Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews

97:9.1There never were twelve tribes of the Is­raelites—only three or four tribes set­tled in Pales­tine. The He­brew na­tion came into be­ing as the re­sult of the union of the so-called Is­raelites and the Ca­naan­ites. “And the chil­dren of Is­rael dwelt among the Ca­naan­ites. And they took their daugh­ters to be their wives and gave their daugh­ters to the sons of the Ca­naan­ites.” The He­brews never drove the Ca­naan­ites out of Pales­tine, not­with­stand­ing that the priests’ rec­ord of these things un­hesi­tat­ingly de­clared that they did.

97:9.2The Is­raeli­tish con­scious­ness took ori­gin in the hill coun­try of Ephraim; the later Jew­ish con­scious­ness orig­i­nated in the south­ern clan of Ju­dah. The Jews (Ju­dahites) al­ways sought to de­fame and blacken the rec­ord of the north­ern Is­raelites (Ephraimites).

97:9.3Pre­ten­tious He­brew his­tory be­gins with Saul’s ral­ly­ing the north­ern clans to with­stand an at­tack by the Am­monites upon their fel­low tribes­men—the Gilea­dites—east of the Jor­dan. With an army of a lit­tle more than three thou­sand he de­feated the en­emy, and it was this ex­ploit that led the hill tribes to make him king. When the ex­iled priests rewrote this story, they raised Saul’s army to 330,000 and added “Ju­dah” to the list of tribes par­tic­i­pat­ing in the bat­tle.

97:9.4Im­me­di­ately fol­low­ing the de­feat of the Am­monites, Saul was made king by pop­u­lar elec­tion by his troops. No priest or prophet par­tic­i­pated in this af­fair. But the priests later on put it in the rec­ord that Saul was crowned king by the prophet Samuel in ac­cor­dance with di­vine di­rec­tions. This they did in or­der to es­tab­lish a “di­vine line of de­scent” for David’s Ju­dahite king­ship.

97:9.5The great­est of all dis­tor­tions of Jew­ish his­tory had to do with David. Af­ter Saul’s vic­tory over the Am­monites (which he as­cribed to Yah­weh) the Phil­is­tines be­came alarmed and be­gan at­tacks on the north­ern clans. David and Saul never could agree. David with six hun­dred men en­tered into a Phil­is­tine al­liance and marched up the coast to Es­draelon. At Gath the Phil­is­tines or­dered David off the field; they feared he might go over to Saul. David re­tired; the Phil­is­tines at­tacked and de­feated Saul. They could not have done this had David been loyal to Is­rael. David’s army was a poly­glot as­sort­ment of mal­con­tents, be­ing for the most part made up of so­cial mis­fits and fugi­tives from jus­tice.

97:9.6Saul’s tragic de­feat at Gil­boa by the Phil­is­tines brought Yah­weh to a low point among the gods in the eyes of the sur­round­ing Ca­naan­ites. Or­di­nar­ily, Saul’s de­feat would have been as­cribed to apos­tasy from Yah­weh, but this time the Ju­dahite ed­i­tors at­tributed it to rit­ual er­rors. They re­quired the tra­di­tion of Saul and Samuel as a back­ground for the king­ship of David.

97:9.7David with his small army made his head­quar­ters at the non-He­brew city of He­bron. Pres­ently his com­pa­tri­ots pro­claimed him king of the new king­dom of Ju­dah. Ju­dah was made up mostly of non-He­brew el­e­ments—Ken­ites, Calebites, Je­busites, and other Ca­naan­ites. They were no­mads—herders—and so were de­voted to the He­brew idea of land own­er­ship. They held the ide­olo­gies of the desert clans.

97:9.8The dif­fer­ence be­tween sa­cred and pro­fane his­tory is well il­lus­trated by the two dif­fer­ing sto­ries con­cern­ing mak­ing David king as they are found in the Old Tes­ta­ment. A part of the sec­u­lar story of how his im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers (his army) made him king was in­ad­ver­tently left in the rec­ord by the priests who sub­se­quently pre­pared the lengthy and pro­saic ac­count of the sa­cred his­tory wherein is de­picted how the prophet Samuel, by di­vine di­rec­tion, se­lected David from among his breth­ren and pro­ceeded for­mally and by elab­o­rate and solemn cer­e­monies to anoint him king over the He­brews and then to pro­claim him Saul’s suc­ces­sor.

97:9.9So many times did the priests, af­ter prepar­ing their fic­ti­tious nar­ra­tives of God’s mirac­u­lous deal­ings with Is­rael, fail fully to delete the plain and mat­ter-of-fact state­ments which al­ready rested in the rec­ords.

97:9.10David sought to build him­self up po­lit­i­cally by first mar­ry­ing Saul’s daugh­ter, then the widow of Na­bal the rich Edomite, and then the daugh­ter of Tal­mai, the king of Geshur. He took six wives from the women of Je­bus, not to men­tion Bathsheba, the wife of the Hit­tite.

97:9.11And it was by such meth­ods and out of such peo­ple that David built up the fic­tion of a di­vine king­dom of Ju­dah as the suc­ces­sor of the her­itage and tra­di­tions of the van­ish­ing north­ern king­dom of Ephraimite Is­rael. David’s cos­mopoli­tan tribe of Ju­dah was more gen­tile than Jew­ish; nev­er­the­less the op­pressed el­ders of Ephraim came down and “anointed him king of Is­rael.” Af­ter a mil­i­tary threat, David then made a com­pact with the Je­busites and es­tab­lished his cap­i­tal of the united king­dom at Je­bus (Je­ru­sa­lem), which was a strong-walled city mid­way be­tween Ju­dah and Is­rael. The Phil­is­tines were aroused and soon at­tacked David. Af­ter a fierce bat­tle they were de­feated, and once more Yah­weh was es­tab­lished as “The Lord God of Hosts.”

97:9.12But Yah­weh must, per­force, share some of this glory with the Ca­naan­ite gods, for the bulk of David’s army was non-He­brew. And so there ap­pears in your rec­ord (over­looked by the Ju­dahite ed­i­tors) this tell­tale state­ment: “Yah­weh has bro­ken my en­e­mies be­fore me. There­fore he called the name of the place Baal-Per­azim.” And they did this be­cause eighty per cent of David’s sol­diers were Ba­al­ites.

97:9.13David ex­plained Saul’s de­feat at Gil­boa by point­ing out that Saul had at­tacked a Ca­naan­ite city, Gib­eon, whose peo­ple had a peace treaty with the Ephraimites. Be­cause of this, Yah­weh for­sook him. Even in Saul’s time David had de­fended the Ca­naan­ite city of Keilah against the Phil­is­tines, and then he lo­cated his cap­i­tal in a Ca­naan­ite city. In keep­ing with the pol­icy of com­pro­mise with the Ca­naan­ites, David turned seven of Saul’s de­scen­dants over to the Gibeonites to be hanged.

97:9.14Af­ter the de­feat of the Phil­is­tines, David gained pos­ses­sion of the “ark of Yah­weh,” brought it to Je­ru­sa­lem, and made the wor­ship of Yah­weh of­fi­cial for his king­dom. He next laid heavy trib­ute on the neigh­bor­ing tribes—the Edom­ites, Moabites, Am­monites, and Syr­i­ans.

97:9.15David’s cor­rupt po­lit­i­cal ma­chine be­gan to get per­sonal pos­ses­sion of land in the north in vi­o­la­tion of the He­brew mores and pres­ently gained con­trol of the car­a­van tar­iffs for­merly col­lected by the Phil­is­tines. And then came a se­ries of atroc­i­ties cli­maxed by the mur­der of Uriah. All ju­di­cial ap­peals were ad­ju­di­cated at Je­ru­sa­lem; no longer could “the el­ders” mete out jus­tice. No won­der re­bel­lion broke out. To­day, Ab­sa­lom might be called a dem­a­gogue; his mother was a Ca­naan­ite. There were a half dozen con­tenders for the throne be­sides the son of Bathsheba—Sol­o­mon.

97:9.16Af­ter David’s death Sol­o­mon purged the po­lit­i­cal ma­chine of all north­ern in­flu­ences but con­tin­ued all of the tyranny and tax­a­tion of his fa­ther’s regime. Sol­o­mon bankrupted the na­tion by his lav­ish court and by his elab­o­rate build­ing pro­gram: There was the house of Lebanon, the palace of Pharaoh’s daugh­ter, the tem­ple of Yah­weh, the king’s palace, and the restora­tion of the walls of many cities. Sol­o­mon cre­ated a vast He­brew navy, op­er­ated by Syr­ian sailors and trad­ing with all the world. His harem num­bered al­most one thou­sand.

97:9.17By this time Yah­weh’s tem­ple at Shiloh was dis­cred­ited, and all the wor­ship of the na­tion was cen­tered at Je­bus in the gor­geous royal chapel. The north­ern king­dom re­turned more to the wor­ship of Elo­him. They en­joyed the fa­vor of the Pharaohs, who later en­slaved Ju­dah, putting the south­ern king­dom un­der trib­ute.

97:9.18There were ups and downs—wars be­tween Is­rael and Ju­dah. Af­ter four years of civil war and three dy­nas­ties, Is­rael fell un­der the rule of city despots who be­gan to trade in land. Even King Omri at­tempted to buy She­mer’s es­tate. But the end drew on apace when Shal­maneser III de­cided to con­trol the Med­i­ter­ra­nean coast. King Ahab of Ephraim gath­ered ten other groups and re­sisted at Karkar; the bat­tle was a draw. The As­syr­ian was stopped but the al­lies were dec­i­mated. This great fight is not even men­tioned in the Old Tes­ta­ment.

97:9.19New trou­ble started when King Ahab tried to buy land from Naboth. His Phoeni­cian wife forged Ahab’s name to pa­pers di­rect­ing that Naboth’s land be con­fis­cated on the charge that he had blas­phemed the names of “Elo­him and the king.” He and his sons were promptly ex­e­cuted. The vig­or­ous Eli­jah ap­peared on the scene de­nounc­ing Ahab for the mur­der of the Naboths. Thus Eli­jah, one of the great­est of the proph­ets, be­gan his teach­ing as a de­fender of the old land mores as against the land-sell­ing at­ti­tude of the Baalim, against the at­tempt of the cities to dom­i­nate the coun­try. But the re­form did not suc­ceed un­til the coun­try land­lord Jehu joined forces with the gypsy chief­tain Je­honadab to de­stroy the proph­ets (real es­tate agents) of Baal at Samaria.

97:9.20New life ap­peared as Je­hoash and his son Jer­oboam de­liv­ered Is­rael from its en­e­mies. But by this time there ruled in Samaria a gang­ster-no­bil­ity whose depre­da­tions ri­valed those of the Da­vidic dy­nasty of olden days. State and church went along hand in hand. The at­tempt to sup­press free­dom of speech led Eli­jah, Amos, and Hosea to be­gin their se­cret writ­ing, and this was the real be­gin­ning of the Jew­ish and Chris­tian Bibles.

97:9.21But the north­ern king­dom did not van­ish from his­tory un­til the king of Is­rael con­spired with the king of Egypt and re­fused to pay fur­ther trib­ute to As­syria. Then be­gan the three years’ siege fol­lowed by the to­tal dis­per­sion of the north­ern king­dom. Ephraim (Is­rael) thus van­ished. Ju­dah—the Jews, the “rem­nant of Is­rael”—had be­gun the con­cen­tra­tion of land in the hands of the few, as Isa­iah said, “Adding house to house and field to field.” Pres­ently there was in Je­ru­sa­lem a tem­ple of Baal along­side the tem­ple of Yah­weh. This reign of ter­ror was ended by a mono­the­is­tic re­volt led by the boy king Joash, who cru­saded for Yah­weh for thirty-five years.

97:9.22The next king, Amaziah, had trou­ble with the re­volt­ing tax-pay­ing Edom­ites and their neigh­bors. Af­ter a sig­nal vic­tory he turned to at­tack his north­ern neigh­bors and was just as sig­nally de­feated. Then the ru­ral folk re­volted; they as­sas­si­nated the king and put his six­teen-year-old son on the throne. This was Azariah, called Uzziah by Isa­iah. Af­ter Uzziah, things went from bad to worse, and Ju­dah ex­isted for a hun­dred years by pay­ing trib­ute to the kings of As­syria. Isa­iah the first told them that Je­ru­sa­lem, be­ing the city of Yah­weh, would never fall. But Jeremiah did not hes­i­tate to pro­claim its down­fall.

97:9.23The real un­do­ing of Ju­dah was ef­fected by a cor­rupt and rich ring of politi­cians op­er­at­ing un­der the rule of a boy king, Man­asseh. The chang­ing econ­omy fa­vored the re­turn of the wor­ship of Baal, whose pri­vate land deal­ings were against the ide­ol­ogy of Yah­weh. The fall of As­syria and the as­cen­dancy of Egypt brought de­liv­er­ance to Ju­dah for a time, and the coun­try folk took over. Un­der Josiah they de­stroyed the Je­ru­sa­lem ring of cor­rupt politi­cians.

97:9.24But this era came to a tragic end when Josiah pre­sumed to go out to in­ter­cept Ne­cho’s mighty army as it moved up the coast from Egypt for the aid of As­syria against Baby­lon. He was wiped out, and Ju­dah went un­der trib­ute to Egypt. The Baal po­lit­i­cal party re­turned to power in Je­ru­sa­lem, and thus be­gan the real Egyp­tian bond­age. Then en­sued a pe­riod in which the Baalim politi­cians con­trolled both the courts and the priest­hood. Baal wor­ship was an eco­nomic and so­cial sys­tem deal­ing with prop­erty rights as well as hav­ing to do with soil fer­til­ity.

97:9.25With the over­throw of Ne­cho by Neb­uchad­nez­zar, Ju­dah fell un­der the rule of Baby­lon and was given ten years of grace, but soon re­belled. When Neb­uchad­nez­zar came against them, the Ju­dahites started so­cial re­forms, such as re­leas­ing slaves, to in­flu­ence Yah­weh. When the Baby­lo­nian army tem­porar­ily with­drew, the He­brews re­joiced that their magic of re­form had de­liv­ered them. It was dur­ing this pe­riod that Jeremiah told them of the im­pend­ing doom, and pres­ently Neb­uchad­nez­zar re­turned.

97:9.26And so the end of Ju­dah came sud­denly. The city was de­stroyed, and the peo­ple were car­ried away into Baby­lon. The Yah­weh-Baal strug­gle ended with the cap­tiv­ity. And the cap­tiv­ity shocked the rem­nant of Is­rael into mono­the­ism.

97:9.27In Baby­lon the Jews ar­rived at the con­clu­sion that they could not ex­ist as a small group in Pales­tine, hav­ing their own pe­cu­liar so­cial and eco­nomic cus­toms, and that, if their ide­olo­gies were to pre­vail, they must con­vert the gen­tiles. Thus orig­i­nated their new con­cept of des­tiny—the idea that the Jews must be­come the cho­sen ser­vants of Yah­weh. The Jew­ish re­li­gion of the Old Tes­ta­ment re­ally evolved in Baby­lon dur­ing the cap­tiv­ity.

97:9.28The doc­trine of im­mor­tal­ity also took form at Baby­lon. The Jews had thought that the idea of the fu­ture life de­tracted from the em­pha­sis of their gospel of so­cial jus­tice. Now for the first time the­ol­ogy dis­placed so­ci­ol­ogy and eco­nomics. Re­li­gion was tak­ing shape as a sys­tem of hu­man thought and con­duct more and more to be sep­a­rated from pol­i­tics, so­ci­ol­ogy, and eco­nomics.

97:9.29And so does the truth about the Jew­ish peo­ple dis­close that much which has been re­garded as sa­cred his­tory turns out to be lit­tle more than the chron­i­cle of or­di­nary pro­fane his­tory. Ju­daism was the soil out of which Chris­tian­ity grew, but the Jews were not a mirac­u­lous peo­ple.