The Biblical Story of Israel

According to the biblical story, God commanded Abraham to leave his country, his people and his father’s household and go to the land he will show him (Gen. 12:1‒3). Abraham and his family wandered from the southern Mesopotamian Ur to Egypt through Canaan, and in the course of their journey God promised Abraham to give the land of Canaan to his family and descendants (Map 14).

To confirm this, God made a covenant with Abraham, according to which each male must undergo circumcision (Gen. 17:1‒14). In the time of the Patriarchs, namely Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob, God repeated this promise to the family; however, during that time the family (tribe) had not yet settled in Canaan, but led a nomadic lifestyle, wandering between Egypt and Mesopotamia, while crossing several times the land that later became Israel. The Bible explains the name Israel with a mysterious story: Patriarch Jacob struggled until dawn with an angel who, at the end of their struggle, gave him the name of Israel “for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Gen.

32:29)⁸. According to popular etymology, the Hebrew name Yisrael means “he who struggles with God”. Jacob’s twelve sons escaped from the famine that affected Canaan and fled to Egypt where they settled and multiplied. The twelve sons of Israel (Jacob) are the ancestors of the twelve tribes of the people of Israel, who united into a single people upon their Exodus from Egypt.

8 The translations of Biblical passages are given, with slight modernisation, according to the so-called JPS Tanakh 1917, i.e. The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text:

A New Translation. Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1917.

Map 14: Migration routes of the Patriarchs according to the Bible Source: Edited by ÁGNES VARGA

The Second Book of Moses (Exodus) tells the story of the hardships the people of Israel had to face in Egypt when the Egyptians forced the nation into slavery. Moses became their advocate, and obeying God’s command, he demanded that Pharaoh release his people, and allow them to return to Canaan.

Upon the Pharaoh’s refusal to grant this request, God struck Egypt with ten plagues, the most serious of which was the death of the firstborn. According to the story, God commanded the people of Israel to slaughter sacrificial lambs, to eat the meat with unleavened bread, to smear the blood of the lamb on the doorposts, and to remain in their houses at night, because: “For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side-posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you. (...) And it came to pass at midnight, that the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first-first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the first-born of cattle.” (Exodus 12:23, 29) Seeing this the Pharaoh gave his consent to the Israelites to leave Egypt, but soon after he had a change of heart, and pursued the nation of Israel with his chariots, and overtook them at the Red Sea. Holding out his staff, Moses separated the Red Sea and the Israelites walked on the passage of dry land with walls of water on both sides; however, their pursuers drowned as the waters rushed back. After their Exodus from Egypt, the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years, while God taught them how to serve him. The revelation at Mount Sinai took place at the beginning of these wanderings: Moses received the Ten Commandments engraved on tablets of stone; God disclosed his other commandments and laws as well, and finally, God made a covenant with the people (Ex. 20:1‒17, 24:3‒8, 12). The divine revelation was very frightening for the people, therefore they asked Moses to represent them before God. However, since Moses spent such a long time on the mountain, standing before God, the people thought that he had been consumed by the unbearable power of the divine presence. So, they made a golden idol, a calf of moulded gold for themselves.

Upon descending from Mount Sinai after forty days, Moses found the people practicing idolatry, and in his exasperation, he broke the tablets of stone onto which God himself had inscribed His laws. However, after the people repented, at God’s command Moses remade the tablets of stone, but this time he inscribed the commandments on them instead of God. God himself led the people during the wondering in the wilderness; his place of worship was a portable tabernacle. The Ark of the Covenant (also known as the Ark of Testimony) with its winged cherubim was the tangible throne of the invisible God, the place of manifestation of the divine presence.

Map 15: Map of the twelve tribes of Israel Source: Edited by ÁGNES VARGA

Canaan was conquered only after a long period of wondering in the wilderness, after that had Moses died and Joshua assumed the role of leading the people. The territories they occupied were divided among the twelve tribes, who then sought to protect them from the invasions of neighbouring peoples (Map 15).

The tribal alliance soon became a kingdom, headed first by Saul and then by David (first half of tenth century BCE), followed by his son, Solomon (second half of tenth century BCE). David occupied Jerusalem and made it the capital of his kingdom. The central place of worship, the Temple of Jerusalem, was built by Solomon. The cult was based on offering sacrifices in the Temple, and the rituals connected to the offerings were carried out by the priestly orders (Kohanim and Leviim). After Solomon’s death, the kingdom split into two. Ten tribes in the North established an independent kingdom called Israel, while two tribes in the South (the larger tribe of Judah and the smaller tribe of Benjamin) together formed a kingdom called Judah. During the next two centuries (ninth and eighth centuries BCE), the two kingdoms fought against one another as well as against the surrounding peoples, and the two dominant empires of the region (namely Egypt and Assyria), until Israel was eventually conquered by the Assyrian Empire (721 BCE) (Map 16). In line with the politics of the Assyrian Empire, while a large part of the population was deported to other parts of the Empire, ethnic groups from other parts of the Empire were moved to Israel. Soon Judah also came under Assyrian rule. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, Judah became part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar (Nabu-kudurri-usur), Babylonian ruler conquered Jerusalem in 597 BCE and deported a part of the population (so-called “Babylonian captivity”). Approximately ten years later, the kingdom of Judah revolted against Babylonian rule. In response to that, the Babylonian army again sieged and conquered Jerusalem, and finally destroyed both the city and the Temple (587 BCE). King Cyrus of Persia defeated Babylon in 540 BCE and granted the deported Jews permission to return to Jerusalem, but the restoration of the Temple was only completed in 516 BCE (“the Second Temple”). The Hebrew Bible does not report the events of the centuries that followed: Judah became part of the spheres of interest of new empires; after it was conquered by Alexander the Great, the land remained under Greek military and cultural influence, against which the Jews rebelled (the Maccabean Revolt) in 167 BCE. Pompey the Great led a successful military campaign against Judah in 63 BCE, after which the supremacy of the Roman Empire prevailed over it. Judah was ruled by successive Judean kings and Roman governors (procurators), until it finally came under direct Roman administration, and became a province of the Roman Empire. In response to the Jewish revolt against the Roman rule in 70 CE, the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple, which was never rebuilt.

Map 16: The Assyrian Empire following the annexation of Israel Source: Edited by ÁGNES VARGA

The only original wall still standing in the area of the Temple Mount is the Wailing Wall (also known as the Western Wall), which is not, however, a wall of the Temple’s building but a section of the wall surrounding the Temple area, built by Herod the Great (ruled between 37‒4 BCE). Its significance is due to the fact that in practice a religious Jew cannot get closer to the site of the former Temple, which also became a holy place for the Muslims following the Islamic conquest.

Nowadays, the Dome of the Rock stands on the site of the former Temple.