It is a matter of some delicacy to speak of the origin of the Hebrews.
But whatever the historian’s individual bias, he has no resource but
to treat the early history of this race exactly as he treats the early
history of other races. It has already been pointed out again and
again, that history knows nothing of racial beginnings.
We have noted that modern historians are disposed to begin their
accounts of the history of the Israelites with the Egyptian sojourn.
It is impossible, however, to avoid questioning as to the home of
the people prior to that period, and at least a brief reference must
be made to the traditional wanderings of the race in the earlier
epoch. Whoever is disposed to feel that the modern historian in
his iconoclastic treatment of the Hebrew records is passing beyond
justifiable bounds, may be reminded that some of the greatest of living
scholars are able to separate their ideas as to it into two classes,
and to entertain two seemingly antagonistic sets of judgments regarding
the entire subject of Hebrew history. As archæologists and historians
they study the Hebrew records as human documents, to be judged by
ordinary historical standards; while as theologians, they view the
same documents through a prism of faith that gives them an altogether
altered position. Perhaps this attitude of a certain school cannot be
better expressed than in the words of the Rev. A. H. Sayce, Professor
of Assyriology at Oxford, who is recognised everywhere as one of the
highest authorities on oriental archæology.
In the preface to his _Early History of the Hebrews_ Professor Sayce
points out that “There is no infallible history any more than there is
infallible philology; and if we are to understand the history of the
Hebrews aright, we must deal with it as we should with the history of
any other ancient people. The Old Testament writers were human; and in
so far as they were historians, their conceptions and manner of writing
history were the same as those of their oriental contemporaries. They
were not European historians of the nineteenth century, and to treat
them as such would be not only to pursue a radically false method, but
to falsify the history they have recorded. No human history is, or
can be, inerrant, and to claim inerrancy for the history of Israel is
to introduce into Christianity the Hindu doctrine of the inerrancy of
the Veda. For the historian, at any rate, the questions involved in a
theological treatment of the Old Testament do not exist.” But after
making these statements, Professor Sayce continues: “The present
writer, accordingly, must be understood to speak throughout simply as
an archæologist and historian. Theologically he accepts unreservedly
whatever doctrine has been laid down by the Church as an article of the
faith. But among these doctrines he fails to find any which forbids a
free and impartial handling of Old Testament history.”
If so great an authority finds this attitude justifiable, surely it is
open to every one to read the history of the Hebrews as interpreted
according to modern ideas, and then to apply to it whatever prism of
faith may suit his own fancy.[a]
THE AGE OF THE PATRIARCHS
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 2300 B.C.]]
The age of the patriarchs, according to Max Löhr, belongs to the
prehistoric period of Israel, to the childhood of the nation; and
nations, in their childhood, are like children, colouring everything
with the brilliant hues of their imaginations and transforming the
commonplace events of the beginnings of their national existence
into marvellous fairy tales, narrating the deeds of the founders of
the nation. This is as true of Israel as of other nations; and it
is in this light that the modern historian reads the accounts of
the patriarchs as recorded in Genesis, almost our only source of
information, and endeavours to extract the small kernels of historic
truth, which nearly all of them contain, from the surrounding mass of
the legendary shells.
Abraham is the central figure in the record of the patriarchs. Some
historians would take from him his historical personality. They believe
that he was originally a local deity of Hebron, or other place; and
that in the course of time he was transformed, through legendary
alchemy, into one of the fathers of his race. But the chief value
of Abraham’s character is not historical; it is religious. The Old
Testament makes him the hero of faith, whose confidence in the goodness
and justice of God cannot be shaken. The words of Goethe, in his fourth
book of _Poetry and Truth_, concerning the patriarch can be applied
especially to Abraham, and they indicate the source of his lofty
religion:
“Their mode of life on the sea, the desert, and the pasture land,
gave breadth and freedom to their convictions. The star-sown vault of
heaven, under which they lived, ennobled their emotions; they were more
than active and skilful hunters, more than industrious home-loving
husbandmen; they believed that God was confiding in them, visiting
them, taking an interest in them, leading and saving them.”
Even at the beginning, religion was the motive power in the history
of Israel. Unshaken faith in God was the characteristic of all the
patriarchs; and even if their knowledge of God was crude and imperfect,
their faith in him was sublime.
If we consider the patriarchs as nomadic chiefs, at the head of one
or more pastoral races, who willingly submitted to the command of men
of superior wealth, courage, and energy, then we must look upon the
wanderings of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and their successors, as
a series of great racial migrations, extending over centuries, and
resulting in frequent changes and reorganisations, with its final
culmination into the historic nation of Israel.[c]
EARLY MOVEMENTS OF THE ISRAELITES
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 2300-1270 B.C.]]
The eminent historian, Bernhard Stade, takes a view of Israelitish
traditions far less confiding than that of Max Löhr. According to the
oldest tradition, he says, the people of Israel came from northern
Mesopotamia; and Kharran (Haran), the city of Nachor (the Carrhæ of
the Greeks and Romans on the south of the Armenian Mountains), was,
according to the Yahvist and Elohist texts, the home of Abraham. Also
Jacob’s two wives, Leah and Rachel, _i.e._ the Hebraic families of
those names which early became extinct, came out of Kharran. There
seems accordingly to have been an old tradition that certain Hebraic
clans migrated from those districts to Palestine. Moreover, one can
suppose that they there found family connections with whom they
amalgamated; and this would be the interpretation of the marriage of
Jacob with Leah and Rachel.
This tradition would not be at all incredible in itself, but another
reason also can be cited for the emigration of Hebraic tribes from the
district lying south of the Armenian Mountains. After the Hebrews,
the Aramæan tribes came from the northwest into Syria, pushing on and
absorbing parts of the Hebrew population, as the Hebrews drove on the
Canaanites. The pressure of these Aramæan people may have already
burdened the Hebrews and have driven them to migrate towards the
southwest. But after all there is no historical certainty about these
things, on account of the fragmentary character of the traditions and
their complete mixture with mythological elements.
According to the sacred legend, the fathers of Israel (Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob), who were of Mesopotamian origin, dwelt for three
generations in the country west of Jordan, settling in different
places; but the third generation emigrated to Egypt, where Joseph, the
great-grandson of Abraham, had already reached a high position. But the
Hebrew legend tells us no more of the history of the emigrants while in
Egypt until the time of their departure from the country, than do the
Egyptian accounts thus far found.
THE EGYPTIAN SOJOURN
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1270-1250 B.C.]]
Israel comes to Egypt a single family, and leaves the country a
populous nation. Tradition connects the migration from Egypt into the
land east of Jordan with the Levites, Moses and his brother Aaron, the
forerunners and founders of the Israelitish priesthood. Moreover, the
oldest form of the legend, as the Yahvistic text gives it, mentions
only Moses. He is in it the liberator, leader, and priest of Israel.
Neither the residence of the Patriarchs in the country west of Jordan,
nor the stay of the Israelites in Egypt, have been historically proved,
and the former is quite improbable.
Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham are heroes of the race, the first two
being at the same time tribal names. The last three have been revered
at celebrated sanctuaries; and it must not be overlooked that the
sanctuary of the first ancestor is the least important one. Moreover,
it is a fact, proved by the history of different sanctuaries of the
land, that those of Israel were considered sacred by the original
inhabitants. This is the case at Sichem and Gibeon; Bethel was likewise
a Canaanitish town in earlier times. Hebron was Edomitish, probably
in the first place Horitish, and the very name of Beersheba shows its
Canaanitish origin.
If the ancient Israelites took over the sanctuaries from the original
Canaanitish inhabitants, as we know definitely concerning some and
must surmise in the case of others, and if they nevertheless maintain
that these sanctuaries were founded by their fathers, the object of
this assertion is merely to gain a legal title to the possession of
these pre-Israelitic sacred spots, and to obliterate the fact of their
non-Israelitish origin. We shall have to go even farther and say that
the Israelites either adopted from the Canaanites the hero that was
honoured in those places, or that they there localised a certain
Hebraic hero. But in both cases there is no evidence of a pre-Egyptian
sojourn of Israelitish families in the land west of Jordan. Moreover,
the comparatively recent origin of the patriarchical tradition must be
borne in mind.
It is not quite so bad, though not essentially better, with the
question of the residence of Israel in Egypt before its migration to
the land east of Jordan. That, in spite of the most anxious search of
apologetic Egyptologists and theologians, no trace of Moses and the
Hebrews has been found in the Egyptian records is just as suspicious as
the fact that the Hebrew account says nothing about all that happened
between the time of Joseph and that of Moses.
It seems as if the flight of story-spinning imagination had been
sufficient to transpose both the historical personage of Moses and the
eponymous hero, Joseph, together with the eponyms of the two tribes
descended from him, to Egypt, but not to fill out the intervening
period. Egypt has, however, been too often for longer or shorter
periods the residence of Semitic families for one to dare to deny the
possibility that some Hebrew tribes or families stayed in Egypt. But
that the Hebrew people, to say nothing of the race of Israel, did not
do so, follows necessarily from the origin of these terms.
So it is easily seen why the search of the Egyptologists for traces of
the residence of the Children of Israel or the Hebrews in Egypt must
be fruitless. If any Hebrew clan did stay there, its name is unknown,
and the Egyptologists would not recognise it, even if they understood
more of Hebraic antiquity. But in any case the search for the Pharaohs,
under whom Israel entered and left Egypt, is a useless jugglery with
dates and names; and it is also useless to attempt to discover the
route by which Israel left Egypt.
Tradition makes the institution of the Jewish religion on Mount Sinai
contemporaneous with the emigration from Egypt; and it has been often
surmised, especially by Egyptologists, that Moses imposed upon Israel
elements of Egyptian theology. But there is no basis in fact for this
theory. It is not known what the Hebrews may have borrowed from the
Egyptians. Part of that which has been put under that category is
entirely foreign to the old Jewish religion, and was gradually and
spontaneously evolved, and the rest plays no part in it at all. It is
especially absurd to attribute the idea of the unity of God to Egyptian
influences.
However, the worship of God which the Jews adopted at Sinai certainly
was originally foreign to them. It is an error to suppose from the
story that Moses represented himself to Israel as the ambassador of
the God of their fathers, that he must have found among the people
the faith of this one God. This theory would lessen the importance of
Moses for the Old Testament religion. Like all founders of religion he
endowed the people with a new creative idea which gave a fresh turn
to their life, and this new idea was the worship of Jehovah as their
ancestral God. For if we take away all that the worship of Israel
gained upon the path it travelled in historical times, then, supposing
such antiquity for the worship of Jehovah in Israel, there is left
no fresh idea, from the adoption of which by the people a new epoch
could date. Moses, then, would in the most favourable light be only a
restorer or a reformer of the old Israelitish religion, and not the
founder of a religion as he is rightly considered by priestly tradition.
Two further points must be noted in this connection. In the first
place, we know nothing of Israel’s worship before the time of Moses;
not a single tradition exists of it. But this cannot be wondered at;
and it may be observed elsewhere also that after the adoption of
a higher religion, all recollection of an earlier form of worship
not only dies out, but is designedly destroyed. Secondly, however,
it should be noted that the worship of Jehovah may have been in a
more imperfect and undeveloped form among the people from whom Moses
borrowed it, than that in which he imposed it on his race.
Many features of the sacred tradition show that the worship of Jehovah
was originally foreign to Israel. To ancient Israel Jehovah dwells
on Sinai, which, therefore, is the original seat of his worship.
Moreover, confused as the accounts may seem in some particulars, the
old tradition explicitly states that Moses, who imposes the worship
of Jehovah upon Israel, is the son-in-law of the priest of an Arabian
race; that is, that the priesthood of Moses and Levi is connected with
an older non-Israelitish Jehovah priesthood.
This father-in-law of Moses is called in Exodus iii. 1, Jethro the
priest of the Midianites, and in Exodus ii. 18, Reuel. Exodus xviii.
contains a fairly authentic account of Jethro by the Elohist, and yet
it is questionable whether this account really refers to him. It is,
however, probable. In Numbers x. 29, his name appears as Hobab. And
in Judges i. 16, the Kenites are brought into connection with the
father-in-law of Moses; Judges iv. 2 likewise calls Hobab, Moses’
father-in-law, a Kenite; he, therefore, should rather have been called
a priest of the Kenites.
That the Arabic or nomadic race, from which Moses borrowed the worship
of Jehovah, was the tribe of the Kenites, is proved by the later
history of this people, who henceforth are closely interwoven with the
worship of Jehovah.
According to Numbers x. 29, and Judges i. 16, the Kenites joined the
children of Israel in their journey to the land west of Jordan, and
according to the latter passage “they went up out of the city of
palm trees (Jericho), with the children of Judah into the wilderness
of Judah.” In the south of the district of Judah, we meet in the
earliest ages of the Kings a nomadic Kenite race, which was in friendly
relations with Judah (1 Samuel xxx.), although dwelling among the
Amalekites (1 Samuel xv. 6).
It is questionable whether, after such a definite proof as the latter
passages, it can be maintained that the Kenites were in alliance with
the Midianites, especially as the land of Midian lies on the east of
the Persian Gulf, and the Midianites at the time of the birth of the
Jewish kingdom lived on the east of Jordan.
In this connection may be cited the fact that a single Kenite clan was
nomadic in the north, and that Ephraim was, according to Judges v. 14,
of partly Amalekitish origin. Nevertheless these are all only surmises.
The scarcity of the records deprives us of any clear light on the
ancient ethnological relations.
The people of Israel, then, strengthened by Kenitish elements, migrated
from the Sinaitic peninsula into the land east of Jordan. But we know
neither by what route they went, the time when it happened, nor how
long the journey took. To be sure, in Amos v. 25, it is stated that the
people were in the wilderness for forty years. This round number is,
however, not only doubtful in itself; it is still more so because it
rests upon the assumption, proceeding from theological hypotheses, that
the whole of the people which emigrated from Egypt, with the exception
of Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, died in the desert for their unbelief and
never saw the Holy Land.
The most ancient source of the Pentateuch probably knows nothing
of this forty years’ wandering. The accuracy of the mention of the
places, which were the stations of the wandering in the desert,
cannot, however, be brought forward as historical proof of this time
in the desert. These places, it goes without saying, have all, within
historical times, been desert stations. But that Israel repaired to
them is supported solely by the tradition of later times which, on the
hypothesis that Israel came from the Sinaitic peninsula and, on the
other hand, on the basis of its knowledge of the roads through the
desert, constructed a picture of the way which the Israelites might
have taken. Moreover, it is evident that the veneration by neighbouring
peoples of some of the places in the doubtful territory influenced the
tradition. Hence the choice of Kadesh-Barnea as a chief station, of
Mount Horeb as the place of Aaron’s death, and of the mountains in the
north of Moab, as the abode of Moses in his last days.
It is then of little import for us to verify the route which Israel is
said to have taken in its journey from the peninsula of Sinai to the
land east of Jordan. We have already shown that there is no historical
tradition concerning the conquest of the land east of Jordan, and that
what is related about the conquest of the kingdom of Sichem by the
Israelites under Moses is based upon conclusions as to the primitive
condition of the country which are drawn from its condition at the time
of the early Kings, but which are not free from misunderstanding.[e]
Before continuing with the critical narrative it may be well to
glance over the biography of Moses as given in the Bible, Exodus and
Deuteronomy.
BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF MOSES AND THE EXODUS
And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born
ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save
alive.--_Exodus_ i. 22.
And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter
of Levi.
And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he
was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of
bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child
therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.
And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and
her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark
among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe
wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the
Hebrews’ children.
Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee
a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called
the child’s mother.
And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse
it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the
child, and nursed it.
And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he
became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I
drew him out of the water.
And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went
out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an
Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no
man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews
strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore
smitest thou thy fellow?
And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou
to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said,
Surely this thing is known.
Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses
fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he
sat down by a well.--_Exodus_ ii. 1-15.
Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them,
Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the
passover.
And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in
the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood
that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his
house until the morning.
For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he
seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord
will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in
unto your houses to smite you.
And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy
sons for ever.
And it shall come to pass, when ye be come to the land which the Lord
will give you, according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this
service.
And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What
mean ye by this service?
That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who
passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he
smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. And the people bowed the
head and worshipped.
And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had commanded
Moses and Aaron, so did they.
And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn
in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his
throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and
all the firstborn of cattle.
And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all
the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a
house where there was not one dead.
And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get
you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and
go, serve the Lord, as ye have said.
Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and
bless me also.
And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send
them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men.
And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their
kneading-troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.
And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they
borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and
raiment:
And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so
that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled
the Egyptians.
And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six
hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children.
And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds,
even very much cattle.
And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth
out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of
Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves
any victual.
Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was
four hundred and thirty years.
And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years,
even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord
went out from the land of Egypt.--_Exodus_ xii. 21-41.
And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to
the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord shewed
him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,
And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the
land of Judah, unto the utmost sea,
And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm
trees, unto Zoar.
And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto
Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy
seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not
go over thither.
So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab,
according to the word of the Lord.
And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against
Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.
And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was
not dim, nor his natural force abated.
And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty
days: so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses
had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto
him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses.
And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the
Lord knew face to face,
In all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the
land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land,
And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses
shewed in the sight of all Israel.--_Deuteronomy_ xxxiv.
ISRAEL’S EARLY NEIGHBOURS
To return to modern analytic accounts, it is noted by Stade that
Israel never mastered the whole country west of the Jordan. The coast,
with the exception of a few places, remained in the possession of the
Canaanites, who, at the period of the Hebrew immigration, had long
been organised into the prosperous and powerful commercial states known
to us under the name of Phœnician. Nay, the influence, intellectual
and material, of Akko, Sor (Tyre), and Sidon on the inland country was
so great that it prevented the absorption of the original Canaanite
population by the immigrant Israelites, and consequently the formation
of compact Israelite tribes in the north.
As far as we know, the Israelites were always on a friendly footing
with these Phœnician states. They could not avoid trading with one
another, and commerce only thrives in time of peace. The Phœnician
cities disposed of the produce of Palestine, the wheat of the land
west of Jordan, the balsam of the Jordan lowlands, the male and female
slaves taken in war, and they offered an ever ready market for the
produce of the flocks. The Israelites, on the other hand, procured from
them, in ancient times, all products of handicraft and art which could
not be made by the inmates of each farm for themselves. Thus it comes
about that to the Israelite, Canaanite and trader were synonymous terms.
This commerce, no less than the fact that the Phœnician cities were
impregnable to their unpretentious strategy, obliged them to keep the
peace. Furthermore, from the very moment the Philistines embarked on a
career of conquest in Palestine, the interests of the Phœnician cities
had been directed towards forming the inhabitants of the southern part
of Syria, which they exploited commercially, into a strong political
structure. For against the former the Israelites were the only allies
to be had.
Of all the neighbours of the people of Israel, these Philistines were
farthest removed from them in manners and customs. However, we must not
conclude from this circumstance that no intermixture took place between
the two. The legend of Samson is sufficient proof to the contrary. In
the time of the first monarchy, in particular, numerous Philistines
came to Israel to serve in the army and then continued to dwell in the
land. Obed-Edom the Gittite, in whose house David left the Ark of the
Covenant (1 Samuel vi. 19 _seq._), was a Philistine.
According to Amos ix. 7; Deuteronomy ii. 23; Jeremiah xlvii. 4, the
Philistines had migrated into Syria from Caphtor. Caphtor has often
been conjectured to be the island of Crete. This may very well be
the case, especially as--to judge from 1 Samuel xxx. 14--part of the
territory of the Philistines was called the South of the Cretans
[Cherethites], to distinguish it from the south of Judah and Caleb. In
that case we should here have to do with a migration of Semites back
from Crete, from which they may have been ousted by immigrant Hellenes.
It is well known that in the description of Crete in the _Odyssey_
XIX, 172-177, the statement occurs that various languages were spoken
and five different races dwelt there, among whom were the Eteocretans
(real Cretans), as well as Achæans, Cydonians, Dorians, and Pelasgians.
The presence of Semites among the inhabitants of the island is proved
by the name of one of its rivers, the Jardanus. And the names of the
Philistines, their cities and institutions, prove them to have been
Semites.
The Philistines dwelt in the tract of country southward from Jaffa to
Gaza. But their settlements were by no means confined to the coast; on
the contrary, they stretched inland to the mountains of Judah on the
frontier of which Gath and Timnath lie. Only the seaboard population,
at most, can have been of pure Philistine blood.
The Philistines, like the Israelites, gradually absorbed the
autochthonous Canaanite population they found in possession. In the
earliest days of the monarchy Judah and the Philistines are not
neighbours along the whole eastern frontier of the latter, remnants
of the Canaanite population lay between and were not amalgamated with
Judah till later. Nor did the frontier afterwards always remain the
same, as is well seen in the case of Libnah.
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1250-1200 B.C.]]
Philistine territory was divided into the territory of the five cities
of Gaza, Ashdod, Askalon, Gath, and Ekron, the so-called Philistine
Pentapolis. Each of these districts was ruled by a prince, and these
rulers were the five princes of the Philistines (_sarne pelischim_).
They were the leaders in war.
The Philistines proved themselves to be a people of great military
capacity. They possessed an organised army--chariots, horsemen, and
foot-soldiers--who fought in regular battle array. Hence it came to
pass that for a time they ruled over Israel.
In the very earliest times Israel’s neighbours on the northern frontier
were also Canaanites. Northwards from Hermon stretched the kingdom of
the Hittites, a Canaanite race, whose capital was Kadesh, situate on an
artificial lake on the Orontes which is called the lake of Kedesh to
this day. This kingdom of the Hittites was tributary to David. We find
a Hittite in David’s bodyguard, Uriah, who had Bathsheba, an Israelite
woman of good family, to wife. The connubium therefore existed between
the Hittites and Israelites.
In the age of the XVIIIth, XIXth, and XXth Egyptian Dynasties this
kingdom of the Hittites (or Kheta, as the Egyptians called them) was
the mightiest in Anterior Asia. It engaged in fierce warfare with the
Pharaohs of these dynasties. But the state of affairs in the north was
gradually altered by the arrival of Aramæan tribes on the scene.
These last seem to have come from the Euphrates and the mountain
regions of the north, and, like the Israelites, to have been pastoral
tribes originally. Remnants of this race, speaking a group of northern
Semitic dialects closely akin to Canaanite languages, are still to be
found in these parts. They make their first appearance in Palestine
in the north of the land east of Jordan. They founded the kingdoms of
Damascus, Geshur, Ishtob, Maacah, and Zobah, against which David had
to fight. They pressed steadily westwards rather than southwards. Like
the Hebrews, they amalgamated with themselves the original Canaanite
population they found in possession, and thus the Hittite nation was
gradually merged into them.
But the Aramæans were no more capable of gaining the mastery over the
emporiums of trade on the coast than the Hebrews had been. To the
east of Jordan, Gilead was long the frontier province of the Hebrews.
Hence arises the legend that Jacob and Laban set up a pillar there to
witness the peace concluded between them (Genesis xxxi). They were
the arch-enemies of Israel before the rise of the Assyrians. Under
Assyrian, Persian, and even Greek rule, their language continued to
make conquests in Palestine. By the time of the birth of Christ it had
superseded all Semitic languages there and divided the ground with
Greek alone. In later days a like fate befell the Aramæan language and
nationality from the spread of Arabic.
The space between the southwestern border of Judah and the Philistines
and the wall of Egypt had been occupied from time immemorial by nomadic
tribes, which we are accustomed to call “Arabic,” a name that only came
into use at a comparatively late period.
These desert tribes were the Amalekites, the Kenites, and the
Ishmaelites. Of the Kenites and their relations with the Amalekites and
Midianites we have already spoken. The Amalekites seem to have lived
in a state of open hostility to the Israelites, and to have harassed
them by predatory raids. Saul and David both fought against them.
One body of the Amalekites appears afterwards to have joined itself
to Edom; another to have been absorbed in Ephraim (Judges v. 14).
The Ishmaelites and Israelites may, on the other hand, have been on
friendly terms, although the divergence of their respective interests
would naturally make the ungovernable nomads, who acknowledged a
political authority, troublesome neighbours to husbandmen.
Thus the admirable description of her future son given by the angel of
the Lord to Hagar at the well of Lahai-roi in Genesis xvi. 12, “He will
be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand
against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren,”
is drawn straight from the life. The more friendly relations in which
Ishmael and Israel stand with one another finds expression in the
mythical genealogy which makes Ishmael half brother to Isaac and traces
his descent from Hagar, the Egyptian, Abraham’s concubine. Hagar is, of
course, the name of an Ishmaelite clan. We meet with another expression
of the same relation when Keturah is given to Abraham as a concubine.
This must likewise be understood as the name of an Ishmaelite clan.
This mode of expression took its rise in the holy places of Beersheba,
Beer-lahai-roi, and Hebron, which were probably visited by Israelites
and Ishmaelites alike. One proof that the _connubium_ existed between
Israelites and Ishmaelites is the fact that Abigail, a sister of David,
had an Ishmaelite husband, Ithra by name.
The name of Ishmaelite speedily disappears from history. We hear
nothing of any catastrophe that overwhelmed the nation, and
consequently it seems possible that Ishmael, like Israel, was in
historic times merely the name of a confederation of distinct tribes.
The confederation dissolved, and the name of Ishmael vanished with it,
as the name of Israel would have vanished after the catastrophe of
722 had it not acquired a spiritual significance which rendered its
transference to Judah possible. The post-Exilic Jews acquired the habit
of calling all Arabs by the name of Ishmael. From the Jews the name and
the idea passed over to the Arabs themselves. This explains why the
name of Ishmael has been made by Arab genealogists the basis of every
kind of speculation. The application of the term Ishmaelites to the
Mohammedans is also to be referred to Jewish usage.[e]
THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN
On their departure from Egypt the Israelites might have entered Canaan
direct by the route that skirted the Mediterranean, but there they
would have been in danger of attack from the garrisons which occupied
the Egyptian fortresses or from the Philistines. They therefore chose
a much longer route, and betook themselves to the desert. The kings
of Egypt possessed, or had possessed, important metallurgical works
in the peninsula of Sinai. Perhaps the fugitives wished to seize upon
them. The Bible does not say so, but some of the legends it relates
might well incline us to believe it; the fashioning of the golden calf,
the brazen serpent, and the ornaments of the tabernacle presuppose a
settled position and a command of material ill compatible with the
wandering life of a caravan, and easier to explain by an Israelite
occupation of the copper mines of Sinai.
The transition from nomadic to sedentary life must of necessity have
been slow and gradual, and there is nothing that obliges us to say
with Goethe that the Bible exaggerates the length of the sojourn in
the wilderness. Israel dreamed of a land flowing with milk and honey,
but, pending its arrival there, led its flocks where they could
find pasture, and settled as best it could in the lands of which
it could possess itself. It endeavoured to conclude alliances with
the inhabitants of the desert, who were of the same race; with the
Midianites, for example, that they might serve “as eyes,” that is, as
guides to the tribes. This alliance with the Midianites is indicated in
the Bible by the visit of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, who, when he
hears of the passage of the Red Sea, proclaims Jehovah the greatest of
all gods. But alien tribes did not always exhibit the same good will;
witness the struggle against Amalek. It is probable that, on leaving
Sinai, the Israelites bent their steps towards the frontiers of Canaan,
and that, repulsed in that direction, they once more took the southern
road and skirted the mountains of the land of the Edomites, so to turn
towards the east. In Deuteronomy, Jehovah commands his people not to
molest the Edomites, who had already been seized with dread of them,
and even to pay for the food and water of which they should have need,
because Jehovah had given Seir to Edom for an inheritance. The same
admonition is given with regard to the Moabites and the Ammonites, for
these peoples also had received their land from Jehovah.
The children of Lot, that is, the Ammonites and Moabites, were settled
in the country east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan; but the Amorites,
having crossed the Jordan, took part of the territory of the Moabites
from them. The Israelites, who were then wandering in the deserts that
lay to the east of the land of Moab, defeated the Amorites, probably
with the help of the Moabites. The tribes of Reuben and Gad, who had
doubtless borne the brunt of the conflict, occupied the land between
the Arnon and the Jabbok, promising to co-operate later with the rest
of the children of Israel. All the cities of the conquered country were
“devoted,” that is to say, all the inhabitants were massacred, men,
women and children; “there was none left remaining.” Immediately after
this conquest the Bible places that of the land of Bashan, whose king,
Og, was the last of the race of Giants (Rephaïm). All the inhabitants
of Bashan were likewise massacred, according to Deuteronomy, and in
the Bible these two wars are placed before the death of Moses. There
are, however, several passages in the Book of Judges from which it must
be inferred that the land of Bashan or Gilead was not conquered till
later. As for the legend of Balaam, related in the Book of Numbers
immediately after the conquest of Bashan, it is now acknowledged
that it must have been composed during the last days of the kingdom
of Israel, probably in the reign of Jeroboam II. It was inspired by
hatred of Moab and contains allusions to Assyria. At the period of
this conquest the Israelites had no reason to fear the Assyrians, of
whose existence they were not even aware, and to them the Moabites, far
from being enemies, were natural allies and auxiliaries, as were the
Ammonites and the Edomites.
The conquest of Canaan is related in the Book of Joshua, which appears
to have been written at the time of the Babylonian captivity. The
thesis of political unity guaranteed by religious unity is supported,
as in the Pentateuch, by a series of miracles. The miracle of the
passage of the Red Sea is repeated at the passage of the Jordan. Joshua
then besieges Jericho. “And it came to pass on the seventh day that
they rose early at the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after
the same manner seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time,
when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people,
Shout: for Jehovah hath given you the city. So the people shouted, and
the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city,
every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they devoted
all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and
ox and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.” Only Rahab, the
harlot, who had betrayed her country by hiding the spies sent out by
Joshua, was spared with her family and all her house. “And they burnt
the city with fire, and all that was therein.” And Joshua pronounced a
curse upon the man that should build it again.
The Israelites then besieged the city of Ai, near Bethel, and, having
taken it by a stratagem, treated it as they had treated Jericho. “And
all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand.…
So Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation,
unto this day. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until the
eventide: and at the going down of the sun Joshua commanded, and they
took his carcase from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate
of the city, and raised thereon a great heap of stones, unto this day.”
At the news of the destruction of Ai and Jericho, Adoni-zedek, king
of Jerusalem, forms a coalition with the kings of Hebron, of Jarmuth,
of Lachish, and of Eglon, and, hearing that Gibeon has treated with
the enemy, they lay siege to the city which has betrayed their common
cause. The Gibeonites call Joshua to their aid, and he departs from
Gilgal with his army and comes up with the allied kings. “And Jehovah
discomfited them before Israel, and he slew them with a great slaughter
at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon,
and smote them unto Azekah and unto Makkedah. And it came to pass,
as they fled from before Israel, while they were in the going down
of Beth-horon, that Jehovah cast down great stones from heaven upon
them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with the
hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.
Then Joshua spake to Jehovah in the day when Jehovah delivered up the
Amorites before the children of Israel; and he said in the sight of
Israel, ‘Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the
valley of Ajalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until
the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written
in the book of the Upright? And the sun stayed in the midst of heaven,
and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like
that before it or after it, that Jehovah hearkened to the voice of a
man, for Jehovah fought for Israel.”
The five kings, having taken refuge in a cave at Makkedah, are
discovered, and when the people return to the camp after the
extermination of the defeated army, they are brought before Joshua. All
the chiefs of the men of war that had marched with him put their feet
upon the necks of the kings, then Joshua causes them to be hanged on
five trees, and in the evening their corpses are cast into the cave and
great stones are rolled to the mouth of it. “And Joshua took Makkedah
on that day and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king
thereof he devoted and all the souls that were therein, he left none
remaining.” The same formula is repeated in the Bible with melancholy
monotony, in the case of the cities of Libnah and Lachish; the king
of Gezer having attempted to help Lachish, “Joshua smote him and his
people, until he had left none remaining.” And the Bible resumes the
tale of massacres, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir are devoted with all their
inhabitants, not one of whom is spared. “So Joshua smote all the
land, the hill country, and the south, and the lowland, and all their
kings; he left none remaining, but he devoted all that breathed, as
Jehovah, the God of Israel, commanded.” Then it is the turn of the
kings of the north; the king of Hazor and the other Canaanite kings
take the field with a large army, “even as the sand that is upon the
sea shore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many.” Joshua
attacks them near the waters of Merom, pursues them to Zidon, and
destroys them, “until he left none remaining”; he houghs their horses
and burns their chariots with fire. Then he returns upon his footsteps
and seizes Hazor, the chief city of all these kingdoms, and slays its
king with the sword. “And they smote all the souls that were therein
with the edge of the sword, having devoted them; there was none left
that breathed: and he burnt Hazor with fire. And the cities of those
kings and all the kings of them did Joshua take, and he smote them with
the edge of the sword and devoted them, as Moses the servant of Jehovah
commanded.… So Joshua took all that land, the hill country, and all
the south, and all the land of Goshen, and the lowland, and the plain
of Israel, from the bare mountain that goeth up unto Seir, even unto
Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon: and all their
kings he took, and smote them and put them to death.… For it was of
Jehovah to harden their hearts, to come against Israel in battle, that
he might devote them, that they might have no favour, but that he might
destroy them, as Jehovah commanded Moses.”
Such is the summary of the legend of the conquest as related in the
Book of Joshua. The usual way of extracting from it such historical
fact as it may contain is to suppress the miraculous circumstances,
or to explain them, as well as may be, by natural causes. Serious
criticism cannot rest satisfied with this method. Unfortunately, in
the case of Jewish history, we have no such invaluable aid as the
study of inscriptions supplies to the history of Egypt and Assyria.
We have no other source of information than a book compiled several
centuries after the event, from popular traditions more or less wrested
for political ends. Nevertheless Biblical exegesis, by collecting a
certain amount of scattered testimony, has succeeded in discovering
the facts of the case. This is not the place to recapitulate this work
of analysis, a summary of it may be found in the introduction to the
Bible written by Professor Reuss, of the University of Strassburg. A
comparison of all these materials for research leads scholars to the
conclusion that the surest means of gaining a totally false impression
of the conquest of Canaan is to abide by the view of it conveyed in the
Book of Joshua.
That which this book tells us was accomplished in five years was as
a matter of fact, very gradually accomplished in the course of two
centuries and a half, for the conquest of the country and the complete
subjugation of the Canaanites were not finally achieved until the
reign of Solomon. It is precisely the same thing that happened in the
conquest of the Peloponnesus by the Dorians, and of Roman Gaul by the
Franks. From this we may infer, for the honour of the Israelites,
that the frightful massacres related in the Book of Joshua have been
greatly exaggerated by the compilers of the Bible, who regarded the
extermination of the vanquished as among their ancestors’ titles to
fame, and as a proof of their obedience to the commands of the national
God of Israel. “We must not,” say the Dutch authors of _The Family
Bible_, “imagine all the children of Israel gathered together in a
single camp at Gilgal and all acting in concert. It would be much
nearer the truth to imagine the Israelite tribes indulging in local and
intermittent raids into the land of the Canaanites, who were perhaps
enfeebled in consequence of a war with Ramses III, king of Egypt.”
The partition of the lands conquered or still to be conquered is given
in the concluding chapters of the Book of Joshua, which are not by the
same hand as the narrative of the conquest. The region to the east
of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, afterwards known as Peræa, had been
occupied ever since the time of Moses by the tribes of Reuben, Gad and
the half-tribe of Manasseh. Judah took the southern part of the land
of Canaan, west of the Dead Sea. The small tribes of Simeon, Dan, and
Benjamin grouped themselves about Judah, the first-named on the west,
the other two on the north. These four tribes afterwards constituted
the kingdom of Judah. Many portions of the territory assigned to them
in this partition long remained in the occupation of alien peoples.
Thus the Jebusites were first subjugated by David, who seized upon
their city, thereafter called Jerusalem; the Philistines, whom Joshua
had not ventured to attack, kept the five cities which they occupied on
the Mediterranean coast, and these served as a refuge for the Anakim.
At the period when the monarchy was instituted in Israel the sway of
the Philistines extended over almost all the territory of Judah.
The powerful tribe of Ephraim, to which Joshua belonged, established
itself in the middle of the land of Canaan, between the Jordan and the
Mediterranean. The Ark of the Covenant, first set up at Gilgal, was
afterwards carried to Shiloh, which became the common sanctuary of
all the Israelite tribes. The tribe of Issachar settled to the north
of the territory of Ephraim, along the Jordan, and the half-tribe of
Manasseh farther to the west. Lastly, the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and
Naphtali settled in the northern region, afterwards called Galilee;
Asher spread abroad on the seacoast north of Carmel, but was not able
to gain possession of the Phœnician cities within the border assigned
to it; Zebulun encamped in the plain of Jezreel, northwest of Issachar,
and Naphtali along the Upper Jordan, between the waters of Merom and
the lake of Gennesareth. The tribe of Levi had no territory of its own,
for, as the Bible frequently repeats, Jehovah was its inheritance. The
Levites received forty-eight cities, scattered over the territory of
the other tribes. Some of these cities were intended to serve as places
of shelter for involuntary homicides; these were called cities of
refuge.
The genealogies which take up so much space in the Bible show clearly
the importance which the tribes of Israel attached to the descent from
Abraham and Jacob. Nevertheless they were far from being a race of
pure blood. Before their sojourn in Egypt they had allied themselves
with the women of the country, as their own legends testify; of the
sons of Jacob four are the issue of female slaves of whose descent we
know nothing. Joseph weds the daughter of an Egyptian priest, Moses a
Midianitess and an Ethiopian woman, and when his sister Miriam upbraids
him for this _mésalliance_, Jehovah smites her with leprosy. On their
departure from Egypt the Children of Israel are accompanied by “a mixed
multitude,” who must have been incorporated into the tribes, for there
is no subsequent mention of them. During the half-century which lies
between the going forth out of Egypt and the conquest of Canaan there
must have been unions with Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites. At the
time of the invasion, wandering hordes of Arabs, too weak to make their
way into Palestine by themselves, may have taken advantage of this
opportunity to join the Israelite tribes; such were the children of
Keni, the father-in-law of Moses, who accompanied the Children of Judah
as far as the city of palm trees (Jericho). These Kenites or Kenizzites
settled among the men of Judah and were ultimately merged in them;
it was impossible to hold aloof from allies who had contributed their
share towards victory.
After the conquest, unions with the indigenous peoples became very
numerous. “The Children of Israel,” says the Book of Judges, “dwelt
among the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the
Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and they took their
daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their
sons, and served their gods. And the Children of Israel did that which
was evil in the sight of Jehovah, and forgot Jehovah their God, and
served the Baalim and the Ashtaroth.” It was not the first time that
they had been unfaithful to Jehovah; in the wilderness, for forty
years, according to the prophet Amos, they had borne before them the
image of Moloch and the star of their idols.
The position of the Israelites settled in the midst of the Canaanites
was not everywhere the same; in some districts the earlier inhabitants
had been exterminated or reduced to slavery, but in others they had
remained in possession of the land, and the new-comers had only been
able to take up their abode there on payment of tribute. Oftenest of
all, the old inhabitants and the new lived side by side on a footing
of armed neutrality, frequently disturbed by feuds, each on the watch
for an opportunity of subjugating or expelling the other. After the
Israelites had settled in various parts of the country, the Canaanites,
the Amorites, and the Philistines took their revenge, and made them pay
by instalments for the outrages of the invasion. The stronger tribes
did not succour the weaker, for the tie that bound them together was
religious, not political, and was growing weaker and weaker; hence the
Bible invariably attributes the defeats of the Israelites to their
neglect of the national religion.
“And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he delivered
them into the hand of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into
the hands of their enemies round about. Whithersoever they went out,
the hand of Jehovah was against them for evil, as Jehovah had sworn
unto them; and they were sore distressed. And Jehovah raised up judges,
which saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And when
Jehovah raised them up judges, then Jehovah was with the judge, and
saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge:
for it repented Jehovah because of their groaning by reason of them
that oppressed them and vexed them. But it came to pass, when the
judge was dead, that they turned back and dealt more corruptly than
their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down
unto them; they ceased not from their doings, nor from their stubborn
way.”[g]
[Illustration: TIBERIAS, LOOKING TOWARD HERMON]
[Illustration: ANCIENT THEBEZ]