Early Israel and the Surrounding NationsSayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
History
Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations
Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
History, Ancient; Jews -- History -- To 586 B.C.
It has been said above that Judah was a mixture of Hebrew, Kenite, and
Edomite elements. Kenite means "smith," and the tribe furnished those
itinerant smiths who provided Canaan with its tools and arms. Reference
is made to one of them in the _Travels of a Mohar_, a sarcastic
description of a tourist's misadventures in Palestine which was written
by an Egyptian author in the reign of Ramses II., and of which a copy on
papyrus has been preserved to us. The horses of the hero of the story,
we are told, ran away and broke his carriage to pieces; he had
accordingly to betake himself to "the iron-workers" and have it
repaired. Similar itinerant ironsmiths wandered through Europe in the
Middle Ages, handing down from father to son the secrets of their craft.
The Kenites came from the desert, and were apparently of Midianitish
descent. Balaam had looked down upon their rocky strongholds from the
heights of Moab; and they had accompanied their Hebrew comrades of Judah
from their first camping-ground near Jericho to the wilderness south of
Arad. Here they lived among the Amalekite Bedâwin down to the days of
Saul. To the last they maintained their nomadic habits, and the Kenite
family of Rechab still dwelt in tents and avoided wine in that later age
when the kingdom of Judah was about to fall.[3]
The Edomite element in Judah was stronger than the Kenite. It consisted
of the two clans of Jerahmeel and Kenaz, or the house of Caleb as it was
called in the time of David.[4] Kenaz was a grandson of Esau, and the
fact that the Kenizzites shared with the Israelitish tribes in the
conquest of Canaan throws light on the law of Deuteronomy[5] which gave
the Edomite of "the third generation" all the rights and privileges of a
Jew. Caleb, the conqueror of Hebron, was a Kenizzite; so also was
Othniel, the first of the Judges of Israel. Edomites, rather than
Hebrews, were the founders of the future Judah.
This accounts for the comparatively late appearance of Judah as a
separate tribe in the history of Israel, as well as for the antagonism
which existed between it and the more pure-blooded tribes of the north.
In the Song of Deborah and Barak, Judah is not mentioned; Ephraim and
Benjamin, and not Judah, are still regarded as forming the bulwark of
Israel against the Amalekite marauders of the southern wilderness. It
was the Philistine wars which first created the Judah of later days.
They forced Hebrews, Edomites, and Kenites to unite against the common
enemy, and welded them into a single whole. Though the three peoples
still continued to be spoken of separately, this was but a survival of
ancient modes of speech, and after the accession of David all
distinction between them disappears. From this time forward the kingdom
of Judah is one undivided community.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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