Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations

Hebrew" had come, the rock out of which it was hewn. Here on the western bank of the Eup

he north of the Arabian peninsula, the descendants of Keturah who colonised Midian and the western coast, were also his children. Moab and Ammon, moreover, traced their pedigree to his nephew, while Edom was the elder brother of Israel. Israel, in fac

dom had possessed itself of the mountain-fastnesses of the Horite and the Amalekite, long before the Israelites had escaped from their bondage in Egypt, or formed themselves into a nation in the desert. They were the youngest member o

he skeleton, as it were, of each of them consisting of three consonants, while the vowels, which give flesh and life to the skeleton, vary according to the grammatical signification of the word. The relations of grammar are thus expressed for the most part by changes of vocalic sound, just as in English th

The very words which were used by the Babylonians four or five thousand years ago, can still be heard, with the same meaning attached to them, in the streets of Cairo. Kelb is "dog" in modern Arabic as kalbu was in ancient Babylonian, and the modern Arabic tayy?b, "good," is the Babylonian tabu. One of the results of thi

naan," spoken by the Semitic Canaanites long before the Israelitish conquest of the country, and found as late as the Roman age on the monuments of Phoenicia and Carthage. The Min?an and the Sab?an dialects of southern Arabia still survive in modern forms; Arabic, which has now overflowed the rest of the Semitic world, was the l

characteristics. Thick and fleshy lips, arched nose, black hair and eyes, and white complexion, distinguish the pure-blooded Semite. Intellectually he is clever and able, quick to learn and remem

ed, Babylonian literature was studied, Babylonian trade was carried on, and Babylonian law was in force. From time to time Syria and Canaan had obeyed the rule of the Babylonian kings, and been formed into a Babylonian province. In fact, Babylonian rule did not come to an end in the west till after the death of Abraham; Khammu

its culture-were of a wholly different race, and spoke an agglutinative language which had no resemblance to that of the Semites. They had, however, been conquered and their culture absorbed by the Semitic Babylonians and Assyrians of later history, and the civilisation and culture which had spread throughout western Asia was a Semitic modificat

Babylonians making their way to Canaan, and by Canaanites intending to settle in Babylonia for the sake of trade. Harran, the first stage on his journey, bore a Babylonian name, and its great temple of the Moon-god had been founded by Babylonian princes after the model of the temple of the Moon-god at Ur, the birthplace of the patriarch. Even in Canaan itself the deities of Bab

f the narratives contained in the Book of Genesis. Written and contemporaneous history in Babylonia went back to an age long anterior to that of Abraham-his age, indeed, marks the beginning of the decline of the Babylonian power and influence; and consequently, there is no longer any reason to treat as unhistorical the narratives connected with

bylonian army, his only possession in it was the burial-place of Machpelah. Here, in the close neighbourhood of the later Hebron, he bought a plot of ground in the sloping cliff, wherein a two

tine, nor on the other from the block of mountains within which was the desert sanctuary of Kadesh-barnea. His sons Esau and Jacob shared the desert and the cultivated land between them. Esau planted himself among the barren heights of Mount Seir, subjugating or assimilating its Horite and Amalekite inhabitants, and securing the road which carried the trade o

nd Ishmael were the names of individuals in the Patriarchal age, not the names of tribes or peoples, and consequently the Israelites, like the Ishmaelites, of a later day must have been the descendants of an individual Israel and Ishmael as the Old Testament rec

tes-was the viceroy of an Egyptian Pharaoh, and that his father died in the Egyptian land of Goshen. Goshen was the district which extends from Tel el-Maskhuta or Pithom near Ismail?ya to Belbeis and Zagazig, and includes the modern Wadi Tumilat; the traveller on the railway passes through it on his way from Ismail?ya to Cairo. It lay outside the Delta prop

eople is known as the "sons" of their ancestor; his name is handed down from generation to generation, and the names of his leading descendants, the representatives of the tribe, are handed down at the same time. Where we speak of the population of a country, the Arab speaks of

ate tribes except in name; their territories were absorbed into that of Judah, and it was only in the city of Laish in the far north that the memory of Dan survived. The tribe of Joseph was split into two halves, Ephraim and Manasseh, while Judah was a mixture of various elements-of Hebrews who traced their origin alike to Judah, to Simeon, and to Dan; of Kenites and Jerahmeelites from the desert of Arabia; and of Kenizzites from Edom. Benjamin or Ben-Oni was, as a tribe, merely the sou

Simeon or Gad. But they were all families within a single family. They were all "Israelites" or "sons of Israel," and in an inscription of the Egyptian king Meneptah they are

s from Edom who had besought the Pharaoh for meadow-land on which to feed their flocks. The need of pasturage from time immemorial has urged the pastoral tribes of the desert towards the fertile land of the Nile. When want of rain has brought drought upon Canaan, parching the grass and destro

of his sovereign. He had foretold the coming years of plenty and dearth; but he had done more-he had pointed out how to anticipate the famine and make it subserve the interests of despotism. He was not a seer only, he was a skilful administrator as well. He had taken advantage of the years of scarcity to effect a revolution in the social and political constitution of Egypt

went precisely the change which is described in the history of Joseph. Before the Hyksos conquest there was a great feudal aristocracy, rich in landed estates and influence, which served as a check upon the monarch, and at times even refused to obey his authority. When the Hyksos conquerors are finally expelled, we find that th

which ended in it, and which after five generations of conflict restored the Egyptians to independence. The Eighteenth dynasty was founded by the native princes of Thebes, and the war ag

of pantheistic monotheism, based on the worship of the Asiatic Baal as represented by the Solar Disk. The Pharaoh transferred his capital from Thebes to a new site farther north, now known as Tel el-Amarna, changed his own name to Khu-n-Aten, "the Glory of the Solar Disk," and filled his court with Asiatic officials and the adherents of t

domination and influence of the foreigner from Asia, and the oppression of the Israelites would naturally have been part of its policy. Such of the Asiatics as still remained in Egypt were turned into public serfs, and measures were taken to prevent them from multiplying so as to be dangerous to their masters. The free spirit of the Bedawin was broken by servitude, and e

bands of sea-pirates from the coasts of Asia Minor and the islands of the Mediterranean attacked it by sea and land. A mutilated inscription of Meneptah tells us how the tents of the invaders had been pitched on the outskirts of the land of Goshen, within reach of the Bedawin shepherds who fed their flocks there, and how the troops of the Pharaoh, pressed at once by the enemy and by the disaffected population of Goshen, had been cooped up within the walls of the great cities, afraid to venture forth. The fate of the invasion was sealed, however, by a decisive battle in which the Egyptians almost annihilated their foes. But the land of Goshen was left empty and desolate; the foreign tribes who had dwelt in it fled into the wilderness under the cover of the Libyan invasion. The pressure of the invasion had

ere encamped, and the Israelites passed dryshod over the bed of "the sea." Before their pursuers could overtake them, the wind had veered, and the waters returned on th

people, bound together by the worship of one God, who had revealed Himself to them under the name of Yahveh. First at Sinai, among the mountains of Seir and Paran, and then at Kadesh-barnea, the modern 'Ain Qad?

Ammon and Edom, and their residence in the cultured land of the Nile had made it impossible for them ever to degenerate into the lawless robbers of the wilderness. They were settled Bedawin, not Bedawin proper; not Bedawin by blood and descent, but Semites who had adopted the wandering and pastoral habits of the Bedawin tribes. They were like their brethren of Edom, who, thou

rganised it into a homogeneous whole. At length the time came when the Israelites felt strong enough once more to face an enemy and to win by the sword a country of their own. It was from the east that they made their second attack. Aaron the high-priest was dead, but his brother Moses was still their leader. The Edomites refused them a passage along the high-road of trade which led northward from the Gulf of Aqaba; skirting Edom accordingly, they marched through a w

fell into his hands; the confederate kings of southern Canaan were overthrown in battle, and the tribe of Ephraim, to which Joshua belonged, was established in the mountainous region which afterwards bore its name. Hencefor

ved by Solomon along with his Egyptian wife. At first the Canaanites were treated with merciless ferocity. Their cities were burned, the inhabitants of them massacred, and the spoil divided among the conquerors. But a time soon came when tribute was accepted in place of extermination, when leagues were made with t

institutions prescribed in the wilderness were ignored. Alone at Shiloh, in the heart of Ephraim, was a memory of the past observed; here the descendants of Aaron served in the

ady exhausted by struggle after struggle with the populations which surrounded them. Moabites and Midianites, Ammonites and Bedawin, even the king of distant Mesopotamia, had sacked their villages, had overrun their fields, and exacted tribute from the Israelitish tribes. The tribes themselves had lost coherence; they had ranged themselves under different "judges" or "deliverers," had forgotten their common origin and common faith, and had even plunged into interfraternal war. Joshua was scarcely dead before the tribe of Benjamin was

high-priests and of the Law they administered was hardly felt beyond Shiloh; an age of war and anarchy required military rather than religious control. The Israelites were passing through the same experience as other kindred members of t

itants of Ophrah and Shechem, and his son Abimelech by a Canaanitish wife received the title of king. But the attempt was premature. The kingdom of Manasseh passed away with Abime

ids gradually passed into a continuous warfare and a settled purpose to conquer Canaan, and reduce it to tribute from one end to the other. The Israelitish forces were annihilated in a decisive battle, the ark of the covenant was taken by the heathen, and the two sons of the high-priest perished on the field of battle. The Philisti

presentative of the traditions of Shiloh, was allowed to judge his own people, and preside over a Naioth or "monastery" of derv

ing. Saul, the Benjamite of Gibeah, was elected, and events soon proved the wisdom of the choice. Jabesh-gilead was rescued from the Ammonite king, the Philistine garrisons were driven out of the centre of the country, and, fo

gan to suspect him of aiming at the throne. He was forced to fly for his life, and to hide among the mountain fastnesses of Judah, where his boyhood had been spent. Here he became a brigand-chief, outlaws and adventurers gathering around him, and exacting food from the richer landowners. Saul pursued him in vain; David slipped out of his hands time after time,

re, David escaped from the court, Saul accused the Shilonite priests who were established at Nob of intentionally aiding the rebel. The high-priest vainly protested their innocence, but the furious king refused to listen, and the priests were massacred in cold

, that the Philistine armies again marched into the Israelitish kingdom, and made their way northward along the coast into the plain of Jezreel. A battle on the slopes of Jezreel decided the fate of Israel. The Hebrew army was cut to pieces, and Saul and his sons were slain. One only survived, Esh-baal, too young or too feeble to take p

ay him into the hands of the Jewish king. Abner, however, was slain by Joab while in the act of carrying out his treason, but Esh-b

d retreat. Here he organised his forces; the Philistines were defeated in battle after battle, and David not only succeeded in driving them out of Judah and Israel, but in carrying the war int

. Its older inhabitants were allowed to live in it side by side with colonists from Judah and Benjamin. The city itself was made the capital of the kingdom. Its central position, its na

gdom of Zobah, which had risen on the ruins of the Hittite power, was overthrown. The limits of David's rule were extended to the banks of the Euphrates, and the Syrians on either side of the river were utterly crushed. Even Edom, which had successfully defied the Pharaohs in the days of Egyptian greatness, was compelled to submit to the Jewish conq

ture was selfish, and his extravagance knew no bounds. Palaces were built at Jerusalem in imitation of those of Phoenicia or Egypt, and Phoenician architects and artisans erected there a sumptuous temple in honour of the national God. Trade was encouraged and developed: the possession of the Edomite seaports gave Solomon the command of the Arabian trade, while his alliance with Hiram opened to him the harb

evolt in Palestine itself. The northern tribes under Jeroboam separated from Judah and established a kingdom of their own, while Judah and Benjamin remained faithful to the house of David and to the capital, which lay on the frontier of both. The Levites also naturally attached thems

sacked Jerusalem itself. But Jeroboam lost the opportunity thus afforded him of extending his rule over the south; his own territories had been partially overrun by the Egyptians,

ynasty. The Levitical priesthood had its centre in the temple which had been built by Solomon, and was, as it were, the private chapel of his descendants; here were preserved the rites and traditions of the Mosaic Law, and the ark of the covenant between Israel and its God. The northern kingdom, on the contrary, had none of these elements of stability. The first king was a rebel, who had no glorious past behind him, no established priesthood to support his throne, no capital even, around which all his subjects could rally. T

ion, and the army became the dominating power in the state. There was no body of priests to preserve the memory of the Mosaic Law and insist upon its observance, and the prophets who took their place protested in vain against the national apostasy. Alliance with the

ith Egypt. It was not until the Babylonian empire of Nebuchadrezzar had arisen on the ruins of that of Assyria that Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed, and the Davidic dynasty passed away. But they had accomplished their work; a nation had been created which through exile and disaster still maintained its religion and its characteristics, and was prepared, when happier days should come, to return again to its old home, to rebui

ablet belonging to a period long before that of Abraham, Isma-ilu or Ishmael is given as the na