Israel

96:2.3It was only af­ter the days of Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek and Abra­ham that cer­tain tribes of Semites, be­cause of their pe­cu­liar re­li­gious be­liefs, were called the chil­dren of Is­rael and later on He­brews, Jews, and the “cho­sen peo­ple.” Abra­ham was not the racial fa­ther of all the He­brews; he was not even the pro­gen­i­tor of all the Bed­ouin Semites who were held cap­tive in Egypt. True, his off­spring, com­ing up out of Egypt, did form the nu­cleus of the later Jew­ish peo­ple, but the vast ma­jor­ity of the men and women who be­came in­cor­po­rated into the clans of Is­rael had never so­journed in Egypt. They were merely fel­low no­mads who chose to fol­low the lead­er­ship of Moses as the chil­dren of Abra­ham and their Semite as­so­ciates from Egypt jour­neyed through north­ern Ara­bia.

136:1.1The Jews en­ter­tained many ideas about the ex­pected de­liv­erer, and each of these dif­fer­ent schools of Mes­sianic teach­ing was able to point to state­ments in the He­brew scrip­tures as proof of their con­tentions. In a gen­eral way, the Jews re­garded their na­tional his­tory as be­gin­ning with Abra­ham and cul­mi­nat­ing in the Mes­siah and the new age of the king­dom of God. In ear­lier times they had en­vis­aged this de­liv­erer as “the ser­vant of the Lord,” then as “the Son of Man,” while lat­terly some even went so far as to re­fer to the Mes­siah as the “Son of God.” But no mat­ter whether he was called the “seed of Abra­ham” or “the son of David,” all were agreed that he was to be the Mes­siah, the “anointed one.” Thus did the con­cept evolve from the “ser­vant of the Lord” to the “son of David,” “Son of Man,” and “Son of God.”

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.

97:9.18There 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.