Ahab and Jezebel

Ahab and Jezebel

King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were the royal couple of Israel most vilified by later biblical writers, yet it is Ahab who made Israel and its army one of the strongest on the stage of Near Eastern nations and powers in the early ninth century b.c.e. He fortified and beautified the newly founded capital of Israel, Samaria.

Archaeological excavations show that during his reign cities in various regions of his kingdom were built up so that Israel could withstand attack from neighboring peoples. His reputation gained the attention of the Phoenicians to the north so that one of their priest-kings offered his daughter Jezebel to Ahab in an arranged political marriage.

The Bible records that Ahab fought three or four wars with the dreaded Aramaeans and won two of them. The genius of Ahab’s foreign policy seems to be his peacemaking with Judah to the south, the Philistine states to the west, and Phoenicia to the north. Conserving his resources and limiting his battles allowed him to gain concessions from the Arameans.


The real challenge came from the traditional hotbed of imperial ambition, Mesopotamia. Here the fierce Assyrians were mobilizing their forces to reestablish their empire in the western end of the Fertile Crescent. Only a makeshift alliance of all the kingdoms could stand in Assyria’s way.

The Assyrian records tell of a battlefield victory at Qarqar (853 b.c.e.) in the Orontes Valley in the coastal region of present-day Syria, but it was not decisive enough for the victors to push on toward their goal. Phoenicia was not even touched, much less Israel. Other minor losses for Israel during this time are reported in the Moabite Stone: A small region far to the southeast (present-day Jordan) seceded from the hegemony.

Ahab also knew how to run the internal affairs of a state. He relied on the new capital of Samaria to integrate the non-Israelite interest groups, chiefly the advocates of Baal and Asherah worship, while the older city of Jezreel served as residence to the traditional elements of Israelite culture. This balance suggests that Ahab allowed the building of foreign temples, though he showed some wavering attachment to the Israelite God.

The explanation for this double-mindedness, according to the Bible, was his increasing submission to his Phoenician wife, Jezebel. According to the geologies given in Josephus and other classical sources, she was the great-aunt of Dido, banished princess of Phoenicia and legendary founder of Carthage.

She was an ardent devotee to Baal, working behind the scenes to achieve dominance for her religion and dynasty. She tried to eliminate the all-traditional prophets in Israel and plotted against the famous prophet Elijah.


She outlived her husband by 10 years and only died when her personal staff turned against her in the face of a rebellious general. Her sons and daughter went on to rule: Ahaziah was king for two years after Ahab’s death; then her son Joram ruled for eight years; her daughter Athaliah married the king of Judah, then ruthlessly killed all offspring of her own son so that she could rule for six years after her son died.

In the biblical account Elijah, the prophet of Israel, is the unadulterated light that casts the reputation of Ahab and Jezebel into dark shadows. Ahab stands as a pragmatist who compromises his faith and coexists with idolatry, while Jezebel takes on the role of a self-willed and idolatrous shrew whose drive for power undermines divinely balanced government. In the New Testament, Jezebel becomes a type of seductive false prophetess who gives license to immorality and idolatry under the cloak of religion.

Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism

The scholarly use and understanding of the word apocalypticism has varied much in the history of research on these topics. The different words associated with apocalypticism each possess their own subtle connotations.

The specific term, apocalypticism, and the many forms associated with it are derived from the first Greek word in the book of Revelation, apokalypsis (revelation). The noun apocalypse refers to the revelatory text itself. The particular worldview found within an apocalypse and the assumptions that it holds about matters concerning the “end times” is referred to as “apocalyptic eschatology.”

The noun apocalypticism refers broadly to the historical and social context of that worldview. When scholars use the word apocalyptic, they typically assume a distinction between the ancient worldview and the body of literature associated with it.


Apocalypticism refers to a worldview that gave rise to a diverse body of literature generally dating from the time of the Babylonian exile down to the Roman persecutions. Characteristic elements of this literature include a revelation of heavenly secrets to a privileged intermediary and the periodization of history.

In these texts the eschatological perspective of the text reinforces the expectation that the era of the author will reach its end very soon. This apocalyptic eschatology suggests that the historical setting of these writings is one of crisis and extreme suffering.

Scholars who work in the area of ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypticism are aware that Jewish apocalyptic literature survived due to ancient Christian appropriation and interest in it. This is because Jewish apocalypticism and the literature associated with it were generally viewed unfavorably by later forms of rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple.

The lack of a developed Jewish interpretive framework for these texts accounts for part of the scholarly problem in determining the precise origins and influences of this phenomenon.

Many historical questions about the social context and the use of these Jewish apocalyptic writings in ancient Jewish communities remain unclear and largely theoretical. What is certain is that Christian communities were responsible for the preservation and transmission of these writings, and they appropriated the worldview and the literary forms of Jewish apocalypticism.

Scholars have long sought to identify the origins of Jewish apocalypticism with little consensus. Many have presumed that Jewish apocalyptic eschatology grew out of earlier biblical forms of prophetic eschatology. Other scholars have proposed a Near Eastern Mesopotamian influence on Jewish apocalypticism.

While there is no clear trajectory from Mesopotamian traditions to Jewish apocalyptic, and admittedly no Mesopotamian apocalypses exist, there exist some striking resemblances between the two. Some shared characteristics include an emphasis on the interpretation of mysterious signs and on predestination. The motifs of otherworldly journeys and dreams are also prominent in both Mesopotamian traditions and Jewish apocalypticism.

Other scholars have observed a Persian influence upon Jewish apocalypticism. Present in both is the struggle between light and darkness (good and evil) and the periodization of history.

Identifying the relationship between Jewish apocalypticism and other traditions has been complex because some of these elements (e.g., otherworldly journeys and revelatory visions) become common to the Greco-Roman world as well. While early Jewish apocalyptic was rooted in biblical prophecy, later forms of apocalypticism from the Greek period have more in common with wisdom literature.

Literary Genre

Scholars often make a distinction between the general phenomenon of apocalypticism and the literary genre of “apocalypse.” A group of scholars led by J. J. Collins formulated the following frequently cited definition of the literary genre of apocalypse in 1979: “‘Apocalypse’ is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.”

Texts associated with apocalypticism are characterized by an understanding that salvation from a hostile world depends on the disclosure of divine secrets.

The only example of an apocalypse from the Hebrew Bible is the book of Daniel. Other well-known examples of apocalypses include the writings of Enoch and Jubilees and the traditions associated with them, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, and Apocalypse of Abraham.

Some texts from Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls present a worldview that is properly described as apocalyptic but do not qualify as examples of the literary genre (e.g., “Instruction on the Two Spirits” from the Community Rule text and the War Scroll).

The last book in the New Testament, known as the Apocalypse of John, is an example of a Christian apocalypse. The canonicity of this book was not accepted at first in the East. The book is a record of the visions of John while he was exiled on the island of Patmos and possesses a prophetic authority among Christian communities throughout history.

Highly symbolic language, the presumption of a cataclysmic battle, and the disclosure of heavenly secrets to a privileged intermediary make this text a classic example of the genre. Other examples of Christian apocalypse outside the Bible include the Ascension of Isaiah and the Apocalypse of Paul.

Ark of the Covenant

Ark of the Covenant

The political and cult symbol of Israel before the destruction of the Temple was the Ark of the Covenant. This cult object was constantly found with the Israelites and treasured by them from the time of Moses until the time of the invasion of the Babylonians. It was a rectangular chest made of acacia wood, measuring 4 feet long by 2.5 feet wide by 2.5 feet high.

The Ark was decorated and protected with gold plating and carried by poles inserted in rings at the four lower corners. There was a lid (Hebrew: kipporet, “mercy seat” or “propitiatory”) for the top of the Ark, and perched on top of the monument were two golden angels or cherubs at either end with their wings covering the space over the Ark.

The first interpretations about the Ark were simple: It was simply the repository for the stone tablets of laws that Moses received on Mount Sinai. It was housed in a tent and on pilgrimage alongside the children of Israel in the desert. Ancient peoples would preserve treaties or covenants in such a fashion.


Soon, however, the Ark became charged with deeper latent powers and purposes. For one thing it was the place where the divine being would choose to make some revelation and communication with Israel. Moses would go there for his meetings with God.

So the Ark became more than a receptacle for an agreement; God’s presence filled the Ark. A parallel to this notion is the qubbah, the shrine that Arab nomads carry with them for divination and direction as they search for campsites and water.

In a similar way the Ark was a supernatural protection—called a palladium—that ensured that Israel would never lose in battle. In this sense many Near Eastern cities and nations often had some token of divine protection. Similarly, the Greeks often symbolized their military invincibility through divine emblems such as Athena’s breastplate in Athens and Artemis’s stone in Ephesus.

When the Jerusalem temple was built under Solomon, the Ark took on a more complex meaning. It had to take into account the kingdom of David and Solomon, the capital city of Jerusalem, and the rituals of temple and sacrifice. So the Ark became the throne or the divine contact point for God’s rule over the world.

The Ark was no longer housed in a tent; it had its own inner courtroom. The angelic representation over the chest became a divine seat, or at least a footstool. Ancient artistic representations of this concept have been discovered in other cultures of the Fertile Crescent: Human or divine kings are often depicted as sitting on a throne supported by winged creatures.

The Ark disappeared from Jerusalem after the Babylonians invaded in the sixth century b.c.e., but it did not disappear from later popular imagination. Some believed that Jeremiah the prophet or King Josiah hid it, others that angels came and took it to heaven; and to this day, Ethiopian Christians believe that they have it safeguarded in their country.

That the Ark could fall into godless hands was considered to be more catastrophic than the destruction of the Temple. Whatever the cause, Josephus said that it was not present in the rebuilt temple of Herod.

David

The life of David, king of Israel, is full of paradoxes. He was called in the earliest historical traditions of the Bible, "the sweet psalmist of Israel" and the one chosen "after [God’s] own heart", yet he is famously summed up elsewhere as the adulterer and murderer "in the matter of Uriah the Hittite".

He was at pains to proclaim his loyalty to the previous and first king of Israel, Saul, and yet he was the ringleader of an insurrectionist group that undermined the government of that same king.

He was the boyish, sensitive son of a rural farmer, and he was the warrior who felled the champion of Israel’s nemesis and went on to slaughter "his ten thousands". It is in the juxtaposition of these images of David that later Jewish and Christian religious traditions find so much contradiction.

In historical terms David anchors the Bible in time and space. The theory is that the empire of David really did outshine the other ancient empires of its days, and this historical fact can be demonstrated. Before the narrative of David, the Bible shows the power of stories and myths to persuade and inspire people of later generations, but with David (and his son Solomon) comes external evidence to support biblical reputations and stories.


On the other hand, the evidence for the empire of David as described in the Bible is meager. It causes some modern scholars to hold that the idea of a united kingdom of Israel and Judah, founded by David and expanded by Solomon, is exaggerated or idealized. In fact, there is no mention of David in extant contemporary writings, yet there are inscriptions that mention his name within 200 years of his purported life.

According to the accounts found in various books of the Bible, David was anointed as king by one of the prophets and Judges, Samuel, who had rejected King Saul. David was the youngest in his family, a mere shepherd, but David was later chosen as a minstrel for the court of King Saul.

David’s humble beginning and inauspicious debut before Saul were even more incongruous with his next role as warrior and national savior. He wandered out to a battlefield and was provoked into a duel by the threats of the Philistine champion and giant Goliath. Once David slew the adversary, Saul’s army prevailed.

Back in the court, Saul grew ever more jealous of David. David’s charisma grew by the day, and by his exploits he persuaded even Saul’s son and daughter to protect his life. Saul’s jealousy reached the point of conspiracy against his otherwise faithful subject, so David fled into the wilderness for the life of an outlaw.

David was on the run constantly. His pursuers cornered him at least three times, but each time he miraculously escaped. He showed magnanimity when he rejected easy opportunities to slay King Saul.

Eventually he accepted his lot as an outlaw and recruited a band of other fugitives who took up banditry with him in the Judaean hills. In fact, the Bible portrays him as a kind of Robin Hood who protects his own kinfolk and their livestock, while he harasses those foreign armies who trespass Israel’s lands.

The next move took him to the land of Israel’s enemies, the Philistines. Here he took up with a local king who provided him safe haven for his looting and marauding in the area. In return, David committed his band of outlaws to help the Philistines.

When his services brought him to fight against his own king and countrymen, the other local Philistine kings refused to accept him. Thus, he was spared the dilemma of killing his own people or killing his foreign hosts. The result of the battle was that Saul took his own life when his army lost.

David became king of Judah, his home area, but it was several more years of fighting until he can become king of the northern kingdom of Israel. His first base was Hebron, a symbolic place where the Patriarchs’ tombs are located.

The war between Saul’s followers and David went on for another two to three years. With the death of Saul’s son and general, the northern region finally succumbed. In a brilliantly wise move David vacated his capital and conquered a city in a neighboring region, renaming this new location Jerusalem, or City of David (not the city favored by Judah or Israel).

From Jerusalem the expansion of the kingdom began. By the end of David’s life the empire extended from ancient Egypt to the Euphrates (present-day Iraq). He won systematic victories over every army that opposed him. If this description is accurate, it means that for the first time in history, Israel was truly a world power with which to be reckoned.

At the same time David showed his religious zeal when he brought the Ark of the Covenant into his capital. A temple was not built until the reign of his son Solomon. However, the Ark tied David to Moses and the covenant elaborated on Mount Sinai and as the most primitive symbol of worship connected David to the cult (temple, sacrifice, and priest).

In these otherwise halcyon years the cataclysmic lapse of David’s judgment occurred when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then tried to cover it up by arranging for the death of her husband, Uriah. As the kingdom expanded, David’s house collapsed.

Within a few years the corruption of David’s house caused the unraveling of the kingdom: His daughter Tamar was raped, his son Absalom rebelled and was killed in battle, the northern part of his kingdom (Israel) attempted to secede under Sheba, and finally his two sons Adonijah and Solomon schemed and manipulated David for control of his kingdom.

Deuteronomy

The last book of the Pentateuch is the book of Deuteronomy. Its importance lies in the fact that it is often thought to present the theology that typifies and organizes the next group of biblical books, from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings.

This latter group of books in effect represents biblical history as seen from the perspective of the editor of Deuteronomy and is called Deuteronomic History (DH). Martin Noth first made the claim concerning this particular biblical perspective, but now it is the consensus of most scholars of Israelite history and religion.

Deuteronomy comes from the Greek term meaning the "second law". The law in this book then is a reformulation of the Torah law given to Moses on Mount Sinai, but it is not really the classic formulation of legal code. Rather, it is expressed as if it were a sermon or homily, not action-oriented but attitude-oriented.


Throughout the book of Deuteronomy are speeches and exhortations that stir up the reader to stay faithful to the Jewish law given to Moses, especially the law of monotheistic worship. The book consists of three speeches, plus some appended materials at the end, all purporting to be the last will and words of Moses given before entrance to the promised land of Canaan.

Some speculate that the first four chapters display an introduction to the whole DH, while the next few chapters provide an introduction to the book of Deuteronomy. The book, perhaps in its primitive form, was apparently lost for a while, but it was recovered by King Josiah of Judah in 621 b.c.e., who tried to bring about the sort of revival envisioned by the later writer(s) of the DH.

According to scholars, the DH starts with the material of Deuteronomy and crafts the subsequent narrative, speeches, annals, and records so that the reader never loses sight of the same lesson. They notice a repetition of language, style, and theme throughout the subsequent books of the Jewish scriptures until 2 Kings, and they believe that there is a deliberate purpose and editorial design that qualify all the books to be called the Deuteronomic History.

Basically the DH tends to take a pessimistic view of Israel’s history: Israel’s behavior is frequently unfaithful to its divine covenant as expressed in the laws of the Torah, especially in the area of idolatry.

If this hypothesis is accurate, DH probably qualifies as an early effort to produce a canon of the Bible. Throughout the book of Deuteronomy is the caution not to add to or take away from the written words, a natural injunction if the book is thought of as canonical.

Scholars differ as the date of Deuteronomy and DH, but most tend to read it as an edited collection written after Nebuchadnezzar II’s expulsion of the people of Israel in 587 b.c.e. David Noel Freedman sees Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, as the one responsible, but others simply find a perspective that represents the north (of the Israel and Judah divide) and the prophets found there.

This canon would stand in contrast to two other strands of the Bible discerned by scholars, namely, the Priestly books (largely the Torah) and the Chronicler books (the later histories of the Bible and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah). Because the DH is a rather late compilation, it would frequently represent in veiled ways the Babylonian captivity. In fact, there are passages in other books, not in the DH, which reflect the attitudes of the DH.

Book of Esther

Queen Esther

The book of Esther tells the story of the Persian queen Esther and her uncle Mordechai, who foil the plot of Haman, a wicked Persian courtier, to exterminate the Jews. Haman is hanged on the very scaffold where he intended to hang Mordechai, and Mordechai replaces him as an adviser of the Persian king.

The book, written originally in biblical Hebrew, survives in various forms. The differences among these forms determine the many afterlives that the book has enjoyed. The date of the original form of the book is uncertain.

The Jewish book of Esther is best known from the liturgy. The scroll (Hebrew: megillah) of Esther is read on the feast of Purim, the origins of which are commemorated in the book.


Esther is grouped in the Jewish Bible with other festival scrolls, the Five Megilloth. Purim is an early spring feast associated with revelry and even drinking. Its ultimate origins are Mesopotamian or perhaps Iranian.

Esther tells the story of the Jewish form of the feast: Jews commemorate the success of Esther and Mordechai in halting Haman’s wicked plans for Jewish genocide, an echo of the genocide planned in Exodus. Esther has also served as a talisman for the historically large community of Iranian Jews, who call themselves "Esther's children".

The Protestant book of Esther is identical to the Jewish version except in being categorized as a historical book, put in sequence with Joshua, Judges, and others as describing the history of God's chosen people. Much Protestant exegesis and scholarship has focused on Esther as a historical text.

To be sure, Jews through the ages have thought of Esther as a genuine historical figure but with much less urgency than most Christian students of scripture. Protestant interpreters were also influenced by the identification of the Persian king Ahasuerus as one of the historical rulers called Artaxerxes.

The Catholic–Orthodox book of Esther is the result of another facet of the early Greek translation. The Hebrew text of Esther, and thus the Jewish and Protestant versions, do not mention the name of God at all, although the story as it unfolds is clearly overshadowed by divine providence.

The Greek translators remedied this supposed deficiency by inserting two long prayers (one spoken by Mordechai, the other by Esther), along with a variety of other elements.

These passages, called the "Additions to Esther", are canonical parts of scripture for Catholics and Orthodox; they are among the Apocrypha of Protestant Bible translations.

The only portions of Esther that contributed to Catholic and Orthodox liturgies are the two prayers. Traditional Catholic-Orthodox interpretation has also taken Esther as a historical book.

The literary character of the book has been emphasized by modern biblical scholarship: The book is a story explaining how Jews in a non-Jewish world can be successful and protect themselves.

It has some historical basis in that Jews lived all over the Persian Empire, but there is no evidence for a king named Ahasuerus, no Jew ever rose to the status Mordechai attains of controlling the empire, and no Jew ever became the queen of Persia.

Herods

The Herods were Jewish client kings of Rome who governed between 37 b.c.e. and 92 c.e. in the area that included significant potions of modern Israel, southern Syria, southern Lebanon, and Jordan.

Rome appointed client kings with limited military and taxation powers in the provinces in the Eastern Roman Empire. They were called either ethnarchs or tetrarchs; a tetrarch ranked below an ethnarch. The principal function of these client kings was to carry out the will of Rome.

The Senate declared Herod the Great king of the Jews in 40 b.c.e. He actually came to the throne in 37 b.c.e. after overcoming Antigonus, his opponent. Though called king, Herod was in reality an ethnarch. He is called Herod the Great because he was the first Herod from whom all the other Herods descended.


He was also a great builder. The Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and the amphitheater in Caesarea were two of his most monumental projects. Remains of these magnificent structures can still be seen in Israel today.

Notwithstanding, the Jews loathed Herod because of his Idumaean origin and cruelty, especially toward the end of his life. A man given to suspicion and jealousy, he even killed his own beloved wife, Mariamne, and the two sons whom he had by her.

According to the New Testament, he massacred innocent male children who were two years old and under in Bethlehem because he feared that a future king might have been born there (Matt. 2:16). Herod died in 4 b.c.e., and his territory was divided among his three sons: Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip.

After Herod’s death, his son Archelaus became ethnarch over Judaea, Samaria, and Idumaea. A cruel man like his father, Herod Archelaus had none of his father’s graces. According to the Jewish historian Josephus in Jewish War, he began his rule by killing 3,000 men.

Rome deposed him in 6 c.e. because of great unpopularity and placed his territory under Roman procurators. Originally, procurators were finance officers chosen from the equestrian (knight) rank in Rome, but in time they came to exercise military powers as well.

Herod Antipas (4 b.c.e.–39 c.e.) was tetrarch over Galilee and Perea (in modern Jordan) for 40 years. Pilate had Antipas try Jesus (Christ) of Nazareth because Jesus was from Galilee. Antipas rebuilt Sepphoris into a major metropolis and built a new city, Tiberias, named after Emperor Tiberius (14–37 c.e.), on the southwestern shores of Galilee.

He married Herodias, his niece and the wife of Philip (Boethus), for which he was rebuked by John the Baptist. Herod Antipas had John beheaded for this offense. Antipas died as an exile in Gaul.

Herod Agrippa I (37–44 c.e.), a brother of Herodias, was a grandson of Herod the Great by Mariamne (whom Herod killed). Wilting under a mountain of debts, he came to hold the throne because of his friendship with Rome. While studying in Rome, he befriended Gaius Caligula (37–41 c.e.).

After becoming emperor, Caligula made him a king and gave him the former territories of his uncle Philip, another Herodian tetrarch, and of Lysanias, who was tetrarch of Abilene (near Damascus). Later, in 39 c.e. Caligula banished Antipas and gave his territory to Agrippa I. Then, after Caligula died, Emperor Claudius (41–54 c.e.) gave him Judaea as well, which had been under Roman procurators.

Agrippa I, a man rather liked by the Jews, ruled over a larger territory than any of the other Herods did. He killed James the son of Zebedee and put the apostle Peter in prison to please the Jews. He suddenly died in 44 c.e. of some horrible stomach disease. When Agrippa I died, Rome put Judaea back in the hands of procurators.

Herod Agrippa II (50–92 c.e.) was son of Agrippa I. Only 17 at the time of his father’s death, Agrippa II was deemed too young to be king. In 50 c.e. Claudius gave him Chalcis in southern Lebanon, his uncle’s territory.

In 53 c.e. Claudius exchanged it with the former territories of Philip the tetrarch and Lysanias. The Romans sought the advice of Agrippa II in matters pertaining to Jews and gave him authority over the Temple and the appointment of high priests. Agrippa II is the Agrippa who heard the apostle Paul.

Agrippa II finished the renovation of the Jewish Temple in 63 c.e., only to see it burned down in 70 c.e. by Titus, who later became emperor (79–81 c.e.). Agrippa’s sister Bernice was a consort of Titus. An amiable man, he was the last of later the Herods to rule.

Hezekiah

Biblical scholars increasingly view Hezekiah as the most capable king in Israel and Judah back to the time of David and Solomon. Only kings Ahab and Josiah can compare with him as far as running domestic and foreign affairs. He presided over a period of religious reform, Assyrian belligerence, and Samarian decline.

Assyria had reached its full imperial extent, and somehow Hezekiah was able to turn away from his father Ahaz’s policies of accommodation in the areas of politics and religion. He grew up under the tutelage of the priests in the Jerusalem Temple.

They exerted profound influence over Hezekiah’s personal development and preparation for his career as king. His father was known as an accommodationist to foreign religious influences, so Hezekiah’s formation was against the grain of his father’s decisions.


His first phase of rule is marked by a decision to centralize worship in Jerusalem and renew religious observances of his people. He called his subjects back to the biblical covenant and then invited his coreligionists in Samaria to join him.

This invitation came in the form of festal letters sent out by the hands of able and learned representatives of his kingdom, reinstituting social and religious structures. The Assyrians, who had recently taken over Samaria and decimated its leadership, may have viewed this as a provocation. At any rate it was a reversal of the religious policies of his father.

One very bold act of Hezekiah’s was to destroy the bronze serpent, an object of popular veneration, with a long history going back to the time of Moses. Other acts were in concert: He destroyed shrines and altars that did not have to do with traditional beliefs.

His second phase of rule was political. Although he paid tribute to Assyria, he used it to buy time for himself so that he could refortify and reconsolidate Jerusalem and other Judaean cities. Archaeologists estimate that Hezekiah’s Jerusalem was fivefold the population of Solomon’s, and some suggest that many came from Samaria as political refugees.

Another major innovation was a way of supplying water to the acropolis of Jerusalem by way of the Siloam tunnel, recently discovered by modern excavators. New research has uncovered storage jars, imprinted with the king’s name, indicating that Hezekiah had a system for supplying his people with food in times of trouble.

Assyria took punitive action and rampaged across the country but miraculously did not capture Jerusalem. Records from the annals of Assyria tell a different story, saying that their general Senacherib ran a brilliant campaign, destroying 46 walled cities and taking 200,000 captives, walling up Hezekiah "like a caged bird".

In fact, the Bible says that the Assyrian general Senacherib beat a sudden retreat out of Jerusalem, though the night before he had harangued its citizens in their own language. The reason, according to the Bible, was a divine visitation of a plague against the besiegers.

Israel and Judah

From the beginning the Jewish scriptures focus on the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac (Ishmael), Jacob, and Joseph. The reason for this attention is that from them came the "covenant", the divine choice that favors the people of the Bible. Abraham was promised the land of Canaan (present-day Israel).

His grandson was named Jacob but after a divine encounter was renamed "Israel". From this patriarch came 12 sons, which became the line of the tribes that dominate the rest of the Bible. Corporately the tribes are known as Israel, named after their forefather.

Saul, David, and Solomon

The time of the Patriarchs likely occurred in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. The earliest mention of Israel comes from the Merneptah Stela of c. 1200 b.c.e. in Egypt. The stela simply states: "Israel has perished; its seed is no more". As for the tribes’ existence and the traditions surrounding them, the historical record is totally silent.


Their way of life as described in the Bible is consistent with what can be hypothesized from the scanty archaeological record. These tribes first are migratory and go down to Egypt during a time of famine. From there Moses leads them back to the brink of the land where Abraham had lived.

Once they enter the land, it is clear that they lack political cohesion and stability, for charismatic heroes known as Judges are required to take charge periodically and give military deliverance to the tribes. Finally, the tribes unite to select several kings, at first Saul and then David and his son Solomon.

The separate identity of Israel and Judah probably began to take shape in the time of the Judges. Israel referred to the land of Ephraim of the northern hill country, where the other tribes deferred to Ephraim as the largest and most powerful. This confederation of the northern tribes then came together to choose the first king, Saul, and the few southern tribes probably gave limited support.

When Saul died, the southern tribes rallied around David, a representative from the southern confederation from the tribe of Judah. David then sought to bring the northern tribes into the alliance by choosing as his capital city, Jerusalem, "the City of David", outside the north or south, a foreign stronghold.

In spite of this, resentments were still rampant in the north, and regional rebellions broke out. When Solomon died, even the Bible could not repress a negative view of the heavy taxes that were imposed on the north to pay for David and Solomon’s public works.

Jeroboam, Rehoboam, and Ahab

The net effect of this tension was that the northern 10 tribes seceded from the southern two tribes as soon as Solomon died. Jeroboam, who had earlier led an unsuccessful insurrection against Solomon, led them. Meanwhile, crown prince Rehoboam led the south and is portrayed as a stubborn and haughty king.

The split, however, left both sides vulnerable to popular discontent and external threats. Whatever prestige they had from the "empire" of David and Solomon was lost when they often clashed with each other on the battlefield.

Israel, though bigger, was weak until the time of Omri, who was succeeded by his capable son and daughter-in-law, Ahab and Jezebel. They established their capital city of Samaria, and the country boomed under their leadership. The archaeological records tend to confirm this judgment.

Judah continued to decline, although the interpretation of the Jewish scriptures is that it was more legitimate because it was the home of David and the location of the Temple and Jerusalem. Meanwhile, prophetic criticism mounted against Israel because of its idolatrous worship, its persecution of true religion, and its wealth disparities.

Three recently discovered stela (Mesha Stela in Moab, Tel Dan Stela, and Shalmaneser III Stela) all confirm the involvement of Israel with foreign powers, including Moab, Damascus, and Assyria during the reign of Ahab.

Ahab and Jezebel also had to contend with external opposition, and eventually they succumbed to the Assyrians. Their ruler Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 b.c.e.) was especially interested in the wealth of Israel, and the alliance Israel had made with the Aramaeans proved feeble in the face of the invaders.

The cruel Assyrians not only took all the people of the north into captivity, but they erased their culture from history. Thereafter, the northerners were never heard from again and came to be called "the lost tribes of Israel". A small remnant today claims to be offspring of the northern Israelites, the Samaritans, who live near Nablus on the Palestinian West Bank.

Unified Israel and Judah

Judah meanwhile was rarely mentioned in the early books of the Bible but came into its own with its dashing king David and enigmatic successor Solomon. When Jereboam rebelled against Rehoboam, the land of Judah was all that Rehoboam had left of his father’s expanse. Such a small area at first came to be dominated by Egypt.

After 40 years of bloody clashes with Israel, finally a truce brought the two fraternal kingdoms together. Royal intermarriages even brought them into an alliance. According to the Jewish scriptures, Israel also brought its corruptions to Judah, as well as its hapless allies, the Aramaeans.

The reunion of Israel and Judah definitely was too little and too late to do anything about the invading Assyrian forces that swallowed up the north and nearly did the same in the south. At first the Assyrians simply turned Judah into a client state. Then their general Sennacherib challenged King Hezekiah to surrender.

The Bible reports that a divine intervention turned back the invaders before they could overrun the walls of Jerusalem. None of this can be substantiated, though it is true that Judah was the only relatively independent state to escape Assyrian hands in the eighth century b.c.e.

Foreign Rule of Babylonians and Rome

Josiah (c. 648–609 b.c.e.) then tried to expand Judah’s sphere of influence, but the Egyptian pharaoh came to Assyria’s help and killed him. With Josiah’s death the vision of restoring the throne and territory of David and Solomon also came to an end.

Even though the Assyrians were finally put down at the Battle of Carchemish (605 b.c.e.), a new conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, now completed what Sennacherib failed to do. He marched on Jerusalem and deported its citizens in 597 b.c.e. and then in 587 b.c.e. sacked the city.

Judah languished in Babylon for several generations. Even when many returned around 525 b.c.e., they did not have political sovereignty again until the time of the Maccabees. This family claimed to be heirs of the Judaean kingdom and successfully rebelled against the Hellenized Seleucids around 164 b.c.e.

They were able to maintain independence until Pompey established Roman dominance 100 years later. When the insurrectionist Bar Kokhba tried to expel the Romans in 132 c.e., he seems to have laid claim to the same vision of Judah.

The prophets of the Bible all along had prophesied that the "lost tribes" would one day return. Theologically, many later groups laid claim to a spiritualized Israel as a religious concept, latching on to the prophetic vision.

Groups as diverse as the Qumran community, the apocalyptic Jews of the Pseudepigrapha and the Apocrypha, early Christianity, and the early Judaism of the rabbis all took stock in the idea of Israel, meaning the unity of the northern and southern kingdoms.