History of The Jews in The Land of Israel - Ancient Israel and Judah (1200-586 BCE)

Ancient Israel and Judah (1200-586 BCE)

Main article: History of ancient Israel and Judah See also: Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), and Kingdom of Judah

The name Israel first appears in the stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah c. 1209 BC, "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not." This "Israel" was a cultural and probably political entity of the central highlands, well enough established to be perceived by the Egyptians as a possible challenge to their hegemony, but an ethnic group rather than an organized state. Ancestors of the Israelites may have included Semites who occupied Canaan and the Sea Peoples. According to modern archaeologists, sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite', differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion.

According to the biblical narrative, in around 930 BCE, the United Kingdom of Israel split into a southern Kingdom of Judah and a northern Kingdom of Israel. The archaeological record indicates that the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged in the Early Iron Age (Iron Age I, 1200–1000 BCE) from the Canaanite city-state culture of the Late Bronze Age, at the same time and in the same circumstances as the neighbouring states of Edom, Moab, Aram, and the Philistinian and Phoenician city-states. The oldest Hebrew text ever found was discovered at the ancient Israelite settlement, Elah Fortress, which dates to between 1050 and 970 BCE.

Israel had clearly emerged by the middle of the 9th century BCE, when the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III names "Ahab the Israelite" among his enemies at the battle of Qarqar (Kurkh Monolith, 853), and the Mesha stele (c. 830) left by a king of Moab celebrating his success in throwing off the oppression of the "House of Omri" (i.e. Israel). The Tel Dan stele tells of the death of a king of Israel, probably Jehoram, at the hands of an Aramean king (c. 841).

From the middle of the 8th century BCE Israel came into increasing conflict with the expanding neo-Assyrian empire, which first split its territory into several smaller units and then destroyed its capital, Samaria (722). Both the biblical and Assyrian sources speak of a massive deportation of the people of Israel and their replacement with an equally large number of forced settlers from other parts of the empire – such population exchanges were an established part of Assyrian imperial policy, a means of breaking the old power structure - and the former Israel never again became an independent political entity. This deportation gave rise to the notion of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Judah emerged somewhat later than Israel, probably no earlier than the 9th century BCE, but the subject is one of considerable controversy and there is no definite answer to the question. The recovered seal of the Hebrew King Ahaz (c. 732 to 716 BCE) identifies him as King of Judah. During the reign of Hezekiah (c. 715 and 686 BCE) a notable increase in the power of the Judean state is reflected by archaeological sites and findings such as the Broad Wall and Hezekiah's Tunnel in Jerusalem. Judah prospered in the 7th century BCE, probably in a cooperative arrangement with the Assyrians to establish Judah as an Assyrian vassal (despite a disastrous rebellion against the Assyrian king Sennacherib). However, in the last half of the 7th century Assyria suddenly collapsed, and the ensuing competition between the Egyptian and Neo-Babylonian empires for control of Palestine led to the destruction of Judah in a series of campaigns between 597 and 582.

• Tel Dan Stele, bearing the first record of the name "David", (Israel Museum)

• Artist's rendering of the First Temple