The so-called historical books of the Hebrew Bible provide a sweeping view of ancient Israel in the period from circa 1225 BCE to circa 400 BCE. These books form a continuous series in the Christian canon, extending from Joshua through Judges, 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, 1–2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and concluding with Esther. In the Jewish canon, Joshua through Kings are called the Former Prophets, 1–2 Chronicles and Nehemiah are included in the Writings, as is Esther, which is grouped with four other shorter books connected with Jewish festivals (the Megilloth). Joshua through Kings are probably named Former Prophets because they contain traditions about prophets who preceded Hosea (the first book listed in the Latter Prophets, also known as the Writing Prophets), and there is major attention to the prophets Elijah and Elisha in 1–2 Kings.
The flow of Israelite life begins with Joshua’s conquest of Canaan and continues with the leadership of “judges” before recounting the fortunes of the united and divided kingdoms in 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings. Interestingly, 1–2 Chronicles covers in part the same ground as Kings but does so by repeating much of Samuel-Kings, to which it adds traditions of its own, producing a decidedly more religious view of the monarchy than the former. Oddly, the period of the exile is omitted and the story line jumps to the postexilic return to Palestine (Ezra-Nehemiah) and ends with the outlier short story about a Jewess who rises to the status of queen of Persia (Esther).
The author or authors of the historical books are unknown, and in this respect they differ from the works of Herodotus and Thucydides of Greece, widely regarded as the first historians in the Western world, who composed roughly at the same time as Joshua-Kings. The Greek histories are clearly written by identifiable individuals. By contrast, with an unknown author and a division into six books that differ greatly in design and style, the books of Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings might easily be judged to constitute three separate books. The transition from Joshua to Judges and from Judges to 1 Samuel is abrupt, whereas the four volumes of Samuel and Kings flow seamlessly into one another. Chronicles stands apart as a briefer reinterpretation and supplement to the longer work.
Nonetheless, in Joshua-Kings, there is a continuity of viewpoint expressed in a common language at key junctures in all six books, demonstrating that the overall composition is the work of a single hand, or of a company of like minds. This unknown author, or joint authors, has been given the clumsy moniker of “the Deuteronomist” (hereafter as Dtr) because these historical books share a common vocabulary, style, and theology with the book of Deuteronomy. In fact, the book of Deuteronomy is the actual introduction for Dtr, even though it has been separated from the historical books and is counted as the last book of the Law in Jewish and Christian canons. For this reason, Joshua to Kings has been described as the Deuteronomistic History (hereafter as DH).
Apart from the common language and theology spanning the six volumes of DH, the contents of these historical books are sufficiently different that they pose the question: Is Dtr an author or an editor-compiler? We make the best sense of the literary data if we understand Dtr as both editor-compiler and author. Clearly DH has been composed of varied traditions differing greatly in genre and often reaching back in time, so that they constitute a veritable depth-dimensional anthology of Israel’s historical and cultural memories. Consequently, the loosely connected stories of the judges read very differently from the smoothly rendered narratives about Samuel, Saul, and David, and the accounts of the so-called conquest of Canaan are far less likely to give us material for a history of Israel than information from Kings on the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. It almost goes without saying that a poem like the Song of Deborah (Judges 5) needs to be approached with quite another sensibility and mind-set than the tribal allotments. In short, scattered sources of varying age and provenance have been assembled and edited to form the contents of Dtr (the editor-compiler function) and stamped with an emphatic, even dogmatic, explanation of why Israel’s history transpired as it did (the author function).
Likewise, Chronicles lacks an authorial identity, and the author is called simply the Chronicler (hereafter Chr). His compositional practices differ from those of Dtr in that there is a single, well-known primary source in 1–2 Chronicles, namely, the books of Samuel-Kings, which serve as the backbone of the work. In this dependence on a single published source, Chr operates in much the same manner as the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke, whose authors employ Mark as the ground plan of their Gospels. The unique materials in 1–2 Chronicles include long genealogies that preface a glowing, almost rapturous account of David and his dynasty. These books have a compelling interest in the glorious dynasty of David, especially the religious practices in the temple prepared by David and built by his son Solomon. The names of priests and musicians who minister at the temple are recited. The northern kings are ignored except at points where they interact with the Davidic dynasty. Nonetheless, surprisingly, Chr issues an invitation for the apostate northern tribes to rejoin Judah, submit to the Davidic dynasty, and adhere to worship at the Jerusalem temple.
The date of the historical books is as uncertain as the identity of their author(s). Nevertheless, some clues to date appear within the documents. The narratives in DH and Chronicles stop abruptly with the fall of Jerusalem and the deportation of its upper class to Babylonia (the so-called exile). The sole exceptions are a reference by Dtr to the favor shown by a Babylonian ruler to the captive king Jehoiachin (2 Kgs. 25:27-30) and by Chr’s inclusion of the proclamation of Cyrus the Persian in 538 BCE to return the deportees to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple (2 Chron. 36:22-23). As a result, the critical fifty years between the eclipse of the political and religious sovereignty of Judah (586 BCE) and the proclaimed restoration of Judah as a province of the Persian Empire (538 BCE) are virtually a blank slate in the biblical historical record. It also means that the terminal stage in the composition of Joshua-Kings was later than the favor shown Jehoiachin in 561 BCE. Likewise, the finished composition of 1–2 Chronicles was later than the proclamation of Cyrus in 538 BCE. However, it is persuasively argued by some scholars that Joshua-Kings went through two editions, the first during the reign of King Josiah (640–609 BCE), celebrating a sweeping religious reform, and the final edition explaining why the kingdom of Judah was totally destroyed in spite of its promising future under Josiah. As a consequence, DH contains both the promise to David of an eternal dynasty and the nullification of that promise by the destruction of state and temple and the decimation of Judah’s religious and political leadership. Chronicles softens the blow of exile by symbolizing exilic Judah as a land enjoying a Sabbath rest for seventy years, and little is made of the eclipse of the Davidic dynasty.
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah present yet a different picture. Past scholarship commonly understood Chr to be the author of these two books, but that attribution is now generally denied on stylistic and ideological grounds. The books tell of a period in the history of restored Judah, dated in the fifth century BCE, when the priest Ezra headed a sizable group of deportees returning to Judah and the layman Nehemiah served as governor of the province of Judah under Persian imperial rule. The two leaders are presented as contemporaries, but a close study of the disordered narrative suggests that Nehemiah came first and laid the foundation for the political and economic restoration of Judah that Ezra subsequently capitalized on in securing commitment of the populace to reforms that purify religious belief and practice. The sources of Ezra-Nehemiah include actual or allegedly Persian political documents, lists of returnees, and portions of first-person memoirs by Nehemiah and Ezra.
In contrast, Esther is a piece of historical fantasy telling how a young Judahite woman became queen of the Persian Empire and saved her people from a plot to annihilate them. The story reflects the known practice of Judahites serving at times in foreign administrations, but its descriptions of the Persian royal court and empire are distorted and exaggerated. It features a lurid account of how the table is turned on those who plan to massacre all Judahites in the kingdom, with the result that the nefarious plotters are visited with the fate that they intended for Esther’s people. The book is connected to the festival of Purim, a late Jewish holiday of unknown origin. The intense hatred exhibited between Jews and gentiles appears to reflect the late Hasmonean dynasty, when Judah was briefly independent and a power-wielding player in Palestinian politics that pitted Jews against Hellenists, and even traditional Jews against Hellenized Jews. Esther is likely the latest book included in the Hebrew Bible, written between 180 and 80 BCE.
When we pick up a work of nonfiction, we often scan the introduction and conclusion in order to orient ourselves to the content, often to decide whether we want to read the whole book. The biblical historical books give us little such help. They plunge into their stories immediately, Dtr with “after the death of Moses,” and Chr with the genealogy of David, who is unspecified until the end of its catalog of names, “Adam, Seth, Enosh . . .” The conclusions trail off with Dtr’s “a regular allowance was given him [King Jehoiachin in Babylonian captivity] by the king [Evil-merodach, king of Babylon], every day a portion, as long as he lived,” and Chr ends with the voice of Cyrus, king of Persia, speaking to the captive Judahites: “Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.” Even the opening line of Deuteronomy, which is the first book of Dtr, is terse, “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan.” Chr does not even offer a prefatory sentence but plunges into the story with a lengthy genealogy running from the first human to King David. In short, we must read some distance into the historical books, certainly beyond a speech by Moses (in Deuteronomy) or the alleged ancestry of David (in Chronicles), to get a sense of what they are about. Similarly, Nehemiah and Ezra require guidance to unravel the order of events in the two books, since they provide neither preface nor concluding summary.
Because the historical books are normally read individually according to the interests that scholars and ordinary readers bring to the biblical text, it is easy to overlook the great differences among them. For one thing, with the exception of Ezra and Nehemiah, the principal characters receive unequal space. A long narrative in DH recounting the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon is spread over two and a half books, namely, 1 Sam. 1:1—1 Kgs. 11:43. This account of the first three kings of Israel is a developed narrative, with plot, connected episodes, and vivid characters, whereas Joshua, Judges, and the remainder of post-Solomonic kings (1 Kings 12—2 Kings 17) are described by single stories, clusters of stories, or excerpts from royal archives, either unconnected or only loosely connected. As the kingdom of Judah nears its end, however, Dtr provides a more integral narrative from Hezekiah to Zedekiah (2 Kgs. 18–25). Some of the sources of Dtr are cited in the text: the Book of Jashar (Josh. 10:15; 2 Sam. 1:18); the Book of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kgs. 11:41); the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Israel (beginning with 1 Kgs. 14:9, et passim); the Book of the Acts of the Kings of Judah (1 Kgs. 14:29, et passim). The poems of Hannah, David, and Deborah may derive from liturgical usage. Accordingly, the known and likely pre-Dtr writings are clusters of written, possibly oral, traditions, recounting the activities of a colorful cast of characters both political and religious.
Thus the first three kings of Israel receive as much press as all the remaining kings of Israel and Judah! Most of the kings are treated in brief cameos, with the fullest attention given to Jeroboam I, Ahab, Jehu, Jehoshaphat, Jehoash, Hezekiah, and Josiah, as well as extended legends about the prophets Elijah and Elisha, who interact critically, and less often supportively, with the northern house of Omri. Most of the monarchs are presented hurriedly, with the briefest of comments on their reigns. Unmistakably, David is the prime personage for Dtr, and even more so for Chr. All the action and energy in Joshua and Judges points toward the coming house of David, but after Solomon, the dynasty of David is in decline and is finally extinguished by the Neo-Babylonians. Dtr presents David as the acme of royal popularity, piety, and virtue (in spite of his glaring shortcomings). Solomon receives great wisdom, but squanders the political unity of the kingdom achieved by David. In short, the reader must approach DH aware of the literary habits and notions about “history” typical of ancient Israelite narration of past events, as they impinge on and give shape to the present time of the author.
Dtr employs several structural and rhetorical devices that underscore the leading themes and signal the important stages and turning points in the story. Attention to these compositional features enhances appreciation of the challenges Dtr faced in composing his lengthy history from seemingly incompatible materials. Dtr not only unifies his work with transitions that link era to era but also employs several devices to link individual texts within each segment of history and spanning two or more segments. These thematic and rhetorical devices are editorial maneuvers that show DH to be a single document, forged from many documents and oral traditions and sprinkled with editorial comments and connections that show a consistent religious ideology. The architecture of this literary tour de force, like centuries-old cathedrals, is in no way diminished if, as seems likely, it has been worked on by several editors with shared understandings.
It is fairly easy to identify the principal theme of Dtr as the momentous clash between two versions of the Israelite story: the conditional terms of the Mosaic covenant and the unconditional terms of the Davidic covenant. The more challenging task is to bring to light the literary means by which that clash is represented. What makes the movement from Joshua to Kings so engaging is that we see at each point in the history a clash between the two covenants, but in different guises and with a constantly changing cast of characters. Assuming that Dtr aimed to show how the two covenants played out through the centuries after Moses, the big challenge was to decide what sources to use, how to arrange them, and how to link the sources into a continuous story from Joshua to the collapse of the two kingdoms.
Dtr had in hand several blocks of material, each dealing with a segment of that long history: taking of the land of Canaan; judges arising in a tribal system; the united kingdom under three successive kings, Saul, David, and Solomon; splitting into two states, one in the north (Israel) and one in the south (Judah), followed by the sequence of the kings in each monarchy and the loss of independence for both. It is crucial to realize that Dtr was not writing six books but one segmented history only later divided into six books within the canon. The four segments of Dtr’s work are sewn together with transitional links:
Era of the Occupation of Canaan
with a link to the era of judges: Joshua’s death and burial (Josh. 24:29-33)
repeated in the introduction to the judges (Judg. 2:6-10)
Era of the Judges
with a link to the united kingdom: annual festivals at Shiloh provide the setting for the last episode about judges (Judg. 21:16-23) and the first episode about the United Kingdom (1 Samuel 1)
Era of the United Kingdom
with a link to the divided kingdoms: episodes of Jeroboam and Ahijah before the death of Solomon (1 Kgs. 11:26-31) and after the death of Solomon (1 Kgs. 12:15)
Era of the Divided Kingdoms
ends with destruction of the two kingdoms, deportation of Judahite officials to Babylon, and an open-ended note about the favor shown to captive King Zedekiah by a Neo-Babylonian ruler.
The era of the united kingdom is told in a continuous narrative, by far the most cohesive segment of Dtr. In fact, many interpreters have treated the so-called Court History of David as an eyewitness account, so vividly and artfully is it fashioned (2 Samuel 9–20; 1 Kings 1–2). However, the sources for the other eras were not as cohesive, so that Dtr had to find a way of shaping them into an ongoing narrative. With the era of Joshua, the stories and lists are framed by his introductory and farewell speeches. With the era of the judges, Dtr linked episodes by means of an artificial cyclical framework with a repeated pattern: Israel does evil by abandoning the covenant, YHWH punishes the people by oppression at the hand of enemies, the oppressed Israelites cry out for deliverance from oppression, YHWH rescues the Israelites by raising up a military judge, and at the death of the judge the Israelites revert to their evil ways. Then the identical cycle is repeated several times. For the final phase of his history, Dtr tells the story of the divided kingdoms by drawing information about each king from royal archives, and using a formula that includes length of the reign and a verdict of good or bad on the king’s performance. Dtr inserts into this scheme a cycle of stories about the northern prophets Elijah and Elisha, largely folk traditions that venerate them as YHWH loyalists and defenders of the people.
Lacking introduction and conclusion, the dominant themes of Dtr have to be ferreted out in the course of its narrative. Set in motion by Moses’ command to observe the law (Deuteronomy 1–4), interpretive passages at strategic points throughout the history describe and explain how the unfolding course of events is shaped by Israel’s failure to adhere to that law. Counting Deuteronomy as the fountainhead and pacesetter for the historical books, these programmatic texts are presented in the form of speeches and prayers by the leaders of Israel and discourses or notations by the author. Among the most important of these programmatic texts are the following:
Parting speech of Moses (Deuteronomy 29–30)
Inaugural speech of Joshua (Josh. 1:10-15)
Speech of God introducing the covenant (Josh. 24:1-13)
Speech of Joshua at the making of the covenant (Josh. 24:14-28)
Discourses on the Judges (Judg. 2:6—3:6; 10:10-16)
Speech of Samuel about kingship (1 Samuel 8)
Parting speech of Samuel (1 Samuel 12)
Speech of Nathan and prayer of David (2 Sam. 7:4-29)
Blessing of the temple, prayer, and speech of Solomon (1 Kgs. 8:14-61)
Speech of God to Solomon (1 Kgs. 9:1-9)
Speech of Ahijah to Jeroboam (1 Kgs. 11:29-40)
Message of the Assyrian general to Hezekiah (2 Kgs. 18:19-25; 19:8-13)
Speech of the Assyrian general to the Jerusalemites (2 Kgs. 18:28-35)
Discourse on the fall of the northern kingdom [Israel] (2 Kgs. 17:7-23, 34-40),
Discourse and speech on the fall of the southern kingdom [Judah] (2 Kgs. 21:2-16)
When these pivotal texts are read together, it becomes abundantly clear that the central motifs in DH are the binding law of Moses and the promise of an everlasting dynasty to David. While both themes are of immense importance, they stand in radical contradiction to one another. This series of texts is as close as Dtr comes to explicitly disclosing his own interpretation of the story he composes. In the end, obedience to the law trumps the promise to David. The stunning consequence is that the dynasty of David is cut off with the fall of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the outcome of the conflict between the law of Moses and the dynasty of David is so skillfully delayed by Dtr that the reader is kept in suspense until the final years of the kingdom of Judah.
While the programmatic texts of Dtr give a measure of coherence to the history, there is another type of text favored by Dtr that militates against narrative coherence, at least for today’s reader. Contemporary readers are easily intimidated by the lists of the names of persons and places that disturb, even interrupt, the narrative flow, most grievously so in Chr. These personal names are identified as ancestors, officials, and priests with specified duties and privileges, or deported leaders. The named places are variously tribal regions, monarchic territories, or political and religious sites. In DH, these recitals of the names of people and places occur frequently and at times bridge the gaps between narrated events:
Conquered and unconquered kings and territories in Canaan (Josh. 12:1—13:6; 23:1-13)
Land allotments of the tribes (Josh. 13:6b—19:51)
Minor judges (Judg. 10:1-5; 12:7-13)
David’s officials (2 Sam. 8:15-18)
David’s mighty warriors and bodyguards (1 Sam. 23:8-39)
Solomon’s officials (1 Kgs. 4:1-19)
Details of Solomon’s palace and temple (2 Kgs. 6–8)
Ahaz’s alteration of temple worship (2 Kgs. 16:15-18)
Assyrian deportation of Israelites replaced by foreign captives (2 Kgs. 17:6, 24)
Foreign gods accepted by Samaritans (2 Kgs. 17:29-31)
Officials of Judah deported to Babylon (2 Kgs. 24:10-17; 25:11, 18-21)
Some of these are lists in freestanding form, while others have been more or less integrated into the narrative. In a modern history, much of this sort of information would be relegated to footnotes or appendixes. Nevertheless, some of these narrative “asides” preserve informative details of historical value, especially the data from state archives. In 1–2 Chronicles, in addition to the lists, the author also attaches names to each of the many sources he cites. Some of these sources, if not all, seem to be modeled on the less frequent naming of sources in DH:
In 1 Chronicles (samples)
Lineage of David and the tribal heads (1–9)
David’s mighty men (11)
David’s Levitical musicians (15:16-24)
Priests and officials in court of David (24–27)
In 2 Chronicles (samples)
Solomon’s building projects and chief officers (8:1-10)
Solomon’s riches (9:13-28)
Rehoboam’s fortified cities (11:5-12)
Jehoshaphat’s princes and Levites’ instruction of people in the law (17:7-9)
Levites cleanse the temple and restore the utensils Ahaz discarded (29:12-19)
Officers collect offerings for the temple (31:11-15)
Workmen repair and restore the temple (34:8-13)
The books of Ezra-Nehemiah give census-like lists of names that seek both to describe and to authenticate the return of the exiles to Judah. The whole assembly of returnees is said to consist of 42,360 priests and laity, plus 7,337 of their servants (Ezra 1–2). Of course, these figures cannot be verified, but they are strikingly less than the hundreds of thousands elsewhere in DH. Furthermore, the rebuilders of the walls of Jerusalem are identified by name and the section of the wall they worked on (Nehemiah 3).
The effect of these lists is to break the momentum of the story line, or at least to slow it down dramatically, especially so if the reader pauses to dwell on the names listed. Truth be told, these lists contribute to the impression that DH is a miscellany of traditions held together by a chronology of questionable merit. Since most of the lists appear to be collected by Dtr and Chr, rather than composed by them, their original life settings are a matter of conjecture. Many were excerpted from governmental or temple documents. It is debated as to whether the name lists actually belonged to the historical settings to which Dtr and Chr assign them or rather were derived from later historical contexts and reassigned to Joshua, David, Solomon, or a later king. One thing seems abundantly clear: both author and original readers found delight in punctuating narrative texts with lists of this sort. It is conceivable that it was a matter of pride that the narrator could confidently produce such details to embellish and authenticate the narrative.
For long stretches of DH, there are no temporal indicators, but at certain points the narrative is punctuated, even organized, by temporal considerations. These markers are often simply given in round numbers. The most elaborate temporal scheme in round numbers is the forty-year periods of rest secured by several judges who delivered Israel from foreign oppressors (Othniel, Deborah, Gideon, and Samson, with an eighty-year [2 × 40] rest for the land secured by Ehud). Forty years seems to be an idiom for “a very long time,” also claimed as the length of rule by both David and Solomon. This amplitude of time is contrasted with the ill-fated Saul, whose reign of two years is cited in a broken text (1 Sam. 13:1), which speaks for his failure as king, even though he is estimated to have ruled for as much as twenty years. On the other hand, the so-called minor judges are assigned periods of office in an irregular pattern along a spectrum from six years (Jephthah), to seven (Ibzan), eight (Abadon), ten (Elon), twenty-two (Jair), and twenty-three years (Tola). It is not always clear whether the specified years were already in Dtr’s sources or were introduced by him.
When Dtr reaches the divided kingdoms, instead of rounded numbers, we encounter precisely calibrated periods of time for the reigns of all the kings of north and south. Dtr informs us that this chronological information is derived from the royal annals of Israel and Judah. The reigns in the two kingdoms are staggered, switching back and forth in an ingenious method that confuses readers, because the account does not move forward in a straight line but doubles back to catch up on events that occurred earlier in the other kingdom. This method is a way of emphasizing the point that the two kingdoms have a common religious heritage, enduring even when they are political enemies.
There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the records, especially since at the points where events in Kings are also recounted in extrabiblical texts, the biblical numbers are accurate enough in terms of an absolute chronology. The split into two kingdoms can be dated to 930 BCE, plus or minus no more than ten years, and narrowing to a one-year difference for the fall of the northern kingdom in 722–721 BCE and the destruction of Judah in 587–586 BCE. This of course is not to claim that everything Dtr says about particular kings is factual or that the court records praised or maligned kings as Dtr does. It does, however, strengthen the hypothesis that kings with the biblical names did rule in north and south within the time spans indicated, and that claims Dtr makes about what happened during their reigns must be given serious consideration, which is not the same as validating Dtr’s interpretations of events.
Confounded by the early death of Josiah and the subsequent collapse of Judah so soon after the sweeping reforms of Josiah, Dtr resorts to blaming the decline and fall of Judah on Manasseh, “because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked [the Lord]” (2 Kgs. 23:25-27). This is strange since Manasseh preceded Josiah, whose reforms proceed on the assumption that the heartfelt repentance and zealous reforming program of Josiah totally reversed the apostate policies of Manasseh his predecessor. Adding to the confusion is the promise to Josiah that “you shall be gathered to your grave in peace” (2 Kgs. 22:20), an assurance immediately shattered by Josiah’s untimely death (2 Kgs. 23:29-30). Even more anomalous is the report by Chr that when Josiah sallied forth to confront Neco, the pharaoh advised him not to attack his Egyptian forces. Speaking in the unexpected role of a prophet, the pharaoh warns Josiah, “Cease opposing God, who is with me [Neco], so that he will not destroy you [Josiah]. . . . He did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God” (2 Chron. 35:20-24). This jumbling of events, both propitious and ominous, represents groping attempts by Dtr and Chr to find causal relationships between Judah’s apostate past, its sudden radical renewal, and its precipitous decline and downfall after the reign of Josiah.
Dtr pictures the word of God as often delivered by prophets who predict future events that unfailingly occur or who issue peremptory commands not to be questioned. Even before prophets begin to appear at the dawn of monarchy, Joshua utters an oath declaring that anyone who even starts to rebuild Jericho will do so “at the cost” of his older and younger sons (Josh. 6:26), and this curse is activated during the reign of Ahab, when Hillel of Bethel loses both of his sons upon laying the foundation stone and erecting the gates of Jericho (1 Kgs. 16:33-34). Ahijah prophesies the split into two kingdoms and later announces that the house of Jeroboam will be wiped out because of his idolatry (1 Kgs. 11:29-31; 12:12-5; 14:17-18; 15:29). When an old prophet of Bethel discovers a second prophet has lied, he announces that the lying prophet will not be buried in his family tomb, which proves to be the case after he is killed by a lion (1 Kgs. 13:20-32).
Shemaiah, by the word of the Lord, forbids Rehoboam to try to quell the rebellion of the north: “You shall not go up or fight against your kindred the people of Israel,” so Rehoboam doesn’t (1 Kgs. 12:22-24). Jehu ben Hanani announces the overthrow of the house of Baasha (16:1-4, 7). Elijah declares a three-year drought in the land (1 Kgs. 17:1) and ends it by defeating the prophets of Baal (1 Kgs. 18:1, 45). Elijah specifies that Ahab will die in Jezreel, the very place where he seized Naboth’s vineyard, and he does (1 Kgs. 21:17-19; 22:37-38).
The most awesome of these predictions is made by an unnamed “man of God” who not only declares that the altar at Bethel where Jeroboam worships will be destroyed, but actually names Josiah as the future king who will destroy the profane altar (1 Kgs. 13:1-2). In this instance, the prophet is described as foreseeing an action by a ruler who will not ascend the throne until nearly three hundred years later and will indeed destroy the altar at Bethel as prophesied (2 Kgs. 23:15-20). Isaiah, on hearing that God will spare the life of Hezekiah, declares that the sick king will be healed and add fifteen years to his life (2 Kgs. 20:1-7). Sometimes the prophet not only announces what is to come but also serves as the agent of fulfillment, as when Elisha incites Jehu to overthrow the house of Ahab because of the wickedness of Jezebel, the Baal-worshiping queen, who killed the prophets of God (1 Kgs. 9:1-3, 6-10). And Isaiah becomes the agent for Hezekiah to live on by applying a poultice of figs to the king’s boil (2 Kgs. 20:7).
These close engagements of prophets in the unfolding history emphasize that God determines the course of events in response to Israel’s fitful commitment to the covenant with YHWH. The prophetic words and actions underscore the thoroughly religious evaluation of the history of the two kingdoms. The literary effect of these prophetic interventions is to move the story forward, to compensate as it were for the interrupting name lists and to give implementation to the programmatic texts. In this way, God’s guidance of the history is implemented through persons who are active in the story, but whose authority is independent of the established political and religious leadership, and who as “outsiders” are able to anticipate the outcome of Israel’s adherence to or violation of its covenant with God.
One searching for a plot in DH might summarize it on this order: It is the story of a tribal people in covenant with God who, after long bondage, acquire a homeland with great effort in the face of opposition from outside and conflicts within, and who transition from tribal life to a monarchic form of government that, in spite of its pomp and prosperity, splits into two states. Increasingly, these states are dominated by foreign powers, against whom they rebel and are defeated, their leadership deported, and their political and religious independence lost. This downfall of the kingdoms is repeatedly explained as the punishment of God for the people’s abandonment of the covenant.
Summarized in this manner, however, the story feels abstract and colorless, lacking the vivid force of the stories about judges, kings, priests, and prophets—brilliant narratives that have earned the praise of Jewish, Christian, and secular readers. Moreover, such a plot summary fails to capture the overarching tension between adhering to or departing from prescribed religious practice that Dtr asserts to be the determining factor in Israel’s history. It is a “tragic” tale, but a course self-chosen by the people who nevertheless should have known better, having been warned of the consequences of disobeying the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 27–28). So one of the abiding attractions of DH consists in the way it introduces its readers to religious and political leaders around whom political and religious forces swirl with an uncertain outcome: led by such leaders, will this people live on or die off?
A more detailed book-by-book account of Joshua through Kings reveals the events of Israel’s past that Dtr counts as of importance in understanding how and why its initial achievements are cut short by the demise of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
The book of Joshua is the first chapter in the centuries-long story Dtr records. It begins with Moses handing off leadership of Israel to Joshua with the charge to conquer the land of Canaan. This follows directly on the final verses of Deuteronomy. The significance of Deuteronomy for understanding Dtr is that it presents a body of laws incumbent on Israel to observe (Deuteronomy 12–26), and it is precisely by these laws that Dtr passes judgment on the priests, prophets, and kings of Israel. He gives each of them a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down” depending on whether or not they have complied with the laws.
To be sure, Joshua purports to be obeying the laws, but he himself fails to fully obey the divine command to annihilate all the inhabitants of Canaan. Joshua aggressively attacks Jericho, Ai, and Hazor, but he exempts Rahab (Joshua 2; 6:22-25) and the Gibeonite cities (Joshua 9; 10:1-6) from destruction, even though the latter have tricked Joshua into entering a treaty with them. So, although the laws are to be kept in their totality on pain of death (Deuteronomy 28), the first generation after Moses is already knowingly breaking them. Israelites have joined Canaanites in marriage and in worship, which is tantamount to breaking faith with the God of Israel. Much as Joshua has tried to conquer the entire promised land, large parts of Canaan and Transjordan remain unconquered. The stated reason for this failure is that the conquerors have broken divine commands and must accept partial victory as their punishment. However, a bit later in DH, a different reason is given for the continued resistance of Canaanites: they are allowed to stay on in the land in order to train Israel in the arts of war (Judg. 3:1-2).
The most striking feature of the book of Judges is the dramatic change in the protagonist of the story. In Joshua, as throughout the Torah, the subject of the story is a united people, Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, in continuity with the united people under Moses. Suddenly in the stories of Judges, the single entity Israel breaks into its tribal components who act alone or in combinations as they choose. The largest of these intertribal actions is celebrated in the Song of Deborah, where six tribes fight together and four tribes are condemned for failing to show up for battle (Judges 5). This presupposes that Israel consists of tribal units that ought to act in unison but may not do so. In the other episodes in Judges, the actors are single tribes, or at most two or three together, with charismatic military leaders who arise from time to time: Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson. Dtr presents these leaders of the moment as the best Israel can muster to carry on the work of Moses and Joshua, yet most of them show no knowledge of the Mosaic law by which Dtr judges them!
Only in the last episode of the book are all the tribes united, save one, to punish the tribe of Benjamin because it is held responsible for the rape and murder of a Levite’s concubine (Judges 19–21). The book ends with a detailed account of this horrific crime, which the narrator insists demands a king, who would presumably prevent such deplorable behavior (21:25). It appears that Dtr wants to conceive of Israel as a unity, but is pressured by his sources into drawing the picture of a seriously fragmented people who repeatedly breach the law of Moses. Only the long-suffering lenience of YHWH allows the story of Israel to continue. The last word of Judges, “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man [tribe?] did what was right in his [its?] own eyes (21:25),” clearly anticipates the kingdom of David, as it also embraces the implicit understanding that the deeds condemned in the book are not only divisive of community but also stand in blatant violation of the law. However, which deeds are condemned? Only those of the Gibeonites, or also of Micah and the Danites (Judges 17–18), as well as the idolatry that leads to the cycles of oppression and deliverance? What about the behavior of the judges who deliver Israel but also engage in actions inimical to the laws? Abimelech, the would-be king, dies in retribution for the murder of his brothers, and the Shechemites who follow him perish as the just punishment for their folly (Judg. 9:56-57), but there is no claim that he is a judge, even a lapsed judge.
The history of the united kingdom of David and Solomon is told in one long stretch in 1–2 Samuel and 1 Kings 1–11. Dtr accords so much space to telling the story of the establishment of the monarchy in part because his sources were especially abundant for this era, but also because he wants to describe the historical roots of the Davidic dynasty and the Jerusalem temple, the two institutions that rival the law of Moses in importance, which are not necessarily in conflict, but become so as the post-Solomonic rulers undermine the moral foundations of dynasty and temple. Extended attention is given to tracing the rise of David to the kingship, with the intention to exonerate him of all suspicions that he conspired against Saul. The reported decline of Saul is intertwined with the ascent of David as his rival and eventual successor. Once established on the throne, serious conflicts erupt within David’s family following his murder of Uriah in order to acquire Bathsheba as wife. These family conflicts are intertwined with his struggle to retain the throne against rebellions, one being led by his own son, Absalom. Although David is rebuked by Nathan the prophet, and David even “repents” of the Bathsheba affair, he is not required to give her up (2 Sam. 12:1-25), and it is Bathsheba’s cunning advocacy that secures the throne for her son Solomon (1 Kgs. 1:11-21, 28-31).
The achievements of David as king, beyond his military successes against the Philistines and Transjordanian kings, are lightly touched on. His rule over his subjects is pictured as being much less onerous than that of Solomon. David aspires to build a permanent temple for YHWH in Jerusalem, but is prevented from doing so by the prophet Nathan, who declares God’s extreme displeasure with “a man of blood” honoring the deity in this fashion (2 Samuel 7). David proves very indulgent of his adult sons and seems to have been lax in his duties as chief justice in the system of criminal law. All in all, David is portrayed as remarkably human in showing his failings as well as his accomplishments. The David described here is far from the paragon of virtue and piety elsewhere venerated as preeminent psalmist (2 Sam. 23:1) and the very model of the messianic ruler to come (Isa. 9:1-7; 11:1-9). Solomon becomes successor to David after a bitter dynastic fight in which he forcibly suppresses a powerful faction backing his brother Adonijah.
Opening his reign with an iron fist, Solomon is emboldened to launch an ambitious program to increase the wealth and extend the power of his kingdom. His basic resources were heavy taxation on the agricultural surpluses of his peasant subjects, supplemented by income from tolls on caravans in transit, as well as shrewd commercial deals as middle man for the arms sales of Anatolian horses and Egyptian chariots to other states. In order to secure his booming economic empire, Solomon reaches for military superiority by building massive fortifications and equipping large chariot forces. With his newfound wealth, he builds the temple in Jerusalem that his father had been forbidden to build, along with a palace that greatly exceeds the temple in size. This temple would have been little more than a royal chapel rather than the national shrine that Dtr anachronistically envisions as the sole legitimate place of worship in Israel.
To facilitate state administration, Solomon redistricts his kingdom and appoints officials in each of the new districts, centralizing his command structure to secure delivery of taxes and to forestall rebellion against his regime, such as the rebellions David had to put down (1 Kgs. 4:1-28). In short, Solomon is pictured as hugely successful in securing a luxurious and privileged life for a small upper class in government and trade, but only with contradictory policies that threaten agricultural production by pulling peasants off the land to form labor battalions for his pet building projects (5:13-18; 9:10-21). He overspends to the point that he has to pay off a debt to the king of Tyre by surrendering a sizable area of his kingdom (1 Kgs. 9:10-14).
One would think that the enhancement of the power and wealth of his kingdom would have secured Solomon the unalloyed approval of Dtr. This, however, is not the case. It is true that the king’s successes are attributed to wisdom bestowed on him by God (1 Kgs. 3:3-28; 4:29-34). Moreover, the lavish adornment of the temple and its appointments and the pomp of its dedication are reported in great detail, because for Dtr the building of the temple is Solomon’s principal achievement (1 Kings 5–6; 7:9-51). In fact, Dtr insists that this Jerusalem temple is the sole site where YHWH worship can henceforth be carried out, and it becomes the litmus test by which Dtr judges all later kings: Did they or did they not restrict worship to Jerusalem? In glaring contrast to his noble start, Solomon eventually falls into idolatry by adopting the gods of the many wives he has acquired in diplomatic alliances with other countries (1 Kgs. 11:1-13)
A further contradiction arises when it becomes evident that Jeroboam, the leader of the northern labor battalions, rebels against Solomon, not because of idolatry in the narrow religious sense, but because of the heavy social and economic burdens Solomon’s policy of forced labor has imposed on the north (1 Kgs. 11:27; 12:1-20). To further complicate Dtr’s account, the split of the kingdom approved as divine punishment on Solomon automatically consigns all northern worship of YHWH to idolatry, since the northerners no longer recognize the religious legitimacy of the Davidic dynasty in Jerusalem and will henceforth have nothing to do with worship in what has now become a foreign state (12:25-33). In effect, Jeroboam is damned if he does separate from Judah and damned if he doesn’t!
It is axiomatic for Dtr that Solomon built a temple intended to be the sole place of worship in his kingdom and in the reigns of all his successors. In his account of the two kingdoms, Dtr holds fast to this prohibition of worship at any other site than the Jerusalem temple. This immediately means that any and all worship practiced in the northern kingdom is condemned by Dtr, even though the northern prophets (Elijah and Elisha and later Hosea), while lambasting their rulers for infidelity to YHWH, do not include failure to worship at Jerusalem as one of these infractions. It also means that every subsequent ruler in Judah is judged by a religious requirement that did not come into force until centuries later under Kings Hezekiah and Josiah. Consequently, even when Dtr has some good things to say about particular kings, he counts their rule as a failure if they allow worship at any other place in the kingdom (characteristically, “on the high places” of false worship).
In spite of this grossly contradictory and flagrantly anachronistic religious criterion that Dtr has applied to the post-Solomonic rulers of both kingdoms, his account provides a considerable body of information about social, political, and religious conditions. Much of this information appears to have been drawn from court documents cited as “the Book of the Records of the Kings of Israel,” paired with a similar source for the kings of Judah. Where the chronology of the royal reigns intersects with events also reported by Assyrian and Babylonian texts, its dates are confirmed. There is also information about religious developments in both kingdoms, which disclose practices outlawed by Deuteronomy. In addition, there is a sizable body of traditions about the northern prophets Elijah and Elisha, who worship apart from Jerusalem without Dtr’s censure. These inconsistencies in the criteria in the historical books for valid worship are indicative of a document that tells us the views of Dtr and his several sources without much of an attempt to reconcile them.
Instead of recounting the two histories one after the other, or interweaving their fortunes so as to emphasize certain phases or aspects of the two histories, Dtr treats political events in Israel and Judah in self-contained literary panels devoted to each ruler. Moreover, the sequence of these panels switches back and forth between north and south. The result is a staggered recital of the two kingdom histories, entailing some repetitions and a certain amount of chronological “backtracking.” Into this synchronic framework are inserted annalistic accounts of diplomatic maneuvers, battles, political coups and purges, deeds of prophets, and religious reforms. Chronicles follows the same regnal formulas for Judah as does 1–2 Kings but lacks the latter’s synchronisms, since it does not recount the full history of the north but only episodes involving Judah.
Ingenious as is this interweaving of the northern and southern histories, it fails to give a balanced, coherent account, broken as it is into brief glimpses of the reigns of a majority of the kings, but alternating with fuller accounts of others. This creates a pronounced disproportion in coverage, such that we have in effect two styles of presentation, one consisting of little more than a chronicling of events and the other going into greater detail about rulers who initiated religious reforms centered on the Jerusalem temple (Jehoash, Hezekiah, Josiah) or who interacted with prophets (Ahab, Hezekiah), while saying surprisingly little about kings whom we otherwise know or suspect to have been major political figures (Omri, Jeroboam II, Manasseh).
Why did Dtr resort to such a tortuous manner of recounting the histories of the two kingdoms? He did so, it seems, in order to underscore his belief that the history of the two kingdoms was actually the history of one people with a common religion. Politically, there were two kingdoms, but they spoke the same language, shared the same culture, and practiced the same religion, albeit in regional variations. Following the acclaimed reigns of David and Solomon, the rulers of the two kingdoms, with a few exceptions, are described as a sorry lot, unacceptable to YHWH because of the political corruption, social injustice, and religious apostasy they practiced or permitted. The exceptions are Hezekiah and Josiah, who undertook religious reforms that cleansed the Jerusalem temple of foreign accretions and reestablished it as the sole legitimate place of worship. The reforms of Josiah so closely correspond to the religious demands of Deuteronomy that the book on which Josiah is said to have based his actions is generally taken to be Deuteronomy or some version thereof. The reforms of Hezekiah manage to spare Jerusalem from destruction by the Assyrians, but in spite of Josiah’s laudable, more extensive reforms, they do not prevent Josiah from execution by the Egyptians or the eventual destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Neo-Babylonians. These political catastrophes following earnest reforms are so troubling to Dtr that he explains them as due to the evil deeds of King Manasseh, which outweigh the reformers’ achievements.
Are the “historical books” an accurate account of the early history of Israel? Yes and no.
No, in the sense that they are not word-for-word transcripts of events that occurred long ago, and they misjudge the time when worship at the Jerusalem temple was mandated as the sole place of worship for all Israelites. The events recorded and the time and place of those doing the recording are so far removed from one another—often by many centuries—that the very capacity of Dtr and Chr to know the past in great detail is thrown into doubt, and the sources at their disposal lack no more than scraps of eyewitness testimony. The sources they depended on mostly showed so little interest in doing history as we know it that we do them an injustice to measure them against the practices of present-day historiography.
Both “historians” certainly had an urgent reason for writing as they did. Their overwhelming concern was to describe the past as best they could in order to lay a foundation for rebuilding a new “Israelite/Judahite” community after the destruction of Jerusalem. They differ, however, in what they conceive that “foundation” to be. Writing after the temple is rebuilt, Chr asserts that the future of Israel lies in faithful worship at the restored temple led by priests and Levites according to the arrangement prescribed by David and Solomon. Writing before the restoration of Judah, Dtr has in mind that the society prescribed in the book of Deuteronomy should be the basis of the restored community. However, Deuteronomy’s laws had been so infrequently observed in the history that it seemed unthinkable for Dtr to anticipate an independent Judah. That would require the dubious return of the dynasty of David, not to mention permission and support from the imperial overlord, Neo-Babylonia or Persia. He is so deeply uncertain about Israel’s future that he can offer no more than the hint of the future by relating the favor accorded to the captive king of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian king. Concerning the condition of the survivors of the fall of the northern kingdom, Dtr and Chr seem to have no knowledge and little historical interest.
Yes, Dtr writes a trustworthy “history,” provided we allow a fairly broad conception of history-writing and correct for anachronisms. However, when Chr introduces material not in Dtr, it is of uncertain worth. The genre in which Dtr and Chr have cast their narratives is sometimes called “history-like tradition.” In short, they are works of the historical imagination, employing the sources at hand but shaped by the imaginative vision of the writer. Dtr presents an amazing array of portraits of the past, some being better anchored historically than others. Chr presents a monochromatic view of the past, single-mindedly focused on the ascent and triumph of David and erection of the temple by Solomon, with no more than a glance at other aspects of Israel’s past. Chr’s account is narrowly and unrelentingly religious, with no interest in Joshua, Judges, or events in the life of David before he ascends the throne.
In assessing the accuracy of Dtr, it is essential to understand his mind-set. Dtr is primarily interested in the religion of ancient Israel. He traces the fortune of the belief and practice of Yahwism, reaching heights under David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah but lapsing into idolatry and prohibited behavior for long stretches of time under judges and kings. Sadly, a majority of the populace of both kingdoms has abandoned the cult of YHWH or clings to corrupt forms of worship. In Dtr’s view, God has tolerated this faithlessness and corruption for centuries. In exasperation, God finally abandons both kingdoms and delivers them to conquest by the Assyrian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Over the centuries, the erring people of Israel and Judah have become so apostate that God delivers both kingdoms into the hands of the great empires, who not only defeat them militarily but destroy their political and religious institutions as well, leaving them bereft of resources to rebuild community. The troubled and agitated mind-set of Dtr is preoccupied with this tale of the cataclysmic end of both kingdoms.
As he writes, Dtr knows that these terrible events have left the people in despair. YHWH has warned Israel through Moses and subsequent leaders that it risks annihilation if it abandons exclusive worship of the deity. The defecting populace has no excuse, but they have come to overly rely on the promise to David of an eternal kingdom. Surely, out of his love for David, God will not break his promise and the line of David will continue to give the people confidence in God’s forbearance and shelter from foreign aggressors. Surely, they reasoned, God would not cut off the dynasty of David or permit desecration of the holy sanctuary. But Dtr, the leaders, and the people were wrong. So, even though it is difficult to establish the facticity of many of the details in these history-like traditions, the overriding “fact” is the threatened demise of stateless Israel, which the author is seeking to forestall by telling the amazing story of the people through multiple generations.
Dtr and Chr focus on the political and religious histories of Israel, but give far less attention to the social and economic facets of life in the periods they cover. To get a more fully rounded picture of the terrain Dtr covers, we must shift our inquiry into an entirely different register by calling on the social sciences to help us grasp the society-wide context in which and about which Dtr and Chr wrote.
Political economy is the way goods are produced and distributed in a society under prevailing forms of social and political power. When analyzed, this process yields an answer to a key question about any society: Who gets what, how do they get it, and, if possible, why do they get what they do get? In its long history, ancient Israel passed through three zones or modes of production (hereafter MP).
Now, for ancient Israel, the primary production of the necessities of life—namely, the agrarian and pastoral yields of grains, fruits, olives, milk, wine, and occasional meat—continued more or less the same over its entire history. What marked the difference between these modes is the allotment of what is produced. In the Communitarian (or Household) MP the people who produce are those who garner their product directly without payment to or permission of third parties. In the Native Tributary MP, what is produced is subject to onerous loans, taxation, and forced labor imposed by a central government and an elite class, and the remainder is allotted to the producers. In the Imperial Tributary MP, what is produced is “taken off the top” by the imperial elite, secondly by the native elite, and finally the remainder of the product, such as it is, is allotted to the producers.
Early Israel was born as an anti-imperial resistance movement that broke away from Egyptian and Canaanite dominion to become a self-governing community of free peasants who emerged in the central highlands of Palestine toward the close of the thirteenth century BCE. Israelite subsistence lay in the cultivation of crops that they enjoyed, freed from the double taxation of tribute in kind to nearby city-states and to the Egyptian Empire. Instead of their surplus production being taken to support national or imperial elites, as was the case among peoples living around them, it was directly consumed or bartered or shared in a system of mutual aid characterizing the Communitarian MP. Israelites controlled their own lives, labor, and produce with an enhanced sense of dignity and self-worth. Loans in kind to assist impoverished farmers were offered without interest. Owing to difficult growing conditions, theirs was not an easy life, but it compared favorably with peasants subject to state and empire.
The marks of the Communitarian MP are everywhere exhibited in the first Israelite MP. Their society is without centralized government. They are a loose association of tribes with common interests in livelihood, domestic peace, defense, and religion. Tribal elders in consultation decided on major issues within the tribe, and deliberated on external matters that affected the whole tribe, such as joining other tribes in self-defense. There was room for charismatic leaders (so-called judges) to rally the tribes to battle. A covenant linked the tribes in worship to YHWH, but other forms of religion were practiced, probably viewed in many cases as manifestations of YHWH or at least permitted, since YHWH was not believed to be the only deity—just the most powerful as well as the special god of the Israelites.
The antipathy of early Israelites to centralized political structures is dramatically highlighted by their repeated mockery of the brutality, incompetence, and misrule of kings, expressed in narratives about the king of Jericho (Josh. 2:1-4), the Canaanite ruler Adonizedek (Judg. 1:5-7), the Moabite king Eglon (Judg. 3:5-25), and the rise and fall of Abimelech, who aspired to kingship in Israel (Judges 9). The crowning blow against the arrogance and self-inflation of rulers is brilliantly etched in Jotham’s fable about the “trees” that set out to anoint a king over themselves. Three trees are invited in succession to become king: the olive tree, the fig tree, and the grapevine. All three scornfully reject the offer because they do not want to abandon their socioeconomic role as providers of Israel with food and drink. However, the nonproductive bramble readily agrees to serve as king and ludicrously offers refuge to the trees in its shade, which of course the scraggly bramble does not possess (Judg. 9:7-15). The patent lesson of this satirical fable declares that kings are socially and economically worse than useless, since they make false promises to their subjects and in the end bring destruction on those who rely on them. The military leader Gideon is said to have erred in making an image for worship, but he is credited with refusing to accept the role of king that some of his troops propose. As he succinctly puts it, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; YHWH will rule over you” (8:23).
The fragile unity of the tribes is illustrated by six tribes responding to the muster of troops for a major battle against Canaanite kings (Judges 4–5). When four tribes are condemned for not responding, the only sanction that can be imposed on the offending tribes is a religious curse. Using primitive weapons and guerrilla tactics, and with the help of a flash flood, the tribes achieve victory by immobilizing the Canaanite chariots. The victory is attributed to YHWH, but the agency is credited to the peasant warriors of Israel. So it is throughout the Hebrew Bible that the acts of God claimed to guide Israel’s history are nearly always enacted by humans.
There is a great gulf in social organization between “the regulated anarchy” of tribes without rulers and the hierarchic state organization that restructures society with priorities, powers, and values that befit the rule of elites who consume what the lower classes produce. Tribes do not “evolve” into states. In fact, they resist the state as both unnecessary and invasive. Always some factors “push” the tribe toward statehood. By far the primary pressure arises from states that threaten to overwhelm tribes and incorporate them into the invasive state, even when such a manufactured political status is cast as a vassal state. In our time, this has been the reality of the so-called third world, where tribe after tribe has fallen under the control of invasive states eager to build empires on the contention that “might makes right.” But the pressure from outside is often preceded or accompanied by internal forces of two kinds: weak or corrupt leadership from within the tribe or collaboration of some tribesmen who encourage or hasten state control, often because they are rewarded by the enemy state.
In early Israel, the tribes resisted the Philistines, a powerful league of city-states eager to turn the Israelite highlands into a “breadbasket” to deliver the cereals that were in short supply in the Philistine coastal plain. Samuel, a priest and seer—and in many ways the last of the judges—managed to keep the Philistines at bay for some time. But, as the situation darkened, the cry went up for a warrior-king who would overcome the Philistines and secure domestic tranquility.
With their tunnel vision, most tribesmen did not realize what else went with kingship. Samuel warns them that along with the military strength of kingship come transformations of society so far-reaching that they spell the loss of tribal life and the Communitarian MP, precisely the social and economic institutions that most Israelites cherish, even the very folk now demanding a king. “You shall be his [the king’s] slaves” (1 Sam. 8:17). In short, these measures taken together strike at the integrity and viability of village life, where at least 85 to 95 percent of Israelites continued to live.
Samuel’s warning rejected, Israel set forth on the road to statehood. The first three kings were assertive leaders, each of them taking steps to introduce and tighten the structures of state rule, precisely as Samuel had predicted. Saul operates as “a glorified judge,” who lacks most of the powers that a king exercises while he seeks in vain to secure a dynasty. David operates as a crafty chieftain who holds the loyalty of the tribes for a time, long enough to make Jerusalem his state capital, lay down the rudiments of state organization, and begin a long-lived dynasty. Solomon increases the powers of state by introducing systematic taxation and forced labor, lives extravagantly, connects diplomatically with other states, builds the elegant temple. His displays of wealth and power backfire on him as he runs into debt and pushes his forced labor battalions until they rebel, and the northern tribes withdraw from his rule altogether, forsaking Judah and Jerusalem to found their own state. This new state eventually falls prey to the same Tributary MP against which it has revolted, replacing Solomon with the autocratic house of Omri and subsequent kings. Kingship, centralized rule, was anathema to the tribes, even when they were compelled to come to terms with the state. It is perhaps more correct to say that the sentiment of many tribesmen was to adopt the state, while others abhorred adoption or submission to statehood. Israelite attitudes toward the state continued to reflect this ambivalence.
At the level of the production of goods, the Imperial Tributary MP sustains the same shape it took under the Native Tributary MP, but the distribution of agrarian wealth escalates, flowing to the upper class as it weakens the cultivators and herdsmen who produce what wealth the nation possesses. It was characteristic of the empires to retain the mode of production of the conquered and to retain some of the former royal staff to supervise the producing class below them, and even on occasion appoint a puppet “king.” Empires tended to have two stages in the absorption of foreign lands. At first, the conquered states, still intact, were given the status of “vassal kingdoms.” The former ruler may have been retained as administrator if judged to be loyal and competent. Hezekiah and Manasseh apparently held this status when the Assyrians overpowered Judah and ruled until Josiah broke free as the Assyrian Empire declined. In the second phase, vassal states were turned into provinces of the empire and governed by imperial appointments. In some cases, the officers of vassal states were deported, this being the case with Judah. On occasion, whole populations were deported and replaced with captives transferred from abroad, as was the fate of Israel, the northern kingdom.
It is the conviction of Dtr and Chr that obeying or disobeying the law of Moses determines the course of Israel’s history. Granted that a people’s religion may be an important factor in its corporate life, nonetheless the biblical account is a gross simplification. It ignores, downplays, or does not recognize the interplay of economic, social, and political factors that shape the context of Israel’s religion. Simply put, the course of Israel’s experience from tribal life to statehood, and on to eventual extinction by more powerful states, was much the same course followed by other small states in the ancient Near East. Even had Israel and Judah kept the law of Moses in its entirety, it is not likely that either kingdom would have been able to withstand the juggernauts of Assyria, Neo-Babylonia, and Persia or the depredations of their ruling elite.
What is different about Israel is that it preserved an extensive national literature that contains abundant indications of the trajectory from tribal life through independent statehood to foreign domination. For instance, we may safely say that nearby Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite states took shape as stateless societies that practiced the Communitarian MP, and then advanced to kingship and the Native Tributary MP before being extinguished by the Assyrian Empire in much the same way that Israel was conquered. Also, it is known that these peoples worshiped national deities thought to control their destinies, much as Israel conceived of YHWH’s role amid his people Israel. We tend to treat Israel’s history as distinctive and its religion as superior to other religions, overlooking Israel’s immersion in ancient Near Eastern culture, because the religion of ancient Israel developed without a break into rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. In short, Dtr’s and Chr’s views on the history and the religion of ancient Israel have been “saved” by their canonization as Scripture, not because they are adequate sociohistorical accounts. The point is that just as the religion of other small states was interwoven with their economy, society, and politics, so exactly was the religion of ancient Israel bound up with its economic production, social structure, and political order. In this way, judicious use of the social sciences can facilitate our understanding of the origins of the religions we practice. Because the secular and religious dimensions are so closely related, we shall misconstrue the religion by isolating it from all the other aspects of life. Quite the contrary, if we are to see the religion of ancient Israel in the depth and detail that its impact on our lives categorically merits, we must come to terms with how it has been shaped by the enduring structural effects of political centralization, social stratification, shifts in land tenure, and the transformation wrought by international trade, diplomacy, and warfare. In brief, in ancient Israel, materiality and spirituality are not only joined but also inextricably intertwined.
The historical books have undergone (one is inclined to say “suffered”) the same range of interpretation as the rest of the Bible. In what sense are they true? Do they tell us what to do? Some say no and some say yes.
Literalists, on the one hand, say that every (or nearly every) word of the historical books is accurate. If the biblical text says that the sun stood still at Gibeon, the sun certainly did stand still (Joshua 10). If 1 Kings reports that Solomon spoke 3,000 proverbs, wrote 1,005 songs (4:13) and had 1,000 wives and concubines (11:3), those are the exact numbers, no more and no less. When 2 Kings reports that an angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night, both the angelic agency of the slaughter and the huge number of casualties are accepted without question (2 Kgs. 19:35).
Nonliteralists, on the other hand, view the sun standing still as symbolizing the determination of Joshua’s troops, with the help of the heavens, to finish off the Canaanites in short order. The writer, overawed by the grandeur of Solomon’s reign, piles up claims about the volume of his productivity in sealing diplomatic marriages and in creating proverbs and songs. The huge number of Assyrians slain by the messenger of God dramatically underscores the miraculous delivery of Jerusalem from Sennacherib’s tightening siege.
Thus, for some readers, the words of the Bible, spoken by the mouth of deity, are the very Word of God, while others, without prejudice to their religious value, believe that the Bible is subject to the same rules and practices of interpretation as all other books. Flowing from these differing hermeneutics, readers reach divergent conclusions regarding the applicability of biblical texts in today’s world. Are the historical books a proper source for Jewish and Christian ethics? If so, in what sense and with what consequences?
For example, Joshua’s murder of all Canaanites and the seizure of their land has been “a bone in the throat” of innumerable readers, while others relish it. Is it simply a recital of past events or does it in some way reinforce, even legitimate, the aggressive policies and practices of nations today? All we need to do is cite the brutal record of Western colonialism, in the course of which “inferior” peoples have been plundered, their land seized, and literally millions on millions of them have been killed without compunction. Other similar instances are worldwide: the treatment of Native Americans by transplanted Europeans; the dispossession of South Africans by British and Boer settlers; the murder of Chinese by Japanese invaders; the murder of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals by Germans; and we could continue the litany. Moreover, some Jews and Christians consider Joshua’s taking over Canaan as outright biblical support for the state of Israel’s occupation and settlement of Palestinian land, regardless of international rules of warfare to the contrary. All these atrocities are justified by the right of nations to wage war, the policy of “might makes right,” and the dehumanization of whole populations.
Do nations commit these atrocities because they have been motivated by reading Joshua? No, the will to colonize was already there, but in the eyes of many Jews and Christians, Joshua’s deeds excuse their own nation’s aggression by giving it religious sanction. It does not greatly help to argue historically that the first Israelites were actually themselves native to Canaan and that such killing as occurred was directed chiefly against city-state rulers and officials, not the general population. It matters little to most readers that the Israelites were colonists under attack by colonial Egypt and their Palestinian allies, since most readers know only the Joshua account as fantasized by Dtr. However, Joshua aside, the other historical books teem with violence, and it would be an impossible task to eliminate all violence-laden texts. If we did, it would be something like Jefferson’s shortened Bible!
Yet another questionable use of the Bible is to cast an aura of authority and invincibility around rulers in Christendom, ever since Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. The key text in the historical books is 2 Samuel 7, which promises David an everlasting dynasty, a promise brilliantly confirmed by the wealth and power of his son Solomon. Since it is in the nature of political leadership to hold on to power as long as possible, this assurance of divine appointment and longevity of the head of state has been tempting consolation to rulers and a warning against rebellion by those ruled. Ever since Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire, heads of state have happily laid claim to similar divine endorsement. “The divine right of kings” has been the bulwark against any who would threaten the emperor, king, or prince of the moment. Of course, little attention has been given to the caveat buried in the Davidic promise, “when he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men” (7:14 RSV), much less to the unholy conduct of a succession of kings following Solomon who are roundly criticized by Dtr as well as by the Latter Prophets. It is not surprising that postbiblical monarchs and their ecclesiastical minions have failed to follow the whole narrative of kingship throughout the historical books. Of course, as monarchy has waned and democracy has prospered, appeal to the Davidic promise is largely an empty gesture, even if retained ceremonially with the trappings of religious sanctity. Nonetheless, it is arguable that the substance of the promise has transmogrified into its secular equivalent by claiming the unshakable foundation of the state, any state, through all changes in its leadership, even when corrupt or incompetent.
Nevertheless, while the present heads of state and their regimes bask in the confidence that God will uphold their power, there are others who go beyond 2 Samuel 7 to read all of the historical books and prophets and, in doing so, notice how the majority of rulers have broken faith with the lofty terms of their installation, so seriously that the line of David falls, along with all the political, social, and religious institutions of Judah. Some of these contemporary readers are severe critics of the conduct of their own state, which is allegedly securing justice at home and peace abroad. In fact, some of the political critics have turned the Davidic promise on its head by affirming the right of rebellion against unjust rule, citing the rebellions of Absalom and Shebah against David, Jeroboam against Solomon, and Jehu against the House of Omri. Indeed, in the historical books, Dtr provides numerous examples both of kings worthy of support and those deserving of severe criticism, even death.
Taking the historical books in their wider biblical context, we see that the legacy of ancient Israel provides no distinctive politics and no template for translating culture and religion into viable social programs and polities. The historical books have been mined not only in support of the divine right of kings (or of any autocratic rulers) but also in support of the countervailing right of revolt against unjust authorities. Additionally, the historical books have been used to give support to a wide spectrum of political systems, such as covenanted commonwealths, liberal democracy, nationalism, capitalism, anarchy, and socialism. This search for a biblical warrant for particular political systems is due in part to the scriptural and cultural authority vested in the Hebrew Bible, repeatedly tempting proponents of sociopolitical systems to claim biblical legitimation. This problematic basing of politics on biblical warrants is further encouraged by the unsystematic and unreconciled political structures, practices, and values expressed in the Hebrew Bible, containing elements thought to have affinities with one or another modern political system. The best governance and social order are the province of history, social ethics, and political science, not the historical books of the Hebrew Bible.
Berrigan, Daniel. 2008. The Kings and Their Gods: The Pathology of Power. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Gottwald, Norman. 2001. The Politics of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.
Grabbe, Lester L., ed. 2005. Good Kings and Bad Kings. New York: T&T Clark.
Hawk, Daniel L. 2010. Joshua in 3-D: A Commentary on Biblical Conquest and Manifest Destiny. Eugene, OR: Cascade.
Horsley, Richard, ed. 2008. In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.
Jobling, David. 1998. 1 Samuel. Berit Olam. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.
Lasine, Stewart. 2001. Knowing Kings: Knowledge, Power, and Narcissism. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
Polzin, Robert. 1993. David and the Deuteronomist: 2 Samuel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.