CALEB, CALEBITES. Caleb, the ancestors of the Calebites, the representative of the Tribe of Judah among the Israelite spies, was out from Kadesh by Moses to collect information about Canaan (Num 13-14). After the immigration, Caleb, now described as a Kenizzite, received from the hand of Joshua the area around Hebron and Debir that was from the beginning intended to be part of the territory of Judah (Josh 14:6-14). Through his relations with the Kenizzites, Caleb was related to the Edomites, although other traditions reckon him a Judean. Next to nothing is known about the history of his descendants, the Calebites. They may have represented a mixed population that included Judean as well as Edomite elements. They lived in southern Judah and in the northern part of the Negeb. A more elaborate genealogy of Caleb can be found in 1 Chron 1. The tradition about Caleb and Hebron may accordingly reflect demographic circumstances pertinent to the post-exilic period, when the border between Judah and Edom was pushed as far north as Beth-Zur, 10 kilometers north of Hebron. The name Caleb means “dog.”
CANAAN, CANAANITES. Canaan is used in the Old Testament as the name of Palestine and its original population in pre-Israelite time. According to the Old Testament, Canaan is a descendant of Ham (Gen 9:18; 10:6). When the Israelites migrated to Canaan in order to subdue it, they had to kill a great number of Canaanites. A total destruction of the Canaanites had been planned. No trace of them should be left to posterity. However, the plan was never fully executed. The story of the Gibeonites (see Gibeon) in Joshua 9 reports that at least some Canaanites (the Gibeonites) saved their lives—in a most improper way—by cheating Joshua. The narrative in Judges 1 elaborates on the inability of the Israelites to live up to the command of the Lord that they should kill every Canaanite in sight. Judges 1 reports that many Canaanite cities survived the Israelite conquest (see Settlement of Israel), and because of this failure on the part of the Israelites, many Canaanites remained among the Israelites. The Israelites were not in complete control of all of Canaan before David’s conquest of Jerusalem (2 Sam 5).
The impression of Canaan obtained from the Old Testament is one of a well-defined geographical and ethnic term. The host of references to Canaan and its inhabitants in ancient Near Eastern sources hardly provides a picture of Canaan as well defined. The first reference to Canaan appears in inscriptions probably already from the end of the third millennium (in an inscription from Ebla). The number of references increases during the second millennium B.C.E. but diminishes again in the first millennium B.C.E. Many of these references to Canaan are not very precise. Some are of a very general nature or they refer to a territory that seems much larger than the one described by the Old Testament. This is also true of references found in inscriptions coming from sources situated within the very same territory that is called Canaan in the Old Testament, for example, the Amarna letters. Only in inscriptions dating from the last phase of the Egyptian Empire in Asia, that is, the final part of the Late Bronze Age, does Canaan assume a more precise meaning as a name of one of the Egyptian provinces in western Asia. However, one cannot be certain that the Egyptian province of Canaan was identical in extension with the geographical and ethnic designation of Canaan in the Old Testament. In first millennium references, Canaan tends to be used about Phoenicia.
The discrepancy between the idea of Canaan in the Old Testament and the references to a Canaan in ancient Near Eastern documents may well be that the Old Testament historiographers used Canaan as an ideological concept rather than as a piece of historical and political information. In the Old Testament, Canaan and the Canaanites are presented as the antithesis of Israel and the Israelites. The Canaanites play the role of the “bad guys” of a literary plot, the Israelites of the “good guys.” To their role belongs the dubious honor of being slaughtered by the Israelites during the Israelite migration into Palestine. In light of the conquest stories of the Old Testament, it is interesting that modern scholarship has shown that from a cultural perspective the ancient Israelites belonged among the Canaanites sharing their material culture and religious practices. The historical Israelites originated in Palestine and were not foreign invaders. The difference between the Israelites and the Canaanites is exclusively ideological and part of the ideological framework for the historical traditions as narrated by the historiographers of the Old Testament. It has nothing to do with the historical realities of the ancient Near East. Israelite culture developed from the pattern set by the ancient peoples of Palestine in the Bronze Age and the Israelite religion represented a restructuring of religious ideas current among the peoples of Palestine and Syria.
Scholarship has used the term Canaan in a rather dubious way to define the culture and civilization of the Levant as if this culture were totally different from the Israelite one. The Canaanite civilization with its imagined fertility religion—based on the evidence of the Ugaritic epics and the testimony of the Old Testament—has been vilified as inferior to the monotheistic Israelite belief in Yahweh as Israel’s only God. In this way, the view of the Old Testament emerged that Israel’s history was no more and no less than a continuous struggle between Yahweh and Baal, the foremost Canaanite deity. Scholars will in the future have to replace this polarization of Israel and Canaan presented by the Bible with a more precise terminology in order to classify the civilizations of Syria and Palestine in ancient times.
CAPHTOR. According to the Old Testament the original homeland of the Philistines (Amos 9:7; Jer 47:4) who are reported to have destroyed the Avvim before they settled at Gaza (Deut 2:23). In the table of nations (Gen 10:14), the Philistines are reckoned as the descendants of the Caphtorites. Jer 47:4 makes it likely that Caphtor was an island (“the isle of Caphtor”—the Hebrew word for “island” might also be translated “seashore”), and Caphtor has usually been identified with Crete and equated with Egyptian Keftiu or Akkadian Kaptara. This identification has been challenged in recent times, and other candidates proposed, especially Cyprus.
CARMEL. Meaning “orchard.”
1. A mountain range of limited height (c. 550 meters at the highest) in northwestern Palestine, running from Haifa in the west and almost 50 kilometers in southeastern direction. It is the main dividing line between the coastal plain and the Valley of Jezreel and is known from history as a difficult area to pass. The pass at Megiddo, the scene of many battles, is especially famous. Here Pharaoh Thutmose III (c. 1479-1425 B.C.E.) fought against a coalition of local chieftains, and in this place King Josiah of Judah lost his life in 609 B.C.E., when he tried to block the road before the advancing Egyptian army. Carmel’s role as a sacred mountain is mirrored by the story of the prophet Elijah killing the priests of Baal (1 Kgs 18:20-40).
2. A city in southern Judah (Josh 15:55), generally identified with modern Kurmul, 15 kilometers south of Hebron. King Saul raised a victory monument here in remembrance of his victory over the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:12).
CHALDAEA, CHALDAEANS. In the Old Testament Chaldaea is considered the original home of Abraham whose family traced their origin back to the Ur of the Chaldaeans (Gen 11:28.31). The Chaldaeans, who appear in Assyrian inscriptions since the first half of the ninth century B.C.E., inhabited southern Babylonia, including the marsh areas close to the Persian Gulf. They spoke a language related to Aramaic, if not Aramaic proper, but are never in Assyrian sources identified with the Aramaeans. Their place of origin is unknown—northeastern Arabia has been proposed—but they appear originally as a tribally organized group of people who as time went by partly settled in the Babylonian cities, and finally became rulers of all of Mesopotamia. Chaldaean leaders had Babylonian names, like Merodak-Baladan (Marduk-apal-iddina), who for many years fought against Sennacherib and negotiated with Hezekiah of Judah (2 Kgs 20:12-13), probably in order to find allies against Assyria. In the late seventh century, the Chaldaeans combined with the Medes and overran Assyria, conquering Nineveh in 712 B.C.E. and extinguishing the last vestiges of the Assyrian empire a few years later at Haran. Under mighty kings—especially Napolassar (625-605 B.C.E.) and Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 B.C.E.)—they almost reestablished the Assyrian Empire as a Neo-Babylonian Empire. After the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C.E., “Chaldaean” was used in later oriental and Greek tradition about the sages of Babylon. In this latter capacity Chaldaeans turn up at the royal court in the stories of the Book of Daniel (Dan 2:2.4.5.10)
CHARCHEMISH. An important city and trade center at the upper course of the Euphrates, mentioned in documents from c. 2500 to 600 B.C.E. It already appears in the Ebla texts and remained an important and contested city during the second millennium, when it became the residence of the Hittite vice king of Syria. In the first millennium a dynasty supposed to have a Hittite background reigned at Charchemish. Charchemish fought successfully against Assyria in the ninth century but finally had to yield to Assyrian power in the days of Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 B.C.E.) and, after a rebellion, was reduced to an Assyrian province by Sargon (721-705 B.C.E.). Again Charchemish moved into the center of history when Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C.E., in alliance with Egyptian troops garrisoned at Charchemish, crushed the last vestiges of the former Assyrian Empire (see also 2 Chron 35:20). There are no records indicating that Nebuchadnezzar sacked the city which seems, however, since his time to have been left largely unpopulated until the Hellenistic period.
CHEDORLAOMER. King of Elam, and one of the four great kings who were defeated by Abraham in the Valley of Siddim (Gen 14). The name represents a distortion of the Elamite name Kutur-lagamar, but no king of that name is known from historical sources. Among the kings of Elam proposed as the prototype of the mysterious King Chedorlaomer of Genesis 14 is Kutur-Nahhunte of the 12th century B.C.E.
CHERETHITES AND PELETHITES. The name of David’s guard under command of Benaiah. It has been proposed that David raised his guard already while he was residing at Ziklag, and that the term referred to soldiers whose origin should be sought among the Sea Peoples. Some have understood the Cherethites to be mercenaries from Crete, but their home was more likely somewhere in the Negeb region (see also the Negeb of the Cerethites, 1 Sam 30:14).
CHRONICLES. An official, mostly state-sponsored literary genre listing the great events on a yearly basis. See also ANNALS.
CHRONICLES, THE BOOKS OF. The two books of Chronicles constitute the major part of the Chronistic History. They tell the story of humankind from Adam to the destruction of Jerusalem, with an appendix reporting how Cyrus ordered the temple rebuilt. However, until the death of Saul at Gilboa, the history is only in the form of a long genealogical listing of biblical figures from Adam to Saul. From the ascension of Rehoboam to the throne of Judah and the division of his kingdom into two parts, Chronicles concentrate on episodes relevant to the history of Judah, almost forgetting the existence of the Kingdom of Israel. It is generally assumed that the Books of Kings constituted the most important source for the writers of Chronicles. However, sometimes Chronicles deviate from Kings, for example, in their evaluation of the respective reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah of Judah by downplaying the importance of Josiah. A famous incident in Chronicles not narrated by Kings is the conversion of King Manasseh after his exile to Babylon (2 Chron 33).
CHRONICLES OF THE KINGS OF ISRAEL. In a number of places, the authors of the Books of Kings and Chronicles refer to the existence of a chronicle of the Kings of Israel as a source of further information. Thus, after having allowed for only a short note with scant information about the important King Omri of Israel, the authors of the Books of Kings refer the reader to the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel in this way: “Now the rest of the acts of Omri which he did, and his might that he showed, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?” (1 Kgs 16:27). Nothing from this source has been preserved.
In spite of the fact that the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel have often been regarded by scholars as a valuable source, absolutely nothing is known about them. It is not known if they belonged among the official genre of chronicles known from other ancient Near Eastern societies or included merely a mixed collection of tales from the past. It has also been suggested that the references to these chronicles as well as to the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah represent literary style and convention without any basis in any existing collection of documents.
CHRONICLES OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH. The southern equivalent to the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. What has been said about the former chronicles can just as well be repeated here. Thus nothing is known about them, except that the authors of Kings and Chronicles occasionally refer to them as additional sources: “And the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of chronicles of the kings of Judah?” (2 Kgs 12:19).
CHRONISTIC HISTORY. The second among the historical collections of the Old Testament, generally assumed to include the two books of Chronicles and the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Their composition is normally considered quite late, dating to perhaps the Persian period (fifth century B.C.E. or even the fourth century B.C.E.), and of secondary importance in comparison to the Deuteronomistic History. Moreover, it is generally accepted that the Deuteronomistic History has been the source of information for the authors of the Chronistic History.
CHRONOLOGY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. The chronology of the Old Testament basically takes one from creation to the time of Ezra’s return to Jerusalem. Although a British bishop a couple of centuries ago was able to reconstruct the history of the world according to biblical chronology, it is not the task here to discuss the legendary chronological information included in the Primeval History. Such a chronology is beyond history and serves different interests. Basically, the discussion has to do with real chronology and real time placing the events and personalities of the Old Testament within a chronological framework that from a historian’s point of view makes sense and is operable.
In a discussion of the chronology of the Old Testament, it has—as the starting point—to be admitted that it is with a few exceptions impossible to create total harmony between the chronological information found in the Old Testament and the information coming from other parts of the ancient Near East, not to speak of modern chronological reconstructions. The aim and scope of chronology in the historical books of the Old Testament is vastly different from what is found in modern history books. The historical literature of the Old Testament was never written in order to explain exactly what may have happened and when it did happen. The chronology was not even intended to be exact in a way that resembles modern chronological concepts. The ideological aspects of chronology were generally more important than exact chronology. Thus the Old Testament allows for a span of time between the Exodus and the building of Solomon’s temple of 480 years, which cover twelve generations, each of 40 years. This is not an exact indication of time, but rather ideological numbers bearing a meaning not limited to the measure of real time. Both 12 and 40 function as round numbers. Such round numbers could also be used about a more limited span of time.
In this way King David is allowed to rule for 40 years, Solomon, his son for another 40 years, but Solomon’s two successors, Rehoboam and Abijah together ruled for only 20 years (17 + 3 years), that is, half the time of David and Solomon. The mania for using ideological numbers is also apparent in lists such as the one of the so-called “minor judges” (see Judge) in Judg 10:3-5; 12:8-13. Here five judges functioned together for 70 years (23 + 22 + 7 + 10 + 8 years), or also for structuring the chronology of kings of less importance than David or Solomon. Thus the four rulers in Jerusalem, who follow Asa of Judah, together rule for 40 years (25 + 8 + 1 + 6). It is obvious that Old Testament historiographers were not fundamentally interested in real chronology and nowhere any critical note is found referring to chronological problems. This is obvious in the case of Israel’s history before the introduction of the monarchy. The chronological framework, dividing this period into the time of the patriarchs, the sojourn in Egypt and the exodus, the conquest and the Period of the Judges, has nothing to do with history.
When it comes to the chronology of the period of the Monarchy, that is, the first half of the first millennium B.C.E., things gradually begin to change, not because the historical information in the Old Testament relevant to this period is by necessity more “historical” than the information about the previous periods, but because it is possible to establish a series of synchronisms between kings mentioned in the Old Testament and information from other parts of the ancient Near East, especially from Assyria and Babylonia. Assyrian and Babylonian records show much more interest in chronological precision, a fact that may have to do with the preoccupation in Mesopotamia with astrology that demanded exact observation and registration. Accordingly Assyrian and Babylonian documents sometimes included chronological information of a quality quite different from what is found in records from Syria and Palestine where exact dating was very unusual until the time of the Persian Empire. Thus no Amarna letter is ever dated. In his administrative documents, no king of Ugarit mentioned the exact date of the document in relation to, for example, his regnal years.
In Mesopotamia, the interest invested in astrological matters allowed the Assyrians and Babylonians to create chronological tools in order to distinguish precisely between different years. These precise observations occasionally permit the modern scholar to reconstruct the ancient chronology in a very precise way. Thus a reference to a solar eclipse included in an ancient source may allow the modern scholar to look for an absolute date of a certain event that happened in the same year. It has in this way been possible to establish the exact date of Ahab’s participation in the battle of Qarqar in 853 B.C.E., because of a solar eclipse in the same year recorded by Assyrian scribes. It has also been possible on the basis of Assyrian documents to almost exactly place the tribute from Jehu to the Assyrians to the year of 841 B.C.E., from Jehoash to 796 B.C.E., from Menahem to 740 B.C.E. and 738 B.C.E., and from Ahaz to 734 B.C.E. Assyrian documents present the date of the fall of Samaria as 722 B.C.E., and Babylonian ones indicate that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem for the first time in 597 B.C.E. Thus the chronology of the period of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah is at least correct in outline. But after the fall of Jerusalem, the ideological numbers return. Modern scholarship has established that the exile in Babylon lasted from 587 to 538 B.C.E., roughly 50 years. However, this date cannot be found in the Old Testament that only gives 70 years as the time of the exile, clearly on ideological grounds.
CITY, CITY-STATE. Although agriculture was the main occupation of the peoples of ancient Palestine and more than 90 percent of the population was engaged in basic food production, the city was the landmark of civilization, the center of districts, regions, and states. In the ancient Near East, including Palestine, urban civilization went back to the end of the Chalcolithic period (end of fourth millennium B.C.E.) and dominated the economic and political structure in the Early Bronze Age. At the end of the Early Bronze Age it broke down, but was reestablished in the Middle Bronze Age. The evidence from the Late Bronze Age indicates that the cities were struggling for survival, thus preparing for the breakdown of urban life at the end of the Bronze Age. In the first millennium B.C.E., the cities reappeared, although they never reached the level of the Bronze Age which was not to be surpassed before the Hellenistic period.
In Palestine, cities were normally small in extension but heavily fortified (see Fortifications)—an indication of the dangers of political life at that time, but also of a fragmented political structure, the country being divided into a series of petty kingdoms or city-states. The city was the center of administration and government and often identified with the state which it dominated. Thus with few exceptions, the Amarna letters continuously refer to the cities of Syria and Palestine as the name of states. In ancient Near Eastern documents of the Iron Age, the Kingdom of Israel was identified as Samaria, its capital. The name of Jerusalem does not turn up as the name of the Kingdom of Judah, although Mesopotamian references to “the city of Judah,” meaning Jerusalem, show how important the city was.
CITY OF DAVID. Used in the Old Testament as an alternative name for Jerusalem, since David’s conquest of the city (2 Sam 5:7.9). Sometimes a distinction is made between the City of David situated on the southeastern hill (the “Ophel”) and the Temple Mount (Zion in the proper sense).
CLAN. In traditional societies such as ancient Israel, the local community is divided into different levels of social organization. In most such societies where a centralized state does not exist or is only of minor importance to local people, the usual social organization will be the tribe, the lineage, and the family, probably allowing for a number of subdivisions as well. A tribal society may contain clans but the clan level is not always present. In general anthropological theory, it is difficult to distinguish between a clan and a lineage, both being extended family groups, although the connection between members of a clan often seems to be less important than is the rule in the lineage. It is not absolutely certain that ancient Israel included clans, although most commentators accept their presence. The Hebrew word normally associated with the clan is mishpacha, but it may also mean “lineage.”
CONQUEST OF CANAAN, THE ISRAELITE. See SETTLEMENT OF ISRAEL.
CLIENTELISM. The technical term of a sociopolitical system that basically reckons with only two categories of people, the clients and their patrons. It is sometimes maintained that the presence of a sociopolitical system building on clientelism indicates the lack of a developed bureaucracy enabling the centralized state to exert control over its citizens. It is also called the “traditional Mediterranean family system” and has been operative not only in Rome, where it was the official political system in the time of the Roman Republic, but all over the Mediterranean world, including the ancient Near East, where the control (administration) of the centralized state was weak or absent. See also PATRONAGE SOCIETY.
COVENANT. Or constitution of Israel. According to the deuteronomistic (see Deuteronomism) theology of the Old Testament, the relationship between Israel and its God Yahweh is controlled by a covenant dictated by God to Israel at Sinai and later confirmed when Joshua summoned the people to Shechem for his farewell speech. Although the idea of the divine covenant is definitely a theological point made by the deuteronomists, it reflects the basic importance of the covenant system in a society where matters were normally decided through a person-to-person relationship, a kind of written or unwritten deal concluded among persons of an equal standing, that is, tribal leaders, great men, or kings. Basically, the system of patronage—the way to organize social differences into the haves and the have-nots—relied on an extensive system of covenants when great men attached ordinary people to their power group by setting up personal contracts or covenants. It is hardly surprising that language has survived in the Old Testament that reflects the function of the system of covenants as a protecting device, for example, in God’s speech to the Israelites where he promised to send his angel in front of Israel to cut down its enemies (Exod 23:20-33).
CUSH. In translations since the King James Version normally translated “Ethiopia” (but cf. The Revised English Bible). Cush was in the Old Testament the name of the Valley of the Nile between the first and fifth cataract, in classical sources called Nubia, in modern times Sudan. Cush was famous for its treasures and its Negroid population that often served as mercenaries. In Jeremiah’s time, a Cushite named Ebed-Melech served in the palace of Jerusalem (Jer 38:7-13).
CUSHAN-RISHATAIM. An oppressor of Israel (Judg 3:7-11), reported to be the king of Aram-Naharaim. Othniel, the brother of Caleb, put an end to his regime of terror. Cushan-Rishataim (meaning “double wickedness”) is often seen as a legendary figure, not from Aram but from Edom (the writing of Edom and Aram is very similar in Hebrew), probably a personification of Cushan (Hab 3:7), an area related to the Midianites possibly located in northeastern Arabia.
CYRUS. King of Persia 539-530 B.C.E., and the founder of the Persian Empire. At the beginning of his career, Cyrus was the vassal of the Medes (see Media) but he threw away the Median yoke and started a process of expanding Persian territory into an empire of a size never previously witnessed. After having subdued the territories of present-day Iran, he turned to the northeast and conquered Asia Minor. Having settled affairs to the east and in the north and northeast, he turned his attention of Babylonia. His Babylonian campaign was crowned with success, when Cyrus entered the city of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. Now he was the master of all of the Near East from the borders of Egypt to India. He died battling in Bactria (present-day Afghanistan).
In the Old Testament, Cyrus has obtained a position unknown to any other foreign ruler. In the Book of Isaiah, he is reckoned the hope of freedom of the exiled Judeans and the anointed of the Lord (Isa 44:28; 45:1). The Old Testament records that a year after his ascension to the throne of Babylonia (538 B.C.E.), he issued a decree announcing freedom for the exiles, and the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem, an event that was regarded as the official end to the Babylonian Exile (1 Chron 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4). In Hebrew as well as Greek tradition, Cyrus was seen as the paragon of the just king, and was also accepted as such by Alexander the Great.