PADDAN-ARAM. The name of the Haran region, the home of Abraham’s Mesopotamian relatives. It is generally assumed to be a variant of the name of Aram-Naharaim.
PALACE. In ancient Palestine and Syria, the palace was the center of the state. The king resided in the palace but it also housed the administration and directed the economy. At least in the Late Bronze Age it also included industrial factories like shops for the production of fine pottery and other crafts. Thus scholars speak—relating to the Late Bronze Age—of a palace economy where the king functioned more like the manager of a business enterprise than as a king in the modern sense of the word. The description of Solomon’s palace complex in Jerusalem shows that this function of the palace also survived into the Iron Age.
PALESTINE. The ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian name of the country otherwise known in the Old Testament as, respectively, Canaan, the Promised Land, and the Land of Israel. The name of Palestine has been known at least since Assyrian documents as a reference probably to the coastal plain inhabited by the Philistines who gave their name to the country. In the days of the Greek historiographer Herodotus (5th century B.C.E.), Palestine could be used as the name of the territory between Syria and Egypt, meaning most likely all of Palestine. The Romans inherited the name from the Greeks and used it, although they knew of other terms including Judea for the political organizations that existed in Palestine. In Christian usage the name was common until the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Thus the British mandate that ruled the territory between the two world wars was called Palestine.
Although of limited size (c. 28,000 square kilometers), Palestine includes a variety of regions and great ecological contrasts. It also includes the lowest places on the inhabited earth, where, at the southern end of the Dead Sea, it goes down to almost 400 meters below sea level. Moving from north to south, Palestine borders in the north on Lebanon. This part of the country is mainly a mountain area, sometimes called Upper Galilee, but the mountains are intersected by fertile valleys that open up in the east to the Huleh Valley north of Lake Kinnereth, in the south to the Jezreel Valley, and in the west to the Esdraelon Plain, or the Plain of Acco. When moving from west to east through the central part of the country, the western part is taken up by the coastal plain, or the Plain of Sharon, the homeland of the Philistines. Before moving into the central mountains of Palestine, the traveler has to pass the Shephelah, a low ridge separating the coast from the mountains. The central mountains allow a relatively easy passage, only in one place rising to more than 1,000 meters. East of the watershed follows an abrupt descent into the Jordan Valley, a rift valley, running along its course below sea level.
The climate is subtropical with very hot summers, and fairly cold winters, at least in the mountains. A normal year will produce enough rainwater for extensive agriculture. Drought has, however, always been a problem, and on the average two or three years within a decade the country would suffer from lack of rain and famine. An estimate of the size of the early Palestinian population employing traditional agricultural techniques would be between 500,000 and 750,000 persons.
PALMS, CITY OF. Occasionally used as another name for Jericho (Deut 34:3).
PARAN, DESERT OF. The desert territory in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula. Paran was the base of the Israelites when Moses sent out spies to explore the country (Num 12-13). When he fled from Saul, David also spent some time in Paran (1 Sam 25:1).
PATRIACHS, PERIOD OF THE PATRIARCHS. The Old Testament considers the patriarchs to be the early ancestors of ancient Israel. While living in Mesopotamia, Abraham, the first patriarch, was chosen by God to be the father of a great nation. Abraham moved to Canaan, the Promised Land, but his son Isaac, Israel’s second patriarch, renewed relations with the family in Mesopotamia through his marriage. Isaac fathered Jacob, whose sons became the apical ancestors of Israel’s twelve tribes. Jacob’s second name was Israel, a name given to him personally by God (Gen 32:28). Jacob left Canaan with his family and moved to Egypt where he died, but he was buried in the cave of his ancestors at Hebron—an indication that Canaan remained the Promised Land to Jacob’s descendants, the future Israelites (Gen 59:13).
The Period of the Patriarchs has always kindled the imagination of readers of the Old Testament, and until a generation ago it was almost universally taken to constitute a historical part of Israel’s past, considered as such also by most biblical scholars. Although scholars accepted that a large share of the patriarchal stories (roughly Gen 12-50) had to be relegated to myth and legend, they were of the opinion that a historical core was still present and reflected the ancient history of the people of Israel. As knowledge about the ancient Near East grew, this position became more difficult to maintain. First of all, it became harder to find a period where the patriarchs would fit in. Proposals ran from the Early Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age. Secondly, obvious anachronisms such as the patriarchs’ use of the domesticated camel—a development in animal husbandry that belonged to the Early Iron Age, that is, the end of the second millennium B.C.E.—became more and more obtrusive. The fairytale-like content of the patriarchal narratives also became bothersome. Such legendary stories have the patriarchs negotiating with the Pharaoh almost as if they were equals, something far from the realities of the Egyptian court in the third and second millennia B.C.E. Accordingly, modern scholarship—aside from its most conservative elements—has given up the idea of considering the time of the patriarchs to be a historical period. Instead it considers the patriarchal narratives to be stories about the past and the early heroes of the Israelite society not very different from similar stories among other nations. In this way, the Period of the Patriarchs is a pious construction by later historiographers who used the patriarchs to create ethnical coherence among their contemporaries.
PATRONAGE SOCIETY. A sociopolitical system that distinguishes theoretically between two kinds of people, the patrons and their clients. While it was the official political system of the Roman republic, and has been considered a specialized Roman way of organizing their society, the patronage system has roots that reach far back in history and is still very much in evidence in the Mediterranean world. The system seems to thrive in societies without an organized bureaucracy and a centralized state organization and provides a security system that establishes ties between the rich and the poor and thus juridical security also for poor people who in states without a proper police force to protect its citizens are left without protection if not allied to a patron of importance. The traditional Near Eastern society has often been understood as based on the existence of tribes, but it may be that the patronage system has been much more important in the daily life of people, including traditional Israelite society. The importance of the system, which is not very much in evidence in the literature of the Old Testament, may be reflected by the covenant at Sinai that probably copies ancient Near Eastern treaties between vassal kings and their overlords, the great kings (see kingdom). According to the biblical covenant, God acts as the patron and protector of Israel, while Israel is commanded to remain faithful to the Lord or it will be punished.
PEKAH. The son of Remaliah and king of Israel c. 734-731 B.C.E. (the text about the reign of 20 years of Pekah in 2 Kings 15:27 has been corrupted). Pekah changed the policies of the Kingdom of Israel in a fundamental way when he reversed his alliances and united with the Aramaeans of Damascus against Assyria. His choice of new allies could not have been worse. Assyria was in his time ruled by Tiglath-pileser III—probably the ablest king of the Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-pileser dealt with the rebellion in the west in his usual effective way, conducting a campaign to Syria and Palestine that in 732 B.C.E. led to the practical dissolution of the Kingdom of Israel. Most of the territory of Israel was put under the direct control of Assyrian governors. Pekah was killed in his palace as the result of a rebellion among his retainers and replaced by his son, who was, according to Tiglath-pileser’s inscriptions, placed on the throne of Samaria as a vassal of the king of Assyria (cf. 2 Kings 15:29-31). According to the Old Testament, Pekah and his allies tried to press Judah to join the anti-Assyrian coalition—without any success: Ahaziah of Judah called for Assyrian help against his northern neighbor. Although Tiglath-pileser in his annals says nothing about this invitation, it cannot be excluded that he saw it as an opportunity to settle affairs in the southern Levant.
PEKAIAH. King of Israel c. 735-734 B.C.E. (2 Kings 15:23-26). Pekaiah was the son of King Menahem of Israel and may have continued his father’s pro-Assyrian policies that, among other things, involved a heavy tribute paid by Menahem to Tiglathpileser III of Assyria. A rebellion in his palace was his undoing. He was replaced by his retainer, Pekah, who soon changed his sound foreign policy and brought havoc on his own country.
PELETHITES. See CHERETHITES AND PELETHITES.
PENTATEUCH. In scholarly literature the usual way to refer to the first part of the Old Testament, the five Books of Moses, respectively the Books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In the Hebrew Bible it is also called “the Law” (the Torah). The Pentateuch covers the early history of humankind, tells the story of the election of Israel’s patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and how Israel first migrated to Egypt, and thereafter escaped from the oppression of the Pharaoh. It includes the covenant and legislation at Sinai, and the migrations in the desert (see Desert, Migrations in the Desert). The narrative stops at the moment when the Israelites prepared to cross the Jordan River to enter their Promised Land.
The Pentateuch is a composite piece of literature made up of several different strands of tradition. In order to disentangle the composition history of the Pentateuch, scholars during the 19th and 20th centuries proposed that basically four sources are present in this work. In the original formulation of the theory, the oldest layer or source was named the “Yahwist” (based on its use of the name of God), the second source was called the “Elohist” (after Hebrew elohim, “God”), and the third source was attributed to a priestly writer. These three sources were found all over the first four Book of Moses, representing independent versions of Israel’s early history, mixed together by a redactor into one coherent work. The fourth was considered to be deuteronomistic, and responsible for the fifth Book of Moses, the Deuteronomy. The Yahwist was considered the oldest source, originating perhaps in the 10th century B.C.E.; the Elohist was reckoned to be somewhat later, belonging to the ninth or eighth century B.C.E. The priestly writing was considered Jewish, and part of the literary and mental history of early Judaism, while the deuteronomistic strand belonged to the sixth century at the earliest.
Modern scholarship has revised this theory of the literary history of the Pentateuch considerably. The scholarly view of the character of the individual sources and their relationship to each other has changed fundamentally, and the dating of the individual sources been lowered. Thus scholars have recently proposed dates for the Yahwist in the sixth, fifth, or even fourth or third centuries B.C.E. They also now see the Elohist source to be close to the Yahwist in outlook and general attitude to Israel’s history, and accordingly contemporary with the Yahwist. A trend especially popular among Israeli scholars moves in the opposite direction and proposes to see the priestly writing as pre-exilic, that is, from the seventh century B.C.E.
PENUEL. A place east of the Jordan River, on the banks of the Jabbok River where Jacob wrestled with God (Gen 32:24-32). The judge Gideon destroyed the city and killed its inhabitants because they refused to assist him when he fought against the Midianites (Judg 8:8-9.17). Jeroboam fortified the city (1 Kings 12:25). Penuel is normally identified with Tell edh-Dhabah esh-Sherqiyeh but has never been excavated.
PEOPLE. See also NATION.
PERIZZITES. One of Canaan’s pre-Israelite nations (Gen 15:20). Nothing particular is known about the Perizzites.
PERSIA, PERSIAN EMPIRE. An enormous empire that between c. 540 and 330 B.C.E. ruled the ancient Near East from the western part of India to Egypt and Libya. The creator of this empire was Cyrus II (559-530 B.C.E.), the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty that ruled the Persian Empire to its very end. From his base in Fars in modern Iran, Cyrus broke up the empire of the Medes (see Media), and went on to conquer Babylon and win control over the Neo-Babylonian Empire (539 B.C.E.). He also succeeded in reducing Asia Minor, including the Greek cities along its western coast, to submission to Persian rule, thereby establishing the conditions for the future clash with the Greeks. Cyrus died during a campaign against Bachtria, modern Afghanistan, but his successors managed to enlarge his empire by also including Egypt and pushing the borders of the empire across the Indus River into India itself. Only in 490 B.C.E. at Marathon, and again at Salamis and Plataia (480-479 B.C.E.), was the Persian expansion stopped when Persia’s navies and armies were crushed by the coalition of Greek states under the leadership of Athens and Sparta.
The Persian Empire was for its time well organized with highly elaborate monarchical centers at Susa, and Persepolis in southern Persia. The king was the “king of kings.” He was the supreme commander of all Persian armed forces and the undisputable master of his state. Economically, he relied on taxes imposed on imperial provinces, although local rule was exerted by satraps, provincial governors who as time went by became more and more independent of their imperial master. In this way, the satrapial provinces were highly autonomous but checked by an elaborate system of imperial spies (the “eyes and ears of the king”) that was in evidence all over the empire. These satrapies, as they were named, were subdivided into minor provinces. Thus Palestine was until the arrival of Nehemiah governed by a Persian governor residing at Samaria, who was responsible to the satrap of the province of Eber-Nahri (“Beyond-the-River”), the Middle Eastern territories to the west of the Euphrates.
The Persian rule was considered, according to the standards of that time, lenient in allowing local customs and ethnicities to continue—a situation reflected by the Old Testament tradition about the Persians. Thus Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem in order to reestablish their society that had been crushed by the Babylonians. In spite of this, the history of Persia was not one of peace. Several rebellions endangered Persian rule, not least in Egypt, and the aftermath of the wars against the Greeks led to a partial restoration of Greek rule over western Asia Minor. Xenophon’s famous Anabasis, the story of 5,000 Greek mercenaries who were employed by a Persian officer against his royal master, signals the inherent weakness of the Persian Empire: although ending up trapped in central Mesopotamia—almost at the heartland of the Persian Empire—the Greeks succeeded in fighting their way right through Asia Minor to the Black Sea where they were picked up by ships and returned home. When Alexander the Great attacked Persia, the Persian Empire crumbled within a couple of years, and was succeeded by a series of Macedonian kingdoms.
PHARAOH. The title of the king of Egypt in the Old Testament. Meaning in Egyptian “the Great House,” its attestation begins in the third millennium B.C.E. denoting the palace in Memphis. Later, in the first millennium it became a title of the Egyptian king. The usage in the Old Testament reflects the final stage in its development.
PHILISTINES. The people of the coastal plain that gave the name to Palestine, that is, the “country of the Philistines.” They originated among the so-called “Sea Peoples,” members of a migration of probably Aegean origin that at the end of the Late Bronze Age hit the Near East partly by sea, partly overland. In Egyptian sources, where they are called prst (ancient Egyptian did not have a special sign for –l– but rendered an –l– with a –r–), they turn up in the inscriptions of Ramesses III (c. 1187-1156 B.C.E.). In his inscriptions Ramesses III boasts of having destroyed the invading Sea Peoples, including the Philistines. It is generally assumed that Ramesses III, after having defeated the Philistines, granted them a new home in southern Palestine, then still part of the Egyptian Empire. Here they organized in a number of small states, in the Old Testament described as the five cities of the Philistines: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath, but also including a series of settlements at least as far north as Tell Qasile, now within the city boundaries of modern Tel Aviv. The Philistines were never subdued by the Israelite kingdoms but remained independent until the Assyrian conquest toward the end of the eighth century B.C.E. The Assyrians called them Palashtu, a name that was taken over by the Greeks, and after them the Romans, and extended to include further parts of the country.
In the Old Testament, the Philistines turned up in the Period of the Judges as the enemies of Israel. The Samson narrative centers on the state of war between the Philistines and the Israelite tribe of Dan. Although the Philistines caught Samson, he was able to crush his opponents gathered at Gaza. Later, the monarchy was introduced to counter the threat from the Philistines, whom Saul initially fought successfully. Saul lost his life in combat against the Philistines in the battle at Gilboa, but his successor David, who at a certain time had found asylum among the Philistines at Gath, settled affairs with the Philistines without ever conquering their land. The later history of the Hebrew kingdoms mentions a number of incidents between Israel and the Philistines, but the Philistines never again threatened the domination of the Israelites over the central mountain massif of Palestine.
PHOENICIA, PHOENICIANS. The Greek name of the Levantine coast of the Mediterranean and its inhabitants. The Greek name, meaning “purple” or “crimson,” may refer to the manufacturing of purple colors in Phoenicia. Phoenicia embraced the coastal regions between, roughly, Ugarit in the north and Acco in the south. The Phoenicians are widely referred to in Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Greek sources and also appear frequently on the pages of the Old Testament. Inscriptions from the Phoenician homeland are, however, few and far between.
As the name of the region and its inhabitants is attributed to them by foreigners, the ethnicity of the Phoenicians is uncertain, and it is most unlikely that they ever understood themselves to constitute a nation. Thus the Phoenicians never created a major state but their political society was organized as a series of city-states. Some of them obtained regional importance but none of them was able to extend its rule over all of Phoenicia.
The problem with the proper ethnic terminology sometimes induces scholars to let the history of the Phoenicians begin after 1200 B.C.E., after the breakdown of the political and economic system of the Late Bronze Age. Although the direction of Phoenician history changed in the Iron Age, it did not start there but reaches back into the Early Bronze Age when at least one of the major Phoenician cities became an important trade partner for the Egyptian Pharaohs, providing them with especially precious timber for building projects. Little is known about the history of the Phoenicians in the Middle Bronze Age until, at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, they became the subjects of Egypt. The political situation of Phoenicia is probably best illustrated by the Amarna letters from the 14th century B.C.E. that include several letters from Phoenician rulers, not least from Tyre and Byblos.
After the breakdown of the empires of the Late Bronze Age, and after the interruption of international trade mainly in the hands of first Minoan and later Mycenean tradesmen, the Phoenicians were to experience their finest hour when they began to spread their trade activities all over the Mediterranean, founding colonies in such far-off regions as Spain, Corsica, Sicily, and North Africa—the most famous being Carthago, founded by the Tyrians near the modern city of Tunis. Political developments made them subjects first to Assyrian, then Babylonian, and finally Persian rule, but their new masters never seriously interfered with their trade activities, vital also to the economic welfare of the empires. The Phoenicians acted as brokers and middlemen allowing goods to flow from the western Mediterranean via their excellent harbors into the Syrian and Mesopotamian hinterland. The hardest blow to Phoenician well-being was probably delivered by Alexander the Great when he conquered and destroyed Tyre in 332 B.C.E., a city formerly believed to be impossible to subdue.
The Old Testament includes several references to the Phoenicians, although according to the political importance of the city of Tyre in the first millennium, they are normally referred to as Tyrians. Thus, the Tyrian king Hiram assisted Solomon in constructing the royal palace and temple (1 Kgs 9:10-14), and the dynasty of Omri was bound to the royal house of Tyre in marriage, when Ahab married the notorious Tyrian princess Jezebel. The prophet Ezekiel includes a series of attacks on Tyre and its king and prophecies that in a fundamental way will conquer and destroy the city (Hez 25-28). But although Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the city for 25 years, he never succeeded in reducing it to serfdom.
PITHOM. In the Book of Exodus, Pithom, meaning “the house of Atum,” is one of the storage cities in Egypt built by the Israelites (Exod 1:11). Its exact location is disputed, most scholars preferring Tell esh-Maskhuta, but a minority Tell er-Rabatah in northeastern Egypt. Although Tell esh-Maskhuta has roots far back in Egyptian history, no city existed at this place in the Late Bronze Age, when the exodus is supposed to have taken place. The city was rebuilt as late as the seventh century B.C.E., making it likely that the note about the storage cities has its historical background in a much later period than the one envisaged by the biblical text itself.
POTIPHAR. Moses’ first master in Egypt, and the captain of the “butchers,” evidently the palace guard of the Pharaoh. The name is Egyptian and well attested in the first millennium B.C.E.
PRIESTS. The political power of priests within a polytheistic environment, that is, with temples and shrines belonging to a great diversity of deities, can hardly be exaggerated. On the other hand, although it is known that ancient Israel was not a monotheistic society—not even the Old Testament claims it to be—the Old Testament does not allow for much detail about the role played by priests in the policies of the day except that the leading priests at the royal shrines in Jerusalem (see also Temple, Temple of Jerusalem) and elsewhere could sometimes act as the advisors of the kings, as for example, Abiatar did to David. However, in the historical literature of the Old Testament, this role as an advisor is generally played by the prophets, otherwise known from the ancient Near East as a rather low-ranking part of the priesthood.
Priesthood in the Old Testament can be subdivided into a number of priestly lines. The Zadokite priesthood represented the priestly elite. They claimed to be the descendants of Zadok and had monopolized the office of the high priest at Jerusalem. Below them stood the Levites, who were also functioning as priests at shrines distributed all over the land of Israel. Their importance seemingly diminished as the cult of Yahweh became the only official one, and they were—at least in the account of Josiah’s reform—removed from local sanctuaries and moved to Jerusalem, where they were reduced to less important functions. This narrative may reflect the rise of the Aaronite priesthood (see also Aaron) to prominence, although details from this history are unknown. Chronicles (see Chronicles, Books of) know of more priestly functions and groups but evidently their knowledge concerns post-exilic conditions and not pre-exilic ones.
PROPHETS. Prophets are known from all over the Near East in antiquity as belonging to the system of predictions very much favored by the people of that time. In spite of their reputation in the Old Testament, they were generally low status soothsayers, ranked behind professional groups such as astrologists and priests providing oracles based on special features of the sacrifice. They were, however, feared for being unpredictable. Thus, the reports from ancient Mari on the Euphrates, dating back to the 18th century B.C.E., provide excellent comparative material elucidating the functions of prophets who also interfered in matters of state. When a prophet arose—often without any forewarning—he was immediately arrested and put into custody until his prophecy was verified. In the Old Testament, evidence of the same official attitude toward prophets can be found in the story about Micaiah, the son of Imlah, held in prison in Samaria (1 Kgs 22). When the king’s colloquium of prophets in unison recommended a campaign against Aram, Micaiah was brought from the prison to tell the king the truth. When he delivered a devastating forecast of defeat, he was immediately returned to prison. The persecution of prophets is also one of the basic themes of the Elijah-Elisha cycle of narratives (1 Kgs 17-2 Kgs 9) that also describes the political impact of prophets opposing the decisions of their royal masters. Several prophets of the Old Testament, from Samuel to Jeremiah, were politically active, and no king would be without his prophet or prophets who would guide him in all matters of importance. Thus, the prophet Nathan was a trusted member of David’s court, and the person who interfered when David had Uriah killed in order to marry his widow (2 Sam 12). Another prophet, Ahijah from Shiloh, promised Jeroboam that he should inherit the greater part of Solomon’s kingdom (1 Kgs 11).
The great prophets of the Old Testament, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, were both active in policies and fearlessly opposed the foreign policies of their kings. Several scenes in the books carrying their names show how the prophets stood up in confrontation with the king and his officers, sometimes risking their lives. Another prophet, Amos, was banned from the Kingdom of Israel when he rose against the royal Israelite sanctuary at Bethel.
Women could also appear as prophets. Thus the judge Deborah is called a prophet, and in Jeremiah’s days, a prophet called Hulda was active (2 Kgs 22:14-20), apparently formulating a message not very different from the one of Jeremiah.
PROVINCES IN ISRAEL. Solomon is said to have been the first king of Israel to introduce a provincial system in his kingdom (1 Kgs 4:7-19) (see also Governors). This system constituted an intentional departure from the old tribal system as the borders of the provinces did not coincide with the tribal territories. At a later date, the Assyrians in the time of Tiglath-pileser III created a rather different provincial system, when they reduced the territory of the Kingdom of Israel to Samaria and its surrounding countryside because of an Israelite rebellion against the Assyrians. Then the provinces like Makidu (Megiddo) and Galaza (Gilead) were led by Assyrians governors. The description of the tribal territories in the Book of Joshua (Josh 13-19) is sometimes taken to reflect a provincial organization set up by Josiah.
PUL. An alternative name of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III (2 Kgs 15:19).