|
|
||||||||||||||||
| Who was
Who in the Bible? 0- Israel 0- Israel, Kingdom of 0- ISRAEL, HISTORY OF 0- JEW - Judah Kingdom 0- TRIBES OF ISRAEL (12) 0- Palestine 0- PALESTINE LAND of the BIBLE 1- ROMAN EMPIRE 1- ROME AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE 2- Greece 2- GREECE, GREEKS, GRECIANS 2- GREECE and the Bible 3- Philistines 3- PHILISTINES, THE 3- Gaza 4- Egypt 4- EGYPT History 5- Hittites 5- HITTITES AND HIVITES 6- Assyria 6- ASSYRIA, HISTORY AND RELIGION OF 7- Babylon, Kingdom of 7- BABYLON, HISTORY AND RELIGION OF 8- PERSIA |
||||||||||||||||
| Who was
Who in the Bible?
0 ISRAEL.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 0- Israel
The name conferred on Jacob after the great prayer-struggle at
Peniel #Ge 32:28 because "as a prince
he had power with God and prevailed." IS’RAEL (larsy [see infra]: Israhl). 1. The name given (#Ge xxxii:28) to Jacob after his wrestling with the Angel (#Ho xii:4) at Peniel. In the time of Jerome (Quaest. Hebr. in Gen. Opp. iii. 357) the signification of the name was commonly believed to be "the man (or the mind) seeing God." But he prefers another interpretation, and paraphrases the verse after this manner: "Thy name shall not be called Jacob, Supplanter, but Israel, Prince with God. For as I am a Prince, so thou who hast been able to wrestle with Me shalt be called a Prince. But if with Me who am God (or an Angel) thou hast been able to contend, how much more [shalt thou be able to contend] with men, i. e. with Esau, whom thou oughtest not to dread?" The A. V., apparently following Jerome, translates tyrs, "as a prince thou hast power;" but Rosenmuller and Gesenius give it the simpler meaning, "thou hast contended." Gesenius interprets Israel "soldier of God."
4. After the Babylonian Captivity, the returned exiles, although they were mainly of the kingdom of Judah, resumed the name Israel as the designation of their nation; but as individuals they are almost always described as Jews in the Apocrypha and N. T. Instances occur in the Books of Chronicles of the application of the name Israel to Judah e. g. (#2Ch xi:3, xii:6); and in Esther of the name Jews to the whole people. The name Israel is also used to denote laymen, as distinguished from priests, levites, and other ministers (#Ezr vi:16, ix:1, x:25; Ne xi:3)
|
||||||||||||||||
| 0-
Israel, Kingdom of
(B.C. 975-B.C. 722) Soon after the death of Solomon, Ahijah’s
prophecy #1Ki 11:31-35 was fulfilled, and
the kingdom was rent in twain.
===================
The kingdom of Israel developed no new power. It was but a portion of David’s kingdom deprived of many elements of strength. Its frontier was as open and as widely extended as before; but it wanted a capital for the seat of organized power. Its territory was as fertile and as tempting to the spoiler, but its people were less united and patriotic. A corrupt religion poisoned the source of national life. When less reverence attended on a new and unconsecrated king, and less respect was felt for an aristocracy reduced by the retirement of the Levites, the army which David found hard to control rose up unchecked in the exercise of its willful strength; and thus eight houses, each ushered in by a revolution, occupied the throne in quick succession. Tyre ceased to be an ally when the alliance was no longer profitable to the merchant-city. Moab and Ammon yielded tribute only while under compulsion. A powerful neighbor, Damascus, sat armed at the gate of Israel; and, beyond Damascus, might be discerned the rising strength of the first great monarchy of the world. These causes tended to increase the misfortunes, and to accelerate the early end of the kingdom of Israel. It lasted 254 years, from b. c. 975 to b. c. 721, about two thirds of the duration of its more compact neighbor Judah. But it may be doubted whether the division into two kingdoms greatly shortened the independent existence of the Hebrew race, or interfered with the purposes which, it is thought, may be traced in the establishment of David’s monarchy. If among those purposes were the preservation of the true religion in the world, and the preparation of an agency adapted for the diffusion of Christianity in due season, then it must be observed—first, that as a bulwark providentially raised against the corrupting influence of idolatrous Tyre and Damascus, Israel kept back that contagion from Judah, and partly exhausted it before its arrival in the south; next, that the purity of divine worship was not impaired by the excision of those tribes which were remote from the influence of the Temple, and by the concentration of priests and religious Israelites within the southern kingdom; and lastly, that to the worshippers at Jerusalem the early decline and fall of Israel was a solemn and impressive spectacle of judgment—the working out of the great problem of God’s toleration of idolatry. This prepared the heart of Judah for the revivals under Hezekiah and Josiah, softened them into repentance during the Captivity, and strengthened them for their absolute renunciation of idolatry, when after seventy years they returned to Palestine, to teach the world that there is a spiritual bond more efficacious than the occupancy of a certain soil for keeping up national existence, and to become the channel through which God’s greatest gift was conveyed to mankind. [Captivity.]
(a.) b. c. 975-929. Jeroboam had not sufficient force of character in himself to make a lasting impression on his people. A king, but not a founder of a dynasty, he aimed at nothing beyond securing his present elevation. Without any ambition to share in the commerce of Tyre, or to compete with the growing power of Damascus, or even to complete the humiliation of the helpless monarch whom he had deprived of half a kingdom, Jeroboam acted entirely on a defensive policy. He attempted to give his subjects a centre which they wanted for their political allegiance, in Shechem or in Tirzah. He sought to change merely so much of their ritual as was inconsistent with his authority over them. But as soon as the golden calves were set up, the priests and Levites and many religious Israelites (#2Ch xi:16) left their country, and the disastrous emigration was not effectually checked even by the attempt of Baasha to build a fortress (#2Ch xvi:6) at Ramah. A new priesthood was introduced (#1Ki xii:31) absolutely dependent on the king (#Am vii:13), not forming as under the Mosaic law a landed aristocracy, not respected by the people, and unable either to withstand the oppression or to strengthen the weakness of a king. A priesthood created, and a ritual devised for secular purposes, had no hold whatever on the conscience of the people. To meet their spiritual cravings a succession of prophets was raised up, great in their poverty, their purity, their austerity, their self-dependence, their moral influence, but imperfectly organized; —a rod to correct and check the civil government, not, as they might have been under happier circumstances, a staff to support it. The army soon learned its power to dictate to the isolated monarch and disunited people. Baasha in the midst of the army at Gibbethon slew the son and successor of Jeroboam; Zimri, a captain of chariots, slew the son and successor of Baasha; Omri, the captain of the host, was chosen to punish Zimri; and after a civil war of four years he prevailed over Tibni, the choice of half the people. (b.) b. c. 929-884. For forty-five years Israel was governed by the house of Omri. That sagacious king pitched on the strong hill of Samaria as the site of his capital. Damascus, which in the days of Baasha had proved itself more than a match for Israel, now again assumed a threatening attitude. Edom and Moab showed a tendency to independence, or even aggression. Hence the princes of Omri’s house cultivated an alliance with the contemporary kings of Judah, which was cemented by the marriage of Jehoram and Athaliah, and marked by the community of names among the royal children. Ahab’s Tyrian alliance strengthened him with the counsels of the masculine mind of Jezebel, but brought him no further support. The entire rejection of the God of Abraham, under the disguise of abandoning Jeroboam’s unlawful symbolism, and adopting Baal as the god of a luxurious court and subservient populace, led to a reaction in the nation, to the moral triumph of the prophets in the person of Elijah, and to the extinction of the house of Ahab in obedience to the bidding of Elisha. (c.) b. c. 884-772. Unparalleled triumphs, but deeper humiliation, awaited the kingdom of Israel under the dynasty of Jehu. The worship of Paa was abolished by one blow; but, so long as the kingdom lasted, the people never rose superior to the debasing form of religion established by Jeroboam. Hazael, the successor of the two Benhadads, the ablest king of Damascus, reduced Jehoahaz to the condition of a vassal, and triumphed for a time over both the disunited Hebrew kingdoms. Almost the first sign of the restoration of their strength was a war between them; and Jehoash, the grandson of Jehu, entered Jerusalem as the conqueror of Amaziah. Jehoash also turned the tide of war against the Syrians; and Jeroboam II., the most powerful of all the kings of Israel, captured Damascus, and recovered the whole ancient frontier from Hamath to the Dead Sea. In the midst of his long and seemingly glorious reign the prophets Hosea and Amos uttered their warnings more clearly than any of their predecessors. The short- lived greatness expired with the last king of Jehu’s line. (d.) b. c. 772-721. Military violence, it would seem, broke off the hereditary succession after the obscure and probably convulsed reign of Zachariah. An unsuccessful usurper, Shallum, is followed by the cruel Menahem, who, being unable to make head against the first attack of Assyria under Pul, became the agent of that monarch for the oppressive taxation of his subjects. Yet his power at home was sufficient to insure for his son and successor Pekahiah a ten years’ reign, cut short by a bold usurper, Pekah. Abandoning the northern and transjordanic regions to the encroaching power of Assyria under Tiglath- pileser, he was very near subjugating Judah, with the help of Damascus, now the coequal ally of Israel. But Assyria interposing summarily put an end to the independence of Damascus, and perhaps was the indirect cause of the assassination of the baffled Pekah. The irresolute Hoshea, the next and last usurper, became tributary to his invader, Shalmaneser, betrayed the Assyrian to the rival monarchy of Egypt, and was punished by the loss of his liberty, and by the capture, after a three years’ siege, of his strong capital, Samaria. Some gleanings of the ten tribes yet remained in the land after so many years of religious decline, moral debasement, national degradation, anarchy, bloodshed, and deportation. Even these were gathered up by the conqueror and carried to Assyria, never again, as a distinct people, to occupy their portion of that goodly and pleasant land which their forefathers won under Joshua from the heathen.
The numerous dates given in the Bible as the limits of the duration of the king’s reigns act as a continued check on each other. The apparent discrepancies between them have been unduly exaggerated by some writers. To meet such difficulties various hypotheses have been put forward; —that an interregnum occurred; that two kings (father and son) reigned conjointly; that certain reigns were dated not from their real commencement, but from some arbitrary period in that Jewish year in which they commenced; that the Hebrew copyists have transcribed the numbers incorrectly, either by accident or design; that the original writers have made mistakes in their reckoning. All these are mere suppositions, and even the most probable of them must not be insisted on as if it were a historical fact. But in truth most of the discrepancies may be accounted for by the simple fact that the Hebrew annalists reckon in round numbers, never specifying the months in addition to the years of the duration of a king’s reign. Consequently some of these writers seem to set down a fragment of a year as an entire year, and others omit such fragments altogether. Hence in computing the date of the commencement of each reign, without attributing any error to the writer or transcribers, it is necessary to allow for a possible mistake amounting to something less than two years in our interpretation of the indefinite phraseology of the Hebrew writers. But there are a few statements in the Hebrew text which cannot thus be reconciled. (a.) There are in the Second Book of Kings three statements as to the beginning of the reign of Jehoram king of Israel, which in the view of some writers involve a great error, and not a mere numerical one. His accession is dated (1) in the second year of Jehoram king of Judah (#2Ki i:17); (2) in the fifth year before Jehoram king of Judah (#2Ki viii:16); (3) in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat (#2Ki iii:1). But these statements may be reconciled by the fact that Jehoram king of Judah had two accessions which are recorded in Scripture, and by the probable supposition of Archbishop Ussher that he had a third and earlier accession which is not recorded. These three accessions are, (1) when Jehoshaphat left his kingdom to go to the battle of Ramoth-Gilead, in his 17th year; (2) when Jehoshaphat (#2Ki viii:16) either retired from the administration of affairs, or made his son joint king, in his 23d year; (3) when Jehoshaphat died, in his 25th year. So that, if the supposition of Ussher be allowed, the accession of Jehoram king of Israel in Jehoshaphat’s 18th year synchronized with (1) the second year of the first accession, and (2) the fifth year before the second accession of Jehoram king of Judah. (b.) The date of the beginning of Uzziah’s reign (#2Ki xv:1) in the 27th year of Jeroboam II. cannot be reconciled with the statement that Uzziah’s father, Amaziah, whose whole reign was 29 years only, came to the throne in the second year of Joash (#2Ki xiv:1), and so reigned 14 years contemporaneously with Joash and 27 with Jeroboam. Ussher and others suggest a reconciliation of these statements by the supposition that Jeroboam’s reign had two commencements, the first not mentioned in Scripture, on his association with his father Joash, b. c. 837. But Keil, after Capellus and Grotius, supposes that zb is an error of the Hebrew copyists for wj, and that instead of 27th of Jeroboam we ought to read 15th. (c.) The statements that Jeroboam II. reigned 41 years (#2Ki xiv:23) after the 15th year of Amaziah, who reigned 29 years, and that Jeroboam’s son Zachariah came to the throne in the 38th year of Uzziah (#2Ki xv:8), cannot be reconciled without supposing that there was an interregnum of 11 years between Jeroboam and his son Zachariah. And almost all chronologists accept this as a fact, although it is not mentioned in the Bible. Some chronologists, who regard an interregnum as intrinsically improbable after the prosperous reign of Jeroboam, prefer the supposition that the number 41 in (#2Ki xiv:23) ought to be changed to 51, and that the number 27 in xv. 1 should be changed to 14, and that a few other corresponding alterations should be made. (d.) In order to bring down the date of Pekah’s murder to the date of Hoshea’s accession, some chronologists propose to read 29 years for 20, in (#2Ki xv:27). Others prefer to let the dates stand as at present in the text, and suppose that an interregnum, not expressly mentioned in the Bible, occurred between those two usurpers. The words of Isaiah (#Is ix:20, 21) seem to indicate a time of anarchy in Israel. The Chronology of the Kings has been minutely investigated by Abp. Ussher, Chronologia Sacra, Pars Posterior, De Annis Regum, Works, xii. 95-144; by Lightfoot, Order of the Texts of the O. T., Works, 1. 77-130; by Hales, New Analysis of Chronology, ii. 372-447; by Clinton, l. c.; and by H. Browne, Ordo Saeclorum. [See also D. Wolff, Versuch, die Widerspruche in den Jahrreihen der Könige Juda’s u. Isr. u. andere Differenzen in d. bibl. Chronol. auszugleichen, in the Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1858, pp. 625-688, and the references under Chronology, Amer. ed.— A.] W. T. B
|
||||||||||||||||
| 0-
ISRAEL, HISTORY OF
Contents:
ISRAEL, HISTORY OF Chronological Outline
*All dates will be assumed to be B.C. unless otherwise designated. The careful interpreter cautiously suggests a dating schema given the many uncertainties. This outline is one of several academically acceptable. See Chronology of the Biblical Period for dating alternatives to those used in this article. PREEXILIC PERIOD (1) The Patriarchal and Egyptian Periods (Genesis 12-50) Israel’s roots derive from the Mesopotamian Valley. Father Abraham was associated with Ur in the southern Mesopotamian Valley. About 2000, responding to a divine command, he began a journey with his tribe which took him initially from Ur to Haran. While at Haran, Abraham’s father, Terah, died, and a brother, Nahor, decided to settle at Haran. Abraham and his wife, Sarah, however, traveled onward to Canaan, where ultimately they established their home. To them was born Isaac, the son of promise, who was married to Rebekah, granddaughter of Nahor. To Isaac and Rebekah were born Jacob and Esau. Jacob, having made his way back to the region of Haran, married both Leah and Rachel, daughters of Laban, the brother of Rebekah. To Jacob and his wives were born twelve sons, who, having migrated to Egypt, became the foundation for the twelve tribes and for fulfillment of the promises originally made to Abraham. It was these tribal descendents with whom Moses was associated in the Exodus from Egypt in 1290. (2) The Exodus and the Wilderness Sojourn (Exodus 1-24; Exodus 32-34; Numbers 10-14) Israel is a product of the Sinaitic experience, begun when God called the "renegade" Moses to return to Egypt and deliver His people. Moving from Goshen in Egypt through God’s leadership in the miracle at the sea to the Sinai peninsula under Moses’ leadership, the Hebrews at Sinai ratified a covenant with the God Yahweh (Exodus 24), and thus Israel as a landless people came into being. For a period of eleven months they remained at Sinai. Traditionally, it is understood that the Torah was formulated during this period, although historical criticism postulates a longer period of development. Regardless, Israel departed Sinai as a covenant people who would continually struggle with God. The wilderness experience is set at forty years, the designation often used to indicate a generation. Through this period the generation that departed Egypt died, Yahweh’s judgment upon them because they refused to believe that the God of deliverance could also lead them into Canaan. (3) The Settlement (Joshua 1-24; Judges 1-16) Eventually, however, they entered Canaan via the tranjordanian area. Under the leadership of Joshua, they crossed the Jordan River and entered the "Promised Land" at Jericho. The Book of Joshua records the settlement of the Israelites into Canaan, first in mid-country, then in the south, and finally in the north. Joshua distributed the land among the tribes and renewed the Covenant (Joshua 24). For a period of approximately two centuries, the Israelites were centrally joined as autonomous tribes around the ark of the covenant, a loose relationship centering in common worship commitments. Over them divinely designated Judges emerged, men like Gideon and Samson, and one woman, Deborah. Gradually, any sense of unity broke down until "every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). (4) The United Monarchy (1 Samuel 1-3; 1 Samuel 8-15; 2 Samuel 1-6; 2 Samuel 9-20; 1 Kings 1-4; 1 Kings 6-8; 1 Kings 11) The period of the Judges presented problems for the Israelites, however, in that they could not assert centralized economic, political, or military strength in this disjointed condition. This situation, plus other factors such as the emergence of the Philistine threat, caused a clamoring for the establishment of kingship. Thus, about 1020, the Israelites moved politically into a monarchy. Saul (1020-1000) was Israel’s first king, although he often acted more as a Judge. Like the Judges, he understood himself designated by God to rule because of having received the Spirit of God. He fought valiantly against the Philistines, dying ultimately in the struggle. More importantly, he helped to pave the way for David, who fully lifted the nation into monarchical status. David (1000-965) is credited with uniting the people, however tenuous that relationship (2 Samuel 5:4-5); and he lifted Israel to the full flower of monarchical establishment. Having united the north and the south, he established Jerusalem as the capital of the kingdom, contained the Philistines, expanded Israel’s borders and her trade, and established a monarchical line that ruled in uninterrupted fashion, save one exception (Athaliah, 842-837), until the fall of Judah to Babylonia in 587. David’s son and successor was Solomon (965-922). Solomon inherited all that David had amassed, but he was able neither to build upon nor to maintain David’s kingdom. He did temporarily intensify trade, but he is remembered primarily for building the Temple in Jerusalem. Nonetheless, when Solomon died, his legacy was a division in the kingdom, so that, henceforth, we speak of Israel in the north and Judah in the south. (5) The Divided Monarchy (1 Kings-2 Kings; Amos; Hosea; Isaiah 1-39; Micah; Jeremiah) The north was contextually tied into international politics more than was the south, in part because the primary east-west trade route traversed Israel at the Valley of Jezreel. Israel was both the larger country and the more populous area. Her involvement in the larger world of nations meant that Israel was destined to fall politically more quickly than Judah. Israel fell to Assyria in 721, while Judah was conquered by Babylonia initially in 597. Israel emerged as a separate power under Jeroboam I (922-901 B.C.), the initial king over what became a rather turbulent nation. Nineteen kings ruled during the country’s two centuries of existence, and coup attempts brought eight succession crises. Jeroboam is most remembered, however, for his establishment of rival shrines at Dan and Bethel (1 Kings 12). These shrines were in the form of bull images and were constructed as a conscious attempt to compete with Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. During the ninth century the Omride dynasty was established in Israel, beginning with Omri (876-869) and concluding with Jehoram (849-842). Perhaps the central issue during this period resulted from the emergence of overt Baalism with the clarification that Yahwism could not coexist with Baalism, the worship surrounding the indigenous Canaanite god of fertility, Baal. This issue was addressed particularly during the reign of King Ahab (869-850) and under the auspices of the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 18-19). The worshiper of Yahweh could not worship both Yahweh and Baal. Jehu (842-815) took up the struggle against Baalism. He successfully overthrew King Jehoram (ending the Omride dynasty) and instigated a violent anti-Baalistic purge in Israel. Not only did Jehoram of Israel die; so, too, did Queen Jezebel, many of the Baal worshipers, and King Ahaziah of Judah, who just happened to visit his kin in Israel during the year of his coronation! This struggle against Baalism was a key factor in the emergence of Israel and Judah’s prophetic movement during the second half of the eighth century. During an approximate fifty-year period, two primary prophets spoke in the south—Isaiah (742-701) and Micah (724-701)—while two prophets spoke in the north—Amos (about 750) and Hosea (about 745). Amos emphasized especially social justice (Amos 5:24). He was particularly concerned that Israel recognize her covenantal responsibility before God (Amos 3:1-2). He was convinced that judgment was inevitable for Israel. (See especially the five visions recorded in Amos 7-9). Hosea, the only northern prophet whose message is recorded in a book bearing his name, was Israel’s eighth-century proponent of hesed ("covenant fidelity") theology. On the analogy of his relationship with his wife Gomer (Hosea 1-3), he exhorted Israel to be faithful to Yahweh. While assuring Israel of Yahweh’s love, Hosea warned her of impending judgment resulting from her abuse of the covenant relationship. The dangers the prophets saw materialized for Israel in the first quarter of the eighth century. King Hoshea (732-721) of Israel staged an anti-Assyrian revolt in anticipation of Egypt’s coming to Israel’s defense. Instead, the Assyrian troops under Shalmaneser V came to Israel and took the area around Samaria quickly. A siege of Samaria lasted for three years. During the siege Shalmaneser V died. Sargon II assumed the Assyrian throne and felled Samaria in 721. As per Assyrian policy, large numbers of the people of Samaria were deported to an unknown area, while peoples from another conquered area were imported into Samaria (2 Kings 17). This policy was intended to break down nationalism and to prevent political uprisings. In Israel’s case it ultimately precipitated the emergence of the hybrid people despised by the "pure" Jew. Later history designated these people as "Samaritans." The fall of Samaria in 721 marked the end of Israel as a part of the United Monarchy. The death of Solomon in 922 marked the beginning of Judah as the separated Southern Kingdom also. Solomon left the throne in Judah to his son, Rehoboam (922-915). Rehoboam ruled over a more stable country than Israel in that a consistent line of Davidic rulers governed the country from 922 until 587, with the one exception noted. During the ninth century crisis in Israel precipitated by Jehu’s revolt in 842, King Ahaziah (842) of Judah was killed. Ahaziah’s death resulted in the usurpation of Judah’s throne by the Queen Mother, Athaliah (842-837). Her five-year rule constituted the only non-Davidic break in the succession. More importantly, during this period a systematic attempt was made to establish Baalism also in Judah. The Southern Kingdom, in part because it housed the Jerusalem Temple and was thus the focus of Yahwism, did not embrace Baalism in the fashion of the north. Thus, when Yahwistic priests placed the young King Jehoash (837-800) on the throne, progress made by Baalism in displacing Yahwism was rapidly reversed. As indicated above, Judah shared in the flowering of the prophetic spirit in the eighth century. Isaiah of Jerusalem, who experienced his commission (see Isaiah 6) to be Yahweh’s prophet at the death of King Uzziah (742), was a prophetic spokesman during three political crises. During the rule of King Ahaz (735-715), he spoke in 735 at the time of the Syro-Israelite crisis (Isaiah 7). During the rule of King Hezekiah (715-687), Isaiah was a spokesman during two political crises. In 711 he warned against an Egyptian-led revolt against Assyria (Isaiah 20), and in 701 he was Yahweh’s spokesman when Sennacherib of Assyria laid siege to Jerusalem (Isaiah 36-37; see also 2 Kings 18-19). Isaiah is primarily remembered as the proponent of faith in Yahweh, letting Yahweh struggle against those who would oppress. This God of Isaiah was One who was best described by the concept of holiness (Isaiah 6:3). Micah of Moresheth (724-701) was the other eighth-century prophet in Judah. In many ways, Micah seemed to lack the original spirit of the other eighth century prophets. Micah 6:1-8, however, is an excellent description of a courtroom scene where Yahweh’s people are brought to trial for their constant rejection and transgression of the covenant. The climax to that passage, Micah 6:8, is perhaps the best definition of eighth century prophetic religion available to the modern interpreter. Israel having fallen in the eighth century, Judah continued into the seventh and early sixth centuries. The seventh century was both dismal and exalted. In the lengthy rule of Manasseh (687-642), Judah jettisoned much of the concern for exclusive Yahwism. Yahwistic prophets were persecuted; Baalism was encouraged; activities associated with the Assyrian astrological rites were incorporated; and the practice of human sacrifice was revived. This was, indeed, a dark period in Judah’s history. Very soon after Manasseh, however, King Josiah (640-609) reversed the decline Manasseh had set in motion. Under Josiah, and at least as early as 621, the Deuteronomic Reformation was instituted. This reform movement had a dual focus. On the one hand, Josiah sought to take advantage of the weakened conditions of both the Mesopotamian and Egyptian powers to unite anew the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. This political aspiration was coupled with a religious fervor for combating Baalism. Even the mandate that all sacrificial worship take place in the Jerusalem Temple was partially motivated by his desire to prevent the use of Baalistic "high places" and to keep all sacrificial activity where it could be carefully monitored to prevent Baalistic assimilation. This reform had long-range repercussions on the development of Yahwism and Judaism, but the primary impetus for the reform was removed with Josiah’s death in 609 as he fought against Pharaoh Necho of Egypt at Megiddo (2 Kings 23:29). Following Josiah’s death, the nation no longer had the leadership to sustain an effective reformation. Jehoiakim (609-598) waged a revolt against the nation’s Babylonian overlordship. Before Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon arrived, however, Jehoiakim died, bringing his son Jehoiachin (598-597) to the throne. Thus, Jehoiachin was taken into Exile in 597 when Nebuchadrezzar conquered Jerusalem. In his place Nebuchadrezzar placed Zedekiah (597-587). His revolt against Babylon in 588 led to the ultimate fall of Jerusalem, including the razing of the Jerusalem Temple by Nebuchadrezzar in 587. Thus the kingdom of Judah was ended, and the Babylonian Exile (597/587-539/538) initiated. The Babylonian Exile (Ezekiel, Isaiah 40-55) The Babylonian Exile was initiated in 597 by the initial deportation of Jerusalemites to Babylon, with additional deportations in 587 and 582 (Jeremiah 52:15). This was a significant period in the life of the people, although relatively few persons were involved (4,600 according to Jeremiah 52:30). Basically, life was not completely unacceptable, because the people enjoyed a degree of social and economic freedom. Nonetheless, they were secluded from Jerusalem and the Temple and hardly desired to sing Yahweh’s song in this strange land (Psalm 137). The Babylonian Exile, in spite of its relative brevity, was the benchmark in the religious development of the people. Most importantly, during and just following the Exile the Torah was drawn essentially into its present form. This provided the basis for the emergence of what authentically is Judaism and the Jews, "the people of the book." In addition, other literary products were formulated, including most of the written record associated with the preexilic prophets, the final editorial work on the Deuteronomic History (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings), and the prophetic contributions of Ezekiel and the anonymous figure known as Deutero- or Second Isaiah. Ezekiel was strongly nationalistic in his concerns, but nonetheless he made significant contributions. He increased the awareness that Yahweh has absolute mobility, that He was not geographically confined to Jerusalem (Ezekiel 1-3). While his message is often quite cryptic, he encouraged hope in the future (Ezekiel 33-39); and he suggested a type of "faith’s" blueprint for a restored Jerusalem (Ezekiel 40-48). The prophecies of Isaiah 40-55 spoke to conditions near the end of the Babylonian Exile (about 540), preparing the people for a second Exodus (Isaiah 40) and impressing upon them their role as the servant people of Yahweh (Isaiah 42:1-4; Isaiah 49:1-6; Isaiah 50:4-9; Isaiah 52:13-53:12). These chapters in Isaiah provide the first undisputed literary evidence for monotheism in the Bible (Isaiah 44:6; Isaiah 45:5), a concept inevitably coupled with Yahweh’s universality (Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 45:22). During the Exile an institution arose which was to have crucial influence on the future of Judaism, the synagogue. It was impossible to gather at the Temple in Jerusalem, so the synagogue became a social, educational, and religious center for the community. Importantly, the synagogue was never a place where sacrificial worship could be offered. Nonetheless, once Rome destroyed the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the synagogues preserved Judaism wherever Jews were settled. THE POSTEXILIC PERIOD (1) The Persian Period (Ezra 1; Ezra 5-6; Ezra 9-10; Neh. 1-6; Neh. 8-9; Neh. 13; Haggai; Zechariah; Obadiah; Malachi; Job; Ecclesiastes; Proverbs; Ruth; Jonah; Esther) Judah’s postexilic era began in late 539 with the entrance of the troops of Cyrus of Persia into Babylon. In early 538 Cyrus issued a decree (Ezra 1:2-4; Ezra 6:3-5) permitting the exiles to return home. Many did return under the leadership of Zerubbabel, a descendant of King Jehoiachin. Unfortunately, Zerubbabel mysteriously disappeared, probably because the Persians recognized the inherent dangers associated with some of the Jews thinking Zerubbabel to be the anticipated messiah (Haggai 2:20-23). Immediately following their return to Jerusalem, work was begun on rebuilding the Temple. For various reasons, they accomplished little. Eventually, primarily under the influence of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the Temple was rebuilt from 520 to 515; and the Temple worship reinstituted. The city remained defenseless until Nehemiah (appointed twice in 445 and 432 to be Persia’s governor in Judea) rebuilt and repaired the walls around the city. About the same time Ezra, (our first indication of the scribal office, lawyer of the Torah), came to Jerusalem and impressed upon the people the importance of placing Torah at the center of community life, giving birth to the modern phenomenon of Judaism. In the interval between the completion of the Temple (515) and Nehemiah’s first visit (445), several prophets spoke, each giving a sense of the period. Obadiah’s brief message was a hymn of hate against the Edomites, who had assumed Judah’s lands and homes when the people were taken into Exile. Joel emphasized the day of Yahweh as a day of Judah’s preservation coupled with the destruction of Edom and Egypt. Malachi addressed the need for reformation in worship, condemned the activities of the priesthood, denounced the intermarriage of Jews with non-Jews, and criticized the popular piety so prevalent in his day. One of the most important literary movements of the postexilic period was that associated with Wisdom Literature, represented in the Bible by the Books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs, plus some of the Psalms (Psalm 1; Psalm 32; Psalm 34; Psalm 37; Psalm 49; Psalm 91; Psalm 112; Psalm 119; Psalm 128). This literature borrowed heavily from Israel’s neighbors, as Proverbs 22:17-23:11, directed itself predominately to the youth (note the allegory on old age in Eccles. 12:1-8), and basically sought to enhance one’s ability to live a healthy and productive life, recognizing that the fear of God served as the basis for such a life. Job recounts the difficulties experienced by Job through loss of loved ones, deprivation of material goods, and an assault upon his physical health. Throughout his ordeal he remained firm in his conviction of God’s ultimate sovereignty, although his restiveness with his inability to understand (theodicy, or understanding the ways of God) certainly belies his characterization as patient. Regardless, the Book of Job does not give the reason for the suffering of innocent individuals; rather, it affirms that, if one will be submissive to God even in the midst of suffering, then one may experience a meaningful relationship with God even in the direst of circumstances. In this sense, the book was a direct attack on the idea that suffering automatically results from wrongdoing and reward from right action, as Job’s friends argued. Ecclesiastes, or Koheleth, is a very different type of book. Essentially, the author portrayed a life which can only be characterized as meaningless (Eccles. 1:2, "vanity"). The concern is whether any avenue might be successfully pursued to give meaning to life. The routes of pleasure (Eccles. 2:1-11), wisdom (Eccles. 2:12-16), wealth (most of Eccles. 4:13-6:12), and religious vows (Eccles. 5:1-6) were tried, but all to no avail. The nearest suggestion of a meaningful existence is in Eccles. 3:1-8 which suggests that, even though persons do not understand, they might find meaning by accepting the givenness of life. Perhaps through this acceptance, they might find themselves attuned to God’s purpose and hence discover meaning. The Book of Proverbs defies any systematic analysis. It deals with a multitude of subjects and in diverse manner, usually through the short, pithy saying but at least in Proverbs 31 through an extended poem. The subject orientation ranges from Yahweh as the Giver of life (Proverbs 1:1-7) to the importance of controlling one’s tongue (Proverbs 16:28). It emphasizes watchfulness in business (Proverbs 6:1-5) and in friendship (Proverbs 18:24). It contrasts being industrious (Proverbs 6:6-11) and lazy (Proverbs 24:30-34). While the book defies outline or categories, it is wisdom in the unique Hebraic sense. As Judaism developed, inevitably, debate rose as regards Yahweh’s availability to the non-Jew. Literarily, the Books of Ruth and Jonah encouraged the Jews to embrace all humankind within the umbrella of their faith, while the Book of Esther, which supports the highly nationalistic festival of Purim, encouraged a narrow patriotism which affirmed Yahweh to be God for the Jews protecting them from foreign enemies. This conflict was continued into New Testament times (Acts 15). (2) The Hellenistic Period Philip of Macedon was murdered in 336. This brought Alexander, his nineteen-year-old son who had earlier been tutored by Aristotle and who would later be designated Alexander the Great, to Philip’s throne. After two years spent in consolidating his power, Alexander crossed the Hellespont, beginning his bid for a unified Hellenistic Empire. Alexander was not quite 33 when he died unexpectedly in 323. By the time of his death, however, an indelible Hellenistic imprint had been left on the massive area he had conquered; assuredly Canaan sensed strongly this influence. Partly as a result of this Hellenization process, approximately
300, the chronicler’s history was formulated. The chronicler’s work
is composed of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Unlike Samuel and Kings,
Chronicles emphasizes the accomplishments of Judah and its Davidic
kings. It ignored many events that did not suit its purpose, such as the
David-Bethsheba story. The chronicler encouraged purity within the
Jewish worship practices in the face of Alexander’s Hellenization.
Closely related, the chronicler focused upon the conflict between the
supremacy of the Jerusalem cultus over that of the Samaritans. The emergence of the apocalyptic era coincided with events resultant to Alexander the Great’s fourth-century conquest of Canaan. When Alexander died in 323, his massive kingdom was thrown into turmoil. Eventually, the control of Canaan was contested between two of his successor rulers, Seleucus and Ptolemy. Resultant to battles waged between 200 and 198, the Seleucid ruler, Antiochus III (223-187), gained control of Canaan. The significance of this transition in power became clear only with his successor, Antiochus IV (187-175), who attempted a systematic destruction of Judaism. His attempts to eradicate the faith precipitated an uprising led by a priest, Mattathias, and his four sons. One of these sons, Judas Maccabeus, was the military architect of the revolt and the individual whose name the revolt bears, the Maccabean Revolt. The revolt was more successful than the Jews could have anticipated. On the twenty-fifth of Chislev, 165, Judas Maccabeus captured the Jerusalem Temple, purified it, and reinstituted the worship of Yahweh (the basis for the festival of Hanukkah). The Book of Daniel, clearly an apocalyptic book, focused on this era. By 142 the Jews were exempted from all Seleucid taxation, and in 129 all Seleucid soldiers were removed from the country. Once again, the Jews were totally free within the borders of their own country. The Psalter was finally completed in this era, though many of the 150 poems are preexilic (as Psalm 29). Some are exilic (as Psalm 137); some, post-exilic (as Psalm 119). The Psalter, as the hymnbook of the second Temple, is particularly important for portraying the people as a worshiping community through her diverse historical eras and for enlightening the multitude of problems and situations she encountered. (4) The Roman Period True freedom had been achieved through the Maccabean Revolt, but unfortunately the Hasmonean rule was constantly beset by internal dissension. In addition, intermarriage of Jews with non-Jews in surrounding countries precipitated conflict. This unrest came to a climax in 63 when the constant turmoil, which now involved the governor of Idumaea and the Nabataean king, brought Pompey, the Roman general to Judea. Jerusalem fell; and the country, henceforth designated as the Roman province of Palestine, continued under Roman control until the fourth Christian century. Jewish history beyond the Roman conquest would clearly fall within the postexilic rubric, and a rich history it is as one traces Jewish development. Nonetheless, the beginning of the Roman era is the outside limit for canonical Old Testament history and carries the thrust of this essay to its logical conclusion.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 0- Jew - Judah Kingdom JEW The name derived from the patriarch Judah, at first given to one
belonging to the tribe of Judah or to the separate kingdom of Judah #2Ki
16:6 25:25 Jer 32:12 38:19 40:11 41:3 in contradistinction from
those belonging to the kingdom of the ten tribes, who were called
Israelites.
============== When the disruption took place at Shechem, at first only the tribe
of Judah followed the house of David. But very soon
after the tribe of Benjamin joined the tribe of Judah, and Jerusalem
became the capital of the new kingdom #Jos 18:28
which was called the kingdom of Judah.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 0-
TRIBES OF ISRAEL, THE
Contents:
TRIBES OF ISRAEL, THE Social and political groups in Israel claiming descent from one of the twelve sons of Jacob.The Tribal Unit The tribal unit played an important role in the history of the formation of the nation Israel. In ancient times a nation was referred to as "a people," an ‘am; in Israel’s case it was the "people of Israel." The nation in turn was made up of "tribes." The "tribe," a shebet or matteh, was the major social unit that comprised the makeup of the nation. The tribe was comprised of "clans." The "clan," a mishpachah, was a family of families or a cluster of households that had a common ancestry. The clan was comprised then of the individual households or families referred to as the "father’s house" the beth ab. Actually, the family in ancient times might be made up of several families living together and forming one household (Numbers 3:24). Tribal Origins The ancestral background of "the tribes of Israel" went back to the patriarch Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. The nation Israel was identified as "the children of Israel, or more literally "the sons of Israel." According to the biblical account, the family of Jacob, from which the tribes came, originated in north Syria during Jacob’s stay at Haran with Laban his uncle. Eleven of the twelve sons were born at Haran, while the twelfth, Benjamin was born after Jacob returned to Canaan. The birth of the sons came through Jacob’s wives Leah and Rachel and their maids Zilpah and Bilhah. The sons of Leah included Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah (Genesis 29:31-35), Issachar and Zebulun, as well as one daughter named Dinah (Genesis 30:19-21). Rachel’s sons were Joseph (Genesis 30:22-24), who became the father of Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 41:50-52), and Benjamin (Genesis 35:16-18). Jacob’s sons through Zilpah, Leah’s maid, were Gad and Asher (Genesis 30:9-13), while Bilhah, the maid of Rachel, bore Dan and Naphtali (Genesis 30:1-8). This family of families or family of tribes occupied the focal point in the history of the development of Israel as a nation. While there are details of that history that we do not clearly understand and other groups simply referred to as "a mixed multitude" (Exodus 12:38) that were perhaps incorporated into the nation, the central focus is always on the "tribes of Israel," the descendants of Jacob. For that reason lists of the twelve sons of Jacob or of the tribes appear in several places in the Old Testament, though the lists vary somewhat. Some of the major lists include that of Jacob’s blessing of the twelve (Genesis 49), the review of the households as the period of oppression in Egypt is introduced (Exodus 1:1-10), Moses’ blessing of the tribes (Deut. 33), and the song of Deborah (Judges 5). The Tribes of Israel Each tribe had its own history in its allotment of land. We know few details about the individual tribes. (1) Reuben, the firstborn son of Jacob by his wife Leah, was in line to assume a leadership role in the family, but he forfeited that right because of an illicit affair he had with his father’s concubine Bilhah (Genesis 35:22). The impact of this reflected in Jacob’s blessing where Reuben is addressed as "unstable as water, you shall no longer excel because you went up on to your father’s bed" (Genesis 49:4 NRSV). At the time of the migration of Jacob’s family to Egypt, Reuben had four sons (Genesis 46:8-9). In some of the lists of the tribes of Israel, Reuben is mentioned first (Exodus 1:1-4; Numbers 1:5), while in other lists Reuben appears further down (Numbers 2:1-11). During the journey through the wilderness, the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Gad formed the second unit of the procession with the tribe of Reuben in the lead position (Numbers 10:17-20). This cluster of tribes headed by the tribe of Reuben was next in line after the tabernacle (Numbers 10:17). As the tribes approached the land of Canaan and allotments were made to each tribe, the tribe of Reuben along with Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh occupied the Transjordan, that is the highland plateau region east of the Jordan River (Joshua 13:8-31); compare Numbers 32:1-5; Numbers 32:33-42). The tribe of Reuben occupied the southern region extending roughly from the Arnon river to the site of Heshbon (Joshua 13:15-23). Formerly, this territory was the homeland of the kingdom of Sihon. While we know little about the tribe of Reuben during the period of the settlement, the song of Deborah suggests that the tribe was criticized by some of the other tribes for not taking a more active role in the conquest (Judges 5:15-16). (2) Simeon was Jacob’s second son by Leah and played a key role in the encounter Dinah had with Shechem. Because Simeon and Levi were full brothers of Dinah, they sought to avenge her (Genesis 34:25-26) for Shechem’s actions (Genesis 34:1-4). The radical response of the two brothers, in which they "took their swords and came against the city unawares, and killed all the males" (Genesis 34:25), is reflected in Jacob’s blessing of the two: "Weapons of violence are their swords. . . . cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel" (Genesis 49:5-7 NRSV). During the years of famine as the sons of Jacob traveled back and forth between Egypt and Canaan, Simeon was held hostage by Joseph at one point (Genesis 42:24). In the lists of the tribes, Simeon is listed in second place, that is, next after Reuben (Exodus 1:2; Exodus 6:15; Numbers 1:6; Numbers 1:22-23; Numbers 13:5; Numbers 26:12-14). Generally, the tribe of Simeon seems to be characterized by weakness. Its status is best reflected in the final statement of Jacob’s blessing of Simeon and Levi: "I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel" (Genesis 49:7). Perhaps because of its weak status, the tribe of Simeon apparently was not given a separate inheritance in the land (Joshua 19:1-9). Rather, "its inheritance lay within the inheritance of the tribe of Judah" (Joshua 19:1), in the southern Negeb. (3) Levi was the third son of Jacob and Leah. During the journey from Egypt to Canaan, the sons of Levi slaughtered 3,000 rebellious Hebrew males (Exodus 32:25-29). They became the landless priestly tribe. (4) Judah, the fourth son of Jacob by his wife Leah (Genesis 29:35), appears as a leader and a spokesman among his brothers (Genesis 37:26; Genesis 43:3; Genesis 44:16; compare Genesis 46:28). Judah was promised preeminence over the other tribes in Jacob’s blessing (Genesis 49:8-12). In the journey from Egypt to Canaan, Judah has the lead position (Numbers 2:9). As the tribes entered the land, it was Achan of the tribe of Judah who was guilty of taking some of the forbidden booty or loot from Jericho (Joshua 7). The tribe of Judah occupied the southern part of Palestine, basically the territory between the Dead Sea on the east to the Mediterranean on the west (Joshua 15). The northern boundary of Judah was marked by the territories of Benjamin and Dan. The territory of Jerusalem may have formed something of a barrier between Judah and the tribes of the north because it was not finally secured until the time of David (2 Samuel 5:6-10). The capture of Jerusalem by David paved the way for the tribes to have a kind of unity they had not previously experienced. The territory of the tirbe of Judah constituted the major portion of the Southern Kingdom, thus forming the kingdom of Judah with its capital Jerusalem. (5) Issachar was the ninth son born to Jacob, but the first of a second family he had by Leah (Genesis 30:18). Beyond his birth, little else is known about his life or that of the tribe. During the journey from Mount Sinai to Canaan the tribe of Issachar followed the tribe of Judah, that is, it was a part of the first cluster of tribes located on the east side of the tabernacle (Numbers 2:5). The territory occupied by the tribe of Issachar is difficult to outline precisely (Joshua 19:17-23). They were located west of the Jordan in the region just south of the Sea of Galilee stretching on down to the Valley of Jezreel. Because the blessing of Moses says that Zebulun and Issachar "call peoples to the mountain; / there they offer the right sacrifices" (Deut. 33:19 NRSV), some have speculated that the two tribes perhaps had a center of worship on Mount Tabor, a mountain located on the border between the two tribes. Because the blessing of Jacob speaks of Issachar as a beast of burden and as "a slave at forced labor" (Genesis 49:14-15 NRSV), the tribe of Issachar may have faced a variety of hardships. For instance there may have been a time during the tribal period when the people of Issachar served as slaves in the forced labor projects of their neighbors, the Canaanites. (6) Zebulun was the tenth son of Jacob and the sixth and final son by his wife Leah (Genesis 30:19-20). Little else is known about Zebulun’s life. The territory allotted to the tribe of Zebulun was in the north in the region of southern Galilee bounded by Issachar on the south southeast, Naphtali on the east, and Asher on the west (Joshua 19:10-16). The blessing of Jacob speaks of Zebulun’s territory including "the shore of the sea," presumably the Mediterranean Sea, and "his border shall be at Sidon," (Genesis 49:13 NRSV) a city on the coast north of Mount Carmel. While this territory was traditionally occupied by the tribe of Asher, it is quite possible that at some point Zebulun occupied a part of this region and, therefore, would have had access to the sea. The blessing of Moses further states that Zebulum along with Issachar would benefit from "the affluence of the seas and the hidden treasures of the sand" (Deut. 33:19 NRSV). During the period that the tribes were settling in the land of Canaan, Zebulun apparently went beyond the call of duty in providing support. It is the only tribe in the Song of Deborah to be mentioned twice (Judges 5:14; Judges 5:18). (7) Joseph was the first son born to Jacob by Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife (Genesis 30:22-24). Two of the tribes of Israel came from Joseph, namely, Ephraim and Manasseh. The story of Joseph is the most eventful of the sons of Jacob. Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (Genesis 41:50-52), who were born in Egypt. Ephraim and Manasseh were adopted by Jacob and therefore each became the father of a tribe in Israel (Genesis 48:8-20). While Manasseh was the older of the two, Jacob gave preference to Ephraim (Genesis 48:14; compare Deut. 33:17). The Blessing of Jacob (Genesis 49:22-26) mentions only Joseph; the Blessing of Moses (Deut. 33:13-17) begins with Joseph and notes Ephriam and Manasseh, the song of Deborah (Judges 5:14) speaks of Ephraim and Machir. (a) Ephraim occupied a major portion of the central hill country with Manasseh during the tribal period. Ephraim’s territory consisted of the region just north of Dan and Benjamin and ran from the Jordan River on the east to the Mediterranean Sea on the west. That Ephraim played a major leadership role among the tribes is reflected in the tribal history. Joshua, one of the twelve spies and a member of the tribe of Ephraim, became the successor of Moses (Numbers 13:8; Numbers 13:16; Joshua 1:1-11). Ephraim demanded leadership in the period of the judges (Judges 3:27; Judges 4:5; Judges 7:24; Judges 8:1; Judges 10:1; Judges 12:1-6; Judges 17:1; Judges 18:2; Judges 18:13; Judges 19:1). Shiloh, located in the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, became the major center of worship during the tribal period (Joshua 18:1; 1 Samuel 1:1-18). Samuel, the leader of the tribes (1 Samuel 7:15-17) near the end of the period of the Judges and just prior to the beginning of the kinship, came from Ephraim (1 Samuel 1:1-20). Ephraim’s influence is seen not only during the tribal period, but in Israel’s later history as well. For instance, as the nation Israel divided into two kingdoms following the death of Solomon in 922 B.C., it was an Ephraimite named Jeroboam who led the northern tribes in their plea for leniency (1 Kings 12:1-5). When Rehoboam rejected their plea, the northern tribes broke their ties with the south, formed a separate kingdom (1 Kings 12:16-19), and selected Jeroboam as their king (1 Kings 12:20). Ephraim’s influence is seen also during the time of the prophets. For instance, Hosea refers to Israel some three dozen times using the name Ephraim as being synonymous with Israel. (b) Manasseh was the oldest son of Joseph and Asenath. The tribe of Manasseh occupied territory both east and west of the Jordan River. Manasseh’s terrotory east of the Jordan included the regions of Gilead and Bashan and most likely extended from the Jabbok River to near Mount Hermon. Manasseh’s territory west of the Jordan was located north of Ephraim. Apparently, the tribe of Manasseh played an important role in the conquest. For instance the sons of Machir, Manasseh’s son took the land of Gilead and drove out the Amorites who occupied it (Numbers 32:39; compare Judges 5:14); while other descendants of Manasseh engaged in the activities of the conquest elsewhere (Numbers 32:41-42). Perhaps Gideon is the most familiar of the descendants of Manasseh (Judges 6:12-15). Gideon defeated the Midianites with a small band of men (Judges 6-7). (8) Benjamin was Jacob’s youngest son, born to him by Rachel, and the only son born after returning to Palestine from Haran (Genesis 35:16-20). He was the only full-blooded brother of Joseph. Therefore, the tribes of Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh formed a special group. Benjamin’s tribal territory was a small area west of the Jordan, sandwiched between Ephraim to the north and Judah to the south (Joshua 18:11-28). The Benjaminites had a reputation as men of war. The blessing of Jacob refers to them as a "ravenous wolf" (Genesis 49:27 NRSV). The Book of Judges notes their activities as warriors during the tribal period (Judges 5:14; Judges 20:12-16). They were referred to as those "who were left-handed" and experts with the sling (Judges 20:16 NRSV). The story of the Levite and his concubine reflects the inhumane acts for which the Benjaminites were responsible (Judges 19). The second judge, Ehud (Judges 3:12-30), and the first king, Saul (1 Samuel 9:15-17; 1 Samuel 10:1), came from the tribe of Benjamin. (9) Dan was the fifth son of Jacob and the first of two sons by Bilhah, Rachel’s maid (Genesis 30:5-8). Therefore, Dan and Naphtali were full-blooded brothers and are often mentioned together (Genesis 46:23-24; Exodus 1:4). The tribe of Dan originally occupied the territory just west of Benjamin with Ephraim on the north and Judah and the Philistines on the south (Joshua 19:40-48). Shortly after settling in this area, the Amorites and the Philistines apparently attempted to drive them out of the region (Judges 1:34-36). The pressure and harassment the people of Dan experienced from the Philistines is reflected in the stories of Samson, the Danite, and his encounters with them (Judges 13-16). The Philistine pressure resulted in the migration of the tribe to an area north of Lake Hula, to the city of Laish and its territory (Judges 18:14-27). The people of Dan captured the city and renamed it Dan (Judges 18:29). (10) Naphtali was the sixth son of Jacob and younger full-blooded brother of Dan (Genesis 30:6-8). The name, Naphtali, which conveys the idea of "wrestling" was selected because of the personal struggles between Rachel and Leah (Genesis 30:7-8). The Bible provides little information concerning Naphtali the person or tribe. During the tribal period the tribe of Naphtali occupied the broad strip of land west of the Jordan in the area of Lake Hula and the Sea of Chinnereth (Galilee). This band of land ran from Issachar and Zebulun in the south to near Dan in the north (Joshua 19:32-39). Apparently, the tribe of Naphtali provided forces during the conquest of the land (Judges 5:18) and during the Midianite threat (Judges 6:35; Judges 7:23). (11) Gad was the seventh son of Jacob and the first of two sons by Zilpah, the maid of Leah (Genesis 30:9-11). Because Leah saw this birth as a sign of "good fortune," especially in the light of the fact that she had ceased having children, she named him "Gad" which means "fortune" (Genesis 30:11 NRSV). We know very little about Gad the patriarch beyond the brief details about his birth. The tribe’s territory was the east side of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, including a part of the region called Gilead (Numbers 32:34-36; Joshua 13:24-28), extending from the region of the Jabbok River in the north to the region of the Arnon River in the south. According to the blessing of Jacob the tribe of Gad perhaps experienced numerous raids (Genesis 49:19) especially from groups like the Ammonites as reflected in the story of Jephthah (Judges 11). Perhaps such raids were prompted by the fact that Gad occupied some of the best land in the Transjordan (Deut. 33:20-21). Apparently the men of Gad achieved great expertise as warriors (1 Chron. 12:8). (12) Asher was the eighth son of Jacob, the second son by Zilpah and the younger full-blooded brother of Gad (Genesis 30:9-13). Like Gad, little information is shared about the patriarch Asher. The tribe of Asher occupied the region west of Zebulun and Naphtali, that is, the northern coastal region of Palestine. The territory extended from near Mount Carmel in the south to near Tyre in the north (Joshua 19:24-31). Asher is the only tribe not recognized as providing a judge during the tribal period. While Asher occupied choice territory (Genesis 49:20), it apparently was reproached and perhaps failed to gain the respect of some of the other tribes (Judges 5:17b). Conclusion While discussion and research will continue concerning the history of the tribes and the territory they occupied, the tribal period will always be recognized as an important though enigmatic period in the development of the history of Israel. With the development of the monarchy the tribal period came to an end; however, tribal ties and traditions may have continued to be quite strong. Many scholars suggest that tribal jealousies and traditions played a major role in bringing about the division of the kingdom and the formation of two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom in 922 B.C.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 0- Palestine
Originally denoted only the sea-coast of the land of Canaan inhabited by the Philistines #Ex 15:14 Isa 14:29,31 Joe 3:4 and in this sense exclusively the Hebrew name Pelesheth (rendered "Philistia" in) #Ps 60:8 83:7 87:4 108:9 occurs in the Old Testament. Not till a late period in Jewish history was this name used to denote "the land of the Hebrews" in general #Ge 40:15 It is also called:
The territory promised as an inheritance to the seed of Abraham #Ge 15:18-21 Nu 34:1-12 was bounded on the east by the river Euphrates, on the west by the Mediterranean, on the north by the "entrance of Hamath," and on the south by the "river of Egypt." This extent of territory, about 60,000 square miles, was at length conquered by David, and was ruled over also by his son Solomon #2Sa 8:1ff. #1Ch 18:1ff. #1Ki 4:1,21 This vast empire was the Promised Land; but Palestine was only a part of it, terminating in the north at the southern extremity of the Lebanon range, and in the south in the wilderness of Paran, thus extending in all to about 144 miles in length. Its average breadth was about 60 miles from the Mediterranean on the west to beyond the Jordan. It has fittingly been designated "the least of all lands." Western Palestine, on the south of Gaza, is only about 40 miles in breadth from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, narrowing gradually toward the north, where it is only 20 miles from the sea-coast to the Jordan. Palestine, "set in the midst" #Eze 5:5 of all other lands, is the most remarkable country on the face of the earth. No single country of such an extent has so great a variety of climate, and hence also of plant and animal life. Moses describes it as "a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt not eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass" #De 8:7-9 "In the time of Christ the country looked, in all probability, much as now. The whole land consists of rounded limestone hills, fretted into countless stony valleys, offering but rarely level tracts, of which Esdraelon alone, below Nazareth, is large enough to be seen on the map. The original woods had for ages disappeared, though the slopes were dotted, as now, with figs, olives, and other fruit-trees where there was any soil. Permanent streams were even then unknown, the passing rush of winter torrents being all that was seen among the hills. The autumn and spring rains, caught in deep cisterns hewn out like huge underground jars in the soft limestone, with artificial mud-banked ponds still found near all villages, furnished water. Hills now bare, or at best rough with stunted growth, were then terraced, so as to grow vines, olives, and grain. To-day almost desolate, the country then teemed with population. Wine-presses cut in the rocks, endless terraces, and the ruins of old vineyard towers are now found amidst solitudes overgrown for ages with thorns and thistles, or with wild shrubs and poor gnarled scrub" (Geikie’s Life of Christ). From an early period the land was inhabited by the descendants of Canaan, who retained possession of the whole land "from Sidon to Gaza" till the time of the conquest by Joshua, when it was occupied by the twelve tribes. Two tribes and a half had their allotments given them by Moses on the east of the Jordan #De 3:12-20 comp. #Nu 1:17-46 Jos 4:12-13 The remaining tribes had their portion on the west of Jordan. From the conquest till the time of Saul, about four hundred years, the people were governed by judges. For a period of one hundred and twenty years the kingdom retained its unity while it was ruled by Saul and David and Solomon. On the death of Solomon, his son Rehoboam ascended the throne; but his conduct was such that ten of the tribes revolted, and formed an independent monarchy, called the kingdom of Israel, or the northern kingdom, the capital of which was first Shechem and afterwards Samaria. This kingdom was destroyed. The Israelites were carried captive by Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, B.C. 722 after an independent existence of two hundred and fifty-three years. The place of the captives carried away was supplied by tribes brought from the east, and thus was formed the Samaritan nation #2Ki 17:24-29 Nebuchadnezzar came up against the kingdom of the two tribes, the kingdom of Judah, the capital of which was Jerusalem, one hundred and thirty-four years after the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel. He overthrew the city, plundered the temple, and carried the people into captivity to Babylon (B.C. 587) where they remained seventy years. At the close of the period of the Captivity, they returned to their own land, under the edict of Cyrus #Ezr 1:1-4 They rebuilt the city and temple, and restored the old Jewish commonwealth. For a while after the Restoration the Jews were ruled by Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and afterwards by the high priests, assisted by the Sanhedrin. After the death of Alexander the Great at Babylon (B.C. 323) his vast empire was divided between his four generals. Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, and Coele-Syria fell to the lot of Ptolemy Lagus. Ptolemy took possession of Palestine in B.C. 320 and carried nearly one hundred thousand of the inhabitants of Jerusalem into Egypt. He made Alexandria the capital of his kingdom, and treated the Jews with consideration, confirming them in the enjoyment of many privileges. After suffering persecution at the hands of Ptolemy’s successors, the Jews threw off the Egyptian yoke, and became subject to Antiochus the Great, the king of Syria. The cruelty and opression of the successors of Antiochus at length led to the revolt under the Maccabees (B.C. 163) when they threw off the Syrian yoke. In the year B.C. 68 Palestine was reduced by Pompey the Great to a Roman province. He laid the walls of the city in ruins, and massacred some twelve thousand of the inhabitants. He left the temple, however, unijured. About twenty-five years after this the Jews revolted and cast off the Roman yoke. They were however, subdued by Herod the Great (q.v.). The city and the temple were destroyed, and many of the inhabitants were put to death. About B.C. 20 Herod proceeded to rebuild the city and restore the ruined temple, which in about nine years and a half was so far completed that the sacred services could be resumed in it (comp.) #Joh 2:20 He was succeeded by his son Archelaus, who was deprived of his power, however, by Augustus, A.D. 6 when Palestine became a Roman province, ruled by Roman governors or procurators. Pontius Pilate was the fifth of these procurators. He was appointed to his office A.D. 25 Exclusive of Idumea, the kingdom of Herod the Great comprehended the whole of the country originally divided among the twelve tribes, which he divided into four provinces or districts. This division was recognized so long as Palestine was under the Roman dominion. These four provinces were,
|
||||||||||||||||
| 0-
PALESTINE LAND of the BIBLE
Contents:
PALESTINE (Pahl’ es tighne) Geographical designation for land of Bible, particularly land west of Jordan River God allotted to Israel for an inheritance (Joshua 13-19). Various terms have been used to designate that small but significant land known in the early Old Testament era as "Canaan" (Genesis 12:5) and often referred to as the Promised Land (Deut. 9:28). The area was designated "Israel" and "Judah" at the division of the kingdoms in 931 B.C. By New Testament times the land had been divided into provincial designations, "Judea," "Samaria," "Galilee," and others. Generally, the region was considered to be a part of Syria.Palestine is derived from the name Pelishtim or "Philistines." The Greeks, familiar primarily with the coastal area, applied the name Palestine to the entire southeastern Mediterranean region. Although the word Palestine (or Palestina) is found four times in the KJV (Exodus 15:14; Isaiah 14:29; Isaiah 14:31; Joel 3:4), these are references to the territory of the Philistines and so properly designate only the strip of coastland occupied by that people. For the purposes of this article, Palestine extends to the north ten to fifteen miles beyond the ancient site of Dan and New Testament Caesarea Philippi into the gorges and mountains just south of Mount Hermon. To the east, it extends to the Arabian steppe. To the south, Palestine extends ten to fifteen miles beyond Beer-sheba. On the west is the Mediterranean Sea. It therefore includes western Palestine—between the Jordan River and the Sea, and eastern Palestine—between the Jordan and the Arabian steppe. Palestine west of the Jordan covers approximately 6,000 square miles. East of the Jordan an area of about 4,000 square miles was included in the land of Israel. Geographical Features Palestine is naturally divided into four narrow strips of land running north and south. (1) Coastal plain This very fertile plain begins ten to twelve miles south of Gaza, just north of the Egyptian border, and stretches northward to the Sidon-Tyre area. Usually it is divided into three sections: 1. the Plain of Philistia, roughly from south of Gaza to Joppa (Tel Aviv); 2. the Plain of Sharon, from Joppa north to the promontory of the Carmel chain; and 3. the detached Plain of Acco, which merges with the Plain of Esdraelon, the historic gateway inland and to the regions to the north and east. The Plain of Sharon varies from a width of a few hundred yards just south of Carmel to more than twelve miles wide near Joppa. Covered with fertile alluvial soil and well watered by springs, the area was once covered with extensive forests. Further south is the Plain of Philistia. Here were located the Philistine strongholds of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. Salt marshes—the Serbonian bog—located at the southern end of the Philistine plain have been known as breeding grounds of disease. Forming the southwestern end of the Fertile Crescent, the coastal plain has been the highway of commerce and conquest for centuries. This was the route followed by the Hittites and the Egyptians, by Cambyses, Alexander, Pompey, and Napoleon. The coastal plain lacked an outstanding natural harbor. Joppa had roughly semicircular reefs that formed a breakwater 300 to 400 feet offshore and, consequently, was used as a port. Entrance from the south was impossible, however, and the north entrance was shallow and treacherous. Herod the Great developed Caesarea Maritima into an artificial port of considerable efficiency. (2) Central Hill Country The second strip of land is the mountainous ridge beginning just north of Beer-sheba and extending through all of Judea and Samaria into upper Galilee. Actually, the rugged terrain running the length of the land is a continuation of the more clearly defined Lebanon Mountains to the north. The only major break in the mountain range is the Plain of Esdraelon also called the Valley of Jezreel. Three divisions are evident: Judea, Samaria, Galilee. 1. Judea Rising from the parched Negeb (Negeb means "parched" or "dry land"), the Judean hills reach their highest point, 3,370 feet, near Hebron. Jerusalem is located in the Judean hills at an elevation of 2,600 feet. The eastern slopes form the barren and rugged "wilderness of Judea," then fall abruptly to the floor of the Jordan Valley. The wilderness is treeless and waterless. Deep gorges and canyons cut into the soft sedimentary formations. The western foothills of Judea are called the "Shephelah," meaning "valley" or "lowland." The name has been inaccurately applied to the Plain of Philistia, but the towns assigned by the Old Testament to the Shephelah are all situated in the low hills rather than the plain. The Shephelah is a belt of gently rolling hills between 500 and 1,000 feet in height. Five valleys divide the region, from the Wadi el Hesy in the south to the Valley of Ajalon in northern Judea. These passes have witnessed the conflicts between Saul and the Philistines, the Maccabees and the Syrians, the Jews and the Romans, Richard I and Saladin. Here Samson grew to manhood. Here David encountered Goliath. The Shephelah had great military importance. It formed a buffer between Judea and the enemies of the Hebrew people—Philistines, Egyptians, Syrians. Formerly heavily wooded with sycamores, the region served to impede an attack from the west. 2. Samaria The hills of Samaria descend gently from the Judean mountains, averaging just over 1,000 feet in height. Several notable mountains such as Gerizim (2,890 feet), Ebal (3,083), and Gilboa (1,640 feet) dominate the area. This land of mountains is marked by wide and fertile valleys. Here the majority of the people lived during the Old Testament era, and here significant events of Hebrew history took place. The openness of Samaria is a prominent feature of the land, making movement much easier than in Judea and thus inviting armies and chariots from the north. The valley between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim was a central location, apparently providing the perfect point from which a united nation could have been governed. Roads went in all directions—to Galilee, the Jordan Valley, south to Jerusalem. Here Shechem was located, important to the patriarchs and in the day of the judges. Shechem, however, had no natural defenses and was consequently rejected by the kings of Israel as their capital. From this region the main range of mountains sends out an arm to the northwest that reaches the coast at Mount Carmel. Carmel reaches a height of only 1,791 feet, but it seems more lofty because it rises directly from the coastline. It receives abundant rainfall, an average of 28 to 32 inches per year, and consequently is rather densely covered with vegetation, including some woodland. The Carmel range divides the Plain of Sharon from the narrow coastal plain of Phoenicia. It forms the southern side of the Plain of Esdraelon, with the ancient fortress of Megiddo standing as one of its key cities. This natural barrier caused the passes in the Carmel chain to achieve unusual importance, lying as it does on the historic route between Egypt and Mesopotamia. 3. Galilee North of the Plain of Esdraelon and south of the Leontes River lies the region called Galilee. The name comes from the Hebrew galil, meaning, literally "circle" or "ring." In Isaiah 9:1, the prophet refers to it as "Galilee of the Gentiles" (NIV). The tribes of Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulun were assigned to this area. There is evidence of mixed population and racial variety from early times. In the day of Jesus, many Gentiles were in Galilee. The region is divided into Upper Galilee and Lower Galilee. Lower Galilee is a land of limestone hills and fertile valleys. Most of the region is approximately 500 feet above sea level—but with mountains like Tabor reaching a height of 1,929 feet. Grain, grass, olives, and grapes were abundant. Fish, oil, and wine were common exports. Several major international roads crossed the area, and caravan traffic from Damascus through Capernaum to the south was heavy. Josephus spoke of Galilee as "universally rich and fruitful." Some of the most important cities of Galilee were on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Those on the northwestern shore, such as Capernaum, were more Jewish than those to the south. Tiberias, built in A.D. 25 by Herod Antipas and named after the reigning caesar, became the capital and the most important city during the New Testament era. The terrain of Upper Galilee is much more rugged than Lower Galilee, an area of deeply fissured and roughly eroded tableland with high peaks and many wadis. The highest peak is Mount Meron, at 3,963 feet the highest point in Palestine. The basic rock is limestone, in the eastern sections often covered with volcanic rock. In the east, Galilee drops off abruptly to the Jordan, while farther south, near the Sea of Galilee, the slopes become much more gradual and gentle. (3) Jordan Rift Valley As a result of crustal faulting, the hills of Palestine drop into the deepest split on the surface of the earth. The fault is part of a system that extends north to form the valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon chains, also extending south to form the Dead Sea, the dry Arabah Valley, the Gulf of Aqabah, and, eventually, the chain of lakes on the African continent. The Jordan River has its source in several springs, primarily on the western and southern slopes of Mount Hermon. Several small streams come together near Dan, then flow into shallow, reedy Lake Hula (Huleh). From its sources to Hula the Jordan drops somewhat less than 1,000 feet over a distance of twelve miles, entering Lake Hula at 230 feet above sea level (not 7 feet, as reported by some older publications). In recent years the Jordan bed has been straightened after it leaves Hula, the swamps of the valley have been drained, and the size of the lake has been greatly reduced. Most of the area is now excellent farmland. Over the eleven miles from Hula to the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan drops 926 feet, flowing in part through a narrow canyon. From Galilee to the Dead Sea there is an additional drop of 600 feet. The Sea of Galilee is a significant part of the upper Rift Valley and is formed by a widening of it. It has several names—the Lake of Gennesaret, the Sea of Tiberias, Lake Chinnereth—but it is best known as the Sea of Galilee. Around it most of the ministry of Jesus took place. Here He could rest, escape crowds, find cool relief from the heat. Shaped much like a harp, it is thirteen miles long and seven miles wide. The hard basalt environment has given the lake an almost constant level and size. In the New Testament day, the lake was the center of a thriving fishing industry. The towns around the lake testify to this fact: Bethsaida means "fishing place," and Tarichea is from a Greek term meaning "preserved fish." As the Jordan flows south out of the Sea of Galilee, it enters a gorge called the Ghor, or "depression." The meandering Jordan and its periodic overflows have created the Zor, or "jungle," a thick growth of entangled semitropical plants and trees. Although the distance from the lower end of the Sea of Galilee to the upper end of the Dead Sea is only 65 miles, the winding Jordan twists 200 miles to cover that distance. The Ghor is about twelve miles wide at Jericho. Seven miles south of Jericho, the Jordan flows into the Dead Sea, one of the world’s most unique bodies of water. The surface of the water is 1,296 feet below sea level, the lowest point on the surface of the earth. Forty-seven miles long and eight miles wide, the Dead Sea has no outlet. It has been calculated that an average of 6.5 million tons of water enter the sea each day. The result of centuries of evaporation is that now 25 percent of the weight of the water is mineral salts. Magnesium chloride gives the water a bitter taste, and calcium chloride gives it an oily touch. Fish cannot live in Dead Sea water. Indeed, it destroys almost all organic life in it and around it. Thirty miles down the eastern side, a peninsula, the Lisan, or the "Tongue," juts into the sea. North of it the sea is deep, reaching a maximum depth of 1,319 feet—2,650 feet below sea level. South of the peninsula the sea is very shallow, with a maximum depth of thirteen feet. It is thought that this area is the location of "the cities of the Plain" (Genesis 13:12), Sodom and Gomorrah. (4) Transjordan Plateau East of the Jordan is an area where the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh settled. In New Testament times, Decapolis and Perea were located there. The ministry of Jesus took Him to limited parts of these provinces. Transjordan is divided into sections by several rivers—the Yarmuk, the Jabbok, the Arnon, and the Zered. 1. Across from Galilee and north of the Yarmuk River is Bashan (Hauron), an area of rich volcanic soil with rainfall in excess of sixteen inches per year. The plateau averages 1,500 feet above sea level. To the east of Bashan lies only desert that begins to slope toward the Euphrates. In the New Testament era, it was a part of the territory of Philip, the Tetrarch, son of Herod the Great. 2. South of the Yarmuk, reaching to the Jabbok River, was Gilead. During the Persian rule the boundaries were rather rigid. Both before and after Persian domination, Gilead reached as far south as Rabbah (Philadelphia, modern Amman). Formerly heavily wooded, with many springs and with gently rounded hills, Gilead is one of the most picturesque regions of Palestine. Olive groves and vineyards are found on the hillsides. Jerash and Amman, the capital of the Heshemite Kingdom of Jordan, are located here. 3. South of Gilead lies Moab. Originally, its northern border was the Arnon River, but the Moabites pushed north, giving their name to the plains east of the spot where the Jordan enters the Dead Sea (Ammon attempted to establish herself between Gilead and Moab using Rabbath-Ammon as her stronghold. This succeeded only under the infamous Tobiah during the years of the Exile.) Moab’s southern border was the Zered River, Wadi al Hasa. 4. Still farther south is Edom, with the highest mountains of the region. The area is arid and barren. Fifty miles south of the Dead Sea lies the ancient fortress of Petra, "rose-red . . . half as old as time." Climate Palestine lies in the semitropical belt between 30° 15´ and 33° 15´ north latitude. Temperatures are normally high in the summer and mild in the winter, but these generalizations are modified by both elevation and distance from the coast. Variety is the necessary word in describing Palestinian weather, for in spite of its relatively small size, the geographical configuration of the area produces a diversity of conditions. Because of the Mediterranean influence, the coastal plain has an average annual temperature of 57° at Joppa. Jerusalem, only 35 miles away, has an annual average of 63°. Its elevation of 2,500 feet above sea level causes the difference. Jericho is only seventeen miles further east, but it is 3,400 feet lower (900 feet below sea level), consequently having a tropical climate and very low humidity. Here bitterly cold desert nights offset rather warm desert days. Similarly, much of the area around the Sea of Galilee experiences temperate conditions, while the Dead Sea region is known for its strings of 100° plus summer days. Palestine is a land of two seasons, a dry season and a rainy season, with intervening transitional periods. The dry season lasts from mid-May to mid-October. From June through August no rain falls except in the extreme north. Moderate, regular winds blow usually from the west or southwest. The breezes reach Jerusalem by noon, Jericho in early afternoon, and the Transjordan plateau by midafternoon. The air carries much moisture, but atmospheric conditions are such that precipitation does not occur. However, the humidity is evident from the extremely heavy dew that forms five nights out of six in July. With late October, the "early rain" so often mentioned in Scripture begins to fall. November is punctuated with heavy thunderstorms. The months of December through February are marked by heavy showers, but it is not a time of unrelenting rain. Rainy days alternate with fair days and beautiful sunshine. The cold is not severe, with occasional frost in the higher elevations from December to February. In Jerusalem snow may fall twice during the course of the winter months. All of Palestine experiences extremely disagreeable warm conditions occasionally. The sirocco wind (the "east wind" of Genesis 41:6 and Ezekiel 19:12) blowing from the southeast during the transition months (May—June, September—October) brings dust-laden clouds across the land. It dries vegetation and has a withering effect on people and animals. On occasion the temperature may rise 30°F and the humidity fall to less than 10 percent. Along the coastal plain, the daily temperature fluctuation is rather limited because of the Mediterranean breezes. In the mountains and in Rift Valley, daily fluctuation is much greater.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 1- ROMAN EMPIRE
The history of the Roman Empire, properly so called, extends over a period of rather more than five hundred years, namely, from the battle of Actium, b. c. 31, when Augustus became sole ruler of the Roman world, to the abdication of Augustulus, a. d. 476. The Empire, however, in the sense of the dominion of Rome over a large number of conquered nations, was in full force and had reached wide limits some time before the monarchy of Augustus was established. The notices of Roman history which occur in the Bible are confined to the last century and a half of the commonwealth and the first century of the imperial monarchy. The first historic mention of Rome in the Bible is in (#/ APC 1Ma i:10). Though the date of the foundation of Rome coincides nearly with the beginning of the reign of Pekah in Israel, it was not till the beginning of the 2d century b. c. that the Romans had leisure to interfere in the affairs of the East. When, however, the power of Carthage had been effectually broken at Zama, b. c. 202, Roman arms and intrigues soon made themselves felt throughout Macedonia, Greece, and Asia Minor. About the year 161 b. c. Judas Maccabaeus heard of the Romans as the conquerors of Philip, Perseus, and Antiochus (#/ APC 1Ma viii:5, 6). "It was told him also how they destroyed and brought under their dominion all other kingdoms and isles that at any time resisted them, but with their friends and such as relied upon them they kept amity" (viii. 11, 12). In order to strengthen himself against Demetrius king of Syria he sent ambassadors to Rome (viii. 17), and concluded a defensive alliance with the senate (viii. 22-32). This was renewed by Jonathan (xii. 1) and by Simon (xv. 17; Joseph. Ant. xii. 10, 6, xiii. 5, 8; 7, 3). Notices of the embassy sent by Judas, of a tribute paid to Rome by the Syrian king, and of further intercourse between the Romans and the Jews, occur in (#/ APC 2Ma iv:11, viii:10, 36, xi:34). In the course of the narrative mention is made of the Roman senate to boulenthrion, (#/ APC 1Ma xii:3), of the consul Lucius o upatuv, (#/ APC 1Ma xv:15, 16), and the Roman constitution is described in a somewhat distorted form (#/ APC 1Ma viii:14- 16). The history of the Maccabaean and Idumaean dynasties forms no part of our present subject. [Maccabees; Herod.] Here a brief summary of the progress of Roman dominion in Judaea will suffice. In the year 65 b. c., when Syria was made a Roman province by Pompey, the Jews were still governed by one of the Asmonaean princes. Aristobulus had lately driven his brother Hyrcanus from the chief priesthood, and was now in his turn attacked by Aretas, king of Arabia Petraea, the ally of Hyrcanus. Pompey’s lieutenant, M. Æmilius Scaurus, interfered in the contest b. c. 64, and the next year Pompey himself marched an army into Judaea and took Jerusalem (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 2, 3, 4; B. J. i. 6, 7). From this time the Jews were practically under the government of Rome. Hyrcanus retained the high- priesthood and a titular sovereignty, subject to the watchful control of his minister Antipater, an active partisan of the Roman interests. Finally, Antipater’s son, Herod the Great, was made king by Antony’s interest, b. c. 40, and confirmed in the kingdom by Augustus, b. c. 30 (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 14, xv. 6). The Jews, however, were all this time tributaries of Rome, and their princes in reality were mere Roman procurators. Julius Caesar is said to have exacted from them a fourth part of their agricultural produce in addition to the tithe paid to Hyrcanus (Ant. xiv. 10, 6). Roman soldiers were quartered at Jerusalem in Herod’s time to support him in his authority (Ant. xv. 3, 7). Tribute was paid to Rome, and an oath of allegiance to the emperor as well as to Herod appears to have been taken by the people (Ant. xvii. 2, 2). On the banishment of Archelaus, a. d. 6, Judaea became a mere appendage of the province of Syria, and was governed by a Roman procurator, who resided at Caesarea. Galilee and the adjoining districts were still left under the government of Herod’s sons and other petty princes, whose dominions and titles were changed from time to time by successive emperors: for details see Herod. Such were the relations of the Jewish people to the Roman government at the time when the N. T. history begins. An ingenious illustration of this state of things has been drawn from the condition of British India. The Governor General at Calcutta, the subordinate governors at Madras and Bombay, and the native princes, whose dominions have been at one time enlarged, at another incorporated with the British presidencies, find their respective counterparts in the governor of Syria at Antioch, the procurators of Judaea at Caesarea, and the members of Herod’s family, whose dominions were alternately enlarged and suppressed by the Roman emperors (Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, i. 27). These and other characteristics of Roman rule come before us constantly in the N. T. Thus we hear of Caesar the sole king (#Joh xix:15)—of Cyrenius, "governor of Syria" (#Lu ii:2)—of Pontius Pilate, Felix, and Festus, the "governors," i. e. procurators, of Judaea—of the "terarchs" Herod, Philip, and Lysanias (#Lu iii:1)— of "king Agrippa" (#Ac xxv:13)—of Roman soldiers, legions, centurions, publicans—of the tribute- money (#Mt xxii:19)—the taxing of "the whole world" (#Lu ii:1)—Italian and Augustan cohorts (#Ac x:1, xxvii:1)—the appeal to Caesar (#Ac xxv:11). Three of the Roman emperors are mentioned in the N. T.— Augustus (#Lu ii:1), Tiberius (#Lu iii:1), and Claudius (#Ac xi:28, xviii:2). Nero is alluded to under various titles, as Augustus (Sebastov) and Caesar (#Ac xxv:10, 11, 21, 25; Php iv:22), as o kuriov, "my lord" (#Ac xxv:26), and apparently in other passages (#1Pe ii:17; Ro xiii:1). Several notices of the provincial administration of the Romans and the condition of provincial cities occur in the narrative of St. Paul’s journeys (#Ac xiii:7, xvi:12, 35, 38, xviii:12, xix:38). In illustration of the sacred narrative it may be well to give a general account, though necessarily a short and imperfect one, of the position of the emperor, the extent of the empire, and the administration of the provinces in the time of our Lord and his Apostles. Fuller information will be found under special articles.
Notwithstanding the despotic character of the government, the Romans seem to have shrunk from speaking of their ruler under his military title (see Merivale, Rom. Empire, iii. 452, and note) or any other avowedly despotic appellation. The use of the word o kuriov, dominus, "my lord," in (#Ac xxv:26), marks the progress of Roman servility between the time of Augustus and Nero. Augustus and Tiberius refused this title. Caligula first bore it (see Alford’s note in l. c.: Ovid, Fast. ii. 142). The term basileuv, "king," in (#Joh xix:15, 1Pe ii:17), cannot be closely pressed. The Empire was nominally elective (Tac. Ann xiii. 4); but practically it passed by adoption (see Galba’s speech in Tac. Hist. i. 15), and till Nero’s time a sort of hereditary right seemed to be recognized. The dangers inherent in a military government were, on the whole, successfully averted till the death of Pertinax, a. d. 193 (Gibbon, ch. iii. p. 80) but outbreaks of military violence were not wanting in this earlier period (comp. Wenck’s note on Gibbon, l. c.). The army was systematically bribed by donatives at the commencement of each reign, and the mob of the capital continually fed and amused at the expense of the provinces. We are reminded of the insolence and avarice of the soldiers in (#Lu iii:14). The reigns of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian show that an emperor might shed the noblest blood with impunity, so long as he abstained from offending the soldiery and the populace.
The population of the empire in the time of Augustus has been calculated at 85,000,000 (Merivale, Rom. Empire, iv. 442-450). Gibbon, speaking of the time of Claudius, puts the population at 120,000,000 (Decline and Fall, ch. ii.). Count Franz de Champagny adopts the same number for the reign of Nero (Les C, sars, ii. 428). All these estimates are confessedly somewhat uncertain and conjectural. {a} This large population was controlled in the time of Tiberius by an army of 25 legions, exclusive of the praetorian guards and other cohorts in the capital. The soldiers who composed the legions may be reckoned in round numbers at 170,000 men. If we add to these an equal number of auxiliaries (Tac. Ann. iv. 5) we have a total force of 340,000 men. The praetorian guards may be reckoned at 10,000 (Dion Cass. lv. 24). The other cohorts would swell the garrison at Rome to 15,000 or 16,000 men. For the number and stations of the legions in the time of Tiberius, comp. Tac. Ann. iv. 5. The navy may have contained about 21,000 men (Les C, sars, ii. 429; comp. Merivale, iii. 534). The legion, as appears from what has been said, must have been "more like a brigade than a regiment," consisting as it did of more than 6,000 infantry with cavalry attached (Conybeare and Howson, ii. 285). For the "Italian and Augustan bands" (#Ac x:1, xxvii:1) see Army, vol. i. p. 164 [and Italian Band, Amer. ed.].
Augustus divided the provinces into two classes, (1) Imperial, (2) Senatorial; retaining in his own hands, for obvious reasons, those provinces where the presence of a large military force was necessary, and committing the peaceful and unarmed provinces to the Senate. The Imperial provinces at first were— Gaul, Lusitania, Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia, Cyprus, and Ægypt. The Senatorial provinces were Africa, Numidia, Asia, Achaea and Epirus, Dalmatia, Macedonia, Sicily, Crete and Cyrene, Bithynia and Pontus, Sardinia, Baetica (Dion C. liii. 12). Cyprus and Gallia Narbonensis were subsequently given up by Augustus, who in turn received Dalmatia from the Senate. Many other changes were made afterwards. The N. T. writers invariably designate the governors of Senatorial provinces by the correct title of anyupatoi, proconsuls (#Ac xiii:7, xviii:12, xix:38). [Cyprus.] For the governor of an Imperial province, properly styled "Legatus Caesaris" (presbeuthv), the word hgemwn (Governor) is used in the N. T. The provinces were heavily taxed for the benefit of Rome and her citizens. "It was as if England were to defray the expenses of her own administration by the proceeds of a tax levied on her Indian empire" (Liddell, Hist. of Rome, i. 448). In old times the Roman revenues were raised mainly from three sources: (1.) The domain lands; (2.) A direct tax (tributum) levied upon every citizen; (3.) From customs, tolls, harbor duties, etc. The agrarian law of Julius Caesar is said to have extinguished the first source of revenue (Cic. ad Att. <?>. xvi.; Dureau de la Malle, ii. 430). Roman citizens had ceased to pay direct taxes since the conquest of Macedonia, b. c. 167 (Cic. de Off. ii. 22; Plut. AEmil. Paul. 38), except in extraordinary emergencies. The main part of the Roman revenue was now drawn from the provinces by a direct tax khnsov, forov, (#Mt xxii:17, Lu xx:22), amounting probably to from 5 to 7 per cent. on the estimated produce of the soil (Dureau de la Malle, ii. 418). The indirect taxes too (telh, vectigalia, (#Mt xvii:25); Dureau de la Malle, ii. 449) appear to have been very heavy (Ibid. ii. 433, 448). Augustus on coming to the empire found the regular sources of revenue impaired, while his expenses must have been very great. To say nothing of the say of the army, he is said to have supported no less than 200,000 citizens in idleness by the miserable system of public gratuities. Hence the necessity of a careful valuation of the property of the whole empire, which appears to have been made more than once in his reign. [Census.] For the historical difficulty about the taxing in (#Lu ii:1), see Cyrenius. Augustus appears to have raised both the direct and indirect taxes (Dureau de la Malle, ii. 433, 448). The provinces are said to have been better governed under the Empire than under the Commonwealth, and those of the emperor better than those of the Senate (Tac. Ann. i. 76, iv. 6; Dion, liii. 14). Two important changes were introduced under the Empire. The governors received a fixed pay, and the term of their command was prolonged (Joseph. Ant. xviii. 6, 5). But the old mode of levying the taxes seems to have been continued. The companies who farmed the taxes, consisting generally of knights, paid a certain sum into the Roman treasury, and proceeded to wring what they could from the provincials, often with the connivance and support of the provincial governor. The work was done chiefly by underlings of the lowest class (portitores). These are the publicans of the N. T. On the whole it seems doubtful whether the wrongs of the provinces can have been materially alleviated under the imperial government. It is not likely that such rulers as Caligula and Nero would be scrupulous about the means used for replenishing their treasury. The stories related even of the reign of Augustus show how slight were the checks on the tyranny of provincial governors. See the story of Licinus in Gaul (Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Biog. sub voce), and that of the Dalmatian chief (Dion, lv.). The sufferings of St. Paul, protected as he was to a certain extent by his Roman citizenship, show plainly how little a provincial had to hope from the justice of a Roman governor. It is impossible here to discuss the difficult question relating to Roman provincial government raised on (#Joh xviii:31). It may be sufficient here to state, that according to strict Roman law the Jews would lose the power of life and death when their country became a province, and there seems no sufficient reason to depart from the literal interpretation of the verse just cited. See Alford, in l. c. On the other side see Biscoe, On the Acts, p. 113. The condition of the Roman Empire at the time when Christianity appeared has often been dwelt upon, as affording obvious illustrations of St. Paul’s expression that the "fullness of time had come" (#Ga iv:4). The general peace within the limits of the Empire, the formation of military roads, the suppression of piracy, the march of the legions, the voyages of the corn fleets, the general increase of traffic, the spread of the Latin language in the West as Greek had already spread in the East, the external unity of the Empire, offered facilities hitherto unknown for the spread of a world-wide religion. The tendency, too, of a despotism like that of the Roman Empire to reduce all its subjects to a dead level, was a powerful instrument in breaking down the pride of privileged races and national religions, and familiarizing men with the truth that "God hath made of one blood all nations on the face of the earth" (#Ac xvii:24, 26). But still more striking than this outward preparation for the diffusion of the Gospel was the appearance of a deep and wide-spread corruption which seemed to defy any human remedy. It would be easy to accumulate proofs of the moral and political degradation of the Romans under the Empire. It is needless to do more than allude to the corruption, the cruelty, the sensuality, the monstrous and unnatural wickedness of the period as revealed in the heathen historians and satirists. "Viewed as a national or political history," says the great historian of Rome, "the history of the Roman Empire is sad and discouraging in the last degree. We see that things had come to a point at which no earthly power could afford any help; we now have the development of dead powers instead of that of a vital energy" (Niebuhr, Lect. v. 194). Not withstanding the outward appearance of peace, unity, and reviving prosperity, the general condition of the people must have been one of great misery. To say nothing of the fact that probably one-half of the population consisted of slaves, the great inequality of wealth at a time when a whole province could be owned by six landowners, the absence of any middle class, the utter want of any institutions for alleviating distress such as are found in all Christian countries, the inhuman tone of feeling and practice generally prevailing, forbid us to think favorably of the happiness of the world in the famous Augustan age. We must remember that "there were no public hospitals, no institutions for the relief of the infirm and poor, no societies for the improvement of the condition of mankind from motives of charity. Nothing was done to promote the instruction of the lower classes, nothing to mitigate the miseries of domestic slavery. Charity and general philanthropy were so little regarded as duties, that it requires a very extensive acquaintance with the literature of the times to find any allusion to them" (Arnold’s Later Roman Commonwealth, ii. 398). If we add to this that there was probably not a single religion, except the Jewish, which was felt by the more enlightened part of its professors to be real, we may form some notion of the world which Christianity had to reform and purify. We venture to quote an eloquent description of its "slow, imperceptible, continuous aggression on the heathenism of the Roman Empire." "Christianity was gradually withdrawing some of all orders, even slaves, out of the vices, the ignorance, the misery of that corrupted social system." It was ever instilling feelings of humanity, yet unknown or coldly commended by an impotent philosophy, among men and women whose infant ears had been habituated to the shrieks of dying gladiators; it was giving dignity to minds prostrated by years, almost centuries, of degrading despotism; it was nurturing purity and modesty of manners in an unspeakable state of depravation; it was enshrining the marriage-bed in a sanctity long almost entirely lost, and rekindling to a steady warmth the domestic affections; it was substituting a simple, calm, and rational faith for the worn-out superstitions of heathenism; gently establishing in the soul of man the sense of immortality, till it became a natural and inextinguishable part of his moral being’ (Milman’s Latin Christianity, i. 24). The chief prophetic notices of the Roman Empire are found in the Book of Daniel, especially in ch. xi. 30-40, and in ii. 40, vii. 7, 17-19, according to the common interpretation of the "fourth kingdom," comp. (#/ APC 2Es xi:1), but see Daniel. According to some interpreters the Romans are intended in (#De xxviii:49-57). For the mystical notices of Rome in the Revelation comp. Rome. J. J. H.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 1-
ROME AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE
International rule the government in Rome, Italy, exercised after 27 B.C. when the Republic of Rome died and the Roman Empire was born. The reasons for the fall of the republic are not anymore clearly demonstrable than those surrounding the later fall of the empire. They were the product of a complicated interaction of numerous components that included: changes in the values, wealth, and education of the upper classes; innovations in finances, agriculture, and commerce; expansion of the senate; enormous increases in citizenship; unrest among the classes; problems in maintaining order in the districts in and around Rome, and difficulty in recruiting sufficient personnel for the army. The major factor in its demise seems to have been political. The senate lost political control of the state, and into that vacuum Julius Caesar stepped with ambitions of control that the senate found intolerable. His declaration of himself in early 44 B.C. as perpetual dictator provoked his assassination on the Ides of March by a group of senatorial assassins led by Brutus and Cassius. Caesar’s generals, Antony and Lepidus along with Caesar’s heir Octavian, formed a temporary ruling triumvirate. They defeated Caesar’s assassins in the battle at Philippi in 42 B.C. This finally resulted in the exclusion of Lepidus and the division of the empire into the West, controlled by Octavian, and the East, controlled by Antony. Antony’s military failure against the Parthians led to his excessive reliance on Egyptian resources and created a correspondingly inordinate influence of Egypt’s Queen Cleopatra on the Roman ruler. Octavian was able to use Antony’s reliance on Egypt against him, persuading the senate that Antony wanted to make Alexandria the capital of the empire. The two led their armies against each other in 31 B.C. at Actium in Greece, resulting in the defeat of Antony and the eventual suicide of both Antony and Cleopatra. Octavian became sole ruler and in 27 B.C. took the name: Augustus Caesar. The republic became the empire, and Octavian became what Julius had only dreamed of becoming—the first emperor of Rome. Augustus was extremely efficient as an administrator and corrected many of the problems that plagued the old republic. He, unlike Julius, treated the senate with respect and gained theirs in return. He, as the adopted son of the previous ruler, inherited the affection of his army. The relationship proved so popular that, after Augustus, every emperor had to be either the real son or the adopted son of the previous emperor to command the allegiance of the army and of the people of the empire. Augustus reduced the senate gradually from 1,000 to 600 and made membership in it hereditary, although he reserved the privilege of nominating new senators. A major achievement involved sharing power over the empire’s provinces. Senatorial provinces were created, over which the senate had jurisdiction and to which they appointed governors or proconsuls. These were peaceful provinces requiring no unusual military presence. Gallio, the brother of Seneca, was made proconsul over the southern Grecian province of Achaia in A.D. 51 during the time Paul was in Corinth (Acts 18:12). Imperial provinces were controlled by the emperor. He appointed procurators over these potentially volatile areas, where the Roman legions or armies were stationed. Pontius Pilate was such a procurator or governor over Judea (Luke 3:1). Augustus inaugurated an extensive program of social, religious, and moral reform. Special benefits were given to those couples who agreed to have children. Adultery, which previously was widely condoned, was made a public crime entailing severe penalties. Traditional religion was stressed, and 82 pagan temples were renovated. Many ancient cults were revived, further accentuating the time-honored view that the peace and prosperity of the republic was dependent upon the proper observance of religious duty. Augustus became pontifex maximus in 12 B.C., establishing him as both political and religious head of state. An extensive building program was undertaken. Augustus added another forum to the already existing Roman Forum and Forum of (Julius) Caesar. The forum served as a judicial, religious, and commercial center for the city, containing basilicas, temples, and porticoes. Later, other fora were built by Vespasian, Nerva, and Trajan, all of them just north of the old Roman Forum. The great variety of other new structures included theaters, libraries, temples, baths, basilicas, arches, and warehouses. For entertainment purposes, the first permanent amphitheater in Rome’s history was built. Extensive water systems were constructed that included artificial lakes, canals, aqueducts, and flood control. The sewage system was renovated. A police force of 3,000 men was created along with a fire-fighting force that numbered 7,000. The first several emperors ruled at the time of the beginning of the Christian movement in the Roman Empire. Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus (27 B.C.-A.D. 14) and conducted His ministry during the reign of Augustus’s successor, Tiberius (A.D. 14-37; compare Luke 3:1). The latter’s image was stamped on a silver denarius that Jesus referred to in a discussion about taxation (Luke 20:20-26). In about A.D. 18, Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, built his capital on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and named it Tiberias after the emperor. Tiberius was an extremely able military commander and a good administrator, leaving a large surplus in the treasury when he died. He followed Augustus’s example of not expanding the borders of the empire and thus avoiding war. The pax Romana (peace of Rome) which Augustus had inaugurated was preserved, providing easy, safe travel throughout the empire. Paul undoubtedly referred to this in Galatians 4:4 when he wrote: "In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son" (author’s italics). Tiberius was never popular with the senate and chose to leave Rome at the first opportunity, choosing after A.D. 26, to rule the empire from his self-imposed seclusion on the Isle of Capri. In this year Pontius Pilate was appointed governor of Judea, a post he held until A.D. 36, just prior to the death of Tiberius in A.D. 37. Tiberius was succeeded by his mentally unbalanced grandnephew, Gaius (Caligula), who proved to be a disaster. During his reign (A.D. 37-41) and that of his successor, his aging uncle Claudius (A.D. 41-54), most of the ministry of the apostle Paul took place. Claudius is reported to have expelled Jews from Rome who were creating disturbances at the instigation of Christ (compare Acts 18:2). Initially, his contemporaries viewed Claudius as inept, but he proved to have considerable hidden talents of administration and turned out to be one of Rome’s more proficient emperors. He was responsible for the conquest of southern Britain in A.D. 43-47, although it took another 30 years to subjugate northern Britain and Wales. His fourth wife, Agrippina, is mentioned on a recently discovered sarcophagus in the Goliath family cemetery on the western edge of Jericho. She poisoned Claudius in A.D. 54 to speed up the succession of Nero, her son by a previous marriage. Nero (A.D. 54-68) was in some respects worse than Caligula. He was a man without moral scruples or interest in the Roman populace except for exploitation of them. Both Paul and Peter seem to have been martyred during Nero’s reign, perhaps in connection with the burning of Rome by Nero in A.D. 64, an event that he blamed on Christians. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that when the fire subsided, only four of Rome’s fourteen districts remained intact. Yet Paul wrote, "All the saints greet you, especially those of the emperor’s household," (Phil. 4:22 NRSV). Nero’s hedonism and utter irresponsibility led inevitably to his death. The revolt of Galba, one of his generals, led to Nero’s suicide. Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, three successive emperor-generals, died within the year of civil war (A.D. 68-69) that followed Nero’s death. Vitellius’s successor was Vespasian, one of the commanders who had taken Britain for Claudius and who was in Judea squelching the first Jewish revolt. He was declared emperor by the Syrian and Danube legions and returned to Rome to assume the post, leaving his son Titus to finish the destruction of Jerusalem with its holy Temple in the next year (A.D. 70). This event was prophesied by Jesus toward the end of His life when He said: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near" (Luke 21:20 NRSV). The aristocratic Julio-Claudian dynasties that had reigned until the death of Nero were happily replaced by the Flavian dynasty, which issued from the rural middle class of Italy and reflected a more modest and responsible approach to the use of power. Vespasian’s reign (A.D. 69-79) was succeeded by the brief tenure of his son Titus (A.D. 79-81), who at his death gave way to the rule of his brother Domitian (A.D. 81-96). The fourth century historian Eusebius reported that the apostle John was exiled to Patmos (compare Rev. 1:9) in the reign of Domitian. Eusebius also claimed that in Nerva’s reign the senate took away Domitian’s honors and freed exiles to return home, thus letting John return to Ephesus. Nerva’s reign was brief, lasting little more than a year (A.D. 96-98). He was succeeded by Trajan (A.D. 98-117), who bathed the empire red in the blood of Christians. His persecution was more severe than that instituted by Domitian. Irenaeus wrote in the second century that John died in Ephesus in the reign of Trajan. The persecution of the church, depicted in the Revelation of John, probably reflects the ones initiated by Trajan and Domitian. Trajan, the adopted son of Nerva, was the first emperor of provincial origin. His family roots were in the area of Seville, Spain. Marcus Aurelius, a later emperor of Spanish descent (A.D. 161-180), also persecuted the church. Trajan adopted Hadrian, his nephew by marriage, who succeeded him (A.D. 117-138) and quickly abandoned his predecessor’s only partially successful attempts to conquer the East. More than half of Hadrian’s reign was spent in traveling throughout the empire and involving himself deeply in the administration of the provinces, an activity for which he was especially talented. He left evidence of his propensity for building all over the Mediterranean world including the arch at the entrance to the precincts of the Athenian temple of Jupiter, the Ecce Homo Arch in Jerusalem, his villa near Rome, and the magnificent Pantheon in Rome, whose perfectly preserved construction continually awes the visitor. Hadrian will be best remembered by those of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, however, because of his attempt to hellenize Jerusalem by changing the name of the city to Aelia Capitolina, by erecting a temple to himself and Zeus on the site of the previous Temple of Solomon, and by prohibiting circumcision. The brutal way in which he put down the unavoidable revolt from A.D. 132-135 was consistent with Hadrian’s declaration of himself as another Antiochus Ephiphanes (the second century B.C. hellenizer who, while king of Syria, also desecrated the Jewish Temple and precipitated the Maccabean Revolt). The success of the Roman Empire depended upon the ability of the legions to keep peace throughout the world. Pax Romana was the key to prosperity and success. Greek and Latin were universal languages; nevertheless, most of the conquered countries retained their own languages as well, including Celtic, Germanic, Semitic, Hamitic, and Berber. Not since that time has the world been able to so effectively communicate in common languages. If the Mediterranean Sea is included, the Roman Empire was roughly the size of the continental United States, reaching from Britain to Arabia and from Germany to Morocco. One could go from one end of the Mediterranean to the other by boat in three weeks. Less effectively, one could travel 90 miles a day on the fine network of roads that interlaced the empire, including the Appian Way and the Egnatian Way. The quality of the Greco-Roman culture disseminated by Rome was strongest in the areas bordering the Mediterranean and weakest in those farthest removed from major routes of communication. The most effective resistance to the culture was, as might be expected, among the eastern countries such as Egypt, Syrian, Mesopotamia, and the Levant (Syria-Palestine) which had the longest history of civilization. Western Europe, with a comparatively recent and uncivilized history, was no opposition and was soon thoroughly and permanently immersed in the phenomenon of western civilization. Education in the empire was the prerogative of the wealthy. The poor had neither the time, the money, nor the need for an education that was designed to prepare the upper classes for positions of public service. The goal of education was to master the spoken word. Successful civic life was tied to proficiency in the language. Oratory was indispensable. Grammar and rhetoric were the primary subjects of study with emphasis on style over content. Among Latin authors, Virgil, Terence, Sallust, and Cicero were studied most while Homer, Thucydides, Demosthenes, and the Attic tragedians were the favorite Greek writers. In the beginning of the empire, religion was diverse and almost chaotic. Both politicians and philosophers attempted to bring the same order to religion that they achieved in other aspects of Roman life. The Roman emperor was the head of the state religion, which included worship of the emperor and the traditional gods of Rome. The emperor functioned as semidivine while alive and as a god after his death. John may refer to emperor worship in Pergamum, where the first Asian temple to a Roman emperor was erected, in his references to the place "where Satan’s throne is" (perhaps meaning the altar of Zeus; Rev. 2:13 NRSV). Mystery religions such as Mithraism, and the worship of Cybele and Isis were abundant. Philosophical systems, such as Epicureanism and Stoicism, functioned virtually as religions for agnostic intellectuals. Judaism, with its monotheistic emphasis, and Christianity, with its Judaistic origin and equally high code of ethics and morals, were anomalies. The inevitable clash between Judeo-Christians and the Romans was a clash between monotheism and polytheism, between morality and immorality.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 2- Greece
Orginally consisted of the four provinces of Macedonia, Epirus, Achaia, and Peleponnesus. In #Ac 20:2 it designates only the Roman province of Macedonia. Greece was conquered by the Romans B.C. 146 After passing through various changes it was erected into an independent monarchy in 1831 Moses makes mention of Greece under the name of Javan #Ge 10:2-5 and this name does not again occur in the Old Testament till the time of Joel #Joe 3:6 Then the Greeks and Hebrews first came into contact in the Tyrian slave-market. Prophetic notice is taken of Greece in #Da 8:21 The cities of Greece were the special scenes of the labours of the apostle Paul.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 2-
GREECE, GREEKS, GRECIANS
The histories of Greece and Palestine are as little connected as those of any other two nations exercising the same influence on the destinies of mankind could well be. The Homeric Epos in its widest range does not include the Hebrews, while on the other hand the Mosaic idea of the Western world seems to have been sufficiently indefinite. It is possible that Moses may have derived some geographical outlines from the Egyptians; but he does not use them in (#Ge x:2- 5), where he mentions the descendants of Javan as peopling the isles of the Gentiles. This is merely the vaguest possible indication of a geographical locality; and yet it is not improbable that his Egyptian teachers were almost equally in the dark as to the position of a country which had not at that time arrived at a unity sufficiently imposing to arrest the attention of its neighbors. The amount and precision of the information possessed by Moses must be measured by the nature of the relation which we can conceive as existing in his time between Greece and Egypt. Now it appears from Herodotus that prior to the Trojan war the current of tradition, sacred and mythological, set from Egypt towards Greece; and the first quasi-historical event which awakened the curiosity, and stimulated the imagination of the Egyptian priests, was the story of Paris and Helen (Herod. ii. 43, 51, 52, and 112). At the time of the Exodus, therefore, it is not likely that Greece had entered into any definite relation whatever with Egypt. Withdrawn from the sea-coast, and only gradually fighting their way to it during the period of the Judges, the Hebrews can have had no opportunity of forming connections with the Greeks. From the time of Moses to that of Joel, we have no notice of the Greeks in the Hebrew writings, except that which was contained in the word Javan (#Ge x:2); and it does not seem probable that during this period the word had any peculiar significance for a Jew, except in so far as it was associated with the idea of islanders. When, indeed, they came into contact with the Ionians of Asia Minor, and recognized them as the long-lost islanders of the western migration, it was natural that they should mark the similarity of sound between Nwy = Nwy and Iones, and the application of that name to the Asiatic Greeks would tend to satisfy in some measure a longing to realize the Mosaic ethnography. Accordingly the O. T. word which is Grecia, in A. V. Greece, Greeks, etc., is in Hebrew Nwy, Javan (#Joe iii:6; Da viii:21): the Hebrew, however, is sometimes retained (#Isa lxvi:19; Eze xxvii:13). In (#Ge x:2), the LXX. have kai Iwuan kai Elisa, with which Rosenmuller compares Herod. i. 56-58, and professes to discover the two elements of the Greek race. From Iwuan he gets the Ionian or Pelasgian, from Elisa (for which he supposes the Heb. original hvyla), the Hellenic element. This is excessively fanciful, and the degree of accuracy which it implies upon an ethnological question cannot possibly be attributed to Moses, and is by no means necessarily involved in the fact of his divine inspiration. The Greeks and Hebrews met for the first time in the slave-market. The medium of communication seems to have been the Tyrian slave-merchant. About b. c. 800 Joel speaks of the Tyrians as selling the children of Judah to the Grecians (#Joe iii:6); and in (#Eze xxvii:13) the Greeks are mentioned as bartering their brazen vessels for slaves. On the other hand, Bochart says that the Greek slaves were highly valued throughout the East (Geogr. Sac. pt. i. lib. iii. c. 3, p. 175); and it is probable that the Tyrians took advantage of the calamities which befell either nation to sell them as slaves to the other. Abundant opportunities would be afforded by the attacks of the Lydian monarchy on the one people, and the Syrian on the other; and it is certain that Tyre would let slip no occasion of replenishing her slave-market. Prophetical notice of Greece occurs in (#Da viii:21), etc., where the history of Alexander and his successors is rapidly sketched. Zechariah (#Zec ix:13) foretells the triumphs of the Maccabees against the Graeco-Syrian empire, while Isaiah looks forward to the conversion of the Greeks, amongst other Gentiles, through the instrumentality of Jewish missionaries (lxvi. 19). For the connection between the Jews and the quasi-Greek kingdoms which sprang out of the divided empire of Alexander, reference should be made to other articles. The presence of Alexander himself at Jerusalem, and his respectful demeanor, are described by Josephus (Ant. xi. 8, 3); and some Jews are even paid to have joined him in his expedition against Persia (Hecat. ap. Joseph. c. Apion. ii. 4), as the Samaritans had already done in the siege of Tyre (Joseph. Ant. xi. 8, 4-6). In (#/ APC 1Ma xii:5-23) (about b. c. 180), and Joseph. Ant. xii. 4, 10 we have an account of an embassy and letter sent by the Lacedaemonians to the Jews. [Areus Onias.] The most remarkable feature in the transaction is the claim which the Lacedaemonians prefer to kindred with the Jews, and which Areus professes to establish by reference to a book. It is by no means unlikely that two declining nations, the one crouching beneath a Roman, the other beneath a Graeco- Syrian invader, should draw together in face of the common calamity. This may have been the case, or we may with Jahn (Heb. Comm. ix. 91, note) regard the affair as a piece of pompous trifling or idle curiosity, at a period when "all nations were curious to ascertain their origin, and their relationship to other nations." The notices of the Jewish people which occur in Greek writers have been collected by Josephus (c. Apion. i. 22). The chief are Pythagoras Herodotus, Choerilus, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Hecataeus. The main drift of the argument of Josephus is to show that the Greek authors derived their materials from Jewish sources, or with more or less distinctness referred to Jewish history. For Pythagoras, he cites Hermippus’s life; for Aristotle, Clearchus; but it should be remembered that the Neo- Platonism of these authorities makes them comparatively worthless; that Hermippus in particular belongs to that Alexandrian school which made it its business to fuse the Hebrew traditions with the philosophy of Greece, and propitiated the genius of Orientalism by denying the merit of originality to the great and independent thinkers of the West. This style of thought was further developed by Iamblichus; and a very good specimen of it may be seen in Le Clerc’s notes on Grotius, de Verit. It has been ably and vehemently assailed by Ritter, Hist. Phil. b. i. c. 3. Herodotus mentions the Syrians of Palestine as confessing that they derived the rite of circumcision from the Egyptians (ii. 104). B, hr, however, does not think it likely that Herodotus visited the interior of Palestine, though he was acquainted with the sea-coast. (On the other hand see Dahlmann, pp. 55, 56, Engl. transl.) It is almost impossible to suppose that Herodotus could have visited Jerusalem without giving us some more detailed account of it than the merely incidental notices in ii. 159 and iii. 5, not to mention that the site of Kadutiv is still a disputed question. The victory of Pharoah-Necho over Josiah at Megiddo is recorded by Herodotus comp. Herod ii. 159 with (#2Ki xxiii:29 ff., 2Ch xxxv:20 ff.). It is singular that Josephus should have omitted these references, and cited Herodotus only as mentioning the rite of circumcision. The work of Theophrastus cited is not extant; he enumerates amongst other oaths that of Corban. Choerilus is supposed by Josephus to describe the Jews in a by no means flattering portrait of a people who accompanied Xerxes in his expedition against Greece. The chief points of identification are, their speaking the Phoenician language, and dwelling in the Solymean mountains, near a broad lake, which according to Josephus was the Dead Sea. The Hecataeus of Josephus is Hecataeus of Abdera, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, and Ptolemy son of Lagus. The authenticity of the History of the Jews attributed to him by Jose thus has been called in question by Origen and others. After the complete subjugation of the Greeks by the Romans, and the absorption into the Roman empire of the kingdoms which were formed out of the dominions of Alexander, the political connection between the Greeks and Jews as two independent nations no longer existed. The name of the country, Greece, occurs once in N. T., (#Ac xx:2), Ellav = Greece, i. e. Greece Proper, as opposed to Macedonia. {a} In the A. V. of O. T. the word Greek is not found; either Javan is retained, or, as in (#Joe iii:6), the word is rendered by Grecian. In Maccabees Greeks and Grecians seem to be used indifferently (comp. (#/ APC 1Ma i:10, vi:2); also (#/ APC 2Ma iv:10), Greekish). In N. T., on the other hand, a distinction is observed, Ellhn being rendered Greek, and EllhnisthVgrecian. The difference of the English terminations, however, is not sufficient to convey the difference of meanings. Ellhn in N. T. is either a Greek by race, as in (#Ac xvi:1-3, xviii:17, Ro i:14); or more frequently a Gentile, as opposed to a Jew (#Ro ii:9, 10), etc.; so fem. Ellhniv, (#Mr vii:26, Ac xvii:12). Ellhnisthv (properly "one who speaks Greek") is a foreign Jew; opposed, therefore, not to Ioudaiov, but to Ebraiov, a home-Jew, one who dwelt in Palestine. So Schleusner, etc.: according to Salmasius, however, the Hellenists were Greek proselytes, who had become Christians; so Wolf, Parkhurst, etc., arguing from (#Ac xi:20), where Ellhnistai are contrasted with Ioudaioi in 19. The question resolve itself partly into a textual one, Griesbach having adopted the reading Ellhnav, and so also Lachmann. {b} T. E. B
|
||||||||||||||||
| 2-
GREECE and the Bible
Contents:
GREECE (greeece), GRECIA (Gree’ cih u) (KJV) (Daniel 8:21; Daniel 10:20; Daniel 11:2) Located between the Italian Peninsula and Asia Minor, Greece itself is a peninsula with the Adriatic and Ionian Seas on the west and the Aegean Sea on the east. These seas, in turn, are a part of the larger Mediterranean Sea. Greece owes its rough terrain to the fact that it is the southern end of the central European mountain range. Another geographical feature is the numerous islands that lie in close proximity to the Greek mainland. The southernmost area, the Peloponnesus, is itself virtually an island, connected to the mainland by only a narrow neck of land known as the Isthmus of Corinth. Its mountainous nature has played an important role in the development of the country. First of all, it has an unusually long shoreline for such a small area, resulting from the fact that there are numerous bays and inlets, giving it many natural harbors. Since its mountains were heavily forested in earlier times, shipbuilding and the sea trade developed. Secondly, the rough terrain discouraged a sense of unity among its people since communication between them was not easy. Finally, the land for agriculture, while fertile, was limited so that what was produced could not sustain a large population. Small grains, grapes, and olives were the main agricultural products while the mountains provided pastures for sheep and goats. Historical Developments About the time of the great prophets in Israel (after 800 B.C.), city-states began to develop in Greece. The limited food supplies had forced Greeks to leave the homeland. As a result, colonies were established on the Mediterranean islands, Asia Minor, Sicily, Italy, and in the Black Sea area. Colonies provided the basis for trade; and trade, in turn, encouraged the growth of cities since the economy was not tied to agriculture. The high-water mark for the city-states was 500-404 B.C. The dominant city-states of the period were Athens and Sparta. About 500-475 B.C. Athens beat off a threat from the Persians. There followed what is known as the Golden Age of Athens. Under its great leader—Pericles—art, architecture, and drama flourished. Peloponnesian city-states feared the power of Athens, however, and united under the leadership of Sparta to war against Athens. The defeat of Athens in 404 B.C. began a period of decline for the city-states. About 350 B.C. Philip II came to the throne of Macedonia, a territory in what is now largely northern Greece. In the years that followed Philip brought all the Greek peninsula under his control, only to be assassinated in 336 B.C. He was succeeded by his twenty-year-old son, Alexander, whose schoolmaster had been the great philosopher, Aristotle. Alexander was one of the most outstanding military and organizational geniuses of human history. By the time of his death in 323 B.C., he had conquered an empire that spanned the Middle East from Greece to the western reaches of India, as well as Syria-Palestine and Egypt. Wherever he went, he left colonies that became dispensers of Greek language and culture, known as Hellenism. When the Romans took over much of this territory two centuries later, they imposed their legal and military system. They, in turn, were conquered by Greek culture. Thus we speak of the Graeco-Roman culture. When Christianity arose, it had Greek, which many linguists call the most flexible language ever devised, as a vehicle to spread its concepts. Christian theologians in later centuries would wed Christian concepts with Greek philosophical methods and ideas to develop Christian theology. Greece and the Bible Very few references to Greece appear in the Old Testament with most of them being found in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 8:21; Daniel 10:20; Daniel 11:2. See also Zech. 9:13). This is not true of the New Testament, however, especially as regards Paul’s ministry. Some of his most fruitful work was done in Greek cities. Philippi, in Macedonia, was the first church founded by Paul on European soil (Acts 16). It would become Paul’s special favorite among his churches and would be the recipient of his most intimate and loving letter, the Epistle to the Philippians. In the district of Thessaly, Paul founded two churches, Thessalonica and Berea (Acts 17:1-14). The Thessalonians also would be the recipients of Pauline letters, two of which are in the New Testament (1 and 2 Thessalonians). Just as Paul had problems while at Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9), so he had problems explaining to the church about the return of the Lord. Bible students have long debated about Paul’s success or lack of it at Athens (Acts 17:16-33). While the worship of the Greek gods had declined, Paul’s experience in the marketplace at Athens shows that it was not entirely dead. It was, however, the sense of the failure of the older religions that led to the rapid acceptance of the Christian religion throughout the Roman empire. Paul, however, did not win a large number of converts at Athens, but he did win some. No city received more attention nor provoked more correspondence from Paul than Corinth. Located on the narrow isthmus that connects the Peloponnesus to the rest of Greece, Corinth was a brawling, sinful seaport town, the crossroads of the Mediterranean (Acts 18:1-17). Here Paul met two people who would be among his most valuable helpers, Priscilla and Aquila. He would be brought to trial; he would establish one of his most troublesome and controversial churches, and later he would write at least four letters to that church. Two survived to become a part of the New Testament. The Greek influence on the New Testament and Christianity is immeasurable. Koine, the Greek of the streets, is the language of the New Testament. At least five New Testament books are written to churches in Greek cities (Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians). All the other books in the New Testament are written in the Greek language. As the Christian gospel moved out into the the Mediterranean world, it had to communicate its values to people who were steeped in Greek culture and religion. Both gained from the relationship with people being transformed by the gospel and Christianity gaining a vehicle for its spread.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 3-
Philistines
#Ge 10:14 R.V.; but in A.V., "Philistim," a tribe allied to the Phoenicians. They were a branch of the primitive race which spread over the whole district of the Lebanon and the valley of the Jordan, and Crete and other Mediterranean islands. Some suppose them to have been a branch of the Rephaim #2Sa 21:16-22 In the time of Abraham they inhabited the south-west of Judea, Abimelech of Gerar being their king #Ge 21:32,34 26:1 They are, however, not noticed among the Canaanitish tribes mentioned in the Pentateuch. They are spoken of by Amos #Am 9:7 and Jeremiah #Jer 47:4 as from Caphtor, i.e., probably Crete, or, as some think, the Delta of Egypt. In the whole record from Exodus to Samuel they are represented as inhabiting the tract of country which lay between Judea and Egypt #Ex 13:17 15:14,15 #Jos 13:3 1Sa 4:1ff. This powerful tribe made frequent incursions against the Hebrews. There was almost perpetual war between them. They sometimes held the tribes, especially the southern tribes, in degrading servitude #Jud 15:11 1Sa 13:19-22 at other times they were defeated with great slaughter #1Sa 14:1-47 17:1ff. These hostilities did not cease till the time of Hezekiah #2Ki 18:8 when they were entirely subdued. They still, however, occupied their territory, and always showed their old hatred to Israel #Eze 25:15-17 They were finally conquered by the Romans. The Philistines are called Pulsata or Pulista on the Egyptian monuments; the land of the Philistines (Philistia) being termed Palastu and Pilista in the Assyrian inscriptions. They occupied the five cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath, in the south-western corner of Canaan, which belonged to Egypt up to the closing days of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The occupation took place during the reign of Rameses III. of the Twentieth Dynasty. The Philistines had formed part of the great naval confederacy which attacked Egypt, but were eventually repulsed by that Pharaoh, who, however, could not dislodge them from their settlements in Palestine. Indeed the country was properly Gerar, as in #Ge 20:1 ff They are called Allophyli, "foreigners," in the Septuagint, and in the Books of Samuel they are spoken of as uncircumcised. It would therefore appear that they were not of the Semitic race, though after their establishment in Canaan they adopted the Semitic language of the country. We learn from the Old Testament that they came from Caphtor, usually supposed to be Crete. From Philistia the name of the land of the Philistines came to be extended to the whole of "Palestine." Many scholars identify the Philistines with the Pelethites of #2Sa 8:18
|
||||||||||||||||
| 3-
PHILISTINES, THE (Phihl ihs’
teenes) One of the rival groups the Israelites encountered as they settled the land of Canaan. References to the Philistines appear in the Old Testament as well as other ancient Near Eastern writings. Philistine refers to a group of people who occupied and gave their name to the southwest part of Palestine. Ancient Egyptian records from the time of Merneptah and Ramses III referred to them as the"prst." Ancient Assyrian records include references to the Philistines in the terms Philisti and Palastu. The origin and background of the Philistines had not been completely clarified. Ancient Egyptian records include the "prst" as part of a larger movement of people known as the Sea Peoples, who invaded Egypt about 1188 B.C. by land and by sea, battling the forces of Ramses III, who, according to Egyptian records, defeated them. The Sea Peoples, a massive group that originated in the Aegean area, included the Tjeker, the Skekelesh, the Denyen, the Sherden, and the Weshwesh as well as the "prst" or Pelesti, the biblical Philistines. As they moved eastward from the Aegean region, the Sea Peoples made war with people in their path including the Hittites in Anatolia and the inhabitants at sites in North Syria such as those at the site of Ugarit. According to biblical references, the homeland of the Philistines was Caphtor (Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4). Philistines are first mentioned in the patriarchal stories (Genesis 21:32; Genesis 21:34), a reference which some suggest is anachronistic and others suggest refers to the migrations of an Aegean colony in the patriarchal period. The most dramatic phase of Philistine history begins in the period of the Judges when the Philistines were the principal enemy of and the major political threat to Israel. This threat is first seen in the stories of Samson (Judges 13-16). The threat intensified as the Philistines encroached on the territory of the tribe of Dan ultimately forcing Dan to move north (Judges 18:11; Judges 18:29). The threat reached crisis proportions in the battle of Ebenezer (1 Samuel 4:1-18), when the Israelites were soundly defeated and the ark of the covenant, brought over from Shiloh (1 Samuel 4:3-4), was captured. During the time of Samuel, the Israelites defeated the Philistines at times (1 Samuel 7:5-11; 1 Samuel 14:16-23), but, generally speaking, their advance against the Israelites continued. Saul not only failed to check their intrusion into Israelite territory but in the end lost his life fighting the Philistines at Mount Giboa (1 Samuel 31:1-13). David finally checked the Philistine advance at Baal-perazim (2 Samuel 5:17-25). Several features of Philistine life and culture are reflected in the Old Testament. Politically, the Philistines had a highly organized city-state system comprised of five towns in southwest Palestine: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron (1 Samuel 6:17). Each of the city-states was ruled by a "lord" (1 Samuel 6:18), a kinglike figure. Gath was perhaps the major city of this Philistine pentapolis, and as such, served as the hub of the city-state system. The Philistines were experts in metallurgy, the skill of processing metals (1 Samuel 13:19-23). Philistine expertise in this area put the Israelites at a decided disadvantage in their struggles with the Philistines (1 Samuel 13:22). The Philistines had a highly trained military organization. Sea and land battles between the Egyptians and Sea Peoples are depicted on large panels at the temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu in Thebes. The Philistines were in ships designed with a curved keel and the head of a bird on the bow. Philistine warriors wore a plumed or feathered headdress, a feature which added height to their physical appearance. On land, the Philistines were equipped with horses and chariots, numerous foot soldiers, and archers (1 Samuel 13:5; 1 Samuel 31:3). The armor of Philistine soldiers included bronze helmets, coats of mail, leg protectors, spears, and shields (1 Samuel 17:5-7). The story of Goliath indicates that at times the Philistines used individual combat (1 Samuel 17). Most likely, the Philistine warrior went through a cursing ritual just prior to the confrontation (1 Samuel 17:43). David, who recognized the military expertise of the Philistines, selected Cherethites (Cretans) and Pelethites (Philistines) (1 Samuel 20:23) for his palace guard or mercenary army. This segment of the army provided protection for David and his family during times of revolt. While our information on Philistine religion is limited, three Philistine gods are mentioned in the Old Testament—Dagon, Ashtoreth, and Baalzebub. Dagon appears to be the chief god of the Philistines. Temples of Dagon were located at Gaza (Judges 16:21-30) and Ashdod (1 Samuel 5:1-7). Ashtoreth, the fertility goddess of the Canaanites, was most likely adopted by the Philistines. Apparently, the Philistines had Ashtoreth temples at Beth-shan (1 Samuel 31:10 NIV) and, according to Herodotus, at Ashkelon (Herodotus I. 105). Baalzebub, the Philistine god whose name means "lord of the flies," was the god of Ekron (2 Kings 1:1-16). Most likely the Philistines worshiped Baalzebub as a god who averted pestilence or plagues. Archaeological excavations have brought to light many features of the material culture of the Philistines. The distinctive Philistine pottery which reflects styles and designs adopted and adapted from other cultures has been found at many sites. The major types of Philistine pottery are the so-called beer jug with a spouted strainer on the side, the crater bowl, the stirrup jar, and the horn-shaped vessel. The pottery was often decorated with red and black painted designs including geometric designs often consisting of circles and cross halving and stylized birds. Clay coffins were used by the Philistines for burials. These distinctive coffins, called "anthropoid coffins" because they were made in the shape of a human body, had lids decorated with the physical features of the upper part of a human being, features such as a head, arms, and hands. Recent excavations especially at the sites of Ashdod, tel-Qasile, tel Jemmeh, and tel Mor have added significantly to our understanding of the Philistine culture. The excavations at tel Qasile revealed a Philistine iron smeltery, a Philistine temple, offering stands, and other vessels used in religious rituals as well as many other artifacts and installations. A new series of excavations is under way at Ashkelon. The current excavations will add yet a new dimension to our understanding of the Philistines. The political influence of the Philistines was most prominent between 1200 and 1000 B.C., but their influence continues through the use of the name Palestine, a name derived from "Philistine."]
|
||||||||||||||||
| 3- Gaza
Called also Azzah, which is its Hebrew name #De 2:23 1Ki 4:24 #Jer 25:20 strong, a city on the Mediterranean shore, remarkable for its early importance as the chief centre of a great commercial traffic with Egypt. It is one of the oldest cities of the world #Ge 10:19 Jos 15:47 Its earliest inhabitants were the Avims, who were conquered and displaced by the Caphtorims #De 2:23 Jos 13:2,3 a Philistine tribe. In the division of the land it fell to the lot of Judah #Jos 15:47 Jud 1:18 It was the southernmost of the five great Philistine cities which gave each a golden emerod as a trespass-offering unto the Lord #1Sa 6:17 Its gates were carried away by Samson #Jud 16:1-3 Here he was afterwards a prisoner, and "did grind in the prison house." Here he also pulled down the temple of Dagon, and slew "all the lords of the Philistines," himself also perishing in the ruin #Jud 16:21-30 The prophets denounce the judgments of God against it #Jer 25:20 47:5 Am 1:6,7 Zep 2:4 It is referred to in #Ac 8:26 Philip is here told to take the road from Jerusalem to Gaza (about 6 miles south-west of Jerusalem), "which is desert," i.e., the "desert road," probably by Hebron, through the desert hills of Southern Judea. See Easton on SAMSON 3208 It is noticed on monuments as early as B.C. 1600 Its small port is now called el-Mineh. GAZA (Gay’ zu), AZZAH (KJV translation or spelling; Deut. 2:23; 1 Kings 4:24; Jeremiah 25:20). Place name meaning, "strong." Philistine city on the coastal plain about three miles inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It was the southernmost town of the Philistine city-state system which also included Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath (1 Samuel 6:17). While the site is especially associated with the Philistines, many other groups have inhabited it throughout history. That history extends from a period prior to the arrival of the Philistines, a period when the Avvim occupied the village (Deut. 2:23), on down to the present. The inhabitants of Gaza at times were referred to as the Gazites or Gazathites (Judges 16:2). Gaza’s important role in ancient history was due to its strategic location on the major coastal plain highway which connected Egypt with the rest of the Ancient Near East. Because of its strategic location, Gaza witnessed the passage of numerous caravans and armies and often got caught in the middle of the political struggles of the Ancient Near East. This is reflected in a brief review of the highlights of Gaza’s history. According to the records of Thutmose III, Thutmose captured Gaza on his first campaign to Palestine and made it a major Egyptian center. The Amarna Letters identify Gaza as the district headquarters for Egyptian holdings in southern Palestine. For Solomon, Gaza was the major center on the southern border of his kingdom which ran "from Tiphsah even to Azzah (Gaza)" (1 Kings 4:24). Gaza was often affected by the political struggles and turnovers that took place during the Assyrian and Babylonian periods. Tiglath-pileser III collected tribute from Gaza during his military campaign against Israel and Syria about 734 B.C. Hezekiah "smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza" as he tried to re-establish Judah’s independence (2 Kings 18:8) about 705-704 B.C. Sennacherib reinforced his control of Gaza as a vassal state as he invaded Judah in 701 B.C. Pharaoh Neco conquered Gaza about 609 B.C. and made it an Egyptian holding, but it remained in Egyptian hands for only a few years. Sometime after 605 B.C. the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Gaza and made it a part of his empire. In addition to the biblical references sighted above, Gaza is mentioned in other biblical accounts. Many of Samson’s encounters with the Philistines apparently took place in or near Gaza (Judges 16:1-3; Judges 16:21). Amos charged that along with the city of Tyre, in Phoenicia, Gaza engaged in slave trade with the Edomites (Amos 1:6-10). Gaza’s role as a major site on the coastal plain highway during the New Testament period is reflected in the story of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40). While both biblical and extra-biblical sources attest to Gaza’s lengthy history, the site has never had a thorough archaeological excavation. A work of that nature is virtually impossible because the remains of the biblical town are buried presumably under the modern city.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 4- Egypt
The land of the Nile and the pyramids, the oldest kingdom of which we have any record, holds a place of great significance in Scripture. The Egyptians belonged to the white race, and their original home is still a matter of dispute. Many scholars believe that it was in Southern Arabia, and recent excavations have shown that the valley of the Nile was originally inhabited by a low-class population, perhaps belonging to the Nigritian stock, before the Egyptians of history entered it. The ancient Egyptian language, of which the latest form is Coptic, is distantly connected with the Semitic family of speech. Egypt consists geographically of two halves, the northern being the Delta, and the southern Upper Egypt, between Cairo and the First Cataract. In the Old Testament, Northern or Lower Egypt is called Mazor, "the fortified land" #Isa 19:6 37:25 where the A.V. mistranslates "defence" and "besieged places"); while Southern or Upper Egypt is Pathros, the Egyptian Pa-to-Res, or "the land of the south" #Isa 11:11 But the whole country is generally mentioned under the dual name of Mizraim, "the two Mazors." The civilization of Egypt goes back to a very remote antiquity. The two kingdoms of the north and south were united by Menes, the founder of the first historical dynasty of kings. The first six dynasties constitute what is known as the Old Empire, which had its capital at Memphis, south of Cairo, called in the Old Testament Moph #Ho 9:6 and Noph. The native name was Mennofer, "the good place." The Pyramids were tombs of the monarchs of the Old Empire, those of Gizeh being erected in the time of the Fourth Dynasty. After the fall of the Old Empire came a period of decline and obscurity. This was followed by the Middle Empire, the most powerful dynasty of which was the Twelfth. The Fayyum was rescued for agriculture by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty; and two obelisks were erected in front of the temple of the sun-god at On or Heliopolis (near Cairo), one of which is still standing. The capital of the Middle Empire was Thebes, in Upper Egypt. The Middle Empire was overthrown by the invasion of the Hyksos, or shepherd princes from Asia, who ruled over Egypt, more especially in the north, for several centuries, and of whom there were three dynasties of kings. They had their capital at Zoan or Tanis (now San), in the north-eastern part of the Delta. It was in the time of the Hyksos that Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph entered Egypt. The Hyksos were finally expelled about B.C. 1600 by the hereditary princes of Thebes, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty, and carried the war into Asia. Canaan and Syria were subdued, as well as Cyprus, and the boundaries of the Egyptian Empire were fixed at the Euphrates. The Soudan, which had been conquered by the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty, was again annexed to Egypt, and the eldest son of the Pharaoh took the title of "Prince of Cush." One of the later kings of the dynasty, Amenophis IV., or Khu-n-Aten, endeavoured to supplant the ancient state religion of Egypt by a new faith derived from Asia, which was a sort of pantheistic monotheism, the one supreme god being adored under the image of the solar disk. The attempt led to religious and civil war, and the Pharaoh retreated from Thebes to Central Egypt, where he built a new capital, on the site of the present Tell-el-Amarna. The cuneiform tablets that have been found there represent his foreign correspondence (about B.C. 1400 He surrounded himself with officials and courtiers of Asiatic, and more especially Canaanitish, extraction; but the native party succeeded eventually in overthrowing the government, the capital of Khu-n-Aten was destroyed, and the foreigners were driven out of the country, those that remained being reduced to serfdom. The national triumph was marked by the rise of the Nineteenth Dynasty, in the founder of which, Rameses I., we must see the "new king, who knew not Joseph." His grandson, Rameses II., reigned sixty-seven years (B.C. 1348 and was an indefatigable builder. As Pithom, excavated by Dr. Naville in 1883 was one of the cities he built, he must have been the Pharaoh of the Oppression. The Pharaoh of the Exodus may have been one of his immediate successors, whose reigns were short. Under them Egypt lost its empire in Asia, and was itself attacked by barbarians from Libya and the north. The Nineteenth Dynasty soon afterwards came to an end; Egypt was distracted by civil war; and for a short time a Canaanite, Arisu, ruled over it. Then came the Twentieth Dynasty, the second Pharaoh of which, Rameses III., restored the power of his country. In one of his campaigns he overran the southern part of Palestine, where the Israelites had not yet settled. They must at the time have been still in the wilderness. But it was during the reign of Rameses III. that Egypt finally lost Gaza and the adjoining cities, which were seized by the Pulista, or Philistines. After Rameses III., Egypt fell into decay. Solomon married the daughter of one of the last kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty, which was overthrown by Shishak I., the general of the Libyan mercenaries, who founded the Twenty-second Dynasty #1Ki 11:40 14:25,26 A list of the places he captured in Palestine is engraved on the outside of the south wall of the temple of Karnak. In the time of Hezekiah, Egypt was conquered by Ethiopians from the Soudan, who constituted the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. The third of them was Tirhakah #2Ki 19:9 In B.C. 674 it was conquered by the Assyrians, who divided it into twenty satrapies, and Tirhakah was driven back to his ancestral dominions. Fourteen years later it successfully revolted under Psammetichus I. of Sais, the founder of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. Among his successors were Necho #2Ki 23:29 and Hophra, or Apries #Jer 37:5,7,11 The dynasty came to an end in B.C. 525 when the country was subjugated by Cambyses. Soon afterwards it was organized into a Persian satrapy. The title of Pharaoh, given to the Egyptian kings, is the Egyptian Per-aa, or "Great House," which may be compared to that of "Sublime Porte." It is found in very early Egyptian texts. The Egyptian religion was a strange mixture of pantheism and animal worship, the gods being adored in the form of animals. While the educated classes resolved their manifold deities into manifestations of one omnipresent and omnipotent divine power, the lower classes regarded the animals as incarnations of the gods. Under the Old Empire, Ptah, the Creator, the god of Memphis, was at the head of the Pantheon; afterwards Amon, the god of Thebes, took his place. Amon, like most of the other gods, was identified with Ra, the sun-god of Heliopolis. The Egyptians believed in a resurrection and future life, as well as in a state of rewards and punishments dependent on our conduct in this world. The judge of the dead was Osiris, who had been slain by Set, the representative of evil, and afterwards restored to life. His death was avenged by his son Horus, whom the Egyptians invoked as their "Redeemer." Osiris and Horus, along with Isis, formed a trinity, who were regarded as representing the sun-god under different forms. Even in the time of Abraham, Egypt was a flourishing and settled monarchy. Its oldest capital, within the historic period, was Memphis, the ruins of which may still be seen near the Pyramids and the Sphinx. When the Old Empire of Menes came to an end, the seat of empire was shifted to Thebes, some 300 miles farther up the Nile. A short time after that, the Delta was conquered by the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, who fixed their capital at Zoan, the Greek Tanis, now San, on the Tanic arm of the Nile. All this occurred before the time of the new king "which knew not Joseph" #Ex 1:8 In later times Egypt was conquered by the Persians (B.C. 525) and by the Greeks under Alexander the Great (B.C. 332) after whom the Ptolemies ruled the country for three centuries. Subsequently it was for a time a province of the Roman Empire; and at last, in A.D. 1517 it fell into the hands of the Turks, of whose empire it still forms nominally a part. Abraham and Sarah went to Egypt in the time of the shepherd kings. The exile of Joseph and the migration of Jacob to "the land of Goshen" occurred about 200 years later. On the death of Solomon, Shishak, king of Egypt, invaded Palestine #1Ki 14:25 He left a list of the cities he conquered. A number of remarkable clay tablets, discovered at Tell-el-Amarna in Upper Egypt, are the most important historical records ever found in connection with the Bible. They most fully confirm the historical statements of the Book of Joshua, and prove the antiquity of civilization in Syria and Palestine. As the clay in different parts of Palestine differs, it has been found possible by the clay alone to decide where the tablets come from when the name of the writer is lost. The inscriptions are cuneiform, and in the Aramaic language, resembling Assyrian. The writers are Phoenicians, Amorites, and Philistines, but in no instance Hittites, though Hittites are mentioned. The tablets consist of official dispatches and letters, dating from B.C. 1480 addressed to the two Pharaohs, Amenophis III. and IV., the last of this dynasty, from the kings and governors of Phoenicia and Palestine. There occur the names of three kings killed by Joshua, Adoni-zedec, king of Jerusalem, Japhia, king of Lachish #Jos 10:3 and Jabin, king of Hazor #Jos 11:1 also the Hebrews (Abiri) are said to have come from the desert. The principal prophecies of Scripture regarding Egypt are these, #Isa 19:1ff. #Jer 43:8-13 44:30 46:1ff. #Eze 29:1-32:32, and it might be easily shown that they have all been remarkably fulfilled. For example, the singular disappearance of Noph (i.e., Memphis) is a fulfilment of #Jer 46:19 Eze 30:13
|
||||||||||||||||
| 4-
EGYPT History
Contents:
EGYPT A land in northeastern Africa, home to one of the earliest civilizations, and an important cultural and political influence on ancient Israel. Geography Egypt lies at the northeastern corner of Africa, separated from Palestine by the Sinai Wilderness. In contrast to the modern nation, ancient Egypt was confined to the Nile River valley, a long, narrow ribbon of fertile land (the "black land") surrounded by uninhabitable desert (the "red land"). Egypt proper, from the first cataract of the Nile to the Mediterranean, is some 750 miles long. Classical historians remarked that Egypt was a gift of the Nile. The river’s three tributaries converge in the Sudan. The White Nile, with its source in Lake Victoria, provides a fairly constant water flow. The seasonal flow of the Blue Nile and Atbara caused an annual innundation beginning in June and cresting in September. Not only did the innundation provide for irrigation, but it replenished the soil with a new layer of fertile, black silt each year. The Nile also provided a vital communication link for the nation. While the river’s flow carried boats northward, prevailing northerly winds allowed easy sailing upstream. Despite the unifying nature of the Nile, the "Two Lands" of Egypt were quite distinct. Upper Egypt is the arable Nile Valley from the First Cataract to just south of Memphis in the north. Lower Egypt refers to the broad Delta of the Nile in the north, formed from alluvial deposits. Egypt was relatively isolated by a series of six Nile cataracts on the south and protected on the east and west by the desert. The Delta was the entryway to Egypt for travelers coming from the Fertile Crescent across the Sinai. History The numerous Egyptian pharaohs were divided by the ancient historian Manetho into thirty dynasties. Despite certain difficulties, Manetho’s scheme is still used and provides a framework for a review of Egyptian history. The unification of originally separate kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt about 3100 B.C. began the Archaic Period (First and Second Dynasties). Egypt’s first period of glory, the Third through Sixth Dynasties of the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 B.C.) produced the famous pyramids. The first, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, was build for Djoser of the Third Dynasty. The most famous, however, are the Fourth Dynasty pyramids at Giza, especially the Great Pyramid of Pharaoh Khufu (Greek Cheops). Much poorer pyramids demonstrate a reduction in royal power during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. Low Nile innundations, the resultant bad harvests, and incursions of Asiatics in the Delta region brought the political chaos of the Seventh through Tenth Dynasties, called the First Intermediate Period (2200-2040 B.C.). Following a civil war, the Eleventh Dynasty reunited Egypt and began the Middle Kingdom (2040-1786 B.C.). Under the able pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty, Egypt prospered and conducted extensive trade. From the Middle Kingdom onward, Egyptian history is contemporary with biblical events. Abraham’s brief sojourn in Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20) during this period may be understood in light of a tomb painting at Beni Hasan showing visiting Asiatics in Egypt about 1900 B.C. Under the weak Thirteenth Dynasty, Egypt entered another period of division. Asiatics, mostly Semites like the Hebrews, migrated into the Delta region of Egypt and began to establish independent enclaves, eventually consolidating rule over Lower Egypt. These pharaohs, being Asiatics rather than native Egyptians, were remembered as Hyksos, or "rulers of foreign lands." This period, in which Egypt was divided between Hyksos (Fifteenth and Sixteenth) and native Egyptian (Thirteenth and Seventeenth) dynasties, is known as the Second Intermediate or Hyksos Period (1786-1550 B.C.). Joseph’s rise to power (Genesis 41:39-45) may have taken place under a Hyksos pharaoh. The Hyksos were expelled and Egypt reunited about 1550 B.C. by Ahmose I, who established the Eighteenth Dynasty and inaugurated the Egyptian New Kingdom. Successive Eighteenth Dynasty pharaohs made military campaigns into Canaan and against the Mitannian kingdom of Mesopotamia, creating an empire which reached the Euphrates River. Foremost among the pharaohs was Thutmose III (1479-1425 B.C.), who won a major victory at Megiddo in Palestine. Amenhotep III (1391-1353 B.C.) ruled over a magnificent empire in peace—thanks to a treaty with Mitanni—and devoted his energies to building projects in Egypt itself. The great successes of the Empire led to internal power struggles, especially between the powerful priesthood of Amen-Re and the throne. Amenhotep III’s son, Amenhotep IV (1353-1335 B.C.), changed his name to Akhenaton and embarked on a revolutionary reform which promoted worship of the sun disc Aton above all other gods. As Thebes was dominated by the powerful priesthood of Amen-Re, Akhenaton moved the capital over two hundred miles north to Akhetaton, modern tell el-Amarna. The Amarna Age, as this period is known, brought innovations in art and literature; but Akhenaton paid little attention to foreign affairs, and the Empire suffered. Documents from Akhetaton, the Amarna Letters, represent diplomatic correspondence between local rulers in Egypt’s sphere of influence and pharaoh’s court. They especially illuminate the turbulent situation in Canaan, a century prior to the Israelite invasion. The reforms of Akhenaton failed. His second successor made clear his loyalties to Amen-Re by changing his name from Tutankhaton to Tutankhamen and abandoning the new capital in favor of Thebes. He died young, and his comparatively insignificant tomb was forgotten until its rediscovery in 1921. The Eighteenth Dynasty would not recover. The General Horemheb seized the throne and worked vigorously to restore order and erase all trace of the Amarna heresy. Horemheb had no heir and left the throne to his vizier, Ramses I, first king of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Seti I (1302-1290 B.C.) reestablished Egyptian control in Canaan and campaigned against the Hittites, who had taken Egyptian territory in North Syria during the Amarna Age. Construction of a new capital was begun by Seti I in the eastern Delta, near the biblical Land of Goshen. Thebes would remain the national religious and traditional capital. Ramses II (1290-1224 B.C.) was the most vigorous and successful of the Nineteenth Dynasty pharaohs. In his fifth year, he fought the Hittites at Kadesh-on-the-Orontes in north Syria. Although ambushed and nearly defeated, the pharaoh rallied and claimed a great victory. Nevertheless, the battle was inconclusive. In 1270 B.C. Ramses II concluded a peace treaty with the Hittites recognizing the status quo. At home he embarked on the most massive building program of any Egyptian ruler. Impressive additions were made to sanctuaries in Thebes and Memphis, a gigantic temple of Ramses II was built at Abu Simbel in Nubia, and his mortuary temple and tomb were prepared in Western Thebes. In the eastern Delta, the new capital was completed and called Pi-Ramesse ("domain of Ramses;" compare Genesis 47:11), the biblical Ramses (Exodus 1:11). Indeed, Ramses II may have been the unnamed pharaoh of the Exodus. Ramses II was succeeded, after a long reign, by his son, Merneptah (1224-1214 B.C.). A stele of 1220 B.C. commemorates Merneptah’s victory over a Libyan invasion and concludes with a poetic account of a campaign in Canaan. It includes the first extra-biblical mention of Israel and the only one in known Egyptian literature. After Merneptah, the Nineteenth Dynasty is a period of confusion. Egypt had a brief period of renewed glory under Ramses III (1195-1164 B.C.) of the Twentieth Dynasty. He defeated an invasion of the Sea Peoples, among whom were the Philistines. The remainder of Twentieth Dynasty rulers, all named Ramses, saw increasingly severe economic and civil difficulties. The New Kingdom and the Empire petered out with the last of them in 1070 B.C. The Iron Age had taken dominance of the Near East elsewhere. The Late Period (1070-332 B.C.) saw Egypt divided and invaded, but with occasional moments of greatness. While the high priesthood of Amen-Re controlled Thebes, the Twenty-first Dynasty ruled from the east Delta city of Tanis, biblical Zoan (Numbers 13:22; Psalm 78:12; Ezekiel 30:14; Isaiah 19:11; Isaiah 30:4). It was likely a pharaoh of this dynasty, perhaps Siamun, who took Gezer in Palestine and gave it to Solomon as his daughter’s dowry (1 Kings 3:1; 1 Kings 9:16). The Twenty-second Dynasty was founded by Shoshenq I (945-924 B.C.), the Shishak of the Bible, who briefly united Egypt and made a successful campaign against the newly-divided nations Judah and Israel (1 Kings 14:25; 2 Chron. 12). Thereafter, Egypt was divided between the Twenty-second through Twenty-fifth Dynasties. The "So king of Egypt" (2 Kings 17:4) who encouraged the treachery of Hoshea, certainly belongs to this confused period, but he cannot be identified with certainty. Egypt was reunited in 715 B.C., when the Ethiopian Twenty-fifth Dynasty succeeded in establishing control over all of Egypt. The most important of these pharaohs was Taharqa, the biblical Tirhakah who rendered aid to Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:9; Isaiah 37:9). Assyria invaded Egypt in 671 B.C., driving the Ethiopians southward and eventually sacking Thebes (biblical No-Amon; Nahum 3:8) in 664 B.C. Under loose Assyrian sponsorship, the Twenty-sixth Dynasty controlled all of Egypt from Sais in the western Delta. With Assyria’s decline, Neco II (610-595 B.C.) opposed the advance of Babylon and exercised brief control over Judah (2 Kings 23:29-35). After a severe defeat at the Battle of Carchemish (605 B.C.), Neco II lost Judah as a vassal (2 Kings 24:1) and was forced to defend her border against Babylon. The Pharaoh Hophra (Greek Apries; 589-570 B.C.) supported Judah’s rebellion against Babylon, but was unable to provide the promised support (Jeremiah 37:5-10; Jeremiah 44:30). Despite these setbacks, the Twenty-sixth Dynasty was a period of Egyptian renaissance until the Persian conquest in 525 B.C. Persian rule (Twenty-seventh Dynasty) was interrupted by a period of Egyptian independence under the Twenty-eighth through Thirtieth Dynasties (404-343 B.C.). With Persian reconquest in 343 B.C., pharaonic Egypt had come to an end. Alexander the Great took Egypt from the Persians in 332 B.C. and founded the great city of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast. After his death in 323 B.C., Egypt was home to the Hellenistic Ptolemaic Empire until the time of Cleopatra, when it fell to the Romans (30 B.C.). During the New Testament period, Egypt, under direct rule of the Roman emperors, was the breadbasket of Rome. Religion Egyptian religion is extremely complex and not totally understood. Many of the great number of gods were personifications of the enduring natural forces in Egypt, such as the sun, Nile, air, earth, and so on. Other gods, like Maat ("truth," "justice"), personified abstract concepts. Still others ruled over states of mankind, like Osiris, god of the underworld. Some of the gods were worshiped in animal form, such as the Apis bull which represented the god Ptah of Memphis. Many of the principal deities were associated with particular cities or regions, and their position was often a factor of the political situation. This is reflected by the gods’ names which dominate pharaohs’ names in various dynasties. Thus the god Amen, later called Amen-Re, became the chief god of the Empire because of the position of Thebes. The confusion of local beliefs and political circumstances led to the assimilation of different gods to certain dominant figures. Theological systems developed around local gods at Hermopolis, Memphis, and Heliopolis. At Memphis, Ptah was seen as the supreme deity which created the other gods by his own word, but this notion was too intellectual to be popular. Dominance was achieved by the system of Heliopolis, home of the sun god Atum, later identified with Ra. Similar to the Hermopolis cycle, it involved a primordial chaos from which appeared Atum who gave birth to the other gods. Popular with common people was the Osiris myth. Osiris, the good king, was murdered and dismembered by his brother Seth. Osiris’ wife, Isis, gathered his body to be mummified by the jackal-headed embalming god Anubis. Magically restored, Osiris was buried by his son, Horus, and reigned as king of the underworld. Horus, meanwhile, overcame the evil Seth to rule on earth. This cycle became the principle of divine kingship. In death, the pharaoh was worshiped as Osiris. As the legitimate heir Horus buried the dead Osiris, the new pharaoh became the living Horus by burying his dead predecessor. The consistent provision of the Nile gave Egyptians, in contrast to Mesopotamians, a generally optimistic outlook on life. This is reflected in their preoccupation with the afterlife, which was viewed as an ideal continuation of life on earth. In the Old Kingdom it was the prerogative only of the king, as a god, to enjoy immortality. The common appeal of the Osiris cult was great, however, and in later years any dead person was referred to as "the Osiris so and so." To assist the dead in the afterlife, magical texts were included in the tomb. In the Old Kingdom they were for royalty only, but by the Middle Kingdom variations were written inside coffin lids of any who could afford them. In the New Kingdom and later, magical texts known as The Book of the Dead were written on papyrus and placed in the coffin. Pictorial vignettes show, among other things, the deceased at a sort of judgment in which his heart was weighted against truth. This indicates some concept of sin, but the afterlife for the Egyptian was not an offer from a gracious god, but merely an optimistic hope based on observation of his surroundings. The Bible mentions no Egyptian gods, and Egyptian religion did not significantly influence the Hebrews. There are some interesting parallels between biblical texts and Egyptian literature. An Amarna Age hymn to the Aton has similarities to Psalm 104, but direct borrowing seems unlikely. More striking parallels are found in wisdom literature, as between Proverbs 22 and the Egyptian Instruction of Amen-em-ope.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 5- Hittites
Palestine and Syria appear to have been originally inhabited by three different tribes.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 5-
HITTITES AND HIVITES
Contents:
HITTITES AND HIVITES Non-Semitic minorities within the population of Canaan who frequently became involved in the affairs of the Israelites. Hittite and Hivite peoples of Indo-European origin, identified within the population of Canaan (as "sons" of Canaan) in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10:15; Genesis 10:17), seemingly infiltrated from their cultural and political centers in the north and settled throughout Palestine. Although the history and culture of the Hittites is being clarified, a problem exists with the so-called "Hivites," a name of unknown origin without any extra-biblical references. That they were uncircumcised (Genesis 34:2; Genesis 34:14) would suggest an Indo-European rather than Semitic origin. The more acceptable identification therefore would be with the biblical Horites (Hurrians) whose history and character are well-known from extra-biblical sources and consistent with role attributed to them in the biblical text. The Septuagint reading "Choraios" (Horite) for the Massoretic "Hivite" in Genesis34:2 and Joshua 9:7 suggests this identification. Hittites in the Bible Hittites appear among the ethnic groups living in urban enclaves or as individuals in Canaan interacting with the Israelites from patriarchal times to the end of the monarchy (Genesis 15:20; Deut. 7:1; Judges 3:5). As a significant segment of the Canaan’s population, these "children of Heth" permanently became identified as "sons" of Canaan (Genesis 10:15). In patriarchal times, the reference to King Tidal (in Hittite Tudhaliya II) in Genesis 14:1 is a possible link to early imperial Hatti. In Canaan, the Hittites established a claim on the southern hill country, especially the Hebron area. As a result, Abraham lived among this native population as a "stranger and a sojourner" (Genesis 23:4). He was forced to purchase the Cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as a family tomb, specifically for the immediate burial of Sarah (Genesis 23). Esau’s marriage to two Hittite women ("daughters of Heth . . . daughters of the land") greatly grieved and displeased his parents (Genesis 26:34-35; Genesis 27:46). The geographical reference to "all the land of the Hittites" (Joshua1:4) on the northern frontier of the Promised Land may indicate a recognition of the Hittite/Egyptian border treaty established by Rameses II and the Hittites under King Hattusilis III of about 1270 B.C. Moses’ listing of the inhabitants of the Promised Land included the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites (Exodus 13:5), a situation that was confirmed by the twelve spies sent to explore the land. They reported that Amalekites occupied the Negev, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and Amorites lived in the hill country, and the Canaanites were concentrated along the Mediterranean coast and the Jordan Valley (Numbers 13:29; Joshua 11:3); thus the Hittites were doomed to displacement by the infiltrating and invading Hebrews (Exodus 3:8; Exodus 3:17; Exodus 23:23; Exodus 33:2; etc.). Devastation and pressures from the west by the Phrygians and the Sea Peoples brought another Hittite population to Canaan about 1200 B.C. Ezekiel recalled that Jerusalem had Amorite and Hittite origins (Ezekiel 16:3; Ezekiel 16:45). David purchased a threshing floor from Araunah the Jebusite (2 Samuel 24:16-25) whose name may suggest a Hittite noble status ("arawanis" in Hittite meaning "freeman, noble"). Later, the account of David’s illicit love affair with Bathsheba indicates that Uriah and possibly other Hittites were serving as mercenaries in David’s army (2 Samuel 11:3; 2 Samuel 11:6; 2 Samuel 23:39). The Hittite woman among Solomon’s foreign wives was probably the result of a foreign alliance with a neo-Hittite king of north Syria (1 Kings 10:29-11:2; 2 Chron. 1:17). Hittites together with other foreign elements appear to have been conscripted to forced labor during Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 9:20-21). Languages of the Hittite World Records of the Assyrian trade colonies in the "Land of Hatti" suggest an earlier sub-stratum of linguistic and cultural development in the vicinity of Kanesh. This non-Indo-European language also found in texts from the Boghazkoy archives has been called "Hattic." It appears to have been at least one of the languages spoken in central Anatolia before the coming of the Hittite-Luwian branch of Indo-Europeans. For several hundred years Kanesh was the primary center of Anatolian affairs. Its role as a major Assyrian trading colony provided access to the Mesopotamian cuneiform system of writing. As a result, "cuneiform" Hittite became the "official" language of the empire (about 1600-1200 B.C.) for its historical annals, laws, and international treaties and correspondence. It was a spoken language only within the vicinity of Hattusas, the capital and center of Hittite officialdom. Speakers of an Indo-European language appear to have arrived in Anatolia from the north shortly before 4000 B.C. and gradually spread southward. These northwestern Anatolian settlers between 4000 and 3000 B.C. spoke an early form of Greek. The impression in Central Anatolia is of a generally peaceful spread of influence and language from the south and to a lesser extent from the west of Indo-Europeans whose ancestors recently had arrived from southeastern Europe. As a result from 3000 to 2000 B.C. much of Anatolia was occupied by various Indo-European elements who spoke closely related languages that included Hittite and Luwian (the Arzawans). However, soon after 1800 B.C., the kings of Kussara on the eastern frontier of Indo-European Anatolia assumed control. They conquered Kanesh and other central cities and established their capital at Hattusas. Their language, by this time clearly an archaic form of Hittite, was written in a hieroglyphic script. The iconography of this hieroglyphic script clearly suggests western origins. Hieroglyphic Hittite continued as the principal spoken language throughout the imperial and neo-Hittite periods to about 700 B.C. Hittite Old Kingdom The growing pressure of the Hurrians about 1780 B.C. forced a Hittite consolidation and the eventual establishment of their fortress capital at Hattusas within the crescent of the Halys River. There, Hattusilis I quickly consolidated and expanded what is referred to as the Old Hittite Kingdom. To restore lost tin and copper supplies, he immediately extended his control over a line of cities from Hattusas through the Cilician Gates to the Mediterranean Sea. He intended to gain control over the trade route along the Euphrates by capturing Aleppo, the route’s northern terminus. He destroyed Alalakh in the Aleppo region between 1650 and 1600 B.C. and then led eastern campaigns that eventually led to a raid on Babylon about 1560 B.C. and the fall of the first Babylonian dynasty. With continuing Hurrian pressure and palace rivalries at Hattusas, Mursilis withdrew only to be murdered by his brother-in-law upon his return to the palace. The subsequent internal weakness fostered the independence of occupied areas. At his accession to the throne about 1500 B.C., Telepinus faced the renewed confinement of the kingdom within central Anatolia. His reign proved to be a period of consolidation with renewed military activity into Syria and an alliance with Kizzuwadna, a new Indo-Aryan dynasty in Cilicia. The Old Kingdom came to an end with Telepinus, but his policies set a pattern for the kings of the Hittite Empire that followed. Hittite Empire The vitality of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni and the Egyptian military incursions into Syria under Thutmose III about 1450 B.C. stifled Hittite development until the death of the Egyptian pharaoh about 1436 B.C. Tudhaliyas I, the new Hittite king, relieved of Egyptian tribute, defeated Aleppo and Mitanni and reclaimed control of the Mesopotamian trade route. During his reign other significant battles were won, but Hittite territories were besieged on all sides with the result that when Tudhaliyas died, the Hittite kingdom suffered a disastrous decline. About 1380 B.C. after a series of victories against Hittite enemies, Suppiluliumas gained the throne and moved southward against Mitanni. He soon claimed all territories west of the Euphrates. Following a treaty with Babylon and domination of Mitanni, he reorganized northern Syria to ensure Hittite supremacy and control of the trade routes of the region. When Suppiluliumas died in 1334 B.C., his younger son Mursilis II followed with a very successful reign that included expansion in the west and preparation for the major confrontation that would come during his successor’s reign. Muwatillis (about 1308-1285 B.C.) concentrated all the forces of the Hittite Empire in northern Syria to meet the challenge of Ramses II of Egypt at Kadesh. Although the battle in 1286 was indecisive, the subsequent treaty sixteen years later (1270 B.C.) in which Egypt conceded all territories north of Damascus to the Hittites would seem to suggest that the balance of power, for a time at least, favored the Hittites. On the eastern frontier, however, Mitanni became an Assyrian vassal. Dangers on both east and west were magnified by an internal power struggle between Mursilis III, Muwatallis’ son and successor, and his uncle Hattusilis, who ultimately exiled Mursilis and became king (about 1278). Western lands in Asia Minor were lost. Assyria continued its westward move and, in spite of the Egypt-Hittite treaty, reached the Euphrates and cut off Hittite copper supplies. During the early reign of Tudhaliyas IV (1250-1220), the Hittites maintained control over the Syrian coast and invaded Cyprus for its copper mines. The Hittite treaty with Amurru, along the Syrian coast, prohibited trade with Assyria. The greater threat existed in new migrations from the west. Hittite lands were overrun and their capital destroyed by the hordes identified as "Sea Peoples," who, dislodged from their traditional homelands in the Greek-Aegean world, swept into Anatolia and the Levant (about 1200 B.C.). The Hittite empire was destroyed, and its capital was burned to the ground. For 250 years it had been a leading power by maintaining control over the vital trade routes and the distribution of mineral and agricultural wealth of the ancient Near East. Neo-Hittite Period Following the end of the Hittite empire, a large number of Hittite principalities were established in northern Syria, Cilicia, and the regions of the Taurus and Anti-Taurus. They maintained a distinct identity as a minority within a predominantly Semitic environment for over four hundred years. When Urartu was defeated as Assyria’s rival for the resources of Anatolia, the neo-Hittite states of northern Syria, now without Urartian support, could not withstand Assyrian pressure. By the end of 700 B.C. the Hittites had been absorbed into the Assyrian empire.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 6- Assyria
The name derived from the city Asshur on the Tigris, the original capital of the country, was originally a colony from Babylonia, and was ruled by viceroys from that kingdom. It was a mountainous region lying to the north of Babylonia, extending along the Tigris as far as to the high mountain range of Armenia, the Gordiaean or Carduchian mountains. It was founded in B.C. 1700 under Bel-kap-kapu, and became an independent and a conquering power, and shook off the yoke of its Babylonian masters. It subdued the whole of Northern Asia. The Assyrians were Semites #Ge 10:22 but in process of time non-Semite tribes mingled with the inhabitants. They were a military people, the "Romans of the East." Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria little is positively known. In B.C. 1120 Tiglath-pileser I., the greatest of the Assyrian kings, "crossed the Euphrates, defeated the kings of the Hittites, captured the city of Carchemish, and advanced as far as the shores of the Mediterranean." He may be regarded as the founder of the first Assyrian empire. After this the Assyrians gradually extended their power, subjugating the states of Northern Syria. In the reign of Ahab, king of Israel, Shalmaneser II. marched an army against the Syrian states, whose allied army he encountered and vanquished at Karkar. This led to Ahab’s casting off the yoke of Damascus and allying himself with Judah. Some years after this the Assyrian king marched an army against Hazael, king of Damascus. He besieged and took that city. He also brought under tribute Jehu, and the cities of Tyre and Sidon. About a hundred years after this (B.C. 745 the crown was seized by a military adventurer called Pul, who assumed the name of Tiglath-pileser III. He directed his armies into Syria, which had by this time regained its independence, and took (B.C. 740) Arpad, near Aleppo, after a siege of three years, and reduced Hamath. Azariah (Uzziah) was an ally of the king of Hamath, and thus was compelled by Tiglath-pileser to do him homage and pay a yearly tribute. In B.C. 738 in the reign of Menahem, king of Israel, Pul invaded Israel, and imposed on it a heavy tribute #2Ki 15:19 Ahaz, the king of Judah, when engaged in a war against Israel and Syria, appealed for help to this Assyrian king by means of a present of gold and silver #2Ki 16:8 who accordingly "marched against Damascus, defeated and put Rezin to death, and besieged the city itself." Leaving a portion of his army to continue the siege, "he advanced through the province east of Jordan, spreading fire and sword," and became master of Philistia, and took Samaria and Damascus. He died B.C. 727 and was succeeded by Shalmanezer IV., who ruled till B.C. 722 He also invaded Syria #2Ki 17:5 but was deposed in favour of Sargon (q.v.) the Tartan, or commander-in-chief of the army, who took Samaria (q.v.) after a siege of three years, and so put an end to the kingdom of Israel, carrying the people away into captivity, B.C. 722 #2Ki 17:1-6,24 18:7,9 He also overran the land of Judah, and took the city of Jerusalem #Isa 10:6,12,22,24,34 Mention is next made of Sennacherib (B.C. 705) the son and successor of Sargon #2Ki 18:13 19:37 Isa 7:17,18 and then of Esar-haddon, his son and successor, who took Manasseh, king of Judah, captive, and kept him for some time a prisoner at Babylon, which he alone of all the Assyrian kings made the seat of his government #2Ki 19:37 #Isa 37:38 Assur-bani-pal, the son of Esarhaddon, became king, and in #Ezr 4:10 is referred to as Asnapper. From an early period Assyria had entered on a conquering career, and having absorbed Babylon, the kingdoms of Hamath, Damascus, and Samaria, it conquered Phoenicia, and made Judea feudatory, and subjected Philistia and Idumea. At length, however, its power declined. In B.C. 727 the Babylonians threw off the rule of the Assyrians, under the leadership of the powerful Chaldean prince Merodach-baladan #2Ki 20:12 who, after twelve years, was subdued by Sargon, who now reunited the kingdom, and ruled over a vast empire. But on his death the smouldering flames of rebellion again burst forth, and the Babylonians and Medes successfully asserted their independence (B.C. 625) and Assyria fell according to the prophecies of Isaiah #Isa 10:5-19 Nahum #Na 3:19 and #Zeph 3:13 and the many separate kingdoms of which it was composed ceased to recognize the "great king" #2Ki 18:19 Isa 36:4 attests (about B.C. 586) how completely Assyria was overthrown. It ceases to be a nation.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 6-
ASSYRIA, HISTORY AND RELIGION OF
Contents:
ASSYRIA, HISTORY AND RELIGION OF (uhs·syr’ih·u) Assyria was a nation in northern Mesopotamia in Old Testament times that became a large empire during the period of the Israelite kings. Assyrian expansion into the region of Palestine (about 855-625 B.C.) had enormous impact on the Hebrew kingdoms of Israel and Judah. History Assyria lay north of the region of Babylonia along the banks of the Tigris River (Genesis 2:14) in northern Mesopotamia. The name Assyria (in Hebrew, Ashshur) is from Asshur, its first capital, founded about 2000 B.C. The foundation of other Assyrian cities, notably Calah and Nineveh, appears in Genesis 10:11-12. The history of Assyria is well documented in royal Assyrian annals, building inscriptions, king lists, correspondence, and other archaeological evidence. By 1900 B.C. these cities were vigorously trading as far away as Cappadocia in eastern Asia Minor. An expanded Assyria warred with the famous King Hammurabi of Babylon shortly before breaking up into smaller city states about 1700 B.C. Beginning about 1300 B.C., a reunited Assyria made rapid territorial advances and soon became an international power. Expanding westward, Tiglath-pileser I (1115-1077 B.C.) became the first Assyrian monarch to march his army to the shores of the Mediterranean. With his murder, however, Assyria entered a 166-year period of decline. Assyria awoke from its dark ages under Adad-nirari II (911-891 B.C.), who reestablished the nation as a power to be reckoned with in Mesopotamia. His grandson, Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.) moved Assyria toward the status of an empire. Ashurnasirpal II used a well-deserved reputation for cruelty to extort tribute and taxes from states within the reach of his army in predatory campaigns. He also rebuilt the city of Calah as the new military and administrative capital. Carved stone panels in Ashurnasirpal’s palace there show violent scenes of the king’s vicious campaigns against unsubmissive enemies. Ashurnasirpal’s son Shalmaneser III (858-824 B.C.) continued a policy of Assyrian expansion through his annual campaigns in all directions. These were no longer mere predatory raids. Rather they demonstrated a systematic economic exploitation of subject states. As always, failure to submit to Assyria brought vicious military action. The results, however, were not always a complete victory for Assyria. In such a context Assyria first encountered the Hebrew kingdoms of the Bible. In 853 B.C., at Qarqar in north Syria, Shalmaneser fought a coalition of twelve kings including Hadad-ezer (Ben-Hadad, 1 Kings 20:26; 1 Kings 20:34) of Aram-Damascus and Ahab of Israel. This confrontation is not mentioned in the Bible, but it may have taken place during a three-year period of peace between Israel and Aram-Damascus (1 Kings 22:1). In his official inscriptions Shalmaneser claims victory, but the battle was inconclusive. In 841 B.C., he finally defeated Hazael of Damascus and on Mt. Carmel received tribute from Tyre, Sidon, and King Jehu of Israel. A scene carved in relief on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, unearthed at Calah, shows Jehu groveling before Shalmaneser, the only known depiction of an Israelite king. With the death of Shalmaneser, Assyria entered another period of decline during which she was occupied with the nearby kingdom of Urartu. For the next century only one Assyrian king seriously affected affairs in Palestine. Adad-nirari III (810-783 B.C.) entered Damascus, taking extensive tribute from Ben-hadad III. He is probably the "savior" of 2 Kings 13:5, who allowed Israel to escape domination by Aram-Damascus. Nevertheless, Adad-nirari also collected tribute from Jehoash of Israel. Assyrian preoccupation with Urartu ended with the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (744-727 B.C.). The true founder of the Assyrian Empire, he made changes in the administration of conquered territories. Nations close to the Assyrian homeland were incorporated as provinces. Others were left with native rule, but subject to an Assyrian overseer. Tiglath-pileser also instituted a policy of mass deportations to reduce local nationalistic feelings. He took conquered people into exile to live in lands vacated by other conquered exiles. Compare 2 Kings 17:24. As Tiglath-pileser, also called Pul, arrived on the coast of Phoenicia, Menahem of Israel (2 Kings 15:19) and Rezin of Aram-Damascus brought tribute and became vassals of Assyria. An anti-Assyrian alliance quickly formed. Israel and Aram-Damascus attacked Jerusalem about 735 B.C. in an attempt to replace King Ahaz of Judah with a man loyal to the anti-Assyrian alliance (2 Kings 16:2-6; Isaiah 7:1-6) and thus force Judah’s participation. Against the protests of Isaiah (Isaiah 7:4; Isaiah 7:16-17; Isaiah 8:4-8), Ahaz appealed to Tiglath-pileser for assistance (2 Kings 16:7-9). Tiglath-pileser, in response, campaigned against Philistia (734 B.C.), reduced Israel to the area immediately around Samaria (2 Kings 15:29; 733 B.C.), and annexed Aram-Damascus (732 B.C.), deporting the population. Ahaz, for his part, became an Assyrian vassal (2 Kings 16:10; 2 Chron. 28:16; 2 Chron. 28:20-22). Little is known of the reign of Tiglath-pileser’s successor, Shalmaneser V (726-722 B.C.), except that he besieged Samaria for three years in response to Hoshea’s failure to pay tribute (2 Kings 17:3-5). The city finally fell to Shalmaneser (2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:9-12), who apparently died in the same year. His successor, Sargon II (722-705 B.C.), took credit in Assyrian royal inscriptions for deporting 27,290 inhabitants of Samaria. Sargon campaigned in the region to counter rebellions in Gaza in 720 B.C. and Ashdod in 712 (Isaiah 20:1). Hezekiah of Judah was tempted to join in the Ashdod rebellion, but Isaiah warned against such action (Isaiah 18). Meanwhile, unrest smoldered in other parts of the empire. A rebellious king of Babylon, Merodach-baladan, found support from Elam, Assyria’s enemy to the east. Though forced to flee Babylon in 710 B.C., Merodach-baladan returned some years later to reclaim the throne. He sent emissaries to Hezekiah in Jerusalem (2 Kings 20:12-19; Isaiah 39), apparently as part of preparations for a concerted anti-Assyrian revolt. News of Sargon’s death in battle served as a signal to anti-Assyrian forces. Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) ascended the throne in the midst of widespread revolt. Merodach-baladan of Babylon, supported by the Elamites, had inspired the rebellion of all southern Mesopotamia. A number of states in Phoenicia and Palestine were also in rebellion, led by Hezekiah of Judah. After subduing Babylon, Sennacherib turned his attentions westward. In 701 B.C., he reasserted control over the city-states of Phoenicia, sacked Joppa and Ashkelon, and invaded Judah where Hezekiah had made considerable military preparations (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chron. 32:1-8; 2 Chron. 32:30; Isaiah 22:8b-11). Sennacherib’s own account of the invasion provides a remarkable supplement to the biblical version (2 Kings 18:13-19:36). He claims to have destroyed 46 walled cities (see 2 Kings 18:13) and to have taken 200,150 captives. Sennacherib’s conquest of Lachish is shown in graphic detail in carved panels from his palace at Nineveh. During the siege of Lachish, an Assyrian army was sent against Jerusalem where Hezekiah was "made a prisoner . . . like a bird in a cage." Three of Sennacherib’s dignitaries attempted to negotiate the surrender of Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:17-37), but Hezekiah continued to hold out with the encouragement of Isaiah (2 Kings 19:1-7; 2 Kings 19:20-35). In the end, the Assyrian army withdrew, and Hezekiah paid an enormous tribute (2 Kings 18:14-16). The Assyrian account claims a victory over the Egyptian army and mentions Hezekiah’s tribute but is rather vague about the end of the campaign. The Bible mentions the approach of the Egyptian army (2 Kings 19:9) and tells of a miraculous defeat of the Assyrians by the angel of the Lord (2 Kings 19:35-36). The fifth century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus relates that the Assyrians suffered defeat because a plague of field mice destroyed their equipment. It is not certain whether these accounts can be combined to infer an outbreak of the plague. Certainly, Sennacherib suffered a major setback, for Hezekiah was the only ruler of the revolt to keep his throne. On a more peaceful front, Sennacherib conducted some major building projects in Assyria. The ancient city of Nineveh was rebuilt as the new royal residence and Assyrian capital. War continued, however, with Elam, which also influenced Babylon to rebel again. An enraged Sennacherib razed the sacred city in 689 B.C. His murder, at the hands of his own sons (2 Kings 19:37) in 681 B.C., was interpreted by Babylonians as divine judgment for destroying their city. Esarhaddon (681-669 B.C.) emerged as the new king and immediately began the rebuilding of Babylon, an act which won the allegiance of the local populace. He warred with nomadic tribes to the north and quelled a rebellion in Phoenicia, while Manasseh of Judah remained a loyal vassal. His greatest military adventure, however, was an invasion of Egypt conducted in 671 B.C. The Pharaoh Taharqa fled south as Memphis fell to the Assyrians, but returned and fomented rebellion two years later. Esarhaddon died in 669 B.C. on his way back to subjugate Egypt. After conducting a brief expedition against eastern tribes, Esarhaddon’s son, Ashurbanipal (668-627 B.C.), set out to reconquer Egypt. Assisted by 22 subject kings, including Manasseh of Judah, he invaded in 667 B.C. He defeated Pharaoh Taharqa and took the ancient capital of Thebes. Some 1,300 miles from home, Ashurbanipal had no choice but to reinstall the local rulers his father had appointed in Egypt and hope for the best. Plans for revolt began immediately; but Assyrian officers got wind of the plot, captured the rebels, and sent them to Nineveh. Egypt rebelled again in 665 B.C. This time Ashurbanipal destroyed Thebes, also called No-Amon (Nahum 3:8, NAS). Phoenician attempts at revolt were also crushed. Ashurbanipal ruled at Assyria’s zenith but also saw the beginning of her swift collapse. Ten years after the destruction of Thebes, Egypt rebelled yet again. Assyria could do nothing because of a war with Elam. In 651 B.C., Ashurbanipal’s brother, the king of Babylon, organized a widespread revolt. After three years of continual battles Babylon was subdued, but remained filled with seeds of hatred for Assyria. Action against Arab tribes followed, and the war with Elam continued until a final Assyrian victory in 639 B.C. That same year the official annals of Ashurbanipal came to an abrupt end. With Ashurbanipal’s death in 627 B.C., unrest escalated. By 626, Babylon had fallen into the hands of the Chaldean Nabopolassar. Outlying states, such as Judah under Josiah, were free to rebel without fear. War continued between Assyria and Babylon until, in 614 B.C., the old Assyrian capital Asshur was sacked by the Medes. Then, in 612 B.C., Calah was destroyed. The combined armies of the Babylonians and the Medes laid siege to Nineveh. After two months, the city fell.
An Assyrian general claimed the throne and rallied what was left of the Assyrian army in Haran. An alliance with Egypt brought a few troops to Assyria’s aid; but in 610 B.C. the Babylonians approached, and Haran was abandoned. Assyria was no more. Religion Assyrian religion, like that of most Near Eastern nations, was polytheistic. Essentially the same as Babylonian religion, official Assyrian religion recognized thousands of gods; but only about twenty were important in actual practice. The important part of the pantheon can be divided into several broad categories: old gods, astral deities, and young gods. (1) The old gods, Anu, Enlil, and Ea, were patron deities of the oldest Sumerian cities and were each given a share of the universe as their dominion. After the rise of Babylon, Marduk was also considered one of the rulers of the cosmos. Anu, god of the heavens and patron god of Uruk (biblical Erech; Genesis 10:10), did not play a very active role. Enlil of Nippur was god of the earth. Ea, the god of Eridu, was lord of the subterranean waters and the god of craftsmen. (2) Astral deities—gods associated with heavenly bodies—included the sun-god Shamash, the moon-god Sin, and Ishtar, goddess of the morning and evening star (the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus). Sin was the patron god of Ur and Haran, both associated with Abraham’s origins (Genesis 11:31). Ishtar, the Canaanite Astarte/Ashtaroth (Judges 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:3-4; 1 Kings 11:5), was very popular as the "Queen of Heaven" (Jeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 44:17-19; Jeremiah 44:25) and served as the patron goddess of Nineveh. Younger gods were usually associated with a newer city or none at all. Adad, the Canaanite Hadad, was the god of storms and thus both beneficial and destructive. Ninurta, the god of war and hunting, became a fitting patron for the Assyrian capital Calah. Most important, however, is the unique figure of Asshur. As patron god and namesake of the original Assyrian capital Asshur and the state itself, Asshur rose in importance to be lord of the universe and the supreme god. Since the god Asshur stood above all others, the Assyrian king was duty-bound to show his corresponding dominance on earth. Most Assyrian military campaigns were initiated "at the command of Asshur." Although a number of myths concerning the various Babylonian/Assyrian gods are known, the religious function of but one can be determined. The enuma elish, or Epic of Creation, originated in Babylon where it was recited and reenacted at the New Year’s Festival. In the Assyrian version Asshur, not the Babylonian Marduk, is shown to be superior to the other gods. The various gods were thought of as residing in cosmic localities, but also as present in their image, or idol, and living in the temple as a king in his palace. The temples varied in size according to the god’s importance. The gilded wooden images were in human form, clothed in a variety of ritual garments, and given three meals a day. On occasion, especially at the New Year’s Festival, the images were carried in ceremonial processions or to visit one another in different sanctuaries. It is difficult to know what meaning the images and temples of the various gods had for the average person, and even more difficult to ascertain what comfort or help he might expect through worship of them. It seems clear, however, that beyond the expectations of health and success in his earthly life, he was without eternal hope.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 7-
Babylon, Kingdom of
Called "the land of the Chaldeans" #Jer 24:5 Eze 12:13 was an extensive province in Central Asia along the valley of the Tigris from the Persian Gulf northward for some 300 miles. It was famed for its fertility and its riches. Its capital was the city of Babylon, a great commercial centre #Eze 17:4 Isa 43:14 Babylonia was divided into the two districts of Accad in the north, and Summer (probably the Shinar of the Old Testament) in the south. Among its chief cities may be mentioned Ur (now Mugheir or Mugayyar), on the western bank of the Euphrates; Uruk, or Erech #Ge 10:10 (now Warka), between Ur and Babylon; Larsa (now Senkereh), the Ellasar of #Ge 14:1 a little to the east of Erech; Nipur (now Niffer), south-east of Babylon; Sepharvaim #2Ki 17:24 "the two Sipparas" (now Abu-Habba), considerably to the north of Babylon; and Eridu, "the good city" (now Abu-Shahrein), which lay originally on the shore of the Persian Gulf, but is now, owing to the silting up of the sand, about 100 miles distant from it. Another city was Kulunu, or Calneh #Ge 10:10 The salt-marshes at the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris were called Marratu, "the bitter" or "salt," the Merathaim of #Jer 50:21 They were the original home of the Kalda, or Chaldeans. The most famous of the early kings of Babylonia were Sargon of Accad (B.C.3800) and his son, Naram-Sin, who conquered a large part of Western Asia, establishing their power in Palestine, and even carrying their arms to the Sinaitic peninsula. A great Babylonian library was founded in the reign of Sargon. Babylonia was subsequently again broken up into more than one state, and at one time fell under the domination of Elam. This was put an end to by Khammu-rabi (Amraphel), who drove the Elamites out of the country, and overcame Arioch, the son of an Elamite prince. From this time forward Babylonia was a united monarchy. About B.C. 1750 it was conquered by the Kassi, or Kosseans, from the mountains of Elam, and a Kassite dynasty ruled over it for 576 years and 9 months. In the time of Khammu-rabi, Syria and Palestine were subject to Babylonia and its Elamite suzerain; and after the overthrow of the Elamite supremacy, the Babylonian kings continued to exercise their influence and power in what was called "the land of the Amorites." In the epoch of the Kassite dynasty, however, Canaan passed into the hands of Egypt. In B.C. 729 Babylonia was conquered by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III.; but on the death of Shalmaneser IV. it was seized by the Kalda or "Chaldean" prince Merodach-baladan #2Ki 20:12-19 who held it till B.C. 709 when he was driven out by Sargon. Under Sennacherib, Babylonia revolted from Assyria several times, with the help of the Elamites, and after one of these revolts Babylon was destroyed by Sennacherib, B.C. 689 It was rebuilt by Esarhaddon, who made it his residence during part of the year, and it was to Babylon that Manasseh was brought a prisoner #2Ch 33:11 After the death of Esarhaddon, Saul-sumyukin, the viceroy of Babylonia, revolted against his brother the Assyrian king, and the revolt was suppressed with difficulty. When Nineveh was destroyed, B.C. 606 Nabopolassar, the viceroy of Babylonia, who seems to have been of Chaldean descent, made himself independent. His son Nebuchadrezzar (Nabu-kudur-uzur), after defeating the Egyptians at Carchemish, succeeded him as king, B.C. 604 and founded the Babylonian empire. He strongly fortified Babylon, and adorned it with palaces and other buildings. His son, Evil-merodach, who succeeded him in B.C. 561 was murdered after a reign of two years. The last monarch of the Babylonian empire was Nabonidus (Nabu-nahid), B.C. 555 whose eldest son, Belshazzar (Bilu-sar-uzur), is mentioned in several inscriptions. Babylon was captured by Cyrus, B.C. 538 and though it revolted more than once in later years, it never succeeded in maintaining its independence.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 7-
BABYLON, HISTORY AND RELIGION OF
Contents:
BABYLON, HISTORY AND RELIGION OF Babylon was a city-state in southern Mesopotamia during Old Testament times, which eventually became a large empire that absorbed the nation of Judah and destroyed Jerusalem. History The city of Babylon was founded in unknown antiquity on the river Euphrates, about 50 miles south of modern Baghdad. The English names Babylon and Babel (Genesis 10:10; Genesis 11:9) are translated from the same Hebrew word (babel). Babylon may have been an important cultural center during the period of the early Sumerian city-states (before 2000 B.C.), but the corresponding archaeological levels of the site are below the present water table and remain unexplored. Babylon emerged from anonymity shortly after 2000 B.C., a period roughly contemporary with the Hebrew patriarchs. At that time, an independent kingdom was established in the city under a dynasty of Semitic westerners, or Amorites. Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.), the sixth king of this First Dynasty of Babylon, built a sizable empire through treaties, vassalage, and conquest. From his time forward, Babylon was considered the political seat of southern Mesopotamia, the region called Babylonia. The political and socio-economic history of Babylonia in Hammurabi’s time is well known thanks to extensive collections of cuneiform tablets discovered at various cities in Mesopotamia, especially at Mari. The famous stele containing the Law Code of Hammurabi was inscribed about 1765 B.C. in Babylonia. It was found, however, in Susa, where it had been taken as booty by the Elamites about 1160 B.C. This standing stone, now in the Louvre, preserves some 282 laws governing various aspects of life and regulating justice to three recognized levels of society. Similarities between the Law Code and biblical Mosaic laws are a result of the common Semitic culture. Wide divergences between the two are indicative of a different religious outlook. The Amorite dynasty of Babylon reached its apex under Hammurabi. Subsequent rulers, however, saw their realm diminished, and in 1595 B.C. the Hittites sacked Babylon. After their withdrawal, members of the Kassite tribe seized the throne. The Kassite Dynasty ruled for over four centuries, a period of relative peace but also stagnation. Little is known up to about 1350 B.C., when Babylonian kings corresponded with Egypt and struggled with the growing power of Assyria to the north. After a brief resurgence, the Kassite dynasty was ended by the Elamite invasion in 1160 B.C. When the Elamites withdrew to their Iranian homeland, princes native to the Babylonian city of Isin founded the Fourth Dynasty of Babylon. After a brief period of glory in which Nebuchadnezzar I (about 1124-1103 B.C.) invaded Elam, Babylon entered a dark age for most of the next two centuries. Floods, famine, widespread settlement of nomadic Aramean tribes, and the arrival of Chaldeans in the south plagued Babylon during this time of confusion. During the period of the Assyrian Empire, Babylon was dominated by this warlike neighbor to the north. A dynastic dispute in Babylon in 851 B.C. brought the intervention of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. Babylon kings remained independent, but nominally subject to Assyrian "protection." A series of coups in Babylon prompted the Assyrian Tiglath-pileser III to enter Babylon in 728 B.C. and proclaim himself king under the throne name Pulu (Pul of 2 Kings 15:19; 1 Chron. 5:26). He died the next year. By 721 B.C., the Chaldean Marduk-apal-iddina, Merodach-baladan of the Old Testament, ruled Babylon. With Elamite support he resisted the advances of the Assyrian Sargon II in 720 B.C. Babylon gained momentary independence, but in 710 B.C. Sargon attacked again. Merodach-baladan was forced to flee to Elam. Sargon, like Tiglath-pileser before him, took the throne of Babylon. As soon as Sargon died in 705 B.C., Babylon and other nations, including Judah under King Hezekiah, rebelled from Assyrian domination. Merodach-baladan had returned from Elam to Babylon. It is probably in this context that he sent emissaries to Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:12-19; Isaiah 39). In 703 B.C., the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib, attacked Babylon. He defeated Merodach-baladan, who again fled. He ultimately died in exile. After considerable intrigue in Babylon, another Elamite-sponsored revolt broke out against Assyria. In 689 B.C., Sennacherib destroyed the sacred city of Babylon in retaliation. His murder, by his own sons (2 Kings 19:37) in 681 B.C., was interpreted by Babylonians as divine judgment for this unthinkable act. Esarhaddon, Sennacherib’s son, immediately began the rebuilding of Babylon to win the allegiance of the populace. At his death, the crown prince Ashurbanipal ruled over Assyria, while another son ascended the throne of Babylon. All was well until 651 B.C. when the Babylonian king rebelled against his brother. Ashurbanipal finally prevailed and was crowned king of a resentful Babylon. Assyrian domination died with Ashurbanipal in 627 B.C. In 626 B.C., Babylon fell into the hands of a Chaldean chief, Nabopolassar, first king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. In 612, with the help of the Medes, the Babylonians sacked the Assyrian capital Nineveh. The remnants of the Assyrian army rallied at Haran in north Syria, which was abandoned at the approach of the Babylonians in 610 B.C. Egypt, however, challenged Babylon for the right to inherit Assyria’s empire. Pharaoh Necho II, with the last of the Assyrians (2 Kings 23:29-30), failed in 609 to retake Haran. In 605 B.C., Babylonian forces under the crown prince Nebuchadnezzar routed the Egyptians at the decisive Battle of Carchemish (Jeremiah 46:2-12). The Babylonian advance, however, was delayed by Nabopolassar’s death which obliged Nebuchadnezzar to return to Babylon and assume power. In 604 and 603 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 B.C.), king of Babylon, campaigned along the Palestinian coast. At this time Jehoiakim, king of Judah, became an unwilling vassal of Babylon. A Babylonian defeat at the border of Egypt in 601 probably encouraged Jehoiakim to rebel. For two years Judah was harassed by Babylonian vassals (2 Kings 24:1-2). Then, in December of 598 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar marched on Jerusalem. Jehoiakim died that same month, and his son Jehoiachin surrendered the city to the Babylonians on March 16, 597 B.C. Many Judeans, including the royal family, were deported to Babylon (2 Kings 24:6-12). Ultimately released from prison, Jehoiachin was treated as a king in exile (2 Kings 25:27-30; Jeremiah 52:31-34). Texts excavated in Babylon show that rations were allotted to him and five sons. Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah over Judah. Against the protests of Jeremiah, but with promises of Egyptian aid, Zedekiah revolted against Babylon in 589 B.C. In the resultant Babylonian campaign, Judah was ravaged and Jerusalem besieged. An abortive campaign by the Pharaoh Hophra gave Jerusalem a short respite, but the attack was renewed (Jeremiah 37:4-10). The city fell in August of 587 B.C. Zedekiah was captured, Jerusalem burned, and the Temple destroyed (Jeremiah 52:12-14). Many more Judeans were taken to their Exile in Babylonia (2 Kings 25:1-21; Jeremiah 52:1-30). Apart from his military conquests, Nebuchadnezzar is noteworthy for a massive rebuilding program in Babylon itself. The city spanned the Euphrates and was surrounded by an eleven-mile long outer wall which enclosed suburbs and Nebuchadnezzar’s summer palace. The inner wall was wide enough to accommodate two chariots abreast. It could be entered through eight gates, the most famous of which was the northern Ishtar Gate, used in the annual New Year Festival and decorated with reliefs of dragons and bulls in enameled brick. The road to this gate was bordered by high walls decorated by lions in glazed brick behind which were defensive citadels. Inside the gate was the main palace built by Nebuchadnezzar with its huge throne room. A cellar with shafts in part of the palace may have served as the substructure to the famous "Hanging Gardens of Babylon," described by classical authors as one of the wonders of the ancient world. Babylon contained many temples, the most important of which was Esagila, the temple of the city’s patron god, Marduk. Rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar, the temple was lavishly decorated with gold. Just north of Esagila lay the huge stepped tower of Babylon, a ziggurat called Etemenanki and its sacred enclosure. Its seven stories perhaps towered some 300 feet above the city. No doubt Babylon greatly impressed the Jews taken there in captivity and provided them with substantial economic opportunities. Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest king of the Neo-Babylonian Period and the last truly great ruler of Babylon. His successors were insignificant by comparison. He was followed by his son Awel-marduk (561-560 B.C.), the Evil-Merodach of the Old Testament (2 Kings 25:27-30), Neriglissar (560-558 B.C.), and Labashi-Marduk (557 B.C.), murdered as a mere child. The last king of Babylon, Nabonidus (556-539 B.C.) was an enigmatic figure who seems to have favored the moon god, Sin, over the national god, Marduk. He moved his residence to Tema in the Syro-Arabian Desert for ten years, leaving his son Belshazzar (Daniel 5:1) as regent in Babylon. Nabonidus returned to a divided capital amid a threat from the united Medes and Persians. In 539 B.C., the Persian Cyrus II (the Great) entered Babylon without a fight. Thus ended Babylon’s dominant role in Near Eastern politics. Babylon remained an important economic center and provincial capital during the period of Persian rule. The Greek historian Herodotus, who visited the city in 460 B.C., could still remark that "it surpasses in splendor any city of the known world." Alexander the Great, conqueror of the Persian Empire, embarked on a program of rebuilding in Babylon which was interrupted by his death in 323 B.C. After Alexander the city declined economically, but remained an important religious center until New Testament times. The site was deserted by A.D. 200. In Judeo-Christian thought, Babylon the metropolis, like the Tower of Babel, became symbolic of man’s decadence and God’s judgment. "Babylon" in Rev. 14:8; Rev. 16:19; Rev. 17:5; Rev. 18:2 and probably in 1 Peter 5:13 refers to Rome, the city which personified this idea for early Christians. Religion. Babylonian religion is the best known variant of a complex and highly polytheistic system of belief common throughout Mesopotamia. Of the thousands of recognized gods, only about twenty were important in actual practice. The most important are reviewed here. Anu, Enlil, and Ea, were patron deities of the oldest Sumerian cities and were each given a share of the Universe as their dominion. Anu, god of the heavens and patron god of Uruk (biblical Erech; Genesis 10:10) did not play a very active role. Enlil of Nippur was god of the earth. The god of Eridu, Ea, was lord of the subterranean waters and the god of craftsmen. After the political rise of Babylon, Marduk was also considered one of the rulers of the cosmos. The son of Ea and patron god of Babylon, Marduk began to attain the position of prominence in Babylonian religion in the time of Hammurabi. In subsequent periods, Marduk (Merodach in Jeremiah 50:2) was considered the leading god and was given the epithet Bel (equivalent to the Canaanite term Baal), meaning "lord" (Isaiah 46:1; Jeremiah 50:2; Jeremiah 51:44). Marduk’s son Nabu (the Nebo in Isaiah 46:1), god of the nearby city of Borsippa, was considered the god of writing and scribes and became especially exalted in the Neo-Babylonian Period. Astral deities—gods associated with heavenly bodies—included the sun-god Shamash, the moon-god Sin, and Ishtar, goddess of the morning and evening star (the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus). Sin was the patron god of Ur and Haran, both associated with Abraham’s origins (Genesis 11:31). Ishtar, the Canaanite Astarte/Ashtaroth (Judges 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:3-4; 1 Kings 11:5), had a major temple in Babylon and was very popular as the "Queen of Heaven" (Jeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 44:17-19). Other gods were associated with a newer city or none at all. Adad, the Canaanite Hadad, was the god of storms and thus both beneficial and destructive. Ninurta, god of war and hunting, was patron for the Assyrian capital Calah. A number of myths concerning Babylonian gods are known, the most important of which is the Enuma elish, or Creation Epic. This myth originated in Babylon, where one of its goals was to show how Marduk became the leading god. It tells of a cosmic struggle in which, while other gods were powerless, Marduk slew Tiamat (the sea goddess, representative of chaos). From the blood of another slain god, Ea created mankind. Finally, Marduk was exalted and installed in his temple, Esagila, in Babylon. The Enuma elish was recited and reenacted as part of the twelve-day New Year Festival in Babylon. During the festival, statues of other gods arrived from their cities to "visit" Marduk in Esagila. Also, the king did penance before Marduk, and "took the hand of Bel" in a ceremonial processing out of the city through the Ishtar Gate. The gods were thought of as residing in cosmic localities, but also as present in their image, or idol, and living in the temple as a king in his palace. The gilded wooden images were in human form, clothed in a variety of ritual garments, and given three meals a day. On occasion the images were carried in ceremonial processions or to visit one another in different sanctuaries. It is very difficult to know what meaning the images and temples of the various gods had for the average person, and even more difficult to ascertain what comfort or help he might expect through worship of them. It seems clear, however, that beyond the expectations of health and success in his earthly life, he was without eternal hope.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 8- Persia
An ancient empire, extending from the Indus to Thrace, and from the Caspian Sea to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Persians were originally a Medic tribe which settled in Persia, on the eastern side of the Persian Gulf. They were Aryans, their language belonging to the eastern division of the Indo-European group. One of their chiefs, Teispes, conquered Elam in the time of the decay of the Assyrian Empire, and established himself in the district of Anzan. His descendants branched off into two lines, one line ruling in Anzan, while the other remained in Persia. Cyrus II., king of Anzan, finally united the divided power, conquered Media, Lydia, and Babylonia, and carried his arms into the far East. His son, Cambyses, added Egypt to the empire, which, however, fell to pieces after his death. It was reconquered and thoroughly organized by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, whose dominions extended from India to the Danube.
|
||||||||||||||||
| 8- PERSIA
(Per’ siu) As a nation, Persia corresponds to the modern state of Iran. As an empire, Persia was a vast collection of states and kingdoms reaching from the shores of Asia Minor in the west to the Indus River valley in the east. It reached northward to southern Russia, and in the south included Egypt and the regions bordering the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. In history, the empire defeated the Babylonians and then fell finally to Alexander the Great. The nation was named for the southernmost region of the area, called Parsis or Persis. It was a harsh land of deserts, mountains, plateaus, and valleys. The climate was arid and showed extremes of cold and heat. Gold and silver and wheat and barley were native to the area. The region was settled shortly after 3000 B.C. by people from the north. An Elamite culture developed which, at its peak in 1200 B.C., dominated the whole Tigris River valley. It lasted until 1050 B.C. After its destruction, other northern groups entered the area. Among these groups were tribesmen who formed a small kingdom in the region of Anshan around 700 B.C. It was ruled by Achaemenes, the great great-grandfather of Cyrus II, the Great. (Thus, the period from Achaemenes to Alexander is called the Achaemenid period.) This small kingdom was the seed of the Persian empire. When Cyrus II came to his father’s throne in 559 B.C., his kingdom was part of a larger Median kingdom. The Medes controlled the territory northeast and east of the Babylonians. In 550 B.C. Cyrus rebelled against Astyages, the Median king. His rebellion led to the capture of the king and gave Cyrus control over a kingdom stretching from Media to the Halys river in Asia Minor. Soon Cyrus challenged the king of Lydia. Victory there gave Cyrus the western portion of Asia Minor. Then, in 539 B.C., Babylon fell to Cyrus due to his skill and internal dissension in the Babylonian Empire. Cyrus died in 530 B.C.; however, the Persian Empire continued to grow. Cambyses II, Cyrus’ son, conquered Egypt in 525 B.C. Cambyses’ successor Darius I expanded the empire eastward to the Indus and attempted to conquer or control the Greeks. Darius lost to the Greeks at Marathon in 490 B.C. This was the greatest extension of the empire. Later emperors did little to expand the empire. They even had difficulty holding such a far-flung empire together. The Persian Empire is important to the history and development of civilization. It had major effects on religion, law, politics, and economics. The impact came through the Jews, the Bible, contacts with the Greeks, and through Alexander the Great’s incorporation of ideas and architecture from the Persians. Politically, the Persian Empire was the best organized the world had ever seen. By the time of Darius I, 522-486 B.C., the empire was divided into twenty satrapies (political units of varying size and population). Satrapies were subdivided into provinces. Initially, Judah was a province in the satrapy of Babylon. Later, Judah was in one named "Beyond the River." The satrapies were governed by Persians who were directly responsible to the emperor. Good administration required good communications which called for good roads. These roads did more than speed administration, though. They encouraged contacts between peoples within the empire. Ideas and goods could move hundreds of miles with little restriction. The empire became wealthy and also gave its inhabitants a sense that they were part of a larger world. A kind of "universal awareness" developed. The use of minted coins and the development of a money economy aided this identification with a larger world. The emperor’s coins were handy reminders of the power and privileges of being part of the empire. Also, the Persians were committed to rule by law. Instead of imposing an imperial law from above, however, the emperor and his satraps gave their authority and support to local law. For the Jews this meant official support for keeping Jewish law in the land of the Jews. The Persian Empire affected the Jews and biblical history a great deal. Babylon had conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in 586 B.C. When Cyrus conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jews to return to Judah and encouraged the rebuilding of the Temple (Ezra 1:1-4). The work was begun but not completed. Then, under Darius I, Zerubabbel and the high priest, Joshua, led the restored community with the support and encouragement of the Persians. (Ezra 3-6 tells of some of the events while Haggai’s and Zechariah’s prophecies were made during the days of the restoration.) Despite some local opposition, Darius supported the rebuilding of the Temple which was rededicated in his sixth year (Ezra 6:15). Also, both Ezra and Nehemiah were official representatives of the Persian government. Ezra was to teach and to appoint judges (Ezra 7). Nehemiah may have been the first governor of the province of Yehud (Judah). He undoubtedly had official support for his rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. The Jews had trouble under Persian rule, too. Although Daniel was taken into Exile by the Babylonians (Daniel 1:1-), his ministry continued through the fall of the Babylonians (Daniel 5) into the time of the Persians (Daniel 6-). His visions projected even further. Daniel 6 shows a stable government but one in which Jews could still be at risk. His visions in a time of tranquillity remind readers that human kingdoms come and go. Esther is a story of God’s rescue of His people during the rule of the Persian emperor: Ahasuerus (also known as Xerxes I). The story shows an empire where law can be used and misused. Jews are already, apparently, hated by some. Malachi, too, is probably from the Persian period. His book shows an awareness of the world at large and is positive toward the Gentiles and the government. Throughout the period, the Jews kept looking for the kind of restoration promised by prophets such as Isaiah (Isaiah 40-66) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40-48). Prophets such as Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi helped the Jews to hope, but these men of God also reminded their hearers of the importance of present faithfulness and obedience to God.
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
