Biblical Hebrew Blog by ClassicalHebrew.com

The oldest part of Israelite Jerusalem, known as the city of David, is located on a narrow ridge just south of the walls of the current old city of Jerusalem. After conquering Jerusalem from the Jebusites, David established the city as his capital and began to develop it. David’s Jerusalem was extremely small and was populated mainly by the king and his staff. David laid the groundwork for building a royal Acropolis, including a palace, administrative building, and naturally, the Jerusalem temple. It was his son, Solomon, who completed this building project, as well as the wall of the city, which was not completed by David: “Solomon built the Milo and closed the breaches [in the walls] of the city of his father David” (1 Kings 11:27).

The city of David has undergone massive excavations since the 19^th century, revealing public buildings, private houses, water systems and other archaeological findings. These excavations also reveal the slow expansion the city underwent and its extension towards the eastern hills of the area.

Of special importance among the archaeological finds is an ancient water system which enabled the inhabitants of Canaanite Jerusalem to reach a protected accumulation pool outside the city walls using an underground tunnel. This and the 8^th century water system built by king Hezekiah – the impressive Siloam tunnel – show that the need to channel the water from the sources outside the walls to the inhabitants living inside them was crucial to every-day life in Jerusalem.

In recent excavations, the archaeologist Aylat Mazar claims to have found the remnants of the palace of king David, an identification made with the aid of the biblical account.

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In approximately 930 B.C.E., the short-lived United Monarchy, which ruled over all the tribes of Israel, was divided into two kingdoms: Israel in the north, led by Jeroboam son of Nebat, and Judea in the South, led by Rehoboam the son of Solomon. The two kingdoms differed in cultural and religious aspects, the Judean faith’s main place of worship being in the Jerusalem temple, while Jeroboam established temples in Bethel and Dan in which he placed golden calves.

The Book of Kings presents us with the history of the two kingdoms, always separate and distinct. The northern kingdom is considered, in biblical terms, to be a sinful institution, while the southern kingdom is also generally not held in high moral regard, although some kings were considered worthy religious leaders. The two kingdoms were often involved in mutual conflicts such as the war raged by the Aramites against the Israelite king Baasha at the request of the Judean king Asa. However, there were also times of military treaties, as in the days of Jehoshaphat of Judea and Ahab of Israel, who fought together against the Aramites.

The Israelite kingdom was destroyed by Shalmaneser III king of Assyria, in 722 B.C.E. Following the fall of the kingdom, some refugees who escaped exile fled to Jerusalem, which was attacked by the Assyrians but withstood their attack some years later (701). The Judean kingdom was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.

Despite their differences and disputes, the two kingdoms were always considered sister kingdoms, sharing the same language (though there were two distinct dialects) and a variation of the same religion. The cultural connections between the two led to joint prophecy: Hosea, of the eighth century, who preached to both populations; Amos, who was from Judea but preached to the people of Samaria, and more.

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In 1947, by the north-western tip of the Dead Sea, a few Bedouins accidentally stumbled upon what would turn out to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the century: the Dead Sea Scrolls. Following this initial discovery of parts of seven scrolls, archaeologists uncovered a huge library, comprised of thousands of scroll fragments in different states of preservation, found in eleven different caves in the vicinity of the ruins called Qumran.

The community preserving the scrolls led a segregate lifestyle at the Qumran site from the second century B.C.E., a time at which they retreated to this desert asylum as a result of ideological disputes with mainstream Judaism based in the Jerusalem Temple, up to their destruction by Roman troops in 68 C.E. The Qumran community (considered by most scholars to be a sect called the Essenes, mentioned by Josephus, Philo and Pliny the Elder) observed strict interpretations of various laws, especially those concerning purity, and also held different views than mainstream Judaism as to the calendar that should be observed and the importance of the luminaries in setting this calendar, keeping a 364-day year, an accurate sun year according to their calculations.

The large library, kept in clay jars and preserved thanks to the dry desert air, includes many biblical scrolls, exposing to us different biblical versions current at the time as well as linguistic and spelling developments, scribal practices, and interpretations of the sacred texts. They also include many sectarian writings, revealing to us the beliefs and practices of the inhabitants of the village and some of the inner-politics of Second Temple Judaism. Some scholars suggested that the roots of early Christianity could be found at Qumran, due to the centrality of purity and baptism, however the abundance of differences causes others to doubt this hypothesis.

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“The Land of Israel” is the Hebrew (or Jewish) name used to denote the area in south-west Asia along the coast of the Mediterranean sea, “the southern Levant.” The borders of this area have been subjected to many changes, the widest including areas in Trans-Jordan and reaching all the way to the Euphrates river. However, the borders of the biblical Israel are usually the sea on the west and the Jordan river on the east.

In biblical times, Israel was called “Canaan,” thus named for the Canaanites populating it. Subsequent to the partition between the monarchies of Judea and Israel, Israel came to denote the northern part of the region and Judah the southern. However, in the Second Temple period the general name “Israel” regained its meaning as the entire region. The name “Palestine” first appears in the 5^th century BCE in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotos, and was adopted by the Muslims following their conquest in the 7^th century CE.

Known as “the land of milk and honey,” Israel is rich with agricultural produce and natural resources. It is blessed with seven species of fruits and crops typical of the region – wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranate, olives and dates. Due to the fact that Israel lies on part of the Syrian-African rift, there is a variation of natural settings and climates within a small geographic area: maritime planes, different mountain ridges, the Negev desert, many streams leading water to the Mediterranean sea, the sea of the Galilee (“Kineret”), and the Dead Sea, which is not only a unique natural phenomenon but is also the lowest place below sea level in the world.

For water for agricultural and every-day purposes, Israel is dependant on rain and natural springs, as the Book of Deuteronomy tells us: “a land of hills and valleys, drinking rain water” (Deuteronomy 11:11). Due to this fact, the Bible sees the dependence on rain as a religious one, indicating the care of God for his people, as the next verse tells us: “A land which your God YHWH cares for, the eyes of your God YHWH are always watching it.”

Israel has been inhabited since pre-historic times, with archaeological finds revealing every-day life in pre-history and early historical periods, as well as many finds from the biblical period and later on. It was the home of nomads roaming the desert as well as agrarian societies working the fertile land. From a religious aspect, Israel was the birth-place of Judaism and Christianity and an important part of the Muslim empire, and is considered holy by all three of these religions.

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