5. What Happened When the Israelites Entered the Promised Land?

5. What Happened When the Israelites Entered the Promised Land? Joshua, Judges and Kings

Context for the Course: Everyone Has An Opinion Biblical Scholars Archaeologists The Text General Public Believers

Quick Review Mythic History: The Creation Story, the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, the Nephilim and the generations that preceded Noah Pre-History: Noah’s Flood and the Tower of Babel Early History: The wanderings of Abraham, Joseph sold into slavery thrives in Egypt under the Semite Hyksos Kings, the original Egyptian kings regain the Lower Kingdom and see the Hebrews as a threat and force them into hard labor The complicated person known as Moses is born a Hebrew but raised in the Court of the Pharaoh. He flees to Midian where he encounters God who tells him to return to Egypt to free his people. He leads them to the Promised Land but is not allowed to enter. Joshua succeeds in conquering the Promised Land and divides up the territory among the twelve tribes

One Thing Is Certain In 1207 BCE, a stele was created to honor the victories of the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah in his campaign against a number of peoples inhabiting the territory of Canaan which began in 1212 BCE • Israel is mentioned on this stele (see the insert). This is the earliest mention of Israel found outside of the Bible however the determinative (unpronounced marker before a word) used with Israel indicates that Israel was neither a country or a city-state at this time but rather a people living in the hill country of Canaan Based on Judges 5:11, some believe they called themselves עַם־יְהוָח, the people of YHWH. Archaeology can not yet confirm what the Bible says about how they reached the Promised Land but it can confirm that they were there at about the time stated in the Bible

Where Did the Tribes of Israel Settle in the Promised Land ? • When the Israelites entered the Promised land, the region was divided up among the different clans. The tribe of Levi, was removed from landowning status for it was from this tribe that the priesthood of Israel was formed which served all the tribes. Cities were allotted to the Levites • Dan was first given land in an area that looked on Joppa, east of Benjamin. However, the Philistines resisted them there, blocking their efforts to capture the towns awarded to them in the original inheritance agreement. Shechem * • The descendants of Dan headed north to a city called Leshem or Laish. After capturing this city, they renamed it 'Dan' after their ancestor, and settled that region. This city proved to be the northernmost boundary of the land of Israel, stretching from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south. More on this later. • The bones of Joseph, carried out of Egypt, were buried with his ancestors at Shechem • (Josh. 24:32)

Another Puzzling Story With a Reference to Moses This story from the Book of Joshua also gives another example of a member of Moses’ family being written about in a less than an admirable manner • A man named Micah (not the prophet), a worshipper of YHWH, stole 1100 shekels from his mother but, when he confessed his sin to his mother, she blessed him and she used some of the silver that her son returned to her to create an idol • Micah himself created a shrine for the idol complete with ephod (sacred clothing) and teraphim (hard to translate, likely means household gods). Ephod and teraphim seem to have been used in divination. Micah then hired a Levite, Jonathan, son of Gershon who was the son of Moses* to act as a priest to his shrine • Some men from the tribe of Dan, unable to win over the land originally set aside for them by Joshua, passed by Micah’s shrine and asked the priest if they would be successful in winning over the new land to the North set aside for them. The Levite priest Jonathan assured them that they would succeed • They did succeed. They destroyed the major city of the land, Laish, rebuilt it and named it after their ancestor, Dan, the son of Jacob/Israel. They then returned to Micah’s shrine, took the idol, the ephod and teraphim and even the priest Jonathan to the city of Dan where they re-built the shrine. Jonathan, was named the chief priest of the shrine. The shrine remained there until David moved the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem • The story is told that a Hebrew N (nun) was added to the name of Moses משה • to change it into Manasseh מנשה

The Book of Judges • The Book of Joshua is followed by the Book of Judges. The Hebrew word for Judges is shophetimשֹׁפְטִים • While the Book of Joshua seems to show the conquest of the Promised Land was swift and thorough, the Book of Judges takes a different slant • When Joshua and his generation died, the Israelites began to worship the gods of the peoples around them. One might ask, of course, what peoples? Weren’t most of them conquered and put to the ban by Joshua? • Chapter 3 of Judges (Jdg. 3:1-5) explains that God left a number of tribes in the land to test Israel. Chapter 2 of Judges explains that God would raise up a judge, a sort of military leader, to deal with these tribes whenever the Israelites would revert to their evil ways • A pattern emerged where the people of Israel would worship foreign gods and God would use these other peoples to punish the Israelites for their unfaithfulness. God would relent and raise up a judge to rescue His people. The judge would do his job and, while the judge lived, the people would remain faithful. When the judge died, the pattern would repeat

Who Were the Judges? • Judges tended to be strong military leaders who defeated the enemies of Israel. Some biblical critics claim that the constant need for military actions by the Judges cast some doubt on how effective Joshua was in his campaigns of conquest in the Promised Land • In any case, the role of the Judges in the early history of Israel seem to have some influence on the expectations of the Jewish people concerning the nature of the Messiah a millennium later • There were seven major Judges (Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson and Samuel) • There were six minor Judges (Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon and Abdon) • The terms major and minor referred to the amount of information about the Judges provided in scripture • Some scholars see these Judges as strong leaders who rose up from among the tribes to save their people and, as such, are pre-cursors to later Jewish expectations of a Messiah

What?? Israel Had a Female Judge? • Chapter 4 of the Book of Judges tells the story of Deborah, a female Judge of the Israelites. When the Judges Ehud and Shamgar had passed away, the Israelites once again forsook their God and fell into their old pattern of idolatry, As a punishment, God put them under the heel of Jabin, King of Hazor, and his general Sisera • Deborah, both a Judge and a prophet, declared that the Lord God commanded that an army be raised to rid Israel of this foreign ruler. She appointed a general and he led an army against the king. Before he left, Deborah told the general. “I will surely go with you but you will not gain glory for the expedition on which you are setting out for it is into the power of a woman that the Lord will place Sisera. • The Israelites routed Jabin’s army and Sisera fled to the protection of Hobab, a Kenite and a descendant of the Midianites who had helped Moses. Hobab’s wife, Jael, took Sisera into their tent and gave him refreshment and offered to hide him wrapped up in one of the rugs of the tent. Sisera agreed and, once he was wrapped up, Jael took a tent peg and drove it into his temple. Deborah’s prophecy had come true but not in the way that her general had thought • Judges 4:4-5 indicate that Deborah was held in high regard among the Israelites long before this war. The fact that her word could cause an army to be raised is a further indication of just how high that regard was

Israel at the Transition Point Between Confederation and Kingdom • Each tribe had its own territory and governed itself independently • When threatened by outside forces (Philistines to the West, Amonites and Moabites to the East), some tribes joined together and named a Judge (a military leader) to resolve the problem • The author of Judges sees these threats as the result of the people forgetting God • A cycle of apostasy, threat, repentance and deliverance repeats in an ever-descending spiral. In an ironic ending to the Book of Judges, an alleged rape of the concubine of a Levite by someone from the tribe of Benjamin leads the other eleven tribes to unite against Benjamin in a civil war • By the end of the Book of Judges, “There was no King in Israel and everyone did what he thought was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25)

What Is The Deuteronomistic History? • I mentioned earlier the Deuteronomistic History and promised to explain it. • The theory of the Deuteronomistic History claims that the Book of Deuteronomy from the Torah, and the Books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings (or 1, 2 ,3 and 4 Kings if your Bible counts that way) from the Prophets (Nevi’im) were the work of one author called the Deuteronomist. This is the theory of Martin Noth, German professor of the history of the Hebrew People in pre-exilic times. • These books of Deuteronomistic History; - Transition the leadership of the Hebrew people from Moses to Joshua (Deuteronomy) - Describe how the Promised Land was taken and divided among the tribes (Joshua) - Describe how the tribes at first formed a confederation of twelve independent tribes who came together under a Judge in times of trouble (Judges) - Explain why the various tribes decided to unite under a common king, Saul and the successes and failures experienced under his rule (1 Samuel) - Describe the declaration of David as King (2 Samuel) - Explained how Solomon succeeded and bring the Kingdom of Israel to its greatest status along with the financial burdens that go with such status (1 Kings) - Explains how the two kingdoms split and ultimately fell in the years following the breakup ending the destruction of one kingdom, Israel, and the captivity and exile of the other, Judah (2 Kings)

From Judges to Kings • When the last Judge, Samuel, anointed the first King, Saul, Israel ceased to be a confederation of self-governing tribes and became a single nation, a kingdom • Beginning with Saul, followed by David and David’s son, Solomon, Israel had three kings who ruled over a people who still had a recognized tribal identity but now also had a national one • David and Solomon vastly expanded the territory dominated by Israel to the point where the boundaries of the Promised Land reached the limits foretold by God to Abraham • Some Biblical scholars claim that the boundaries of the land promised to Abraham by God in Genesis 15 were placed there during or after the time of David and Solomon to justify their conquests as part of God’s will

Who Were the Major Players In Uniting the Kingdom of Israel? • Samuel Both a prophet and a Judge, Samuel was the transition point from confederation to kingdom in Israel. Samuel was the last true Judge of the confederation of the twelve tribes and also the man who anointed the first two rulers of the Kingdom of Israel • Saul Saul came from the smallest tribe in Israel, Benjamin. Saul was a humble man who seemed to have much to be humble about. Saul, however, was not a reliable man. He trusted in things other than God • David David is one of the most interesting characters in all of the Bible, probably because he is the most human. David is, at the same time, one of the most honorable and courageous men in Israel yet he has his selfish and even cowardly moments. David’s true strength is found in his absolute love of God and his ability to admit his faults and repent of them, especially to God’s prophet, Nathan • Solomon Solomon, known as both a wise and powerful ruler, managed to bring Israel to its greatest level of power and status. Unfortunately, Solomon’s successes with other nations brought in wives and gods from other nations. Solomon so overextended Israel’s resources that the unity of the country collapsed after his death

What Does the Bible Say About Samuel? • Samuel was not the author of the Books 1 and 2 Samuel but he was a main character in them, especially in 1 Samuel. Since 1 and 2 Samuel focused so much on the transition of Israel from confederation to kingdom, 1 and 2 Samuel are sometimes included in the Book of Kings. So, some bibles have 2 books of Samuel and 2 books of Kings. Other bibles have 4 books of Kings. • Samuel lived in a small town, Ramah, but rode an annual circuit of the land. The passage of 1 Samuel 7:15-17 says the following about Samuel, • To Samuel men came for judgement all his life long; year by year he would go round from Bethel to Galgala, from Galgala to Masphath, holding assize in each of these cities, and so returning to his home at Ramatha; there, too, he sat in judgement, and there he raised an altar to the Lord. • This passage seems to indicate that Samuel held authority at least in the regions of Judah, Benjamin and Simeon. He seemed to hold the authority of a judge and of a man who could settle local disputes. Samuel also seemed to be a priest of a local shrine at Ramah. Samuel was held in high regard and as 1 Samuel 12 indicates. He was considered a just man but the people still urged Samuel to appoint a king to govern over all the tribes.

Was a Kingdom a Good Idea? First Samuel tells the full story of Israel’s desire for a King. The people wanted a King so that Israel would have someone to rally around to protect themselves from neighboring nations Samuel reminded the people that having a central government run by a strong King would also have some consequences. In 1 Samuel 8, these consequences are listed. A King would; - take their sons and make them serve the King (in the military) - take their fields and olive groves and give them to his attendants - take a tenth of everything they owned and everything they produced The Israelites wanted a King so that they could be like other nations. Samuel reminded the people that God was their King and that He intended them to be different from all other nations. It was, after all, this difference that brought them out of slavery and into the Promised Land Samuel ends his warning with these words, “you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. ” King Ahaz seemed to fulfill that prophecy three centuries later (2 Kings:16 and 2 Chron:28)

What Did Moses Think About a King? • According to the Book of Deuteronomy, (Deuteronomistic History?) Moses anticipated that the Israelites would desire a King once they had taken possession of the Promised Land (Deut. 17:14-20) • When you have come into the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, should you then decide, “I will set a king over me, like all the surrounding nations,”you may indeed set over you a king whom the LORD, your God, will choose. Someone from among your own kindred you may set over you as king; you may not set over you a foreigner, who is no kin of yours. But he shall not have a great number of horses; ....nor shall he have a great number of wives, lest his heart turn away,nor shall he accumulate a vast amount of silver and gold.When he is sitting upon his royal throne, he shall write a copy of this lawupon a scroll from the one that is in the custody of the Levitical priests.It shall remain with him and he shall read it as long as he lives, so that he may learn to fear the LORD, ... so that he does not exalt himself over his kindred ..... and so that he and his descendants may reign long in Israel. • Those who believe that a single Deuteronomist wrote this book would contend that the “prophecy” quoted above was actually written down hundreds of years after Solomon’s death. In any case, the words written here did, in fact, take place under the reign Solomon (passage in red) and, perhaps, under the reign of Josiah (passage in green)

He was personally a humble man who came from the most humble tribe in Israel, Benjamin. Saul ruled from his home town of Gibeah a few miles north of Jerusalem Who Was King Saul? • While humility may be a virtue in someone’s personal life, God did not find it a virtue in the life of the man selected by God to lead a nation. • The Lord told Saul to wage war against the Amalekites, the ancient enemy of Israel who had previously waged war against Moses and Joshua (the story of Moses extended staff). Saul was told that Amalek was to be put “under the ban”. Saul failed to obey and Samuel tried to remind Saul just who Saul was, “Though little in your own eyes, are you not chief of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king of Israel.” (1 Sam. 15:17) • Saul could be said to be repeating the pattern of his nation under the Judges. Saul, like Israel, would fail to heed God’s words. God would rebuke Saul and Saul would repent. Then Saul would go on to repeat his failures and his repentances. God soon grew tired of this and told Samuel to anoint a new King. Samuel chose a young shepherd boy named David

Did Saul Know David? • Even after Samuel had anointed David to be Israel’s next King, Saul remained King on the throne. David’s first approach to the throne was not as King but rather as a harpist who would play to soothe Saul’s troubled soul • As David’s popularity grew, Saul’s jealousy of David grew in proportion. Finally, Saul plotted to kill David but David was warned by Jonathan, Saul’s son • David was forced by Saul to flee to the Philistines for protection. Since David fought so well against them, Achish, the Philistine ruler of Gath, agreed to protect David if David fought for Achish. David agreed so long as he was not required to fight against Israel • Later, Achish (without David’s participation) finally did battle with Israel and defeated Saul. Saul died by falling on his own sword. The Bible tells us that David mourned when he heard of Saul’s death

How Did David Become King? • While Samuel had long since anointed David to succeed to the throne after Saul died, it is clear that Saul’s son, Ish-Bosheth, failed to get the memo • Supported by Saul’s general, Abner, Ish-Bosheth was crowned King in Saul’s place at Mahanaim in the North. • Two years later, Judah seceded from Israel and proclaimed David as its King at Hebron in the South • Abner later shifted his loyalty to David. David then defeated Ish-Bosheth and was recognized as King of all Israel. • David moved the capital city of Israel to a location acceptable to both North and South, Jerusalem. David also brought the Ark of the Covenant there but the building of the Temple was left to David’s son, Solomon. Under David, unity between North and South prevailed, at least for a time

Who Killed Goliath? This passage from 2 Samuel provides an answer “And there was war with the Philistines again at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed * Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.” (2 Sam. 21:19) Elhanan? Who is Elhanan? Didn’t David Kill Goliath? That depends on who you ask. Let’s ask 1 Samuel. “Thus David prevailed over the Philistine (Goliath) with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David’s hand” (1 Sam. 17:50) * The King James Bible inserts the phrase ‘Lahmi the brother of” in 2 Sam. 21:19. It’s authors claim that it should read exactly as 1 Chron. 20:5 reads, claiming its absence was surely a scribal error. Most other translations into English do not include it because those words are not found in the Greek Septuagint text of 2 Samuel nor in the Hebrew Masoretic text of 2 Samuel. Explanation? First Chronicles provides the best explanation: “And there was war with the Philistines again, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.” (1 Chron. 20:5)

David’s Choice of Jerusalem and the Story of Melchizidek In Genesis, the story of Abraham and Melchizidek, the King-Priest of Salem (Jerusalem) seems to pop up out of nowhere. Some Biblical scholars believe that this story was inserted later into Genesis to justify David’s selection of Jerusalem as the new location of the Ark of the Covenant (it had rested for years at Shiloh). Jerusalem, unlike Hebron, Shechem and other ancient cities of Israel never had a traditional shrine These same scholars claim that the choice of the name Melchizidek was intentionally made to sound like the name of a traditional Jebusite ruler-priest (Adonizidek, Zadok). The Jebusites had been earlier inhabitants of Jerusalem and the hope was that the story of Melchizidek and the choice of his name would mollify the population now under the rule of Israel During David’s time on the throne, Israel had two high priests, Abiathar and Zadok (there’s that name again!). Zadok became the lone high priest when Abiathar sided with Adonijah over Solomon as the choice to succeed David. The high priesthood stayed in the line of Zadok through Ezra (later section) down to the time of the Maccabees (2nd Century BCE) Note: The Bible says that Zadok was a descendant of Aaron through Aaron’s son Eleazar. Some scholars claim he may have been a local Jebusite priest who sided with Solomon when Adonijah attempted to succeed David

What Made David So Unique? • One of the most fascinating yet controversial characters in Jewish history. David is a flawed man and the Bible makes no attempt to hide his flaws. The incident with Bathshebah shows these flaws in full light (2 Samuel 11) - David was a King who did not lead Israel went to war with the Ammonites but David remained in Jerusalem - David was a bit of a voyeur While on the roof of his palace, he watched Uriah’s wife Bathsheebah bathing - David was an adulterer He slept with Bathshebah, another man’s wife - David was a murderer David gave orders that Uriah be placed at the front of the battle so that he would be killed Nathan the prophet called out David concerning his sin and promised that David would pay for his private sin in full view of everyone. Then David the King, David the Sinner, became David the man who humbled himself before God and, unlike Saul, truly repented. Despite David’s many flaws, the prophet Nathan declared that David’s “house and kingdom will endure forever” (2 Sam. 7:16). From his union with Bathshebah, King Solomon is born

Who Was King Solomon? In Solomon both the pros and the cons of kingship long before outlined by Samuel were realized • Israel was recognized as an important nation and its King renowned for his wisdom • Jerusalem became a great city and Solomon built a magnificent Temple to house the Ark of the Covenant • People from all nations flocked to Jerusalem bringing trade goods from all over the region with them. However….. - Israel’s army became over-extended - Israel’s treasury was exhausted - Israel’s taxes became burdensome - Israelites were forced into labor to build the Temple (remember Egypt?) • Worst of all, God was no longer the center of worship. Foreign peoples and foreign alliances brought foreign gods. Solomon forgot the God of Israel and began to worship foreign idols

What Caused the Kingdom Of Israel To Divide? In his declining years, Solomon began to forget YHWH and began to build altars to foreign gods. God told Solomon that his kingdom would be divided after he died (1 Kings:11) Jeroboam was a trusted servant of Solomon from one of the Joseph tribes, Ephraim. The prophet Ahijah told Jeroboam that he would be used to punish the line of David and Solomon. When Jeroboam found out that Solomon knew this, he fled to Egypt When Solomon died, his son, Rehoboam was named King. Jeroboam returned from Egypt and spoke for many of those who felt burdened by Solomon’s taxes. In response, Rehoboam was angered and made those burdens heavier. The Joseph tribes and eight others from the North rebelled. In the end, the ten tribes to the North continued to call their land Israel and made Samaria its capital. The two tribes in the South (Benjamin and Judah) called their land Judah and maintained Jerusalem as its capital 2 Sam. 12: 8 “and I gave you (David) the house of Israel and of Judah” seems to indicate that there was already a split between Israel and Judah during David’s reign (or this is another anachronism or later insertion?)

The Two Kingdoms? The two tribes of Benjamin and Judah combined to form the Kingdom of Judah with its capital city and major place of worship in Jerusalem The ten tribes of Dan, Asher, Napthali, Zebulon, Issachar, Gilead, Reuben and the two Joseph tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim formed the Northern Kingdom of Israel with its capital city in Samaria and its major worship centers in the city of Dan in the North and Bethel in the South Wait! There are only nine tribes in the North. What happened to Simeon and what tribe formed the tenth tribe in the North? The answer to both those questions is a matter of debate. As for Simeon, any scholars believe that the tribe of Simeon so diminished in size that it was absorbed into Judah. As for ten tribes in the North, some scholars count Simeon among those ten tribes. Why? Perhaps they believed that the remaining Simeonites fled North. Some scholars count the very large tribe of Manasseh twice (Mannaseh I and II). Other scholars count the Levites among the Northern tribes even though they had no territory

What Happened to The Two Kingdoms? The Northern Kingdom of Israel remained independent and prosperous from the time of Jeroboam until its conquest by a renewed Assyrian Empire @722-721 BCE The Neo-Assyrian Empire originally ruled the Fertile Crescent but then expanded to the point where it dominated the Kingdom of Egypt The Southern Kingdom of Judah remained independent during this Neo-Assyrian expansion by becoming a client of the new Kingdom of Assyria and paying a large annual tribute to the Assyrian King at Nineveh Over time, Egypt threw off the yoke of the Assyrians and a rising power in the Fertile Crescent, Babylon, defeated the Assyrians and conquered its client kingdom Judah In the next section, we’ll look at the controversies involving both Israel and Judah during this period of captivity

AM BCE The Kings of Israel and Judah from David to Athaliah and Jehu Note: AM = Anno Mundi. The Year of the World. It designates dating according to the Hebrew Calendar. The Hebrew Calendar year 5772 ends September 16, 2012. This calendar list is only one version. Just as in the case of the dating of the Exodus, there is much debate about the dating of this list of kings.

AM BCE The Kings of Israel and Judah from Athaliah and Jehu to the Fall of Jerusalem

5. What Happened When the Israelites Entered the Promised Land?