised him and his descendants all of the lands from “the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Genesis 15:18).
The family of Abraham was the source of all the nations of the region. During the course of their wandering in Canaan, the shepherds of Abraham and the shepherds of Lot began to quarrel. In order to avoid further family conflict, Abraham and Lot decided to partition the land. Abraham and his people remained in the western highlands while Lot and his family went eastward to the Jordan valley and settle in Sodom near the Dead Sea. The people of Sodom and the nearby city of Gomorrah proved to be wicked and treacherous, but God rained brimstone and fire on the sinful cities, utterly destroying them. Lot went off on his own to eastern hills to become the ancestor of the Transjordanian peoples of Moab and Ammon. Abraham also became the father of several other ancient peoples. Since his wife Sarah, at her advanced age of ninety, could not produce children, Abraham took as his concubine Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian slave. Together they had a child named Ishmael, who would in time become the ancestor of all the Arab peoples of the southern wilderness.
God promised Abraham another child, and his beloved wife Sarah, miraculously gave birth to a son, Isaac, when Abraham was a hundred years old. One of the most powerful images in the Bible occurs when God confronts Abraham with the ultimate test of his faith, commanding him to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac on the mountain in the land of Moriah. God halted the sacrifice but rewarded Abraham’s display of faithfulness by renewing his covenant. Not only would Abraham’ descendants grow into a great nation—as numerous as the stars in the heavens and the sand on the seashore—but in the future all he nations of the world would bless themselves by them.
Isaac grew to maturity and wandered with his own flocks near the southern city of Beersheba, eventually marrying Rebecca, a young woman brought from this father’s homeland far to the north. In the meantime, the family’s roots in the land of the promise were growing deeper. Abraham purchased the Machpelah cave in Hebron in the southern hill country for burying his beloved wife, Sarah. He would also later be buried there.
The generations continued. In their encampment in the Negev, Isaac’s wife, Rebecca, gave birth to twins of completely different characters and temperaments, whose own descendants would carry on a struggle between them for hundreds of years. Esau, a mighty hunter, was the elder and Isaac’s favorite, while Jacob, the younger, more delicate and sensitive, was his mother’s beloved child. And even though Esau was the elder, and the legitimate heir to the divine promise, Rebecca disguised her Jacob with a cloak of goatskin. She presented him at the bed of the dying Isaac so that the blind and feeble patriarch would mistake Jacob for Esau and unwittingly grant him the birthright blessing due to the elder son.
On returning to the camp. Esau discovered the ruse—and the stolen blessing. But nothing could be done. His aged father, Isaac, promised Esau only that he would become the father of the desert-dwelling Edomites: “Behold, away from the fatness of the earth your dwelling shall be” (Genesis 27:39). Thus another of the peoples of the region was established and in time, as Genesis 28:9 reveals, Esau would take a wife from the family of his uncle Ishmael and beget yet other desert tribes. And these tribes would always be in conflict with the Israelites—namely, the descendants of his brother, Jacob, who snatched the divine birthright from him.
Jacob soon fled from the wrath of his aggrieved brother and journeyed far to the north to the house of his uncle Laban in Haran to find a wife for himself. On his way north God confirmed Jacob’s inheritance. At Bethel Jacob stopped for a night’s rest and dreamed of a ladder set up on the earth, with its top reaching heaven and angels of God going up and down. Standing above the ladder, God renewed the promise he had given Abraham:
I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you (Genesis 28:13-15)
Jacob continued northward to Haran and stayed with Laban several years, marrying his two daughters, Leah and Rachel, and fathering eleven sons—Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, and Joseph—from his two wives and from their two maidservants. God then commanded Jacob to return to Canaan with his family. Yet on his way, while crossing the river Jabbok in Transjordan, he was forced to wrestle with a mysterious figure. Whether it was an angel or God, the mysterious figure changed Jacob’s name to Israel (literally, “He who struggled with God”), fro you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed (Genesis 32:28). Jacob then returned to Canaan, setting up and encampment near Shechem and building an altar at Bethel—in the same place where God had revealed himself to him on his way to Haran. As they moved farther south, Rachel died in childbirth near Bethlehem as she gave birth to Benjamin, the last of Jacob’s sons. Soon afterward Jacob’s father, Isaac, died and was buried in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron.
Slowly the family was becoming a clan on the way to becoming a nation. Yet the children of Israel were at this stage still a family of squabbling brothers, among whom Joseph, Jacob’s favored son, was detested by all the others because of his bizarre dreams that predicted he would reign over his family. Though most of the brothers wanted to murder, Reuben and Judah dissuaded them. Instead of slaying Joseph, the brothers sold him to a group of Ishmaelite merchants going down to Egypt with a caravan of camels. The brothers feigned sadness and explained to the patriarch Jacob that a wild beast had devoured Joseph. Jacob mourned his beloved son.
But Joseph’s great destiny would not be averted by his brother’s jealousy. Settling in Egypt, he rose quickly in wealth and status because of his extraordinary abilities. After interpreting a dream of the pharaoh predicting seven good years followed by seven bad years, he was appointed the pharaoh’s grand vizier. In that high position he reorganized the economy of Egypt by storing surplus food from good years for future bad years. Indeed, when he bad years finally commenced, Egypt was well prepared. In nearby Canaan, Jacob and his sons suffered from famine and Jacob sent ten of his eleven remaining sons to Egypt for food. In Egypt they went to see vizier, Joseph—now grown to adulthood. Jacob’s sons did not recognize their long-lost brother and Joseph did not initially reveal his identity to them. Then, in a moving scene, Joseph revealed to them that he was the scorned brother whom they sold away into slavery.
The children of Israel were at last reunited, and the aged patriarch Jacob came to live with his entire family near his great son, in the land of Goshen. On his deathbed, Jacob blessed his sons and his two grandsons, Joseph’s sons Manasseh and Ephraim. Of all the honors, Judah received the royal birthright:
Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness; who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Genesis 48:8-10):
And after the death of Jacob, his body was taken back to Canaan—to the territory that would someday become Judah’s tribal inheritance—and was buried by his sons in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron. Joseph died, too, and the children of Israel remained in Egypt where the next chapter of their history as a nation would unfold
Israel in Egypt: The Bible Saga.
Pages 48 – 52
The stage was set for a dramatic spiritual metamorphosis at the end of the book of Genesis, with the sons of Jacob living in security under the protection of their brother Joseph. They were prosperous and content in the cities of the eastern Nile delta and had free access back and forth to their Canaanite homeland. After the death of the father, Jacob, they brought his body to the tomb that had been prepared for him—alongside his father Isaac and grandfather, Abraham in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron. And over a period of four-hundred thirty years, the descendants of the twelve brothers and their immediate families evolved into a great nation—just as God had promised—and were known to the Egyptian population as Hebrews. “They multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7) But times changed an eventually a new pharaoh came to power “who knew not Joseph.” Fearing that the Hebrews would betray Egypt to one of its enemies, this new pharaoh enslaved them, forcing them into construction gangs to build the royal cities of Pithom and Ramses. “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied? (Exodus 1:12). The vicious cycle of oppression continued to deepen: the Egyptians made the Hebrews life ever more bitter as they were forced into hard service “with mortar and brick and in all kinds of work in the field” (Exodus 1:14)
Fearing a population explosion of these dangerous immigrant workers, the pharaoh ordered that all Hebrew male infants be drowned in the Nile. Yet from this desperate measure came the instrument of the Hebrews’ liberation. A child from the tribe of Levi—set adrift in a basket of bulrushes—was found and adopted by one of the pharaoh’s daughters. He was given the name Moses (from the Hebrew root “to draw out” of he water) and was raised in the royal court. Years later when Moses had grown to adulthood, he saw an Egyptian taskmaster flaying a Hebrew slave and his deepest feelings rose to the surface. He slew the taskmaster and “hid the body in the sand.” Fearing the consequences of his act, Moses fled to the wilderness—to the land of Midian—where he adopted a new life as a desert nomad. And it was in the course of his wandering as a solitary shepherd near Horeb, “the mountain of God,” that he received the revelation that would change the world.
From the brilliant, flickering flames of a bush in the desert, which was burning yet was not consumed, the God of Israel revealed himself to Moses as t he deliverer of the people of Israel. He proclaimed that he would free them of their taskmasters and bring them to a life of freedom and security in the Promised Land. God identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and now also revealed to Moses his mysterious, mystical name YHWH, “I am who I am.” And he solemnly commissioned Moses with the assistance of his brother Aaron, to return to Egypt to confront the Pharaoh with a demonstration of miracles and to demand freedom for the people of Israel.
But the pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he responded to Moses by intensifying the suffering of the Hebrew slaves. So God instructed Moses to threatened Egypt with a series of terrible plagues if the pharaoh still refused to respond to the divine injunction to “Let my people go” (Exodus 7:16). The pharaoh did not relent and the Nile turned to blood. Frogs, then gnats, then flies swarmed throughout the country. A mysterious disease decimated the Egyptians livestock. Boils and sores erupted on their skin and the skin of their surviving animals. Hail poured down from the heavens, ruining the crops. And yet the pharaoh still refused to relent. Plagues of locusts an darkness t hen came upon Egypt—and finally a terrible plague of the killing of the firstborn, both human an animal, from all the land of the Nile.
In order to protect the Israelite firstborn, God instructed Moses and Aaron to prepare the congregation of Israel for a special sacrifice of lambs, whose blood should be smeared on the door post of every Israelite dwelling so that each would be passed over on the night of the slaying of the Egyptian sons. He also instructed them to prepare provisions of unleavened bread for a hasty exodus. When the pharaoh witnessed the horrible toll of the tenth plague, the killing of the firstborn including his own, he finally relented, bidding the Israelites to take their flocks and herds and be gone.
Thus the multitude of Israel, numbering “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women an children” (Exodus 13:17-18). And when the pharaoh, regretting his decision, sent a force of “six hundred picked chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt” after the fleeing Israelites, the red Sea parted to allow the Israelites to cross over to Sinai on dry land. And as soon as they had made the crossing, the towering waters engulfed the pursuing Egyptians in an unforgettable miracle that was commemorated in the biblical Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18)
Guided by Moses, the Israelite multitude passed through the wilderness, following a carefully recorded itinerary of places at which they thirsted, hungered, and murmured their dissatisfaction, but were calmed and fed through Moses’ intercession with God. Finally reaching the mountain of God where Moses had received his first great revelation, the people of Israel gathered as Moses climbed to the summit to receive the Law under which the newly liberated Israelites should forever live. Though the gathering at Sinai was marred by the Israelites’ worship of a golden calf while Moses was on the mountain (and in anger Moses smashed the first set of stone tablets), God conveyed to the people through Moses the ten commandments and then the complex legislation of worship, purity, and dietary laws. The sacred Ark of the Covenant, containing the tablets of God’s Law, would henceforth be the battle standard and most sacred national symbol accompanying the Israelites in all of their wanderings.
Setting off from their camp at the wilderness of Paran, the Israelites sent spies to collect intelligence on the people of Canaan (Numbers 13). But those spies returned with reports so frightening about the strength of the Canaanites and the towering fortifications of their cities that the multitude of Israelites lost heart and rebelled against Moses, begging to return to Egypt, where at least their physical safety could be ensured. Seeing this, God determined that the generation that had known slavery in Egypt would not live to inherit the Promised Land, and the Israelites must remain wanderers in the wilderness for another forty years. Therefore, they did not enter Canaan directly, but by a winding route through Kadesh-barnea and into Arabah, across the lands of Edom and Moab to the east of the Dead Sea.
The final act of the Exodus story took place on the plains of Moab in Transjordan, in sight of the Promised Land. The now elderly Moses revealed to the Israelites the full terms of the laws they would be required to obey if they were truly to inherit Canaan. This second code of law is contained in the book of Deuteronomy (named from the Greek word meaning “second law”). It detailed the mortal dangers of idolatry, set the calendar of festivals, listed a wide range of social legislation, and mandated that once the land was conquered the God of Israel could be worshiped in a single sanctuary; the place that the Lord your God will choose.” (Deuteronomy 26:2). Then, after the appointment of Joshua, son of Nun, to lead the Israelites on their campaign of swift conquest, the 120 yea old Moses ascended to the summit of Mount Nebo and died. The transition from family to nation was complete. Now the nation faced the awesome challenge of fulfilling its God-given destiny.
The Conquest of Canaan
Pages 72-76
After generations of slavery in Egypt and forty years of wandering in the desert, the Israelites were now standing on the very border of Canaan, across the river from that land where their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had lived. God now commanded that the land be cleansed of all traces of idolatry—and that would entail a complete extermination of the Canaanites.
Led by Joshua—a brilliant general with a flair for tactical surprise—the Israelites soon marched from one victory to another in a stunning series of sieges and open field battles. Immediately across the Jordan lay the ancient city of Jericho, a place that would have to be taken if the Israelites were to establish a bridgehead. As the Israelites were preparing to cross the Jordan, Joshua sent two spies into Jericho to gain intelligence on the enemy preparations and the strength of the fortifications. The spies returned with the encouraging news (provided to them by a harlot named Rahab) that the inhabitants had already become fearful at the news of the Israelite approach. The people of Israel immediately crossed the Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant leading the camp. The story of the subsequent conquest of Jericho is almost too familiar to bear recounting: the Israelites followed the command of God as conveyed to them by Joshua, marching solemnly around the high walls of city, an on the seventh day, with a deafening blast of the Israelites’ war trumpets, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down (Joshua 6).
The next objective was the city of Ai, near Bethel, located in the highlands pf Canaan at a strategic place on one of the main roads leading from the Jordan valley to the hill country. This time the city was taken by Joshua’s brilliant tactics, worthy of the Greek warriors at Troy, rather than by a miracle. While Joshua arranged the bulk of his troops in the open field to the east of the city, taunting Ai’s defenders, he secretly set an ambush on the western side. And when the warriors of Ai stormed out of the city to engage the Israelites and pursue t hem into ht desert, the hidden ambush unit entered the undefended city and set it ablaze. Joshua then reversed his retreat and slaughtered all of Ai’s inhabitants, taking all the cattle and spoil of the city s booty, and ignominiously hanging the king of Ai from a tree (Joshua 8:1-29).
Panic now began to spread among the inhabitants of the cities in Canaan. Hearing what had happened to the people of Jericho and Ai, the Gibeonites, who inhabited four cities north of Jerusalem, sent emissaries to Joshua to plead for mercy. Since they insisted that they were foreigners to the country, not natives (whom God had ordered to be exterminated), Joshua agreed to make peace with them. But when it was revealed that the Gibeonites had lied and were indeed native to the land, Joshua punished them by declaring that they would always serve as “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for the Israelites (Joshua 89:27)
The initial victories of the Israelite invaders in Jericho and in the towns of the central hill country became an immediate cause for concern among the more powerful kings of Canaan, Adonizedek, the king of Jerusalem, quickly forged a military alliance with the king of Hebron in the southern highlands and the kings of Jarmuth, Lachisch, and Eglon in the Shephelah foothills to the west. The Canaanite kings marshaled their combined forces around Gibeon, but in a lightning movement, marching all night from the Jordan valley, Joshua surprised the army of the Jerusalem coalition. The Canaanite forces fled in panic along the seep ridge of Beth-horon to the west. As they fled, God pummeled them with great stones from heaven. In fact, the Bible tells us, “there were more who died because of the hailstones than the men of Israel killed with the sword” (Joshua 10:11). The sun setting, but the righteous killing was not over, so Joshua turned to God in the presence of the entire Israelite army and bid that the sun stand still until the divine will was fulfilled. The sun then
stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. Here has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel (Joshua 10”:13-14)
The fleeing kings were finally captured and put to the sword. Joshua then continued the campaign and destroyed the Canaanite cities of the southern parts of the country, completely conquering that region for the people of Israel.
The final act took place in the north. A coalition of Canaanite kings headed by Jabin of Hazor, “a great host, in number like sand that is upon the seashore, with very many horses and chariots” (Joshua 11:4) met the Israelites in an open field battle in Galilee that ended with the complete destruction of the Canaanite forces. Hazor, the most important city in Canaan, “the head of all those kingdoms” (Joshua 11:10), was conquered and set ablaze. Thus with this victory the entire promised land, from the southern desert to the snowy peak of Mount Herman in the north, came into Israelite possession. The divine promise had indeed been fulfilled. The Canaanite forces were annihilated and the children of Israel settled down to divide the land among the tribes as their God-given inheritance.
Inheriting the Promised Land
Pages 98-100
Once the great conquest of Canaan was over, the book of Joshua informs us “the land had rest from war (Joshua 11:23). All the Canaanites and other indigenous peoples of Canaan had been utterly destroyed. Joshua convened the tribes and divided up the land. The map of the holy land was set.
Or was it? In a puzzling contradiction to the proclamations of total victory, the book of Joshua reports that large territories within Canaan, situated outside the tribal inheritances, remained to be conquered. Thus the menace that faced the newly settled Israelites was both military and religious. External enemies threatened the Israelites’ physical safety and the Canaanites remaining in the land posed the mortal danger of luring the Israelites into apostasy—and thereby shattering the power of Israel’s solemn covenant with God.
The stage was set for many years of protracted struggle. Following the book of Joshua, the book of Judges presents an extraordinary rich collection of thrilling stories and tales of individual heroism in the battles between the Israelites and their neighbors. It contains some of the Bible’s most colorful characters and most unforgettable images. Othniel single handedly beats back the forces of the mysterious, “king of Mesopotamia” (Judges 3:7-11). Ehud fearlessly assassinates the king of Moab in his private apartment (Judges 3:12-30), Shamgar slays six hundred Philistines with an ox goad (Judges 3:31). Deborah and Barak rouse the Israelite tribes against the threat of the remaining Canaanite kings in the north, and the heroic Yael, slays the Canaanite general Sisera by driving a stake in his head while he sleeps. (Judges 4::-5:31)Gideon purifies the land from idolatry and protects his people from the desert-raiding Midianites (Judges 6:1-8:28). And of course there is the famous saga of Samson, betrayed by the Philistine temptress Delilah, who goes to his death in Gaza, blinded and humbled, by pulling down the pillars of the great Philistine temple of Dagon (Judges 13:1=16:31).
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were round about them, and bowed down to them, and provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them; and he sold them into the power of their enemies round about, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them; and they were in sore straits. Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the power of those who plundered them. And yet they did not listen to their judges; for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed down to them; they soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. Whenever the Lord raised judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and behaved worse than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them, they did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. (Judges 2:11-19)
A Royal Dynasty for Israel
Pages 124-127, 150-151, 212-213
The time of the monarchy begins with a great military crisis. The masses Philistine armies routed the Israelite tribal levies in battle and carried off the holy Ark of the Covenant as booty of war. Under the leadership of the Prophet/Judge Samuel, the Israelites later recovered the ark, which was brought back. But the days of the judges were clearly over. The military threats now faced by the people of Israel required full time leadership. The elders of Israel assembled at Samuel’s home in Ramah, north of Jerusalem, an asked him to appoint a king for Israel, “like all the nations.” Though Samuel warned against the dangers of kingship in one of the most eloquent antimonarchic passages in the Bible (1 Samuel 8:10-18), God instructed him to do as the people requested. And God revealed his selection to Samuel: the first king of Israel would be Saul, son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin. Saul was a handsome young man and a brave warrior, yet one whose inner doubts and naïve violations of the divine laws of sacrifice, war booty, an other sacred injunctions (1 Samuel 15:10-26) would lead to his ultimate rejection and eventual tragic death at Mount Gilboa, when the Israelites were routed by the Philistines.
Even as Saul still reigned as king of Israel he was unaware that his successor had already been chosen. God instructed Samuel to go to the family of Jesse from Bethlehem, “for I have provided for myself a king among his sons” (1 Samuel 16:1). The youngest of those sons was a handsome, red-haired shepherd named David, who would finally bring salvation to Israel. First came an awesome demonstration of David’s battlefield prowess. The Philistines gathered again to wage war against Israel, and the two armies faced each other in the valley of Elah in the Shephelah. The Philistines secret weapon was the giant warrior Goliath, who mocked the God of Israel and challenged any Israelite warrior to engage in single combat with him. Great fear fell upon Saul and his soldiers, but the young David, sent by his father to bring provisions to his three older brothers serving in Saul’s army, took up the challenge fearlessly. Shouting to Goliath—“You came to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord” (1 Samuel 17:45)—David took a small stone from his shepherd’s pouch and slung it with deadly aim at Goliath’s forehead, killing him on the spot. The Philistines were routed. David, the new hero of Israel, befriended Saul’s son Jonathan and married Michal, the daughter of the king. David was popularly acclaimed Israel’s greatest hero—greater even than thee king. The enthusiastic cries of his admirers, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands!” (1 Samuel 18:7), made King Saul jealous. It was only a matter of time before David would have to contest Saul’s leadership and claim the throne of all Israel.
Escaping Saul’s murderous fury, David became leader of a band of fugitives and soldiers of fortune, with people in distress or deep in debt flocked to him. David and his men roamed in the foothills of the Shephelah, in the Judean desert, and in the southern margins of the Judean hills—all regions located away from the centers of power of Saul’s kingdom to the north of Jerusalem. Tragically, in battle with the Philistines far to the north at Mount Gilboa, Saul’s sons were killed by the enemy and Saul took his own life. David proceeded quickly to the ancient city of Hebron in Judah where the people of Judah declared him king. This was the beginning of the great Davidic state and lineage, the beginning of the glorious united monarchy.
Once David and his men overpowered the remaining pockets of opposition among Saul’s supporters, representatives of all the tribes duly convened in Hebron to declare David king over all Israel. After reigning seven years in Hebron, David moved north to conquer the Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem—until then, claimed by none of the tribes of Israel—to make it his capital. He ordered that the Ark of the Covenant be brought it from to Jerusalem.
David then received an astonishing, unconditional promise from God:
Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he shall be my son. When he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men; but I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever. (2 Samuel 7:8-16)
David then initiated sweeping wars of liberation and expansion. In a series of swift battles he destroyed the power of the Philistines and defeated the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites in Transjordan, concluding is campaigns with the subjugation of the Arameans far to the north. Returning in triumph to Jerusalem, David now ruled over a vast territory, far more extensive even than the tribal inheritances of Israel. But David did not find peace even in his time of glory. Dynastic conflicts—including the revolt of his son Absalom—led to great concern for the continuation of his dynasty. Just before David’s death, the priest Zadok anointed Solomon to be the next king of Israel.
Solomon, to whom God gave “wisdom and understanding beyond measure,” consolidated the Davidic dynasty and organized his empire, which now stretched from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt (1 Kings 4:24). His immense wealth came from a sophisticated system of taxation and forced labor required of each of the tribes of Israel and from trading expeditions to exotic countries in the south. In recognition of his fame and wisdom, the fabled queen of Sheba visited him in Jerusalem and brought him a caravan of dazzling gifts.
Solomon’s greatest achievements were his building activities. In Jerusalem, he constructed a magnificent, richly decorated Temple to YHWH, inaugurated in great pomp, and built a beautiful palace nearby. He fortified Jerusalem as well as the important provincial cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, and maintained stables with forty thousand stalls of horses for his fourteen hundred chariots, and twelve thousand cavalrymen. He concluded a treaty with Hiram, king of Tyre, who dispatched cedars of Lebanon for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem and became Solomon’s partner in overseas trading ventures. The Bible summarizes Solomon’s reputation: “Thus king Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind” (1 Kings 10:23-24)
Upon the death of Solomon and the accession of his son Rehoboam, the northerners appealed for a reduction in their burden. But the arrogant Rehoboam dismissed the advice of his moderate counselors and replied to the northerners with the now famous words “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” (1 Kings 12:14). The banner of rebellion was unfurled as the northerners rallied to the cry of secession: “And when Israel saw that the king did not hearken to them, the people answered the king: ‘What portion have we in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Look to your tents, O Israel! Look to your own house, David.’ So Israel departed to their tents” (1 Kings 122:16) The northerners proceeded to stone to death Rehoboam’s chief taskmaster, and King Rehoboam fled in terror back to the safety of Jerusalem.
The northerners than gathered to proclaim for themselves a monarch and chose Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who had served in the court of Solomon. The united monarchy of David and Solomon was completely shattered. Two independent states were created: Judah, which was ruled by the Davidic dynasty from Jerusalem, with its territory limited to the southern part of the central hill country; and Israel, which controlled vast territories in the north. The first capital of the northern kingdom was set at Tirzah, located to the northeast of Shechem. The new king Jeroboam, decided to set up rivals to the Temple in Jerusalem and ordered that two golden calves be fashioned and installed in shrines at the farthest corners of his kingdom—at Bethel, in the far south and Dan in the north.Thus began a turbulent and fateful period in the biblical history of Israel. From the solidarity lf the patriarchal period, from the spiritual solidarity of the Exodus, and from the political unity of the united monarchy, the people of Israel were torn in two.
What follows is two hundred years of division and hatred between brothers, with the independent Israelite kingdoms of Israel in the north and of Judah in the south intermittently poised to strike at each other’s throats. It is a tale of tragic division, and of violence and idolatry in the northern kingdom. There, according to the biblical accounts, new cult centers are founded to compete with Jerusalem Temple. New northern Israelite dynasties, rivals of the house of David, bloodily come to power one after another. In time, the northerners pay for their sinfulness with the ultimate punishment—destruction of their state and the exile of the ten northern tribes.
There was a period, 788 BCE to 747 BCE, when the kingdom of Israel attained great prominence including wealth to the Israelite aristocracy. It was also the period when we have the first record of prophetic protest. The oracles of the prophets Amos and Hosea are the earliest preserved prophetic books. Their scathingly denounce the corrupt and impious aristocracy of the north.
Beyond the condemnation of the rich and the powerful, Amos and Hosea both offer searing critiques of the social injustices, idolatry, and domestic tensions that international trade and the dependence on Assyria have brought. According to Hosea, “Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses; and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands” (Hosea 14:3). Amos condemns the wickedness of those who merely pay lip service to the dictates of religion while gathering riches for themselves and abusing the poor:
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, and that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the refuse of the wheat? (Amos 8:4-6)
In the Shadow of Empire
Pages 196-197, 219 – 222
A dark sense of foreboding hovers over the kingdom of Israel as the biblical narrative of its history moves toward its tragic climax. Suffering, dispossession, and exile seem to be the inescapable destiny of the people of the breakaway kingdom in punishment for their impious acts. Instead of remaining faithful to the Temple in Jerusalem and to the worship of YHWH to the exclusion of all other gods, the people of northern Israel—and particularly its sinful monarchs—provoked a series of catastrophes that would end in their destruction. Faithful prophets of YHWH arose to call Israel to account and demand a return to righteousness and justice, but their calls went unheeded. The invasions of foreign armies and the devastation of the kingdom of Israel were an essential part of a divine plan.
The kingdom of Israel was eventually (in 722 BCE) conquered by the nation of Assyria. The Assyrians viewed all the lands, animals, resources, and peoples of the areas they conquered as objects—as chattel—that could and should be moved or exploited to serve the best interests of the Assyrian state. It was all over. Two stormy centuries had come to a catastrophic end. The proud northern kingdom and a significant part of its population were lost to history.
Judah On Its Own
Pages 231,
Over the next two centuries, eleven Davidic kings ruled in Jerusalem (all but one heirs of the Davidic dynasty). When sinful kings ruled in Jerusalem, God’s retribution was swift and crystal clear, Judah was punished by military setbacks. When righteous kings reigned over Judah and the people were faithful to the God of Israel, the kingdom prospered and expanded its territory. Unlike the northern kingdom, which is described in negative terms throughout the biblical text, Judah is basically good. Though the number of Judah’s good and bad kings is almost equal, the length of their reigns is not. Good kings cover most of the history of the southern kingdom.
But the rule of Judah by its kings came to an end when the nation of Babylon conquered the nation of Assyria and marched into Judah and plundered and devastated the Judahite state.
At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged…and the king of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself, and his mother, and his servants, and his prices, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eight year of his reign, and carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord, which Solomon king of Israel had made, as the Lord had foretold. He carried away … all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all he craftsmen and the smiths; none remained except the poorest people of the land. (2 Kings 24:10-14)
The Jerusalem aristocracy and priesthood were taken off into exile, to leave increasing conflict among those remaining:
The situation in Judah after the destruction is described in the book of Jeremiah, while the book of Ezekiel (written by one of the exiles) provides information on the life and expectations of the Judahite deportees in Babylonia. The concluding chapter of 2 Kings and the book of Jeremiah tell of that part of the population of Judah that had survived and was not deported. Some of them fled to Egypt, including the prophet Jeremiah.
As for those in exile, the biblical texts reveal little except to note that they settled in for a long stay, following the advice of Jeremiah.(Jeremiah 29:5-6) But history would soon take a sudden and dramatic turn that would bring many of the exiles back to Jerusalem.
The mighty Neo-Babylonian empire crumbled and was conquered by the Persians in 539 B.C.E, In the first year of his reign, Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire, issued a royal decree for the restoration of Judah and the Temple.
Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem. (Ezra 1:2-3)
A leader of the exiles named Sheshbazzar…led the first group of returnees. They carried with them the Temple treasures that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem half a century earlier. They settled in their old homeland and laid the foundations for a new Temple. The work continued and the Temple was finished in the year 516 B.C.E. The new king, Darius, supplied the Temple with animals for sacrifice
A little over a half century later another event in the history of the nation occurred. Ezra, a scribe from the family of the chief priest Aaron, came to Jerusalem from Babylonia. He had been given authority by the king of Persia and he used it to further his beliefs—which were that the people should not associated with the people of the land and definitely should not intermarry with them. He ordered the returnees to gather in Jerusalem:
Then all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled in Jerusalem…And all the people sat I the open square before the house of God…And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. Now then make confession to the Lord the God of our fathers, and do his will; separate yourselves from he peoples of the land and from foreign wives. “Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, ‘It is so; we must do as you have said…”Then the returned exiles did so.” (Ezra 10:8-16)
Ezra—one of the most influential figures of biblical times—then disappeared from the scene.
The other hero of that time was Nehemiah, the cupbearer, or high court official of the Persian king. Nehemiah heard about the poor state of the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem’s terrible condition of disrepair. Deeply affected at this news, he asked the Persian king Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the city of his fathers. The king granted Nehemiah permission and appointed him to the post of governor. Nehemiah…summoned the people to join in a great, communal effort to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem…Nehemiah was also active in implementing social legislation, condemning those who extracted interest and urging restitution of land to the poor. At the same time, he too prohibited Jewish intermarriage with foreign wives.
Refashioning Israel’s history
Pages 310-313)
One of the main functions of the priestly elite in post-exilic Jerusalem…was the continuing production of literature and scsriptura to bind the community together and determine its norms against the peoples all around…No less import, the final redaction of the Pentateuch also dates to this period. The biblical scholar Richard Friedman went one step further and suggested that the redactor who gave the final shape to the “law of Moses” was Ezra, who is specifically described as “the scribe of the law of God of heaven” (Ezra 7:12).
The post-exilic writers, back in Jerusalem, needed not only to explain the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, but also to reunite the community of Yehud around the new Temple. The needed to give the people hope for a better, more prosperous future;…the needs of the post-exilic Yehud community were similar to the necessities of the late-monarchic Judahite state. Both were small communities, inhabiting a limited territory that was only a small parrot of the Promised Land, but of great importance as the spiritual and political center of the Israelites.
Both were surrounded by alien, hostile neighbors. Both claimed nearby territories that were outside their realm. Both faced problems with foreigners from within and without …The idea of the centrality of Judah and its superiority to its neighbors certainly resonated in the consciousness of the Jerusalem community in the late sixth and fifth centuries BCE. But other circumstances—such as s\the decline of the house of David and life under an empire—forced the early post-exilic writers to reshape the old ideas.
The Exodus story took on pointed significance in Exilic and post-exilic times. The story of the great liberation must have had a strong appeal to the exiles in Babylon…Indeed the striking similarity of themes in the story of the Exodus from Egypt and the memories of the return from exile may have influenced the shaping of both narratives. Reading the saga of the Exodus, the returnees found a mirror of their own plight.
The post-exilic stage of the editing of the Bible recapitulated many of the key themes …Once again the Israelites were centered in Jerusalem, amid great uncertainty, without controlling most of the land that they considered theirs by divine promise. Once again a central authority needed to unite the population. And once again they did by brilliantly reshaping the historical core of the Bible in such a way that it was able to serve as the main source of identity and spiritual anchor for the people of Israel as they faced the many disaster, religious challenges and political twists of fate that lay ahead.