In Palestine, the withdrawal of Egyptian and Hittite forces has opened up the land to outsiders, and the Hebrews have taken advantage of the political vacuum to migrate into the region. Following first their prophet and then his man Joshua, they establish themselves in the highlands while attempting to drive out all of the Canaanites. In this they are unsuccessful. But what has transpired of late to make the Hebrews a conquering nation?
Ever since the famines in the 16th Century BC, the Hebrews had been living in the Nile Delta. Seeing their numbers – and quite possibly the numbers of other Semitic peoples – the pharaohs punished the interlopers by putting them to work on the Egyptian building projects. The Hebrews, perhaps more than their Semitic neighbors, longed to leave that land, good as it was, because their God, Yahweh, had promised the patriarch Abraham that his offspring would inhabit Palestine. At last, after some three hundred years, the Hebrews fled the Delta and moved with others of their ilk into the desert, where their new leader, Moses, gave them laws for just and godly living and thereby forged the tribes into a people following one God. So it was that, in the years following Ramses’ withdrawal from Palestine, the Hebrews drew near to their Promised Land.
Now they follow Joshua, who leads them into Palestine with the purpose of driving out the Canaanites and establishing an Israelite homeland. They experience tremendous military success, but fail to totally occupy the land. They are still tribes living between the cities, and though many such places are taken, foes still hold much of the promised territory. It is well, then, that the mysterious Sea Peoples choose this time to descend upon the eastern Mediterranean coasts, since they will keep the great powers of the world busy for a time, allowing the Hebrews to rally and forge a kingdom.
This kingdom comes about in the person of Saul. After a period in which the Hebrews rely upon strongmen called “Judges” to ensure public safety, the hue and cry for a king, a la their neighbors, is finally answered by the prophet Samuel. Saul, young and inexperienced, does not immediately impress the Hebraic tribal leaders, but after a handful of stunning victories, he has their attention. Unfortunately, another warrior has arisen to public acclaim, a shepherd named David. Proclaimed king by Samuel, after Saul’s decision to take the duties of priest upon himself, David becomes king through a series of events that sees Saul and all but a handful of his line destroyed. Though David respects Yahweh’s decision and shows Saul’s line respect, he does not allow the tribes to dissent, and engages in multiple wars for the purpose of unification. It is a long struggle, but by the king’s death, the land is united under his rule.
Unity is reinforced by David’s son, Solomon, who builds a temple to Yahweh and establishes Jerusalem as the principle city in Palestine. From there he sends to the kings of his neighbors and marries their daughters in accordance with the traditions of the day. The palace life that was so foreign to the Twelve Tribes becomes central to Jerusalem’s elite, so that by the death of Solomon, his son Rehoboam is rather disconnected with the people. When they come to him with requests of leniency, he assures them that he is the king and that they are to follow him without question. Disgusted, ten tribes secede and from then on, the state of Israel is divided in two. In such a state, the land is ill suited to match the threat rising in the north.
Around 745 BC, a new empire appears in Assyria. The Neo-Assyrians, under Tiglath Pilezar III have reached out to take the whole of the Fertile Crescent, including Palestine. Israel – the ten secessionist tribes who now claim Samaria as their capital – falls to the conquerors and Judah becomes the only state protecting Egypt from the north. In a resurgent move, the Egyptian Nubians throw off Libyan control and reassert their authority, looking for allies in Palestine and Greece. At the same time the frustrated Assyrians burn Babylon to the ground after an uprising and the affront sparks a pan-Mesopotamian war that destroys the hated conquerors. But they are quickly replaced by their Babylonian conquerors, whom we shall see by and by.
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