The Israelites in the land of Canaan: the judges—The Philistines and the Hebrew kingdom—Saul, David, Solomon, the defection of the ten tribes—the XXIst Egyptian dynasty—Sheshonq—Damascus.

After reaching Kadesh-barnea, the Israelites in their wanderings had come into contact with various Bedawin tribes—Kenites, Jerahmelites, Edomites, and Midianites, with whom they had in turn fought or allied themselves, according to the exigencies of their pastoral life. Continual skirmishes had taught them the art of war, their numbers had rapidly increased, and with this increase came a consciousness of their own strength, so that, after a lapse of two or three generations, they may be said to have constituted a considerable nation. Its component elements were not, however, firmly welded together; they consisted of an indefinite number of clans, which were again subdivided into several families. Each of these families had its chief or “ruler,” to whom it rendered absolute obedience, while the united chiefs formed an assembly of elders who administered justice when required, and settled any differences which arose among their respective followers. The clans in their turn were grouped into tribes,* according to certain affinities which they mutually recognised, or which may have been fostered by daily intercourse on a common soil, but the ties which bound them together at this period were of the most slender character. It needed some special event, such as a projected migration in search of fresh pasturage, or an expedition against a turbulent neighbour, or a threatened invasion by some stranger, to rouse the whole tribe to corporate action; at such times they would elect a “nasi,” or ruler, the duration of whose functions ceased with the emergency which had called him into office.**

* The tribe was designated by two words signifying “staff” or
“branch.”
** The word nasi, first applied to the chiefs of the
tribes (Exod. xxxiv. 31; Lev. iv. 22; Numb. ii. 3),
became, after the captivity, the title of the chiefs of
Israel, who could not be called kings owing to the foreign
suzerainty (Esdras i. 8).

Both clans and tribes were designated by the name of some ancestor from whom they claimed to be descended, and who appears in some cases to have been a god for whom they had a special devotion; some writers have believed that this was also the origin of the names given to several of the tribes, such as Gad, “Good Fortune,” or of the totems of the hyena and the dog, in Arabic and Hebrew, “Simeon” and “Caleb.” * Gad, Simeon, and Caleb were severally the ancestors of the families who ranged themselves under their respective names, and the eponymous heroes of all the tribes were held to have been brethren, sons of one father, and under the protection of one God. He was known as the Jahveh with whom Abraham of old had made a solemn covenant; His dwelling-place was Mount Sinai or Mount Seîr, and He revealed Himself in the storm;** His voice was as the thunder “which shaketh the wilderness,” His breath was as “a consuming fire,” and He was decked with light “as with a garment.” When His anger was aroused, He withheld the dew and rain from watering the earth; but when His wrath was appeased, the heavens again poured their fruitful showers upon the fields.***

* Simeon is derived by some from a word which at times
denotes a hyena, at others a cross between a dog and a
hyena, according to Arab lexicography. With regard to Caleb,
Renan prefers a different interpretation; it is supposed to
be a shortened form of Kalbel, and “Dog of El” is a strong
expression to denote the devotion of a tribe to its patron
god.
** Cf. the graphic description of the signs which
accompanied the manifestations of Jahveh in the Song of
Deborah (Judges v. 4, 5), and also in 1 Kings xix. 11-13.
*** See 1 Kings xvii., xviii., where the conflict between
Elijah and the prophets of Baal for the obtaining of rain is
described.

He is described as being a “jealous God,” brooking no rival, and “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” We hear of His having been adored under the figure of a “calf,” * and of His Spirit inspiring His prophets, as well as of the anointed stones which were dedicated in His honour. The common ancestor of the nation was acknowledged to have been Jacob, who, by his wrestling with God, had obtained the name of Israel; the people were divided theoretically into as many tribes as he had sons, but the number twelve to which they were limited does not entirely correspond with all that we know up to the present time of these “children of Israel.” Some of the tribes appear never to have had any political existence, as for example that of Levi,** or they were merged at an early date into some fellow-tribe, as in the case of Reuben with Gad;*** others, such as Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, and Judah, apparently did not attain their normal development until a much later date.

* The most common of these animal forms was that of a calf
or bull (Exod. xxxii.; Deut. ix. 21; and in the kingly
period, 1 Kings xii. 28-30; 2 Kings x. 29); we are not told
the form of the image of Micah the Ephraimite (Judges xviii.
14, 17, 18, 20, 30, 31).
** Levi appears to have suffered dispersion after the events
of which there are two separate accounts combined in Gen.
xxxiv. In conjunction with Simeon, he appears to have
revenged the violation of his sister Dinah by a massacre of
the Shechemites, and the dispersion alluded to in Jacob’s
blessing (Gen. xlix. 5-7) is mentioned as consequent on this
act of barbarism.
*** In the IXth century Mesha of Moab does not mention the
Reubenites, and speaks of the Gadites only as inhabiting the
territory formerly occupied by them. Tradition attributed
the misfortunes of the tribe to the crime of its chief in
his seduction of Bilhah, his father’s concubine (Gen. xlix.
3, 4; cf. xxxv. 22)

The Jewish chroniclers attempted by various combinations to prove that the sacred number of tribes was the correct one. At times they included Levi in the list, in which case Joseph was reckoned as one;* while on other occasions Levi or Simeon was omitted, when for Joseph would be substituted his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh.** In addition to this, the tribes were very unequal in size: Ephraim, Gad, and Manasseh comprised many powerful and wealthy families; Dan, on the contrary, contained so few, that it was sometimes reckoned as a mere clan.

* As, for instance, in Jacob’s blessing (Gen. xlix. 5-7) and
in the enumeration of the patriarch’s sons at the time of
his journey to Egypt (Gen. xlvi. 9-26).
** Numb. i. 20, et seq., where the descendants of Levi are
not included among the twelve, and Deut. xxxiii. 6-25, where
Simeon is omitted from among the tribes blessed by Moses
before his death.

The tribal organisation had not reached its full development at the time of the sojourn in the desert. The tribes of Joseph and Judah, who subsequently played such important parts, were at that period not held in any particular estimation; Reuben, on the other hand, exercised a sort of right of priority over the rest.*