Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

We can assign a definite reason for their final departure from Kadesh. In the district to the east of Jordan the (Canaanite) Amorites had, sometime previously, driven the Ammonites from the lower Jabbok and deprived the Moabites of all their territory to the north of the Arnon; on the plateau opposite Jericho Heshbon had become the capital of Sihon, the Amorite king. This sovereign now set himself to subdue southern Moab also, and not without success.

"Fire went out from Heshbon, flame from the stronghold of Sihon, devoured the cities of Moab upon the heights of Arnon. Woe to thee, O Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh!"

From these straits the Moabites were rescued by their cousins, the nomads of the wilderness of Kadesh. The Israelites came forward on behalf of what was at once the common Hebrew cause and their own particular interest; they took the field against the Amorites, vanquished them in battle, and broke up the kingdom of Sihon. The consequence was that the land to the south of the Arnon remained in the undisputed possession of Moab, while the victors themselves became masters of the territory immediately to the north. Settled thus between Moab and Ammon their kinsmen, the Israelites supplied the link that was wanting in the chain of petty Hebrew nationalities established in the south of eastern Palestine.

The army that went out against the Amorites from Kadesh was certainly not exclusively composed of men who, or whose fathers, had accomplished the passage of the Red Sea Israel was not a formed nation when it left Egypt; and throughout the whole period of its sojourn in the wilderness it continued to be in process of growth. Instead of excluding the kindred elements which offered themselves to it on its new soil, it received and assimilated them. The life they had lived together under Moses had been the first thing to awaken a feeling of solidarity among the tribes which afterwards constituted the nation; whether they had previously been a unity in any sense of the word is doubtful. On the other hand, the basis of the unification of the tribes must certainly have been laid before the conquest of Palestine proper; for with that it broke up, though the memory of it continued. At the same time it must not be supposed that all the twelve tribes already existed side be side in Kadesh. The sons of the concubines of Jacob—Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher—manifestly do not pertain to Israel in the same sense as do those of Leah and Rachel; probably they were late arrivals and of very mixed origin. We know, besides, that Benjamin was not born until afterwards, in Palestine. If this view be correct, Israel at first consisted of seven tribes, of which one only, that of Joseph, traced its descent to Rachel, though in point of numbers and physical strength it was the equal of all the others together, while in intellectual force it surpassed them. The remaining six were the sons of Leah:—Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah; Issachar, Zebulon. They are always enumerated in this order; the fact that the last two are also invariably mentioned apart from the rest and after Joseph has its explanation in geographical considerations.

The time of Moses is invariably regarded as the properly creative period in Israel's history, and on that account also as giving the pattern and norm for the ages which followed. In point of fact the history of Israel must be held to have begun then, and the foundations of a new epoch to have been laid. The prophets who came after gave, it is true, greater distinctness to the peculiar character of the nation, but they did not make it; on the contrary, it made them. Again, it is true that the movement which resulted in the establishment of the monarchy brought together for the first time into organic unity the elements which previously had existed only in an isolated condition; but Israel's sense of national personality was a thing of much earlier origin, which even in the time of the judges bound the various tribes and families together, and must have had a great hold on the mind of the nation, although there was no formal and binding constitution to give it support. When the Israelites settled in Palestine they found it inhabited by a population superior to themselves both in numbers and in civilisation, which they did not extirpate, but on the contrary gradually subdued and absorbed. The process was favoured by affinity of race and similarity of speech; but, however far it went, it never had the effect of making Israelites Canaanites; on the contrary, it made Canaanites Israelites. Notwithstanding their inferiority, numerical and otherwise, they maintained their individuality, and that without the support of any external organisation. Thus a certain inner unity actually subsisted long before it had found any outward political expression; it goes back to the time of Moses, who is to be regarded as its author.

The foundation upon which, at all periods, Israel's sense of its national unity rested was religious in its character. It was the faith which may be summed up in the formula, Jehovah is the God of Israel, and Israel is the people of Jehovah. Moses was not the first discoverer of this faith, but it was through him that it came to be the fundamental basis of the national existence and history. /1/

— Footnote 1. Jehovah is to be regarded as having originally been a family or tribal god, either of the family to which Moses belonged or of the tribe of Joseph, in the possession of which we find the ark of Jehovah, and within which occurs the earliest certain instance of a composite proper name with the word Jehovah for one of its elements (Jeho-shua, Joshua). No essential distinction was felt to exist between Jehovah and El, any more than between Asshur and El; Jehovah was only a special name of El which had become current within a powerful circle, and which on that account was all the more fitted to become the designation of a national god. — Footnote

The exigencies of their position severe a number of kindred clans from their customary surroundings, and drove them into his arms. He undertook the responsibilities of their leader, and the confidence of success which he manifested was justified by the result. But it was not through any merit of his that the undertaking (of which he was the soul) prospered as it did; his design was aided in a wholly unlooked-for way, by a marvellous occurrence quite beyond his control, and which no sagacity could possibly have foreseen. One whom the wind and sea obeyed had given him His aid. Behind him stood One higher than he, whose spirit wrought in him and whose arm wrought for him,—not for his personal aggrandisement indeed, but for the weal of the nation. It was Jehovah. Alike what was done by the deliberate purpose of Moses and what was done without any human contrivance by nature and by accident came to be regarded in one great totality as the doing of Jehovah for Israel. Jehovah it was who had directed each step in that process through which these so diverse elements, brought together by the pressure of necessity, had been caused to pass, and in the course of which the first beginnings of a feeling of national unity had been made to grow.

This feeling Moses was the first to elicit; he it was also who maintained it in life and cherished its growth. The extraordinary set of circumstances which had first occasioned the new national movement continued to subsist, though in a less degree, throughout the sojourn of the people in the wilderness, and it was under their pressure that Israel continued to be moulded. To Moses, who had been the means of so brilliantly helping out of their first straits the Hebrews who had accompanied him out of Egypt, they naturally turned in all subsequent difficulties; before him they brought all affairs with which they were not themselves able to cope. The authority which his antecedents had secured for him made him as matter of course the great national "Kadhi" in the wilderness. Equally as matter of course did he exercise his judicial functions, neither in his own interest nor in his own name, but in the interest of the whole community and in the name of Jehovah. By connecting them with the sanctuary of Jehovah, which stood at the well of Kadesh, he made these functions independent of his person, and thus he laid a firm basis for a consuetudinary law and became the originator of the Torah in Israel. In doing this he succeeded in inspiring the national being with that which was the very life of his own soul; through the Torah he gave a definite positive expression to their sense of nationality and their idea of God. Jehovah was not merely the God of Israel; as such he was the God at once of law and of justice, the basis, the informing principle, and the implied postulate of their national consciousness.

The relationship was carried on in precisely the same manner as that in which it had been begun. It was most especially in the graver moments of its history that Israel awoke to full consciousness of itself and of Jehovah. Now, at that time and for centuries afterwards, the highwater marks of history were indicated by the wars it recorded. The name "Israel" means "El does battle," and Jehovah was the warrior El, after whom the nation styled itself. The camp was, so to speak, at once the cradle in which the nation was nursed and the smithy in which it was welded into unity; it was also the primitive sanctuary. There Israel was, and there was Jehovah. If in times of peace the relations between the two had become dormant, they were at once called forth into fullest activity when the alarm of danger was raised; Israel's awakening was always preceded by the awakening of Jehovah. Jehovah awakened men who under the guidance of His spirit placed themselves at the nation's head; in them His proper leadership was visibly expressed. Jehovah went forth with the host to battle, and in its enthusiasm His presence was seen (Judges. v. 13, 23). With signs and wonders from heaven Jehovah decided the struggle carried on upon earth. In it He was always upon Israel's side; on Israel was His whole interest concentrated, although His power (for He was God) reached far beyond their local limits.