ORIGINS (?2000–1200 BEFORE CHRIST)
The first date we can be reasonably sure of in the Bible is when some Israelites escaped from labor camps in Egypt under the leadership of Moses; the time is about 1260. But the Israelites regarded the beginning of their story as the journey of Abraham and Sarah from Mesopotamia to Canaan. Mesopotamia means “between the rivers,” and it denotes the country between the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, seven hundred miles east of Palestine. It overlaps with the modern states of Iraq and Iran stretching down to the Persian Gulf.
One of the oldest and most splendid cities of Mesopotamia was Ur of the Chaldees. Chaldea is another word for Babylonia. Genesis tells us that, for reasons it doesn’t say, a man named Terah, with his wives and family, left Ur and traveled northwest to the town of Haran. After Terah’s death, part of the family, headed by his son Abraham, left Haran and migrated in a southwesterly direction toward the land of the Canaanites.
Racially, Abraham’s clan and the inhabitants of Canaan were related; their languages, too, were similar. They would be quite able to communicate with one another. However, their cultures and ways of life were different. The Canaanites were a settled, agricultural people. They worshiped a variety of gods under the presidency of one named El, who had sanctuaries throughout the country. Abraham’s clan were shepherds, not farmers, and they were thus less used to staying in one place: they might wander as they wished, and indeed they were obliged to wander to some extent, ever in search of pasturage for their flocks. Their God guided the leader of the clan and was thus often called by the name of the leader, by names such as “the God of Abraham.” This God accompanied them on their travels.
So Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and his twelve sons moved to Canaan. They might have carried on living as shepherds there had it not been for a desperate famine that took Abraham’s great-grandchildren to Egypt. There, in fact, they settled and lived happily, until there was a change of government and a king (or pharaoh) came to the throne who was not so sympathetic to these aliens in his country.
So by about 1300 the descendants of Jacob—who had been given the new name “Israel”—were no better than state serfs of the Egyptians. At this time there were various Semite groups in Egypt, many of whom were put to work on building projects in the Delta area. However, one group fled from there, led by Moses. They raced east toward the Sinai Peninsula, and after a miraculous escape near the site of the present Suez Canal, found refuge in the desert. It was an area Moses knew well, and he led them to the mountain where the God of Abraham had once appeared to him. There a pact was made between God and this people, Israel.
The pact is referred to in the Bible as a “covenant.” The word denotes a solemn commitment. In this case, it is a two-sided agreement by which two parties promise to be faithful to each other. God had reached out to the Israelites, and now they committed themselves to God. The Ten Commandments and God’s other instructions are the standard that Israel agreed to accept as their part in keeping the covenant (though we do not know how many of these instructions go back to Sinai).
On leaving Sinai to move on to their destination in Canaan, these Israelites lived as nomads for a generation, mostly in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula. Eventually they traveled up the east side of the Jordan rift, through the countries of Edom and Moab, and crossed the River Jordan near Jericho. They won spectacular victories under Joshua in the heart of the country, and these victories impressed themselves on later generations as the key to the Israelites’ occupation of the country as a whole. But before Joshua’s victories, the Israelites had conquered the country east of the Jordan separately, and the territory that became Judah was apparently attacked from the south by Caleb. Even in the center and north, some of the peoples of Canaan accepted the invaders, without resistance, perhaps recognizing them as their own kin and acknowledging the invaders’ God as their own too. One way and another, Israel could claim possession of the hill country west of the Jordan and of a fair slice of territory on the other side.
The following parts of the Bible refer to these events:
◆ Israel’s ancestors | Genesis (Job is also set in this period) |
◆ The exodus | Exodus 1–18 |
◆ The covenant at Sinai | Exodus 19–40; Leviticus; Numbers 1–10 |
◆ The time of wandering | Numbers 11–36; Deuteronomy |
◆ The conquest under Joshua | Joshua |
CHAOS AND KINGSHIP (1200–931 BEFORE CHRIST)
The story of Israel’s getting into Canaan ought to lead into “and lived happily ever after.” In fact, it’s only the beginning of Israel’s troubles. Many Canaanite clans had not been defeated by the Israelites. Even the later capital, Jerusalem, was still controlled by an indigenous people called the Jebusites. Furthermore, at about the same time as the Israelites were making inroads on Canaanite territory from the east, the Philistines (who came originally from across the Mediterranean) were doing the same from the west. While the Canaanites might be doomed by this pincer movement, it was not clear that Israel would be the eventual victor.
In another way, the Canaanites themselves formed an even more serious threat to Israel. Their religion had a beguiling attraction for the Israelites. The name of the Israelites’ God was Yhwh, probably pronounced “Yahweh” (it used to be misspelled as “Jehovah”) and represented in most English Bibles by the phrase “the LORD.” This God had proved powerful in meeting the people’s needs in rescuing them from oppression and aiding them in battle. But could this God make crops grow? There might be doubt about that. On the other hand, making crops grow was the specialty of the Canaanite god Baal (El’s son)—so his worshipers claimed. And often Israelites fell to the temptation to join in his worship. Moral chaos also characterized these early years in Palestine: “all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (Judg 21:25).
Renowned leaders such as Deborah, Gideon, Samson, and Samuel belong to this period. They are often referred to as the “judges,” though the title is misleading because they were primarily figures through whom God rescued the people from apostasy and oppression. But the Israelites never won final security. With the Philistine threat increasing and Samuel now old, the Israelites eventually insisted on having the organized leadership required by the challenge of the situation. They insisted on having kings, like everyone else.
The first king was Saul, who won notable victories, though without being able to deal with the Philistine threat. Nor did he deal with the problem of religious anarchy: indee...