Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel

© 2008 by Eugene H. Merrill

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakerpublishing.com

Ebook edition created 2011

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ISBN 978-1-4412-1707-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations labeled RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Illustrations

Preface to the Second Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Abbreviations

1. Recalling Israel’s Past: Issues and Strategies

Preliminary Considerations

The History of Israel and Historiography

The Old Testament as Historiography

2. Origins

Israel at Moab

The Purpose of Torah

The Story of the Patriarchs

3. The Exodus: Birth of a Nation

The Meaning of the Exodus

The Historical Setting of the Exodus

The Date of the Exodus

The Dates and Length of the Egyptian Sojourn

Patriarchal Chronology

The Wilderness Wandering

4. The Conquest and Occupation of Canaan

The Land as Promise Fulfillment

The Ancient Near Eastern World

The ‘Apiru and the Conquest

The Strategy of Joshua

The Date of Joshua’s Conquest

The Campaign against the Anakim

Alternative Models of the Conquest and Occupation

The Tribal Allotments

The Second Covenant Renewal at Shechem

5. The Era of the Judges: Covenant Violation, Anarchy, and Human Authority

The Literary-Critical Problem in Judges

The Chronology of Judges

The Ancient Near Eastern World

The Judges of Israel

The Bethlehem Trilogy

6. Saul: Covenant Misunderstanding

The Demand for Kingship

The Chronology of the Eleventh Century

The Selection of Saul

The First Challenge to Saul

The Decline of Saul

Theological Considerations

The Rise of David

7. David: Covenant Kingship

The Lack of Nationhood before David

David at Hebron

Chronicles and Theological History

Jerusalem the Capital

The Establishment of David’s Power

An Introduction to a Davidic Chronology

8. David: The Years of Struggle

Egypt and Israelite Independence

The Ammonite Wars

The Beginning of David’s Domestic Troubles

Jerusalem as Cult Center

The Rebellion of Absalom

David’s Efforts at Reconciliation

Additional Troubles

David’s Plan for a Temple

The Solomonic Succession

The Davidic Bureaucracy

9. Solomon: From Pinnacle to Peril

Problems of Transition

The Failure of the Opposition to Solomon

The Conclave at Gibeon

International Relations

The Building Projects of Solomon

Cracks in the Solomonic Empire

Solomonic Statecraft

Spiritual and Moral Apostasy

Solomon and the Nature of Wisdom

10. The Divided Monarchy

The Roots of National Division

The Immediate Occasion of National Division

The Reign of Rehoboam

The Reign of Jeroboam

The Pressure of Surrounding Nations

Abijah of Judah

Asa of Judah

The Reemergence of Assyria

Nadab of Israel

The Dynasty of Baasha of Israel

Omri of Israel

Jehoshaphat of Judah

Ahab of Israel

The Threat of Assyria

Ahab’s Successors

The Anointing of Hazael of Damascus

Jehoram of Judah

The Anointing of Jehu

11. The Dynasty of Jehu and Contemporary Judah

The Reign of Jehu of Israel

Athaliah of Judah

The Role of Other Nations

Joash of Judah

Jehoahaz of Israel

The International Scene

Jehoash of Israel

Amaziah of Judah

Jeroboam II of Israel

Uzziah of Judah

The Ministry of the Prophets

12. The Rod of Yahweh: Assyria and Divine Wrath

Factors Leading to Israel’s Fall

The End of the Dynasty of Jehu

Assyria and Tiglath-pileser III

Menahem of Israel

The Last Days of Israel

The Impact of Samaria’s Fall

Judah and the Fall of Samaria

Hezekiah of Judah

The Viewpoint of the Prophets

13. Fading Hope: The Disintegration of Judah

The Legacy of Hezekiah

Manasseh of Judah

Amon of Judah

The International Scene: Assyria and Egypt

Josiah of Judah

The Fall of Jerusalem

The Prophetic Witness

14. The Exile and the First Return

An Introductory Overview

The World Situation during the Exile

The Jewish People during the Exile

The World Situation during the Period of Restoration

The First Return

Problems following the Return

Encouragement from the Prophets

15. Restoration and New Hope

The Persian Influence

Subsequent Returns: Ezra and Nehemiah

Malachi the Prophet

Bibliography

Scripture Index

Subject Index

Notes

Illustrations

Chronological Tables

1. The Sequence of the Bronze Age

2. The Patriarchs

3. Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt

4. Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties of Egypt

5. The Life of David

6. The Kings of the Divided Monarchy

7. The Neo-Assyrian Kings

8. The Neo-Babylonian Kings

9. The Persian Kings

Maps

1. The Middle East in Pentateuchal Times

2. Canaan in Patriarchal Times

3. The Exodus

4. Arrival in Transjordan

5. The Middle East in the Times of Joshua and the Judges

6. The Conquest of Canaan

7. The Tribal Allotments

8. Israel during the Age of the Judges

9. The Kingdom of Saul

10. The Middle East during the United Monarchy

11. The Kingdom of David

12. Jerusalem in the Days of David and Solomon

14. The Twelve Districts of Solomon’s Kingdom

15. The Divided Monarchy

16. The Assyrian Empire

17. The Babylonian Empire

18. The Persian Empire

Preface to the Second Edition

The twenty years since the initial publication of this work have witnessed a veritable explosion of new information and new methodologies in the study of the history of Old Testament Israel. New documents from the ancient Near Eastern and biblical worlds have emerged or have been newly edited and published, and new ways of assessing these texts and their meaning have come to the fore. The secondary literature has also kept pace, with new studies now available to the world of scholarship and to the general laity. The major rationale for a new edition of this work, indeed, has been the increasingly obvious recognition that what was adequate a generation ago has become insufficient for the dawn of a new millennium. Besides my own conviction that a major overhaul of the work was needed, I have been encouraged by others to take on the task of bringing the narrative up to date so that the message of the Old Testament as not only a theological but also a historical work can resonate more clearly and relevantly with a new generation of readers. Baker Academic has responded to this sense of urgency and has graciously undertaken the immense effort and cost of revising a work such as this with all its technicalities. The author is particularly grateful to Jim Kinney because early on he saw the value and wisdom of bringing a sorely needed revision to pass. At the same time, he would be first to admit, with me, that without the competent staff at Baker this work would never have come to fruition.

The human and technical resources of Dallas Theological Seminary have also contributed immeasureably to the success of the project. The administration and staff have offered great encouragement and more—they have assisted in practical ways that have eased the process and made it possible to complete the work in the short time that has been devoted to it. As always, my wife, Janet, has been a tower of strength in moving me forward in the times when it seemed there was so little energy to get it done. It is to my beloved faculty colleagues at Dallas Theological Seminary, however, that I want to pay greatest tribute this time around, and I gratefully dedicate this effort to them. Many of them have used the first edition in their classrooms, and they have unfailingly reminded me of its usefulness to them. I trust that they will find even greater satisfaction in this second attempt. One might think it strange that a work on history—even the history of Israel—could be such a spiritually edifying and stimulating exercise for its author, but such it has been. To recognize all over again and ever more profoundly that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of our history as well is both a sobering and exhilarating thought. To God be all glory and praise from this day in history until the eschatological day of his kingdom on earth.

Eugene H. Merrill

October 2006

Preface to the First Edition

The title of this work—Kingdom of Priests—suggests at once the peculiar nature of a history of Israel: it cannot be done along the lines of normal historical scholarship because it relies primarily upon documents (the Old Testament) that are fundamentally ahistoriographic in character. The Old Testament is first and foremost theological and not historical literature; this means that theological and not historical approaches must be brought to bear if its underlying purpose and message are to be discerned.

Contrary to much contemporary scholarship, however, we must assert that just because the Old Testament is by definition sacred history, this does not nullify its claim to authentic historicity as that term is commonly used. It is indeed the record of Yahweh’s covenantal relationship with his special people Israel, a record that constantly calls attention to the divine interpretation and even prediction of events, but this always presupposes that those very events actually occurred in time and space. The theological message, in other words, is grounded in genuine history.

The purpose of this study is not so much to interpret the meaning of the underlying events—a task more properly in the province of biblical theology—as it is to discover the historical data themselves and by every resource at our disposal (including the biblical text, archaeological artifacts, and extrabiblical documents) to reconstruct the history of Israel along the lines of ordinary historiographical method to the extent that such a goal is possible given the unique nature of the material. Any success in this endeavor will be of importance to the search for a true understanding of Israel’s Old Testament past—a worthy objective in itself—and to the establishment of the historical factualness of the Old Testament record, the truthfulness of which is absolutely critical if the religious and theological message is to have any effect. Whether we have succeeded must be determined by the reader.

The completion of a project that has brought so much personal satisfaction to its author requires that those who made its accomplishment possible be recognized and thanked. It was in the course of a sabbatical kindly granted by Dallas Theological Seminary in 1983–84 that the major part of the work was achieved, and so I want to express my appreciation for this generous and enlightened policy. Moreover, the seminary made its word-processing facilities available. The typing was undertaken by the gifted hands and enthusiastic spirit of Marie Janeway. To Baker and particularly Allan Fisher and Ray Wiersma I pay special homage for their patience, expertise, and painstaking attention to every detail of the project. Finally I must thank my dear wife, Janet, and daughter, Sonya, for putting up with my absences, aberrations, and frequent demands and for their constant encouragement to see this through to the end.

Eugene H. Merrill

September 1986

Abbreviations

1   Recalling Israel’s Past

Issues and Strategies

Preliminary Considerations

The History of Israel and Historiography

Access to the Past

The Foundations of Biblical History: Assumptions and Methods

The Old Testament as History

The Old Testament and Critical Method

Sources for the Reconstruction of Israel’s History

Evaluation of Historical Sources

Development of a Sound Methodology

The Old Testament as Historiography

The Nature of the Literature

The Historical Eras

The Strategy of Old Testament History

Preliminary Considerations

Any scientific enterprise must take its point of departure from a set of assumptions, no matter how tentative, that provide it with rationale and justification. This is true of history writing more than most disciplines, since, although the events with which it is concerned transpired in the past, one must suppose that their facticity and meaning can be recovered (if only partially) and that they can be integrated and synthesized into some kind of construct credible and understandable to the modern reader.

When that history is the story of a people enshrined in holy literature, the nature of the task becomes much more complex and the assumptions much more predictive of the outcome. One’s view of the integrity and authority of that literature affects one’s very approach to the task, to say nothing of methodological procedure and conclusions.

A history of Israel must depend for its documentary sources almost entirely upon the Old Testament, a collection of writings confessed by both Judaism and Christianity to be Holy Scripture, the Word of God. The degree to which historians are willing to submit to this claim will inevitably affect the way they think about their task. Skeptics will view the sources as nothing more or less than a collection of myths, fables, legends, and other texts of relative reliability created and transmitted by an ancient people. Believers will be persuaded that they hold in their hands an absolutely unique literary creation, a book that professes to be divine revelation. As such it cannot be approached as one would approach any other ancient texts. It must be addressed as the Word of God, with all this implies concerning its worth and authority as historical source.

Regarding the Old Testament as the Word of God radically alters the task of writing the history of Israel by raising it to the level of a theological activity. If we grant that the writing of Israel’s history and the writing of the history of any other people are on entirely different planes precisely because, in the former case, history and theology cannot be separated, we must assert that the kind of negative skepticism that is a necessary part of conventional historiography has no place in our work. By virtue of our confession that we are under the authority of the very sources we are investigating, we have already surrendered our right to reject what we cannot understand or what we find difficult to believe.

This does not mean, however, that a modern-day history of ancient Israel should be nothing more than a retelling of the biblical story. The very fact that the Old Testament relates ancient events as sacred history, as primarily theological rather than social or political phenomena, is enough to justify repeated attempts to reconstruct the story according to the canons of normal historiography. This book represents such an effort. Our purpose is to understand the history of Israel as an integration of political, social, economic, and religious factors, and to do so not only on the basis of the Old Testament as Scripture but also with careful attention to the literary and archaeological sources of the ancient Near Eastern world, of which Israel was a part.

The History of Israel and Historiography

History, popularly and succinctly defined, is a record of the past, but such a reductionist understanding is both inadequate and misleading.[1] First, history properly is the past, no matter how it is recollected and understood. Second, any account of the past is unique to the particular historian, one shaped by the contours of his or her own experience, competency, research, and presuppositions. Third, history and historiography must be clearly distinguished, the one having to do with events of the past per se and the other with the interpretation of those events as preserved in either unwritten (artifactual) or written (inscriptional) sources. Moreover, sources of any kind are not facts but only provide access to facts; the factuality of the information they contain is itself to be determined by careful investigation of their settings, their claims, their testability, their internal self-consistency, and their compatibility with other data from the same times and places.

Access to the Past

Recovery of the past is possible only through the acquisition of records of the past, either literary or nonliterary. Preliterate or nonliterate cultures yield their history through the archaeological excavation of material objects that eventually become available to the historian in museums and other repositories. Though lacking textual interpretation, such artifacts can yield significant information provided certain methodological controls are in place.[2] For example, an object found in a datable stratum can be dated at least to that stratum and then compared with similar or different objects from comparable strata. These can then be assigned a place in typological stemmata established by the determination of stratigraphical sequences. Pottery, because of its clearly discernible morphology, is an especially useful diagnostic tool for providing dating and other information not only about ceramic objects themselves but also about other finds in situ with them, in some cases even inscriptions.[3]

Modern archaeology has moved beyond the discovery of mere artifacts and their interpretation to broader fields of inquiry including the application of the methods of the physical and social sciences to the nonliterary past.[4] It is now possible to examine traces of the natural environment of ancient cultures and to determine with some precision features such as climate, soils, and water systems and how they made human life possible in its various social and cultural expressions. The study of the density and distribution of occupation sites sheds a great deal of light on matters of agriculture, trade, security, economics, statecraft, and general social and civic interaction.[5] When used with great care and discipline, later—even modern—structures of labor, trade, migratory patterns, and the like can serve as a basis for extrapolating information from ancient settings, particularly where the ancient and modern share similar geographical and cultural environments. Even more reliable results are attainable by painstaking analysis of material objects and drawing conclusions as to their provenance and nature and the skills employed in their production. This may lead to information about their likely places of origin, the trade they presuppose, the level of technological expertise they exhibit, and the division of labor that made them possible in the first place, particularly if they are objets d’art.

The subjectivity of this kind of historiography is immediately apparent, since, even if the information just suggested can be gleaned, questions of who, how, and especially why remain unanswered. In other words, cold artifacts are brute facts, objects that have no voice and thus no self-interpretation. Historians must therefore turn to texts to advance their understanding beyond this very basic level.

As is true of any artifact, an inscription’s value as a witness to history lies largely in the determination of its original setting. This leads to the consideration of at least two factors—its stratigraphical location and its palaeographical features. Where was it found, and at what stage of the development of its script did it leave the hand of the scribe? The one question has to do with archaeological method, and the other with an epigraphical technique that enables scholars to locate a text within a continuum of graphic evolution.

Since most historians are neither archaeologists nor epigraphers, they must rely on scholars adept at deciphering, dating, editing, publishing, and translating the texts from which they draw the information necessary to their historical reconstruction.[6] The better these things are done, the more useful is the text to the task of the historian. But texts, again like other artifacts, require interpretation. Though they have words and sentences, by themselves they have little to say at best and may even be misleading at worst. The following four guidelines assist the interpretation of texts in general. The next section will then consider principles important to historiographical texts in particular.

Any text, ancient or modern, must be identified by genre. Is it poetry or prose? Is it propaganda, apology, or polemic? Is it fiction, biography, or narrative? Is it law, business, or politics? Is it annal, history, or chronicle? These and many other genres and subgenres demand interpretive methods unique to each before they can properly be pressed into the historian’s service.[7]

Once genre has been established, it is imperative to connect the texts under consideration to others of the same genre both within the language and culture under review and outside them, especially, in the latter case, texts representative of comparative languages and literatures.[8] This is helpful not only in terms of literary style and form but frequently in terms of subject matter as well. What can be known well from another, related context can shed light on the obscurity of a solitary text originating in a similar milieu.

When texts are located within a literary field that includes comparative languages and literatures, they can be better understood as part of a broader cultural horizon and can, in turn, be useful in informing these more remote texts to which they are related.[9] The more pieces are available for the puzzle of historical reconstruction, the more likely an accurate picture of the whole can emerge.

All texts of a historiographical nature should be presumed, at the outset, to have at least a modicum of tendentious nuancing of historical reality.[10] This is the case with modern history writing, and where ancient texts can be found that record the same events from competing perspectives, proof of this principle is immediately apparent. One should assume at the same time, however, that historical bias is not necessarily the result of a dark plot designed to mislead but rather reveals a natural, almost intuitive desire to place one’s own people and their character and contributions in the best light possible. Notwithstanding—and to repeat—this admirable motive must not lead the interpreter of texts to the naive assumption that the texts consistently reflect objective and unvarnished truth in portraying the lives and times they cover. That is, there must in general always be room for healthy skepticism in the evaluation of ancient (and modern) literary sources.[11]

The Foundations of Biblical History: Assumptions and Methods

Closer to the subject of this work is a consideration of the principles and practices of historiography as they apply to the writing of biblical history, specifically the history of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament.[12] At the outset a major methodological concern comes to the fore in that the Old Testament is first and foremost a body of texts sacred to both Judaism and the church and only secondarily a work of history. Does its character as Scripture cancel out its value as a historical source, or conversely, does its attention to history lessen its authority as the Word of God? We will presently address these and related questions, but for now we must attend to the matter of the nature of the Old Testament as it presents itself and as the various faith communities have perceived it over the millennia. It is precisely at this point that the historian’s labors reach an inescapable conundrum. If the historian confesses the Bible to be a supernatural product of divine revelation, he or she must necessarily read and make use of it from this perspective. Moreover, the historian will attribute to it an authority and preeminence that he or she would never accord to other sources because of a (proper) commitment to the general historiographical principle of blind objectivity. On the other hand, the historian who comes to the Bible with no such confessional stance is likely to come, at best, with no foregone conclusions as to its reliability or, worse still, with a jaundiced eye, since he or she is likely to view it as a collection of religious texts that may or may not possess valid and verifiable historical information.

That the Old Testament presents itself as revelation is evident whether or not the reader is willing to accept that testimony, and normative Judaism and Christianity embraced this truth claim almost universally until the dawning of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century rationalism.[13] The present work, admittedly informed by this ancient tradition, proceeds from the premise that the Old Testament is the Word of God and that it is therefore reliable and authoritative not only when it teaches doctrine and theology but also when it professes to convey historical information.

This said, even a confessional stance must recognize that the Bible is also human literature and so must be understood in terms of literary categories and with due attention to accepted and proper methods of literary, rhetorical, and canonical criticism.[14] The Old Testament indeed contains historical data, but these data must be sifted and interpreted through the grid of appropriate literary analysis and with appreciation for the literary and rhetorical conventions at work in the historical and ideological environment in which the texts themselves originated. Two examples will suffice. The poetic descriptions of the exodus (Exod. 15) and of Deborah and Barak’s exploits (Judg. 5), though reflecting historical realities, must not be read as literal accounts but poetically embellished narratives designed to highlight the miraculous and draw attention to Yahweh as the Almighty Sovereign and Heavenly Warrior.[15] A comparison of the respective prose versions (Exod. 14 and Judg. 4) makes this clear. The same is true of other poetic renditions or even prose narratives interlaced with poetic imagery. In every case, however, the biblical accounts should be presumed to rest on actual events unless and until they can be proved otherwise.

This raises the question of history versus Heilsgeschichte—that is, records of the past that speak of bare facts absent theological nuancing versus those employed in the service of sacred history. Contrary to Gerhard von Rad and other scholars who bifurcate biblical history into a critically assured minimum and a theological maximum,[16] we maintain that one cannot seriously lay claim to a theological history of the Old Testament that does not draw upon actual historical events that took place precisely as the biblical texts describe them.[17] A famous example is the exodus. Von Rad concedes the datum of an exodus event but speaks of a working up of the narrative that afforded the possibility of expanding the event both in its technicalities [read ‘its presentation of historical information’] and in its theological aspect.[18] That is, the exodus occurred in time and space but in a manner that is irrecoverable through historical-critical method, since the event has been overlaid with impenetrable theological interpretation. The problem with such a view is that the underlying stratum of historical reality can never be determined, even as a critically assured minimum, since there is no epistemological guidepost to separate that stratum from its theological and interpretive layers. Only a position that accords genuine integrity to biblically recorded events as well as their interpretations can qualify as taking the Old Testament witness seriously.

The Old Testament as History

In a formal sense, the history of Israel is the study of the period of the Hebrew (or Israelite) people from the exodus-Sinai era to the dissolution of the national state following the Persian period. The book of Genesis thus provides a prolegomenon, or prehistory, to the main period. This means, more precisely, that a history of Old Testament times is a history of the world (Gen. 1–11), a history of the Hebrew people (Gen. 12–50), and a history of Israel and Judah (Exod.–2 Chron.).

Methodologically, however, the recovery and reconstruction of that history demand more than a mere recounting of the narrative. Its nature as theological literature (Heilsgeschichte) precludes such simplistic approaches. The following factors must therefore be kept in mind when one approaches the Old Testament as a historiographical work:

Students of the Bible who confess it to be sacred Scripture, fully inspired and therefore without error in its original texts, must logically read and understand it in terms of this presupposition as well as others, such as its essential textual preservation, its credibility when it speaks of the supernatural, and its reliable communication of historical events. That is, the Bible, unlike other ancient writings, must be accepted prima facie as a uniquely impeccable witness to the past.[19]

This said, a number of problems remain. For example, the tradition of the Mosaic authorship of Genesis demands the existence of either oral or written sources upon which he drew, given the fact that the last event recorded in that book—the death of Joseph—occurred at minimum 275 years before Moses’s birth.[20] The alternative is to suppose direct revelation of the whole, an alternative that, though possible, is rejected by virtually all scholars. Similar to the problem of the authorship of Genesis is the biblical recording of events lacking eyewitness verification, of private conversations between third-party individuals, and even of soliloquies or thoughts by persons likely to be unknown to the authors of the texts in which they appear.[21]

Of major importance is the selective character of the biblical accounts. Facts relevant to the overall redemptive purpose of the Old Testament are included whereas those considered irrelevant to this purpose are omitted. The Old Testament is replete with references to extracanonical texts whose contents are either cited sparingly or not at all. One gets the impression that the historians of Israel operated according to rather idiosyncratic definitions of history writing, employing only sources that contributed to a body of accumulating testimony to God’s saving purposes.

This leads again to the point that the Old Testament is not fundamentally a work of history but of theology. It is not concerned to reconstruct the history of Israel—to say nothing of Gentile nations—but is a description of God’s work in the world, particularly channeled as it was through Israel.[22] We might describe it as almost an autobiography of God, one highlighting the interactions with Israel and the world that best illustrate his grand design for creation.

Careful comparison of the biblical version of history with those recovered from the ancient Near Eastern world often yields troublesome incompatibilities.[23] At the outset, one must first recognize that such differences exist also between these extrabiblical sources themselves and are therefore not limited to an antithesis between the Old Testament and secular literature. As for the Old Testament, it records some events otherwise unattested, the exodus being perhaps the most celebrated example. On the other hand, the Old Testament ignores persons and events prominent in the pages of ancient history—for example, the great Hammurabi of Babylon and the famous battle of Qarqar (or Karkar). These observations again underscore the unique interests of the biblical historians, whose concerns were so theologically driven that they gave little or no heed to historical happenings of which they certainly must have been aware. Finally, the data of Old Testament history appear to contradict those of secular history, but the differences, more often than not, arise either from a misreading of artifacts and/or of one or both sets of texts or from an ideological bias that subverts the data at the outset. The date of the exodus and the date and nature of the conquest of Canaan illustrate this issue well. The Bible’s witness to the former is commonly subordinated to archaeological evidence that seems to offer different conclusions. As to the conquest of Canaan, both the misuse of archaeological evidence and the misreading of biblical texts have yielded results quite out of keeping with historical reality.[24]

To repeat a point made earlier: the student of the Old Testament must interpret the facts of Old Testament history according to accepted principles of sound hermeneutics, taking into account genre, style, rhetorical strategies, and the like, and must also view them through the lens of a proper biblical theology. Although most of the Old Testament can in some sense be considered history writing, the term is used here more technically to describe texts that are generally recognized as being self-conscious attempts to recount the past. These include chronicles, lists, annals, biographies, parables, fables, and historical narratives.[25] Historical narrative is especially well represented (e.g., the rise of David [1 Sam. 16–2 Sam. 5] and the succession narrative [2 Sam. 9–1 Kings 2]), an item of special interest in that modern historical scholarship is beginning to understand that serious and credible history can be written in narrative or story form.[26]

The Old Testament and Critical Method

We do not need to trace here the origins and rise of the historicalcritical method, its impact on the Old Testament in general, and its historicity in particular.[27] For now, we will consider only two fundamental questions regarding Israel’s history:

How and what can we know about the past? (epistemology)

What happened and what does it mean? (history)

We turn, then, to the use of the critical method to recover Israel’s history, an entirely appropriate exercise provided the method becomes the tool and not the master of the search for truth.

Sources for the Reconstruction of Israel’s History

The primary source of information about Old Testament Israel is the Old Testament itself, a collection of texts that, though ahistorical as a whole, must be given serious attention as a repository of authentic and accurate recollections of Israel’s past when the texts’ stated or implied intention is to do so.

Perhaps next in value are the postbiblical Jewish and Christian literatures, including the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Mishnah, the midrashim, and the New Testament. Especially helpful if used with caution are the works of Josephus, Philo, and other historians of the early Christian period.

Israel lived in a cosmopolitan world, one in which literary productivity was highly developed, and it enjoyed access to the languages and literatures of the great civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and beyond. The multiple thousands of clay tablets and papyrus and parchment inscriptions that have survived from these cultures lavishly document their history. These sources range from the most laconic and prosaic economic texts to epic belles lettres and fulsome royal inscriptions detailing the exploits of mighty kings and their armies and mercantile caravans. They shed light on biblical times and peoples, commonly referring to Israel and Judah by name and to their kings.[28] Sometimes these texts present viewpoints differing from the presentation of the Old Testament, and at other times they confirm the biblical picture or fill in its lacunae. Used judiciously, such sources are immensely important to a fuller understanding of the Old Testament historical record.

Finally, archaeological finds of a nonliterary nature contribute to a more complete grasp of ancient Israel’s life and times. As mentioned earlier, these must be used with great care, since pots and pans cannot speak for themselves but must be understood against the background of their provenance and through the employment of rigid methodological analysis and control. Newer methods that address more global features of early times, such as geography, climate, sociology, and economics, have become extremely useful in locating Israel within an established environment and thus assessing its contribution to, or dependence on, that environment. Artifactual objects such as household utensils, weapons, and tools also clarify lifestyle at a more immediate level and serve as indices of artistic, cultural, and utilitarian development.

Evaluation of Historical Sources

Although sources of all kinds make important contributions to the reconstruction of the past, they are not of the same weight or value, particularly in terms of biblical research. The Bible occupies a place of unchallenged supremacy and authority, at least to readers who accept its truth claims at face value. Christians who hold the Bible to be inerrant Scripture have no more need to apologize for their a priori conviction than do skeptics who, on the same philosophical grounds, view it as mere fable or unsupportable religious tradition. At the same time, Christian historians are obligated to examine sources critically, that is, with minds open to the complexity and perplexity attendant to the historical data with which they must deal.

Development of a Sound Methodology

The primacy of the Old Testament as a source for the reconstruction of the history of Israel[29] does not exonerate it from the application of canons appropriate to historical research.[30] The following generally accepted principles can and should therefore be applied to the Bible, not in a spirit of negative skepticism but as a means of coming to terms with its historical character and therefore its larger purpose and message, namely, God’s self-disclosing portrayal of who he is and what he intends for those created in his image:

Accept sources at face value unless and until they must, on the basis of solid and objective contrary evidence, be viewed otherwise. Texts, like persons in a court of law, must be assumed innocent unless proved guilty.

Do not rule anything in or out just because of its uniqueness.[31] To argue that a given Old Testament (or any other) event cannot have taken place because it is without precedent is as wrongheaded as to deny that the Six Days’ War ever occurred because no parallel to it exists in the history of warfare. Uniqueness alone cannot argue for irreality.

Avoid begging the question. Proponents as well as critics on any side of a historical issue can argue their cases from premises that assure guaranteed results. For example, on no grounds other than the supposition that prediction of the future is epistemologically impossible, one might deny fulfillment of prophecy by dating texts recording the alleged prediction to a time later than the fulfillment.[32]

Be aware of the fragmentary and biased nature of literary (and nonliterary) sources, and be prepared to concede probability or even possibility in lieu of certitude if the circumstance warrants it. The Old Testament clearly reflects bias, especially in terms of the disproportionate amount of attention it pays to Israel as opposed to the other nations of the earth. Still, the record never glosses over the sins and shortcomings of Israel and its heroes; to the contrary, it features them as examples of how not to live before a holy God. An example of lack of certainty is the rash vow of Jephthah and whether his fulfillment of it resulted in the death of his daughter (Judg. 11:29–40). Compelling grammatical and syntactical arguments can be marshaled on both sides of this quandary, producing more or less a stalemate.[33] This lack of certainty, however, has no bearing on the historicity of the event, although clearly it clouds the account of the event by not permitting satisfactory resolution.

Beware of historical positivism or imaginary patternism.[34] In general, history does not follow a course of inevitable scientific processes as though it were guided by invisible forces that predetermine its outcome. Nor does history repeat itself in predictable patterns that enable the historian, no matter how astute, to have insight into the future on the basis of past historical trajectories. At best, history as observed empirically is random, although it is shaped in particulars by causes and effects that issue from human decisions by persons of power and influence. A close reading of the Old Testament makes clear, however, that the God of Israel is the Creator and Sustainer of all things, including history, and that history is the unfolding of a divine entelechy, a trajectory leading to the final consummation of an eternal plan. As the record of sacred history, then, the Old Testament is unique in viewing and presenting history as purposeful, meaningful, and eschatological.[35] The God who knows the beginning and the end controls everything in between, that is, the course of history in all its aspects.

Seek to establish parallels, mutual dependences or connections, and chronological parameters. The history of any people cannot take place in isolation from all others, for the nature of human society is such that linkage and interrelationships—even unintended—are inescapable. Even though Israel was unique as a people chosen by God, it was chosen from among the nations (Exod. 19:5; Deut. 7:6; 14:2) and existed historically in the mainstream of surrounding kingdoms and empires. Therefore a full grasp of Israel’s past depends on an understanding of the interpenetration of Israel and its neighbors. The more that can be known of the peoples with whom Israel was engaged, the clearer is the picture of Israel that emerges from the biblical text.

The Old Testament as Historiography

The Nature of the Literature

We now turn from philosophical and methodological considerations of the Old Testament as a historical record to matters more formal and substantial. Contrary to most ancient historical texts, the Old Testament is dominated by narrative or story.[36] Biography, a subcategory of narrative, is particularly prominent and, with narrative in general, provides a primary vehicle for the communication of Israel’s story. Even so-called legal texts make their contribution to the overall account, as do the prophetic, poetic, and sapiential literatures. Careful attention to genre distinctions is crucial in determining the relative worth of the various literary categories in historical reconstruction, but if used with discretion, they all contribute to a full-orbed understanding of Israel’s past.

One reason for the plethora of genres employed in narrating Israel’s history in the Old Testament is—to repeat—the fact that the Old Testament is fundamentally a theological oeuvre and only secondarily and almost incidentally historical. Thus its purpose dictates the mode and garb in which it presents itself. Failure to appreciate this point is to lay historical demands on the Bible that were never intended by its authors.

Finally, the Old Testament reveals structural clues that set it apart from historiography as commonly practiced. A few examples follow:

Chronological order, the usual approach in history writing, occurs in the Old Testament primarily in annalistic or chronicling texts—for example, 1 Kings 12–2 Kings 25, with the exception of the apparently intrusive narratives about Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17–2 Kings 9).

Thematic order or structure is common in narrative texts. For example, the accounts of the solidification of Solomon’s kingdom and its imperialistic expansion (1 Kings 1–4) are followed by accounts detailing his building projects (1 Kings 5–8), his fiscal policies (1 Kings 9–11), and his decline (1 Kings 12). One notable feature is the historian’s concentration of a king’s major accomplishments in the first year or two of his reign rather than at the point of the reign when they actually occurred.[37]

An order of genre association is also apparent at times—for example, 2 Samuel 22 (a song of praise), 2 Samuel 23:1–7 (David’s last words), and even 2 Samuel 23:8–39 (David’s mighty men).[38]

An order dictated by literary, religious, or even political convention may be exhibited by the accounts of the ark of the covenant in both Samuel and Chronicles, which contain numerous examples of different arrangements of material between the two renditions.[39]

Considerations other than chronological order define much of the Old Testament approach to history writing.

The Historical Eras

Despite what might appear to be a rather free-floating model of historiography, the Old Testament in general periodizes events into discrete historical eras that can be easily identified and labeled. The following table reflects this structure. The dates of each period are justified in subsequent chapters, where the question of ancient Near Eastern and biblical chronology receives detailed attention.

Prepatriarchal times (?–2200 BC)

Patriarchal period (2200–1800)

Egyptian sojourn (1876–1446)

Wilderness sojourn (1446–1406)

Conquest (1406–1350)

The judges (1350–1080)

Premonarchical (1080–1050)

United monarchy (1051–931)

Divided monarchy (931–586)

Israel and Judah (931–722)

Judah alone (722–586)

Babylonian exile (586–538)

Return and restoration (538–330)

The Strategy of Old Testament History

The inner testimony of the Old Testament as well as ancient tradition regarding its authorship and composition locate its origins as a literary work at the plains of Moab on the east side of the Jordan River (Deut. 1:1; 4:44–49). The occasion was the impending death of Moses and his desire, before this transpired, to inform Israel and generations to come of who the Israelites were, whence they had come, and what God had in store for them as a people chosen by God from among all the nations. The impetus for the history commences there, and everything that precedes (Genesis–Numbers) and immediately follows (Deuteronomy) finds its orientation in that time and place.

The rest of the canon consists of a recital of Israel’s post-Mosaic history (Joshua–2 Chronicles) and an assessment of this history, both in process (the Prophets) and in reflection (the Deuteronomistic History, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah). At every juncture the events of Israel’s historical experience are viewed by its prophetic evaluators as either contributing to its well-being or portending its downfall and destruction. At the same time, there rings pervasively throughout the historical account a note of eschatological hope. What the Lord has begun with and among his people will surely eventuate in the sovereign and gracious redemption of those whom the Lord called to be his very own possession.

The following pages aim to recover the facts of Israel’s history as accurately as possible and, at the same time, to clarify the overall meaning of Israel’s past and make it applicable to our own generation. The result should be not only an enhanced knowledge of what happened in biblical times but also an increased appreciation of how we too are to live as the people of God.

2   Origins

Israel at Moab

The Purpose of Torah

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

The Story of the Patriarchs

Abraham: Ancestor of the Nation

The Origins of Abram

The Journey to Canaan

The Settlement in Canaan

The Journey to Egypt

The Separation of Abram and Lot

The Kings of the East

Abram and His Culture

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Abraham and the Philistines

The Search for a Wife for Isaac

Jacob: Father of the Nation

The Blessing and Exile

The Return to Canaan

Judah’s Marriage

The Descent to Egypt

The Story of Joseph

The Setting

The Cultural Flavor

From Joseph to the Exodus

Israel at Moab

At the close of the fifteenth century before Christ, a multitude of people known as Israel assembled on the plains of Moab preparatory to an invasion and conquest of Canaan, directly to their west across the Jordan River (Deut. 1:1–5).[1] Moses, their venerated leader for more than forty years, was about to die and, indeed, had already transferred the reins of authority to his younger colleague Joshua (Num. 27:18–23). This moment was uniquely significant. Formerly a disorganized slave people, Israel had been miraculously emancipated from earth’s mightiest power, Egypt, and had encountered Yahweh, God of heaven and earth, at Sinai. There they had entered into covenant with him and had been made his own special people, his vassal slaves. Now, after a hiatus of forty years, they had arrived east of Jericho, poised to bring to pass the promise of their covenant God that Canaan would be their homeland (Gen. 15:13–21).

But a host of perplexing questions demanded answers. It is a reasonable assumption that Moses and his forebears had become acquainted with the purposes of God either by direct revelation or by oral tradition and that they had communicated these divine intentions to their contemporaries in a variety of ways.[2] Nevertheless, up till now there had been no systematic presentation of the historical and theological building blocks resulting in the composition of a people united in covenant with God and charged with the awesome privilege and responsibility of functioning as his people in line with his redemptive design. Who, indeed, were these people? What was the meaning of Israel? How had Israel come to be? What, specifically, was it to achieve as one member among the family of peoples and nations? Beyond all that, what was the meaning of creation? Of the heavens and earth? Of humankind? What object did the Creator have in view for his creation, and if Israel was a sovereignly elected servant people, how was this servanthood to be employed in implementing the great saving purposes of God?

The Purpose of Torah

Universal Jewish and Christian tradition clearly and unequivocally teaches that Moses, the covenant mediator and spokesman for Yahweh to his people, set out to answer these very questions in the last great ministry of his long and productive life.[3] The form that these answers took is what is known to Judaism as the Torah and to Christians as the Pentateuch, the five books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Though commonly described as law, these writings are more properly historical narrative, but historical in a highly nuanced sense.[4]

Genesis

The purpose of Genesis is to document the fact that the God of Israel is Creator of all things and to trace the history of the human race from creation to the time of Israel’s development as a special people. Genesis reveals God’s cosmic intentions, describes humanity’s sinful refusal to conform to the divine purposes, and introduces the covenant arrangements and promises by means of which God would ultimately achieve his objectives despite human disobedience. This includes the selection of Abraham, who, through his innumerable offspring, would become the fountainhead of blessing to the whole world.[5]

Exodus

Exodus traces the Abrahamic descendants from their deliverance from Egyptian oppression to their constitution as the people of God in the Sinai wilderness. It shows Israel to be an unworthy object of grace that, for reasons known only to God, was elected to enter into a solemn contract with him for the purpose of serving as both a repository of his saving truth and the vehicle through which this truth would be communicated and eventually incarnated in the divine man, Jesus Christ. The principal themes of the book revolve around this covenant. The historical exodus is climaxed by the making of the covenant, the full text of which appears in Exodus 20–23, the so-called book of the covenant. There then follow cultic prescriptions concerning the mode by which the vassal must approach the majestic person of the Sovereign (sacrifice and ritual) and the place where he must be approached (the tabernacle).

Leviticus

The third section of the Torah provides standards of holiness incumbent on those who would establish and maintain access to the infinitely holy covenant Lord. These standards pertain not only to the people as a whole but particularly to the priests, who must serve as intercessors in the structure of public worship.

Numbers

The book of Numbers describes the thirty-eight-year migration of Israel from Sinai to the plains of Moab, thus qualifying as history writing with its own special contribution to an understanding of preconquest Israel. This was a journey fraught with a succession of rebellions against the Lord and his theocratic administrators and climaxed by the death of the adults of the exodus generation. These circumstances gave rise to the need for at least a partial restatement of the covenant legislation appropriate to the new generation anticipating settlement in Canaan. Much of Numbers, like Exodus and Leviticus, is therefore prescriptive in nature and technically not historical narrative.

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is the least overtly historiographical of the books of the Pentateuch, for in its entirety it is an address by Moses to the covenant community on the eve of the conquest. From a literary standpoint, this address is largely a massive covenant text with all the elements that are characteristic of such documents attested elsewhere in the ancient Near East.[6] The purpose of the book is to repeat, with amendment and clarification, the basic covenant message of Exodus 20–23, a repetition necessary in light of the historical circumstances that had transpired in the nearly forty years since the Sinai revelation. The adult generation with whom the Sinaitic covenant had been made was dead or dying, and so the younger generation needed to hear for themselves and to respond to Yahweh’s covenant claims. In other words, there had to be a covenant reaffirmation, as was the custom throughout the eastern Mediterranean world with the passing of a generation of a vassal people.[7] Furthermore, the Sinaitic covenant—as well as its adumbrations in Numbers—was particularly designed for the temporary needs of a nomadic society moving toward permanent sedentary life in Canaan. At last the tribes had arrived at the very threshold of Canaan, and so a modification of the covenant was necessary in anticipation of the greatly altered conditions in which Israel would soon find itself. Deuteronomy is Moses’s farewell covenant address, in which he reminds his people of who they are, whence they have come, and what their mission must be from that day forward as they claim the land of promise and work out their mediatorial role among the nations.

The Story of the Patriarchs

The history of Israel does not begin with Moses and the events of exodus and covenant, but the first comprehensive and systematic account of Israel’s origins, task, and destiny clearly was formed on the plains of Moab, where Moses the prophet demonstrated his consummate skills of historiography. As both eyewitness and researcher, he had collected and organized raw materials documenting the past and thus had created the literary masterpiece now known as Torah. It is in every sense a history book; but more than this, it is a theological treatise whose purpose is to show that God the Creator, through an elect nation, Israel, will sovereignly achieve his creative and redemptive purposes for all humankind.[8]

Abraham: Ancestor of the Nation

The Origins of Abram

A biblical history of Israel properly begins with the call of Abram to be the father of the chosen nation.[9] At the end of the genealogical list commencing with Shem, son of Noah (Gen. 11:10–26), appears the name Terah, father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Terah lived in Ur (11:28), the famous Sumerian city located by the Euphrates River about 150 miles northwest of the present coast of the Persian Gulf in modern Iraq.[10] The most satisfactory reconstruction of biblical chronology places the birth of Abram at 2166 BC,[11] a time when Ur had fallen under the control of a fierce mountain people known as the Guti.[12] Ur at the time was the central hub of a great number of city-states populated by the highly cultured Sumerians from at least as early as the mid–fourth millennium. The Ur of Terah and Abram was, however, not Sumerian alone, for non-Sumerians such as Abram’s own Semitic ancestors lived there and mingled their intellectual and cultural traditions with those of the Sumerians.[13] Since by that time Sargon (2340–2284)[14] had created the Semite-dominated Akkadian Empire at Agade, nearly two hundred miles northwest of Ur, Abram was almost certainly bilingual, commanding both the Sumerian and the Akkadian languages. Where Abram’s ancestors originated and how they happened to settle in Ur are not addressed in the historical account. The intermingling of Semitic and Sumerian ethnic elements in the third millennium is, however, well attested in lower Mesopotamia, and so there is no need to seek for an Ur other than the one traditionally associated with Abram.[15]

The principal deity worshiped at Ur was the Sumerian moon god Nannar, known in Akkadian by the name Sin. It is certain that Abram and his family were faithful devotees of Sin and his coterie of fellow deities, for Joshua 24:2 speaks of them as having served other gods beyond the river (i.e., the Euphrates). Moreover, some scholars identify the name Terah as a form of the Hebrew word yārēaḥ (moon), so that his very name may testify to his religious orientation.[16] When Terah and his family left Ur, they resettled in Haran, another major center of the worship of Sin.

The matter of Abram’s birth into paganism in light of his direct descent from the chosen line of Shem is of interest but cannot be considered here in detail. It is clear, however, that the genealogy connecting Shem and Abram cannot be viewed as comprehensive but only as selective. That is, the names that appear are representative of perhaps a great many others that, for reasons that cannot now be determined, were not retained in the record.[17] If Shem and Abram were contemporary, as a strict interpretation of the genealogy would require,[18] it is difficult to understand how Abram’s immediate ancestors could have become paganized or indeed why Abram