Dragonthorn Chapter 10: Israel

Moses was gone, but the real grunt-work of carving out a holy land for the chosen people was just beginning. The protege and successor of Moses, a man called Joshua, son of Nun, took command of the armed forces of the House of Israel and led them west over the Jordan into the promised land.

And the first city to fall into the hands of Joshua was the ancient settlement of Jericho, which is the oldest continuously inhabited walled city in the world.

On the plains of Jericho before battle was given, Joshua beheld the nephilim Michael with his sword drawn in his hand, and the angel of Yahweh moved near to him. Joshua also went unto him, and said, "Are you with us, or are you for our adversaries?"

And Michael said, "No" and Joshua fell into silent confusion. Michael went on: "As captain of the host of Yahweh have I come." And he gave Joshua detailed war orders.

Even as they spoke, the walls of Jericho were undermined by the mouth of the wormhole tunnel such that they stood with the most precarious support. Then the angel of Yahweh sent forth a sound that shook the earth, and the city walls fell flat to the ground, permitting Joshua and his army to rapidly occupy the city after a siege of only seven days.

After that conquest the angel of Yahweh was seen in the world never again, for it was in truth the angel of Koth, and to Koth at Gorpai it returned once more, with Michael carried aboard. And only three favors remained that Koth owed Yahweh.
But this had been an important favor. Bouyed by the victory over Jericho, the Immigrants would have the animal spirits to conquer the rest of Canaan.

The five kings of the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Yarmuth, Lachish, and Debir, fearing that the Immigrants would defeat them in detail, hastily created an alliance. But the House of Israel had grown strong in the desert and Jericho had given the Immigrants momentum. Joshua quickly defeated this alliance, and the territory of the Immigrants now extended from Kadesh-barnea to Gaza and many cities in central and northern Palesine.

Joshua partitioned all these lands among the remaining tribes that did not receive land in the Transjordan. But the Philistines, Moabites, and Ammonites continued to harrass the Immigrants long after they had been dispossessed of their cities, even into the period much later when the House of Israel was ruled by kings.

After the death of Joshua, the House of Israel had no formal ruler, but for the next two centuries a number of major and minor judges found themselves in positions of leadership over one or more tribes as the Immigrants continued to fight an insurgency among the people they had conquered. The reigns of the ones recorded in Scripture add up to about a hundred years. Between these periods, the Immigrants lived as a loose confederacy of tribes. Some of the Judges even reigned concurrently, but none of them ruled all of Israel until the time of Eli and his son Samuel, just before the coming of the monarchy.

Othniel, of the tribe of Judah, delivered the people from the rule of the Edomite king Cusham-rishathaim after he had subjugated the House of Israel for eight years.

Ehud, from the tribe of Benjamin, on the occasion of delivering the tribute of the Israelites to Eglon, reigning king of Moab, said to the king, "I have a private message for you." And Eglon caused all his servants to depart. Then Ehud said, "I have a message from Yahweh for you," and that message was in the form of a long dagger which was thrust into the king's belly.

After that, Ehud escaped to rally the House of Israel to slay ten thousand Moabites and bring all of Moab under Israelite subjugation for eighty years.
Deborah was the only female judge, and a prophetess. Together with Barak, son of Abinoam, with ten thousand Naphtalites and Zebulinites, Deborah defeated the Canaanite army, but its general, Sisera, was slain by a Palestinian woman named Jael who drove a tent peg through his temple with a mallet.

Gideon, from the tribe of Manasseh (together with only three hundred hand-picked soldiers) delivered Israel from the oppression of the Midianites, who would invade like locusts during harvest time and decimate the crops, leaving almost nothing for the children of Israel to live on.

And Gideon had seventy sons, for he had many wives, but Abimelech, Gideon's bastard son by his lowly handmaiden, had all of his brothers put to death save one, named Jotham, who escaped. And Jotham went to the city of Sechem and publicly laid a curse on Abimelech, who had declared himself the first king of Israel.

After Jotham's curse the House of Israel went into a state of rebellion for three years that ended only when Abimelech laid siege to a certain tower in the center of the city of Thebez where the women and children and old men had fled during the siege. There a woman cast a millstone down upon the head of Abimelech and gave him a mortal skull fracture. And with his dying breath Abimelecth ordered his armorbearer to run him through with a sword, lest men say ever afterward, "A woman killed him," which to a patriarch was a fate far worse than death by slow torture.

Following the traditions of the pagan gods of the land of Canaan, Jepthah the Gileadite vowed to his own Yahweh to make a human sacrifice of whoever was the first one to meet him when he returned home following the defeat of the Ammonites. After Jephthah laid waste to the twenty cities of Ammon, he returned home, and was met in his front yard by his only child, his daughter, who came out of the house playing tambourines and dancing. And Jephthah, true to his vow, sacrificed her to Yahweh, but this sacrifice was in vain, for it was not accepted by Yahweh, and in fact Yahweh did not even know of it until his temple was established in the kingdom of Nath in the Land We Know and a copy of the scriptures of the Immigrants came to him there.

In the latter days of the period of judges, Eli of the tribe of Levi was the chief priest, and the Immigrants also came to him to act in the role of judge between them. Eli was the first judge to be accepted by the whole House of Israel, but his own sons Hophni and Phinehas were greedy, and contrary to the Law they enlarged their own portion of the offerings made to Yahweh, and Eli knew this but refused to rebuke his sons.

And there was at this time a young man named Samuel who served Yahweh under Eli, and lived in his house, and Eli considered him almost another son.
One night Samuel began to hear voices, and Eli recognized that he was beginning to receive revelations from Yahweh. Eli instructed Samuel on how to listen, and Samuel did all that he was told.

But the words he heard were grievous for Eli and Samuel feared to speak them. In the morning Samuel came to Eli, but was silent, and Eli ordered him to speak, and he said may Yahweh punish Samuel if he did not speak.

Thus constrained, Samuel had no choice but to repeat the words of the vision and pronounce doom on the house of Eli. He said many of the descendants of Eli would die by the sword, and of those who escaped this, none would attain to old age. The remnant of his family would beg to be appointed to a priestly function that they may have at least a morsel of bread to eat.

A sign was given by Samuel so that Eli would know beforehand that this divine curse was coming true: Both of Eli's sons would die on the very same day.

And it came to pass in the lands nigh to the sea claimed by the tribe of Ephraim that all of the men under arms in Israel camped at Ebenezer, while the Philistines camped at nearby Aphek. In the battle that followed, thirty-four thousand men among the House of Israel were killed, severely wounded, or taken captive. And Eli's two sons Hophni and Phinehas were among the dead. When word of this reached Eli in Shiloh, Eli tipped back in his chair and struck the ground, breaking his neck.

Thus passed Eli, who had judged all of the House of Israel for forty years. And Samuel, already a renowned prophet, attributed the terrible defeat to the devotion of the Israelites to foreign gods, and exhorted them to return to Yahweh and offer worship to him alone.

So at Mizpah the people renewed their covenanted devotion to Yahweh and Samuel began to judge all Israel on that day, and under Samuel the Philistines were routed, and the territory from Ekron to Gath was restored to Israelite control. The Philistines were subdued for all the years of Samuel's life, and there was peace also between Israel and the Amorites.

When Samuel waxed old he appointed his sons Joel and Abijah to judge Israel in his stead, but his sons accepted bribes and perverted justice. So the elders of Israel came to the house of Samuel at Ramah and said, Now that you are old, and your sons do not follow your example, appoint a king over us, as other nations have done, to rule over us.

And Samuel tried to warn them all about the procedures of a king. He said, "The king will take your sons and make them serve in his army. He will set them to do his plowing and harvesting, and to make weapons of war and chariots. He will use your daughters as makers of ointments and cooks. He will take the best part of your fields and vineyards and groves and give them to his officials. He will take a tenth part of your increase to support his eunuchs and slaves, and over time you yourselves will become his slaves."

But the elders would not hearken to Samuel's warning. They insisted that Israel must become like other nations and have a king. Then in 1031 BCE Samuel annointed Saul of the tribe of Benjamin to govern all the people as their first king

And King Saul reigned for twenty years, defeating the enemies of Israel on all sides. He defeated in turn the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Philistines, Beth-rehob, and the king of Zobah. But Samuel had developed a personal grudge against the Amalekites over the years, and he still felt he spoke for Yahweh.

Samuel ordered King Saul to attack Amalek and spare no one, not the king, not the men and women under him, nor their children, nor their infants, nor even their animals and other property.

King Saul routed Amalek in the field put to death all of the Amalekite men, women, and children, but Agag their king he captured alive, and his troops took possession of their animals and other items of worth as war booty. But Samuel was greatly displeased, and said Saul had been rejected by Yahwah as king over his people on account of his disobedience of Samuel, which Samuel claimed was disobedience of Yahweh, even though Yahweh was out of the picture now.


And Saul was very sorry for his mistake of allowing his troops to take booty from Amalek, but Samuel refused to forgive him, and ordered that king Agag be brought before him i n Gilgal. Then Samuel himself killed Agag with a sword, and departed to Bethlehem, where he anointed a youth named David, son of Jesse, to be the new king of Israel.

David served for a time in the house of King Saul, but for ten years David was little more than a refugee fleeing before the wrath of the king when it became widely known that Samuel had withdrawn the divine mandate of kingship from Saul and had bestowed it upon this youth. Saul had lost the moral authority to be king, but he retained the actual power of kingship until his death in battle against the Philistines at Mount Gilboa.

Upon the death of King Saul in about 1011 BCE, David was consecrated king of Israel on the strength of his selection by Samuel, but this was recognized only by the tribe of Judah and the city of Hebron.

Ishbaal, son of Saul, was anointed king over the rest of Israel, and for seven years the land was torn by civil war between the allies of the house of David and the allies of the house of Saul, but the house of David gradually prevailed.
And the house of Saul itself was divided when Saul's general, Abner, after a quarrel with Ishbaal, reconciled with David and swore to aid David in bringing the rest of Israel to accept David as king over them.

After that, Ishbaal the king of Israel was slain while he slept, and the head was brought to David by the murderers, thinking they would be given a large reward for slaying David's mortal enemy. But David had the murderers themselves put to death, because he had no respect for their deed of killing an innocent man in his sleep.

Now David's power in Israel was unchallenged, and all the tribes of Israel came to him in Hebron and offered fealty to David as their king. And David was thirty years of age when he became King of the whole House of Israel.

Then David moved against the Jebusites, and captured the city of Jerusalem after defeating them in 1004. To Jerusalem David moved his wives and concubines and sons and daughters, and built the city up as the capital of Israel.

Then David defeated the Philistines at Baal-perazim, and again in the valley of Rephaim from Gibeon to Gezer. Of the Moabites David demanded tribute after defeating them, and he also defeated Hadadezer, king of Zobah, and the Arameans of Damascus who aided him.


After David's victory in the Valley of Salt, the Edomites became David's subjects as a close commonwealth of Israel rather than merely tributary to it, as befitting their origins as the descendants of Esau, twin brother of Israel.

David defeated the Ammonites outside their capital city of Rabbah, but spared the city, while defeating their mercenaries the Arameans at Medeba.

When David was on his death bed he shivered all the time. They piled blankets on him, but he was still cold. So finally they rounded up a virgin to crawl into his bed to give him heat, which she promptly did. But it was strictly business. The noble and kingly King David was a man with a very strong will, who never once took advantage of the situation.

"And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not."
 
David's wife Bathsheba was nearby, what was wrong with her body heat? At any rate, it is perks like deathbed virgin heating pads that has inspired men to become kings throughout history.

David revived enough to make his final words a command for David and Bathsheba's son Solomon to whack Joab, because David was exceedingly wroth with Joab for whacking his son Absalom. Solomon had Joab whacked in the Temple of Yahweh.

In 971 BCE David died at the age of seventy, after reigning in Jerusalem for thirty-three years. Then Solomon, son of David, was seated on his father's throne as King of Israel.

King Solomon eliminated his rivals and consolidated his claim to the throne in the years after David died. He reigned over a united kingdom in the period of ancient Israel's greatest prosperity.

Solomon introduced a system of taxation, slave labor, and foreign trade which financed the construction of the temple-palace complex on Mount Zion, adjacent to the old walled city of Jerusalem.

But in his private life he slipped into debauchery, with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, including many foreign women who often influenced him to lessen his devotion to Yahweh alone. To please some of these women, he used some money from his construction fund to build pagan temples in Jerusalem.

Upon the death of Solomon in 931 BCE, after a reign of forty years, the Kingdom was split into two separate states, with the ten northern tribes of the Kingdom of Israel moving its capital to Shechem, while the two southern tribes of the kingdom of Judah retained its capital at Jerusalem.

In 922 BCE Jeroboam I became the first king of the rump state called Israel. He built his capital first at Shechem, but them moved his court to Penuel east of the Jordan River.

To prevent the people from going to the temple in Jerusalem to worship, Jeroboam broke with Yawhist religion by introducing the worship of the golden calf at Bethel and the region of Dan, telling the people the golden calf was their Yahweh all along, and the feast days for the golden calf were timed to coincide with the feast days in Jerusalem.


Jeroboam reigned twenty-two years as the king of Israel, and when he died in 901 BCE he was succeeded by Nadab his son.

Nadab reigned over Israel for less than two years. In 900 BCE he was slain by Baasha of the tribe of Issachar during the siege of Gibbethon, and Baasha reigned as king in his stead. King Baasha transferred his capital to Tirzah, near Shechem.

As king, Baasha killed off the whole house of Jeroboam, yet he did not destroy the golden calf idols and return the worship of Israel to Yahweh alone.
Baasha reigned in Israel almost twenty-four years, and when he died, his son Elah ascended to the throne in 877 BCE.

After reigning for nearly two years, Elah drank to excess and was slain by General Zimri, who commanded half of his charioteers. And Zimri destroyed the whole house of Baasha, leaving no male heir alive, and ascended to the throne himself in a kind of military coup in 876 BCE.

But when the army heard that Zimri had killed the king and set himself up in his stead, they proclaimed General Omri as the true king of Israel and marched from Gibbethon to lay seige to Tirzah. When the wall of Tirzah fell, Zimri set fire to the palace and let it burn around him rather than be captured alive. And he had reigned a total of seven days.

But the people of Israel were divided, with half accepting General Omri as king and the other half proclaiming that Tibni, son of Ginath, should be king. But in 876 BCE Omri prevailed, and Tibni was put to death.

And King Omri founded Samaria and transferred the capital to the hilltop there. But Omri refused to reform the religion of Israel, and permitted the worship of the golden calf to continue. He died after a reign of twelve years and was succeeded by his son Ahab in 869 BCE.

King Ahab married Jezebel, daughter of the king of the Sidonians, and converted to her religion of Baal worship. He built a temple to Baal in Samaria, and during his reign of twenty-two years the prophet Elijah arose to preach in opposition to the worship of Baal introduced by King Ahab and his wife Jezebel of Tyre.

Ahab was killed in battle by the Arameans of Damascus and was succeeded by his son Ahaziah, who reigned nearly two years over the kingdom of Israel beginning in 850 BCE.

And Ahaziah, had been brought up by his parents Ahab and Jezebel to serve and worship only Baal. He died with no heir, and his brother Joram succeeded him as king in 849 BCE.

Joram was wounded in battle against the Arameans at Ramah, and retired to Jezreel to recuperate.

Then in 842 BCE, Elisha, who succeeded Elijah as the greatest prophet in Israel, anointed Jehu, lieutenant of Joram and son of Jerhoshaphat, as king over Israel. Elisha commissioned him to destroy the entire house of Ahab.

And Jehu formed a conspiracy against Joram, and drove his chariot to Jezreel where Joram lay ill from his wounds, and there he slew Joram and his ally Ahaziah king of Judah.

And when Jehu drew near to the gate of Jezreel to slay Jezebel, he saw the woman standing on the rampart of the wall, together with a number of court eunuchs.

Jehu told them to throw her off the wall, and when they did, Jehu rode over her body with his horse to ensure she was dead. And dogs ate the remnants of her body, so that no one could ever point to a tomb and say, "There lies Jezebel."
And the heads of seventy sons of Ahab was sent to Jehu in baskets.

Then Jehu slew Ahab's supporters, friends, and the priests of Baal, as well as forty-two kinsmen of King Ahaziah of Judah. And Jehu rooted out the worship of Baal from Israel, but he did not destroy the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.
During Jehu's reign of twenty-eight years, Hazael king of Damascus captured all the lands of Israel east of the Jordan River. And when Jehu died in 815 BCE, Jehoahaz his son succeeded him to the throne to rule over Israel from Samaria for seventeen years.

But Jehoahaz also did nothing about the golden calves at Bethel and Dan. He was defeated by the Arameans, and much of Israel was occupied until the end of the his reign. At one point, the kingdom's power was reduced to fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers.

His son Joash succeeded Jehoahaz after his death in 801 BCE, and Joash ruled Israel for sixteen years.

Joash defeated the Arameans in three separate battles, and won back for Israel the cities of the Transjordan that had been lost. And when Joash died in 786 BCE he was succeeded by his son Jeroboam II, who ruled Israel for forty-one years.
Under Jeroboam II's long reign the Northern Kingdom reached the pinnacle of its wealth and power and territorial extent. The population of Israel exceeded 350,000 and the border of the nation extended from the river Orontes to the Mediterranean Sea. For a time, it was the leading power of the region.

Then in 746 BCE Zechariah succeeded Jeroboam II and ruled for only six months before he was assassinated by Shallum. This ended the dynasty of Jehu after four generations of his descendants, fulfilling a prophetic blessing that was given to Jehu after his deeds rooting out the seed of Ahab.

Shallum the Usurper, who was allied with Damascus, ruled Israel for only one month before he was killed by Menahem, a general of the army of Israel in 745 BCE.

Menahem greatly strengthened the kingdom, but he was cruel, putting down revolts without mercy, and he was forced to pay heavy tribute to the Assyrian Empire. Uncharacteristically, he died a natural death, and Pekahiah son of Menahem succeeded his father to the throne in 738 BCE.

Pekahiah reigned less than two years before he was killed in 737 BCE by Captain Pekah, son of Remaliah, his military adjutant, in the citadel of the royal palace at Samaria, aided by fifty men of Gilead.

Isaiah made note of an alliance between King Pekah and King Rezin of Aram that threatened King Ahaz of Judah. But this was the time the Assyrians made their bid for great power. Under Pekah's reign the kingdom of Israel was reduced to solely the lands of Ephraim and parts of Manasseh. Then in 732 BCE King Pekah was slain by Hoshea, son of Elah.

In the fourth year of his reign, Hoshea was summoned to the court of Shalmaneser to explain his failure to pay the 1,000 talents of tribute required of him. He was imprisoned, and the Assyrians attacked Israel from 727-725 BCE. The province of Samaria became, for all intents and purposes, a vassal of Damascus governed by military officers.

In 721 the Assyrian army was withdrawn to secure the succession of Sargon II after the death of Shalmaneser.

In 720 Sargon II occupied all of Israel and deported the people to the east, where they soon lost their identity forever as separate tribes through intermarriage with the Medeans. But a remnant of all the tribes of the Northern Kingdom were taken by Binah to colonize the Land We Know.