To trace the beginning of Judaism and its peoples in Israel one needs to look at the bible, near the very beginning. The first five books of the bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are known by Jews as the Pentateuch or Torah.
Quoting from Genesis: “And Terah
took Abra[ha]m his son and they went forth from
Quoting Genesis again: “Now the Lord said to Abra[ha]m ‘Get out of your country, and from your family,
and from your father’s house and go into the land that I will show you. And I
will make of you a great nation.’[3]
[Verse 4]: So Abra[ha]m went, as the Lord had spoken to
him... [Verse 5]: and into the land of Canaan they came… [Verse 6]: And Abra[ha]m passed through the land to Shechem.
[Verse 7]: And the Lord appeared to Abra[ha]m, and
said: ‘To your seed will I give this land…’[4] Abra[ha]m then moved to Beth-el, about 10 miles north of
The Torah continues to recount Abra[ha]m’s
wanderings out of Canaan due to famine and into Egypt and back out to Hebron,
the same Hebron we know of today. With all the current strife you might be interested
to know it was in
As biblical text shows it was on a crude altar where Abraham at G_d’s word undertook to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. However, there is no support in the biblical account for the exact location of the sacrifice. The only mention of the location was when the Lord said “go into the land of Moriah.”[8] After three days of travel, Abraham saw the place from afar. We know it was a hill or “mount” from Genesis.[9] The land of Moriah is an elongated stretch of land that geographically also encompasses today’s Jerusalem.[10]
Abraham’s son Isaac came to reside in Gerar,[11] which is at the southern border of Israel. He left Gerar at the behest of the Philistine King Abimelech who had grown wary of the burgeoning Jewish population.[12] Since Abraham and Isaac were both guests in the land of the Philistines, he was obliged to move on. From there he went to Beersheba where he successfully dug a well.[13] This is the same Beersheba in Israel today. It is here that King Abimelech made his final peace with Isaac and the Jewish peoples settled in.[14]
When G_d instructed Isaac’s son Jacob to seek a wife in the
land of his forefathers, he set out back to Haran
where Abraham had come from. On Jacob’s journey we are told of his famous dream
wherein he spied a ladder ascending to heaven and G_d stood next to him and
stated “The land you are laying on I will give to you and your generations.”[15]
Here Jacob built a pillar of stone and named the place Beth-el,[16] where
Abraham had been before him, about ten miles north of Jerusalem. After the
dream Jacob came to Haran and dwelt there many years.[17]
It was upon his journey back home to Israel that he had his second famous dream
where he struggled with an angel.[18]
Jacob finally came in peace to the city of
As our story continues in Genesis when Jacob’s wife Rachel died he made a tomb for her in Bethlehem.[20] Rachel’s tomb is another modern day bone of contention for it is in territory occupied by Arabs. This holy place where Rachel was buried some 3500 years ago is claimed fiercely by today’s Arabs who have no real right to the place other than historical happenstance of dwelling there today.
Jacob then went into the land of Egypt because of a famine whereupon he met his lost son Joseph. The story of Joseph begins in Genesis Chapter 37. When Jacob died, Joseph took him to be buried along side Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca and Leah. Abraham had long ago purchased the land called Cave of Machpelah as recounted earlier in Genesis.[21] This cave is in Hebron where today a Muslim mosque stands. As the Muslims often held ancient Hebrew and later Christian sites holy, they regularly built their own edifices upon such places. References as early as the 2nd century BCE testify that this is the location of the burial place. The cave was explored by the Augustine Canons in Medieval times,[22] at which time they claim to have found the bones of the Patriarchs.
The Israelites lived for many generations in the land of the Egyptians, which was then ruled by the Hyksos, Bedouin invaders from the desert. It was under the rule of the Hyksos that Egypt flourished and Joseph and the Jews held positions of stature. However, in 1587 BCE the Hyksos were driven out of Egypt by the rulers of the Eighteenth Dynasty who reigned until 1350 BCE as recounted in scripture: “there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.”[23] This passage occurs in the very first chapter of Exodus. The word Exodus, by the way, is an Anglo adaptation of the Greek word Exodos. The correct name of the second book of the bible, or Torah, is Sefer Yitzeet Mitzraim (םצרים יציאת ספר) or “the Book of the Going out of Egypt.” Scholars and archeologists date this to the time of King Akhenaton and his wife Nefertiti.[24]
We know from biblical text that the Egyptian dynasty enslaved the Israelites.[25] This period corresponds with the reign of Ramses the II known for his massive building programs begun around 1279 BCE. While the Torah recounts a mass exodus by the Hebrews from the land of Egypt archeological scholars agree the migration was probably accounted for over a number of years as those who were enslaved steadily threw off the shackles of distant bondage. We learn from the archeological record for example that in 1275 BCE the head of the tribe of Asher, one of the thirteen Hebrew tribes, was already in Canaan. Certainly the Exodus by Moses included a large and obviously the largest mass of peoples.
Around 1250 BCE the Hebrews began their re-settlement of Canaan today’s Israel. It states quite clearly in the bible, in the book of Numbers: “And you will drive out the inhabitants of the land, and live there; for I have given you the land.”[26] It was the new nation of Jews that was charged with the responsibility of ridding the land of idolaters, establishing a monotheistic religious presence and repossessing the land they once lived in and were promised in the bible some 400 years earlier.
The book of Joshua states there was one great conquest.[27] Archeological digs support a longer conquest; but led by Joshua, the Israelites crossed over the river Jordan into their promised land. Interestingly enough, the boundaries of their new holy land were quite distinctly laid out in the Book of Numbers.[28] And, I mean, quite distinctly, right down to the very landmarks that exist today. You will be astounded at the detail should you read the text again yourself!
To close out the ancient era of the Hebrews settling the
land, we look to the last chapter in the Torah in the book of Deuteronomy and
find that after forty years of wandering in the desert and bringing his people
the Ten Commandments, G_d tells Moses he will die and not enter the land
promised to his forefathers: “And the Lord said to him: ‘This is the land which
I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying: I will give it to your
generations; I have shown you the land, but you will not enter it’.”[29]
And Moses died and was buried on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. What a
sad tale that is whenever it is told.
And so, twelve tribes of Israel possessed the land as far south as Gaza, as far North as, but not including Tyre and as far east as the Dead Sea. They were a nomadic people of twelve tribes without central authority and hence without centralized military power. They were disinclined towards kings and rulers as they were believers that their only ruler could be G_d himself. Eventually though, practicality and a better understanding of their relationship with G_d brought them together. Throughout the 12th and 11th centuries BCE they were subject to constant invasion from and battles with the Philistines, Moabites, Canaanites, Ammonites and Phoenicians. The purpose of these aggressive peoples was told all too well in the book Judges: “Now these are the nations which the L_rd left, to prove Israel by… to teach them war…”[30]
Over a period of a hundred years the Israelites fought, intermarried, had periods of peace, periods where they were dominated by other kings and periods of peace again; a constant ebb and flow of following and ignoring the L_rd. The culmination of this period was the victory of the prophetess Deborah and her commander Barak who utterly destroyed the Canaanite king with the help of a few others of the semi-nomadic tribes of Israel. It was about this time the Israelites, proven out today by archeological research, began a less nomadic and more agrarian way of life. Larger communities grew near important trade routes and water sources, evolving into fortified cities.
Worn out by war, suffering from disintegration of fracturing
tribes, the Israelites sought and were finally to have their first king in 1029
BCE, Saul from the tribe of Benjamin. As recounted in the first book of Samuel:
“Then all the elders of
Saul was a powerful King from a tribe that was located near the midway point between the southern and northern tribes of Israel. He was a skilled warrior and brought the tribes together in successful battles defeating the Moabites, Amalekites, Arameans, Ammonites and Edomites. Most importantly, he held the Philistines in their place along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Philistines territory was roughly defined by today’s area of Gaza. Even then, Gaza was a source of aggravation for the Hebrews. A thousand years later Gaza was still an aggravation for the Romans!
King Saul was to meet his demise in battle with the Philistines.[33] After Saul’s death, around 1020 BCE civil war broke out as David, head of the powerful tribe of Judah and Ish-Bosheth, the youngest and only remaining son of Saul, came to blows. Ish-Bosheth reigned over all the tribes of Israel except Judah. But David, who had earlier as a boy destroyed the Philistine giant Goliath,[34] was a might warrior. The two leaders struggled with each other until Ish-Bosheth was killed by his own guard after seven years of tribal warring. David united the Israelites once again.
At long last we return to the subject of land. As you recall
Moriah had several peaks but one in particular was by tradition a holy place of
the Israelites. And it was by tradition that
quote “Mount Moriah” was where the Binding of Isaac occurred. David led his
forces against the Jebusites who were then occupying the area and drove them
out of their walled city.[35]
The very same ancient city we know as… Jerusalem. In 1003 BCE the Israelite
King named it “the city of David”[36] and
made it his capital. It was convenient that it both lay midway between the
northern and southern tribes of Israel and that it encompassed a historically
holy place, Mount Moriah.
King David brought the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments, to Jerusalem.[37] The Kingdom of Israel now stretched all the way south to Egypt, north encompassing all of today’s southern Lebanon,[38] and east 75 miles beyond the Jordan River, well beyond what is known pejoratively today as the “West Bank” and encompassing almost all of present day Jordan. The one swath of land that was not literally part of the Kingdom[39] was a small area that stretched from today’s capital of Jordan, Aman eastward about thirty miles.[40] Today’s Jordanian people in those days were known as Ammonites. While closely related to the Hebrews in blood and language, they were enemies. Some hostilities such as these are thousands of years old.
After David died around 967 BCE, his son Solomon became
successor.[41] He
ruled for forty years until his death in 928 BCE. Solomon’s kingdom was marked
by great prosperity. Jerusalem was the epicenter of a flourishing political,
economic, and religious land. While Solomon built many public edifices, the
most important was the House of the Lord, the First Temple, begun in 960 BCE.[42] Its
construction was described in great detail in the Bible in the first book of
Kings.[43]
The Bible tells us that Jerusalem was first mapped in response to a divine command to the Prophet Ezekiel: “Take a tile and lay it before you, and draw upon it the city of Jerusalem”[44]. The Book of Ezekiel also provided meticulously detailed descriptions that formed the basis of later plans and views of Solomon’s Temple. Interestingly, the late medieval practice of placing Jerusalem at the center of world maps came from a literal interpretation from the book of Ezekiel: “This is Jerusalem! I have set her in the midst of nations, and other countries are round about her.”[45]
After the death of King Solomon, Israel split into northern and southern Kingdoms with Jerusalem the capitol of the southern Kingdom in 922 BCE. The two Kingdoms began to war with each other over dominion. This enticed their enemies to attack both Kingdoms until the two Kingdoms one now named Judah in the south and the other Samaria in the north realized the importance of an alliance. The dynasty of the house of David lasted over 200 years in the southern Kingdom while the northern Kingdom was still beset by its own infighting and witnessed the rise and decline of nine dynasties.
At the height of the northern Kingdom, its lands included today’s Damascus in Syria and some 100 miles north of there, what was then occupied by the Aramean peoples. The northern Kingdom later made an alliance with Aram and actually waged war on its brethren in Jerusalem to try and force a triple alliance to fend off the powerful Assyrians, peoples of the Tigris and Euphrates river valley. The mighty tribe of Judah however withstood and kept the southern Kingdom, with its Jerusalem capital, in tact.[46]
Beginning in 734 BCE parts of the Northern Kingdom (Samaria), began to fall to the Assyrians and by 722 the conquest was complete. The conquering people had a strict and steadfast rule for new lands they occupied. They removed all of the people out of the conquered land and repopulated it with their own settlers. The peoples removed were not killed however, but forced to resettle hundreds of miles away back in the land of the conquerors and under their rule. Think for a while now and you will recall countless times in history where indigenous peoples were moved and the land taken from them resettled. I’ll make the provocative statement that had Israel undertaken this historic tactic, much of the strife in the Middle East would be past. It is the moral compass of Jews and Israel that caused it not to move 600,000 Palestinians out of the west bank and east Jerusalem after regaining the lands from Jordan in 1967. This refugee population has grown to several million and is now the source of the unbelievable strife we witness to this day. By the way, and just for the record, after the defeat of the Jews defeated the Arabs against fantastic odds in 1948, every Arab country in the world expelled their indigenous Jews who mostly then immigrated to Israel.
This Assyrian dominion is the source of the “Lost Tribes of Israel.” Ten of the original twelve tribes were transported out of their land and forced to assimilate with the Assyrians. The Northern Kingdom, however, should have known better. They had earlier left monotheism and worship of G_d and instead replaced the Almighty with pagan idols and worship of Baal and other cults. Countless times throughout the bible G_d warned the Hebrews that if they did not heed his commandments and worshiped idols he would utterly abandon them and they would be destroyed, and they were.
In 701 BCE the Assyrians laid siege to Jerusalem and the
southern Kingdom of Judah without success except in the surrounding environs.
The areas around Jerusalem were then taken back from the Assyrians and
fortified until the death of King Manasseh in 609 BCE. As the Assyrian empire
began to wane, the Babylonian empire began to wax. The loss of Assyrian power
created a vacuum filled by the Babylonians who conquered Jerusalem in 597 BCE.
For eleven years the puppet Hebrew King Zedekiah lived peacefully until he unfortunately
decided revolt was the order of the day. Causing the ire of Babylonian and
infamous King Nebuchadnezzar Jerusalem was besieged for two years and finally conquered
in 586 BCE. The city was utterly destroyed and the most egregious of
destruction was that of the first Temple as you recall built to house the Ten
Commandments. This was the point in history where the Jews were either taken
captive to Babylon or scattered to Egypt and other parts. The few Jews, who
were allowed to remain, were quote: “the poorest sort of people.”[47]
That ends chapter one. I’ll present chapter two at a later date to bring us up
to modern day Israel.
[1] Chapter 11, verse: 31
[2] Archeological sources have proven a cultural connection between Ur and Haran, approximately 2,000 miles to the north. Both ancient towns worshiped the Moon god Sin. As Ur declined due to invasion, it makes sense to the historians that a migration of peoples would have occurred to the north and thus corroborated the biblical text.
[3] Chapter 12, verse 1.
[4] In verse 8 it states: And he removed from the mountain on the east of Beth-el. Beth-el is the modern city of Beitin, 10 miles north of Jerusalem.
[5] Multiple
references to G_d’s promise of the land can be found as follows: G_d's promise
to give the land of Israel, the Holy Land, to the Jewish people is first found
in Breishit (Genesis 13:14). G_d tells Abraham, “Lift
up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward,
eastward and westward, for all the land which you see to you will I give it and
to your seed forever.” Later in the book of Genesis, chapter 15 Verse 7, G_d
promises Abraham, “I am the G_d that brought you out of Ur to give you this
land to inherit it.” Again in the same chapter verse 18, “That day the L-rd
made a covenant with Abraham saying, ‘Unto your seed have I given this land
from the
[6] Genesis XIII:18.
[7] And in
his vision of the Lord Abra[ha]m was told that his
numbers would be as countless as the stars and the Lord said to him ‘I am the
Lord that brought thee out of
[8] Genesis XXII: 2.
[9] Chapter 22, verse 14.
[10] Running north-south and lying between Kidron Valley and “Hagai” Valley, between Mount Zion to the west and the Mount of Olives to the east.
[11] Genesis XXVI: 17.
[12] Genesis XXVI: 16.
[13] Genesis XXVI: 23.
[14] Genesis XXVI: 28.
[15] Genesis XXVIII:13.
[16] Genesis XXVIII:19.
[17] Genesis XXXI: 18.
[18] Genesis XXXII: 25.
[19] Genesis XXXIII: 19. This purchase was made from the children of Hamor.
[20] Chapter 35, verses 19 and 20.
[21] Chapter 23.
[22] 1119 ACE.
[23] Exodus I: 8.
[24] Archives at El-Amarna, where Akhenaton had his capital, have produced documents by Canaanite Kings complaining of the Habiru or Hebrew tribes who were invading the land and undermining Egyptian rule; all this around 1350 BCE.
[25] Exodus I: 11.
[26] Chapter 33, verse 53.
[27] Written at a later point in time from the book of Numbers.
[28] Chapter 34 verses 1 through 12.
[29] Chapter 34 verse 4.
[30] Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2.
[31] Chapter 8, verse 4.
[32] Samuel (1) VII: 22.
[33] Samuel, Chapter 13, verse 5. Having seen the Philistines assemble an army that encompassed: “thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and as many people as the sand which is on the sea-shore in multitude.” In Samuel (1) XIII: 10 it recounts how Saul and his army waited in caves for the return of Samuel the prophet, their direct connection to G_d. But after the allotted time of seven days, Samuel did not come. So Saul made his own offering to the L_rd and as soon as he finished, “Samuel came.” Quoting Samuel: “And Samuel said to Saul: ‘You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the L_rd… now as king you will not continue… the L_rd wants a man after His own heart, and the L_rd has appointed him to be prince over His people.’” Chapter 13, Verse 13. The Philistines were to be a constant source of aggravation for Saul and in his last battle, after three of his four sons were killed, he had been so utterly defeated that he fell upon his own sword and died. Samuel (I): XXXI, 4.
[34] Chapter 17, Verses 4-54.
[35] Samuel 2:5, 4-12.
[36] Samuel (II) V, 5-9.
[37] Samuel VI: 4; 12. It had been stored in the house of Abinadab.
[38] The land of Phoenicians
[39] But
often subdued, first by Saul, then by David: Chronicles (II): XX, 25; XXIV, 8;
Jeremiah 49, 1; Ezekiel XXV, 3, 6.
[40] Rabbath Ammon.
[41] After crushing many other claims to the throne
[42] Its future was ordained in the second book of Samuel, Chapter 7, verse 13.
[43] Chapter 6.
[44] Ezekiel IV: 1.
[45] Chapter 5, Verse 5.
[46] The reader may find it interesting that this history can be found in archeological digs that resulted in a series of detailed documentary evidence.
[47] Kings II, Chapter 25, verse 14.