The History of Early Israel Part Two

January 21, 2009 by mikelioso

The History of Early Israel Part Two

The Children of Israel and Bedouin Genealogy

In The Early History of Israel Part One, I talked about the archeological evidence concerning early Israel. Now I would like to switch the perspective and look at the emergence of Israel unig the accounts from the Bible. What will be important here is to use what has been learned from the Documentary Hypothesis to interpret the text. As a quick overview of the Documentary Hypothesis, the Torah and the Former Prophets [1] are made up of a number of different sources, written at different times and combined and edited at still later times. The traditional view comes from the finished product and is thus a synthesis of a number of different independent works. The works, as best they can be separated, are J from the early priesthood of YHWH in Judah, E from the priesthood of YHWH in Israel, P from the later priesthood in Judah, and D from the author of Deuteronomy. Included in these works are a number of earlier poems and genealogies, some from earlier written works like The Book of Jashar and the Book of The Wars of YHWH. The poems are the earliest parts of the Bible, followed by J, then E, then D, and finally P. While all could preserve traditions that are accurate and all have biases reflecting the interest, I will focus mostly on the earlier works as they have less accumulated tradition influencing them. P for example is attempt by the Aaronid line of priest to rewrite the combined JE to reinforce their religious principles.

J and E both begin their history of Israel with a man named Jacob (heel catcher or supplanter)[2] who after a series of adventures is named Israel. Jacob marries several women, and with them and some concubines, has a number of children. These children become the ancestors of the tribes of the nation of Israel. This is a convention of Bedouin society. To this day Bedouin tribes trace their origin to a single common ancestor. [3]

What is important to understanding the history of Israel is that the genealogies are often fictional.[4] Their alliances are thought of in terms of an extended family relationship. This is summed up by the Arab proverb, “I and my brothers against my cousins, I and my brothers and my cousins against the world”. The Bedouin mind can conceive of no alliance out side the family. No doubt this is formed by their lifestyle of traveling in small groups they call bayts. The bayt consist of a nuclear family and a few siblings or parents. Few others will be encountered during daily life. Unlike the city dweller, the only people a Bedouin nomad can expect to rely on are his immediate relatives. When tribes encounter new groups, then these can be worked into the genealogy to be come new “brothers”. In the Bible every one in the world is related though genealogy to the Israelites. The degree of relation says a lot about how the Israelites viewed the group, but not much about the actual blood connection.

A case in point are the Canaanites. As said earlier, the Canaanites spoke the same language as the Israelites and worshiped the same god. But in the P and J portions of Genesis chapters nine and ten’s, “Table of Nations”, Canaan is the son of Ham. His other sons are Cush (Nubia), Put (Libya), and Egypt.[5] So for the Bibles writers Canaan is not even a Semite. They are lumped with people speaking a far different language and, in the supreme spirit of a color blind society, are considered more closely related to the blacks of Cush than to their Israelite neighbors.

What led Israel to believe in such a strange genealogy? Absolute hatred. The memories of war and the Canaanites current situation of subservience wouldn’t allow the Israelites to view the Canaanites as a cousin people like the Edomites. They were so despised that couldn’t be ranked even as distant cousins like the Assyrians. They were as distant from the Semite line as the Greeks. Since the Canaanites were under the control of Egypt for so long they were attributed with a decent from a man called Mizraim, the Hebrew word for Egypt. By tracing them to Noah at least they were considered human. This need to invent an appropriate family relationships lies behind many of the stories of Genesis. The attitude of the story toward the ancestral figure says a lot about how the writers viewed the tribe they supposedly spawned. For the troublesome but similar people, the Moabites and Ammonites, their origin is traced to Abrahams nephew, but by a shameful incident of incest. The Arabs get a tragic origin reflecting their distance from Israel, and ambivalent role, sometimes merchants of rare luxuries, sometimes bandits. The people of Edom are given the best spot in the genealogies as brother to Israel. This reflects the close relationship of Edom and the kingdom of Judah.

Earlier Israeli Coalitions Before King David

When you compare the similarities between Israel and her neighbors it’s best to think of them not as Israel, and Moab, and Edom, and Canaan. It’s better to say Judah, and Gad, and Asher, and Ephraim, and Moab, and Ammon, and so on. The relationship between them has as much to do with politics as family. By the time the Bible was being wrote the tribes of Israel had probably shared a close and relatively friendly relationship. Had alliances been different though we could read Judah as the foolish brother Jacob and Moab as a Jacob’s son by his wife’s maid. This isn’t just speculation. We have in the Bible its self an very different version of the tribes than the traditional list. It can be found in Judges chapter 5:1-18, from The Song of Deborah.

1 On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song:

2 “When the princes in Israel take the lead,
when the people willingly offer themselves—
praise the LORD!

3 “Hear this, you kings! Listen, you rulers!
I, even I, will sing to the LORD;
I will praise the LORD, the God of Israel, in song.

4 “When you, LORD, went out from Seir,
when you marched from the land of Edom,
the earth shook, the heavens poured,
the clouds poured down water.

5 The mountains quaked before the LORD, the One of Sinai,
before the LORD, the God of Israel.

6 “In the days of Shamgar son of Anath,
in the days of Jael, the highways were abandoned;
travelers took to winding paths.

7 Villagers in Israel would not fight;
they held back until I, Deborah, arose,
until I arose, a mother in Israel.

8 God chose new leaders
when war came to the city gates,
but not a shield or spear was seen
among forty thousand in Israel.

9 My heart is with Israel’s princes,
with the willing volunteers among the people.
Praise the LORD!

10 “You who ride on white donkeys,
sitting on your saddle blankets,
and you who walk along the road,
consider 11 the voice of the singers at the watering places.
They recite the victories of the LORD,
the victories of his villagers in Israel.
“Then the people of the LORD
went down to the city gates.

12 ‘Wake up, wake up, Deborah!
Wake up, wake up, break out in song!
Arise, Barak!
Take captive your captives, son of Abinoam.’

13 “The remnant of the nobles came down;
the people of the LORD came down to me against the mighty.

14 Some came from Ephraim, whose roots were in Amalek;
Benjamin was with the people who followed you.
From Makir captains came down,
from Zebulun those who bear a commander’s staff.

15 The princes of Issachar were with Deborah;
yes, Issachar was with Barak,
sent under his command into the valley.
In the districts of Reuben
there was much searching of heart.

16 Why did you stay among the sheep pens
to hear the whistling for the flocks?
In the districts of Reuben
there was much searching of heart.

17 Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan.
And Dan, why did he linger by the ships?
Asher remained on the coast
and stayed in his coves.

18 The people of Zebulun risked their very lives;
so did Naphtali on the terraced fields.

The underlined names are the tribes that Deborah the judge holds out for praise or criticism. They are Ephraim, Benjamin, Makir, Zebulun, Issachar, Reuben, Gilead, Dan, and Naphtali. Since Debora is mentioning both the praising tribes who tribes who fought and ridiculing the ones who did not it’s not likely she would have just forgot about a few. Deborah singing about important life or death matters! The notable absences from the list are Judah, Simeon, Levi, Manasseh, Asher, and Gad. Now some would argue that Gilead means Gad and Makir means Manasseh,[6]but I don’t think the proud people of Manasseh and Gad would appreciate being referred to by their dependent clans. What we apparently have is an early list of the Tribes of Israel, a list before the J and E sons of Jacob list, a list before the Judahite tribes or the recognition of the Levites as a tribe. At the time Gilead and Makir held more prominence than Manasseh. What this shows is that the son of Jacob was fluid in membership up until the spread of written versions made the switching of tribes to noticeable to be feasible. Hence the when Assyria hauled off the tribes of the northern kingdom, they weren’t written out of the Bible. When Manasseh rose in prominence the records were still fuzzy enough to slip them in and Makir out.

Genesis Genealogy Shows Degree of Affiliation Between Tribe Through History

When we keep this in mind the genealogies of the Bible can give us information about the political history of the tribes. Characters like Abraham and Isaac seem like stock characters that were common to any number of ancient nomads. Jacob was such a popular character that Israel traced their lineage to him and not to another separate character named Israel. Possibly this reflects either that the original Israel called its self Jacob and then changed their name later. Or the tribes that would form Israel traced their origin to Jacob, but didn’t operate as a confederacy named Jacob. For instance both Israel and Edom traced their ancestry to Isaac but they didn’t coordinate as a group called Isaac. In the stories of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah in the J and E text we can find clues to relation of the actual tribes to one another.

The children of Jacob are listed in Genesis chapter 29-30:1-26. Part of it, 29:1-30:1,24b (starting with may the LORD)-26, is J the rest is E. The J portions begin the story of Jacobs labor to win his true love, Rachel. It extends to Laban tricking him into marring his older daughter Leah. J stresses Leah’s homeliness compared to Rachel. After Leah gives birth to Levi and three tribes form southern Israel.

E picks up with Rachel, desperate for children commanding her servant girl, who seems to be little more than a slave, to have a baby by her husband and give it to her. This maid has several children. Then Leah makes her maid give her two babies. Rachel, who seems to run this harem, lets Leah have sex with Jacob in return for a mandrake root. The Hebrew word for mandrake is literally “love plant”. [7]Leah has even more babies. The Rachel, with her mandrakes and the god El’s help, finally has a baby, ending the story.

The stories have a lot of over lap and no doubt the missing parts of J and E were similar. That they were small changes is shown by way the two are mixed. The Judahites could not accept the north’s treatment of their own birth and the Israelites wouldn’t accept Judah version of the birth of their own tribes. They both agree on the status of Leah and Rachel in relation to the tribes, Jacob, and each other. The children all have puns made on their names, but remember the tribes were not made based on pet names given to mythical founders. The stories are there to give a family bond to different groups of people. There was no man named Judah or Gad who had a bunch of kids who in reverence of their great, great, grand father, used his name as the name of their family. Why would these peoples children find them so special? At times the exact meaning of the word is unclear, and like many of our own modern names, may have had origins in older languages and hence don’t translate to Hebrew. For instance my own name, Michael, means “who is like El” in Hebrew, a language that is virtually extinct in the modern world.

The following are the children of Leah and the meaning of their names. To start, Leah means “weary”. Her first son and hence Jacobs heir, is Reuben (behold, the son)[9]. Next is Simeon ( heard or listen)[10], then Levi (joined to)[11] and last Judah (praise Or thanks)[12]. In E she has a few more children after Judah. After buying the right to sleep with Jacob she has Issachar (He redeems)[13] and Zebulun (exalted or high habitation)[14].

Simeon’s territory is essentially inside of Judah. Reuben was directly across the dead sea from them. Levi had land throughout the rest of the tribes. These three tribes may have seemed most linked to Judah. In Judges chapter 1, Judah and Simeon get together to conquer the Negev. Another thing about Reuben, Simeon ,and Levi is that they are all disqualified as the first son due to misconduct. Reuben sleeps with his dad’s mistress (Genesis 35:22) and Simeon and Levi murder a tribe their father was trying to marry into using their sister as a bride (Genesis 34). This shows Judah having a humble beginning and only later gaining prominence.

Leah’s children though hiring Jacob, Issachar and Zebulun, are both neighbors in northern Israel. The children by Leah’s maid, Gad (an invader, troop, or fortune) [22] and Asher (happy, from a root meaning to walk forward, like upgrade)[23], on the other hand are spread far from each other. Asher is on the Mediterranean while Gad occupies the east bank of the Jordan. As these come from the E story it’s presumable that the people of Judah did not feel as strongly toward the tribes. To highlight this Gad and Asher are only half brothers to Judah and the others. Issachar and Zebulun owe their Judahite relation to the deal made with Rachel, the favorite wife of Jacob. The four may have been linked to Judah simply because they weren’t closely related, by history or decent, to the Joseph tribes. Of the Leah tribes, Zebulun, Issachar, and Reuben are listed in the Deborah list of tribes.

Rachel (sheep)[15], the wife loved by Jacob, has two children, Joseph (increase)[16], and, dying as she gives birth, Benjamin (son of the right or south)[17] (Genesis 35:16-20). Rachel adopts two children by Jacob and her maid, Dan (judge or governor)[18], and Naphtali (wrestling)[19]. Joseph in turn has two boys by an Egyptian woman of a priestly family (Genesis 41:50-52). The boys are named Manasseh ( to forget, from an older root meaning to remove, as in removing memory)[20] and Ephraim (double fruitful)[21]. Dan and Naphtali are in the Deborah list. While Joseph doesn’t make that list, his sons Ephraim and Manasseh do.

To sum it all up here is a list of the sons of Jacob. * indicate a tribe from the Deborah list.

From Leah, Jacob’s first wife;

1. Reuben (behold, the son)*

2. Simeon ( heard or listen)

3. Levi (joined to)

4. Judah (praise or thanks)

From Bilah, Rachel’s maid;

1. Dan (judge or governor)*

2. Naphtali (wrestling)*

From Leah’s maid Zilpah;

1. Gad (an invader, troop, or fortune)

2. Asher (happy, from a root meaning to walk forward, like upgrade)

From Leah after buying the opportunity to sleep with Jacob;

5. Issachar (He redeems)*

6. Zebulun (exalted or high habitation)*

From Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife;

1. Joseph (increase)

2. Benjamin (son of the right or south)*

Joseph’s sons by Asenath, daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On (Heliopolis);

1. Manasseh ( to forget, from an older root meaning to remove, as in removing memory)

2. Ephraim (double fruitful)*

The First Tribes of Israel

Looking at all this we can see that nearly half of the sons of Jacob were new additions to Israel since the composition of the Song of Debora. Also Judah gains preeminence from being born of the first wife but the House of Joseph gains preeminence from being of the favorite wife. We can see the historical early importance of Joseph in that. Judah rises through circumstance to be the first ranked son, Joseph is the son that Israel always wanted. Leah is added into the story to explain why Judah was now the dominate tribe. The focus of this story is Joseph. We can also see the close association of Joseph with Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. The names of these tribes seem to reflect their history of occupying their territories in the land of Canaan. From the early Conquest Document (See the full reconstruction in my article The Conquest Document.) also found in Joshua 17:14-18

14 The people of Joseph said to Joshua, “Why have you given us only one allotment and one portion for an inheritance? We are a numerous people and the LORD has blessed us abundantly.”

15 “If you are so numerous,” Joshua answered, “and if the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go up into the forest and clear land for yourselves there in the land of the Perizzites and Rephaites”. 16 The people of Joseph replied, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the plain have iron chariots, both those in Beth Shan and its settlements and those in the Valley of Jezreel.”

17 But Joshua said to the house of Joseph—to Ephraim and Manasseh-”You are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only one allotment 18 but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have iron chariots and though they are strong, you can drive them out.”

Joshua addresses Ephraim and Manasseh as the house of Joseph. True to their name, “Increase”, Joseph grew to big for their territory, which consist of the tribal allotment of Ephraim. Ephraim contains the allotment for Joshua plus the cities, Shiloh and Shechem. It is at Shechem that Abraham is promised the land of Canaan by YHWH (J Genesis 12:6-8. Given the significance of Bethel and Shiloh to the early history of Israel, it leaves us with little doubt that it is here is where Israel began. Further more since the plain cannot be taken they clear the forest from the hill country. This is the sort of increase in settlement that archeological evidence shows took place during the 11^th century.[24]

Now while Joseph is the father of Ephraim and Manasseh is the first born of Joseph, neither Joseph or Manasseh made the Deborah list. Manasseh’s first born status is probably owed to its greater power at the time E was written, or to its apparent subjugation to Gideon in Judges 9:2. Manasseh’s expansionist history is in its name, Remove, not removing memory, but land. The “double fruitful” Ephraim is likely “parent” to its brother Manasseh. The brother “son of the South” Benjamin’s name relates to Ephraim to since they were directly south of Ephraim. We should be careful to not read to much into a name since it would be expected for a tribal group to take names promising growth and greatness. It is difficult to answer whether Ephraim or Joseph came first. In Deborah Joseph is not mentioned but it is possible that after the splitting of Benjamin from Ephraim, Joseph became the name of a father figure. On the other hand it seems unlikely that a tribe named Joseph would willingly drop its original name and choose a new one. It is possible that Joseph was made to be an ancestral figure to maintain equality in status between Ephraim and Manasseh. The other tribes of Israel are technically uncles rather than brother tribes to Ephraim-Manasseh.

The use of Joseph in the Blessing of Jacob poem ( J Genesis 49:1-27 ), Joshua 16:14-18, Judges 1:22-26, and in the division of the land in Joshua 16:1 seems to represents a period when the Ephraim-Manasseh tribes held a separate political arrangement in Israel. Several times it seems a king could rule in Shechem and that wouldn’t have bearing on the non Josephite tribes. Saul’s activities don’t extend far from the Hills of Ephraim. Gideon and his son Abimelek (my father is king)[25] seem to have been kings over Manasseh and Ephraim, but the rest of Israel doesn‘t factor into the story.

Much of the early history of Israel after the entrance into the land focuses on the Rachel tribes. Joshua was an Ephraimite and the Rachel tribes claim nearly half of the known Judges of Israel. It is at Shechem that Joshua renews the Covenant, sets up the memorial stone to that event, and buries Joseph. While Reuben and Gad occupy their territory in Numbers chapter 32, Gad isn’t a part of Israel when Deborah is written and Reuben isn’t placed very close to Ephraim in genealogy and doesn’t play much of a role in the rest of Judges. Given the low status of Israel in Merneptah’s stele and the lack of other mention in the known writings from him and Ramses II, it would seem that the first coalition of Israel probably dates from around this time and was made up of little more than Benjamin and the House of Joseph.

The Merneptah stele mentions the capture of Gezer and Ashkelon along with Israel.[26] He and his father also fought bands of pirates called Sea People[27][28]. Later the Philistines would count among these people and it seems possible that Ashkelon and Gezer, two cities occupied by the Philistines later, were already working with Aegean pirates. Considering the rash of cities being burnt in the last half of the 13^th century (1250-1201), it seems likely then that Merneptah’s campaign was a response to these activities. We don’t know if it was a coordinated attack or if one group was acting opportunistically to a situation created by the other. Ashkelon had already attempted to rebel against Ramses II [29]. By the time the accounts of Hazor and Bethel are written into the Bible all mention of the presence of Egypt and any assistance from other Canaanite cities was forgotten.

Activities of Joshua’s Israel

As explained in The Bible Unearthed the book of Joshua is a collection of heroic myths and memories of old battles woven together as a national epic of conquest under a single great general [30]. I think by comparing Joshua and Judges and keeping in mind the archeological record some events can be said to be more likely Joshua’s work. I think given the man’s popularity, and the lack of knowledge of what he actually did vs. all he’s credited as doing, we can say he was a very old part if Israel’s history. He is likely the Founder of the coalition of Israel (I‘ll get to Moses, who is never mentioned being in Canaan, later). He becomes a catch all in history. He conquers the whole nation, slays giants, and miraculously causes great cities to become legendary ruins. As has been explained Jericho and Ai were most certainly not the work of Joshua [31]. His connection to them is like the King Arthur myth of Merlyn building Stone Henge. One old figure is credited with creating an even more ancient landmark as the complete history is forgotten.

The story of the House of Joseph taking Bethel from judges 1:22-26, and possibly the Conquest Document, bears some similarity to the story of the taking of Jericho. Both cities are gained by spies promising a traitor safety for their family while the rest of the city is killed. The proximity of Bethel to Ephraim makes this a very good candidate for Israel’s work. The timing of it’s destruction matches Hazor and Aphek (c. 1250-2101). It is a modest start, and the later Israelites can be forgiven for wanting to jazz up the story with miracles and an old city of legend.

Joshua’s northern and southern campaigns pose more problems. They are further from the Hills of Ephraim and both seem to parallels in Judges, where they are taken on by figures other than Joshua. We can doubt Deborah’s involvement in Hazor’s downfall. In Judges chapter 4 the chief villain is Jabin king of Hazor, as in Joshua chapter 11. In Judges chapter 5’s Song of Deborah neither Jabin or Hazor appear. I think it can be presumed that Sisera was only later taken to be Jabin’s general. So it is reasonable that Joshua was involved in the sack of Hazor, but we can’t presume that only Israel was involved.

His war with Adoni-Zedek, King of Jerusalem [32] seems comparable with the Judges account of Judah’s war with Adoni-Bezek[33]. Besides the similarity with the names, both contain the destruction of Debir. Since Judah possessed this region at the beginning of the age of king, and Judah seems to be a late joiner to Israel, it may be more likely that the Judges account is more accurate. Furthermore, the Joshua account includes the burning of Lachish, and event a century later than Hazor and Bethel’s destruction.

It seem likely then that Israel began as a coalition of Beduin clans named Ephraim who opperated in the hills of Canaan north of Jerusalem. They pillaged a couple of cities under the leadershp of sheik named Joshua during a rebellion of some Canaanite city states against Egypt. They survived the Egyptian counter attack and continued to grow in strength as Egypt declined. The poor economy of the 11th century, caused in part by the activities around the world of bandit groups like themselves, forced them to switch from nomadic herding to farming.

[1] The Torah consist of genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers. The former Prophets are Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings.

[2] http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Jacob