Hebrews/History

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Events Estimated Dates
Creation of Adam and Eve 3700-4004 B.C.
Flood perhaps 3300 B.C.
Tower of Babel perhaps 2500 B.C.
Call of Abram (Abraham) born c. 2000 B.C.
Covenant 1921 B.C.
Abraham to Palestine area 1921 B.C. to 1690 B.C.
Joseph to Egypt 1880 B.C.[1]
Moses and Exodus 1447[2]
Entering the Promised Land 1400[3]
Israelite kingdom established under King David 1010 B.C.
Israel divided into Israel and Judah 931 B.C.
Israel (10 tribes) conquered by Assyrians 721 B.C.
Judah (2 tribes) conquered by Neo-Babylonians 585 to 515 B.C.
Persians conquer Babylonian empire, captives freed 515 B.C.
Jerusalem rebuilt starting 515 B.C.

While most ancient peoples worshiped many pagan (non-existent) gods, the Hebrews worshiped only one God (but even misbehaving Hebrews had false gods – note the Second Commandment). The Hebrews referred to God as "Yahweh" (or "Jehovah"), and to this day some observant Jewish people consider it improper to write the name of God, and instead they write "G-d". "Yahweh" simply means "I am who I am," written in the Hebrew language (which lacks vowels) as YHWH. ("Yah" by itself means simply, "I am.") It is the name God instructed Moses to use at the encounter at the miraculous burning bush that continued to burn without destruction, in Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM'; and He said, 'Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

It remains a mystery as to precisely when the books of the Old Testament were written, but here are some estimates:

Book Estimated Dates Basis for Dates Books included
Genesis and all of Pentateuch 1440-1400 B.C. Time of Moses and Exodus Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
Joshua and historical books 1400-250 B.C. dated by evidence of historical events Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel,[4] 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther
Wisdom Literature The Book of Job may be older than Genesis Job, David & Solomon are main authors Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs
Major Prophets 785-520 B.C. dated by evidence of historical events Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (of Jeremiah), Ezekial and Daniel
Minor Prophets 753-455 B.C. dated by evidence of historical events Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi

Later the name of the ancient Hebrews became known as the "Israelites", once the kingdom of the Hebrews was established with the crowning of King David around 1000BCE

But Israel did not remain intact as a nation in the ancient world; after the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, it split into two kingdoms, and then was captured and taken into captivity. Beginning with the terminology in the Book of Esther, which was written between 200 and 300 B.C., the people of the former Israel became known as the "Jewish people," or the "Jews".

Judaism did not exist before Abraham, and it is not known where his ancestors lived in the prior millennium; they could have lived throughout the Middle East, including ancient Egypt.


Biblical Origins[edit | edit source]

According to the Bible, the ancient Hebrews were descendants of a man of the Mesopotamian city-state of Ur, Abram (later in his life his name became "Abraham", meaning "father of many"), and his wife Sarah, through their son Isaac and Isaac's son Jacob (later renamed "Israel"). The ancient Hebrews who were descended from Jacob migrated away from Ur in Mesopotamia to Palestine, where they resided between 2000 and about 1500 B.C. But they migrated over to Egypt to escape a bad famine, eventually becoming slaves of the Egyptians before finally migrating from Egypt back eastwards under the guidance of the prophets Moses and Joshua. Moses is also credited as being the scribe for the first five books of the Bible (the "Pentateuch" or, when part of a parchment scroll in the Jewish liturgy, the "Torah") and the compiler of the Biblical "Ten Commandments". After leaving Egypt, the Hebrews settled back in the hills of Palestine or Canaan along eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, approximately where Israel is today and by the end of the 2nd millenium BCE founded a kingdom, with Saul being held as the first king.


. As described in the Book of Exodus, Moses (who had been adopted by a royal family there) ultimately led 600,000 Hebrews out of Egypt around 1250 B.C.[5] Egyptian historians refer to slaves and captives called "Hapiru", but some doubt that these were the Hebrews. Regardless, the Bible contains many verified references to the Egyptian pharaohs demonstrating that the Jewish ancestors were in Egypt.




The timeline is easy to remember: Jesus (6 B.C. to about A.D. 30) lived half-way between Abraham (2000 B.C.) and today (A.D. 2011). King David and the founding of Israel was halfway between Abraham and Jesus.

The conflict between the Hebrew (Jewish) and Arab peoples is described by some as a family feud. Both sides are descended from the same father, Abraham, as recounted in Genesis 16. But Jewish and Arab peoples trace their lineage from different sons of Abraham who were rivals for their father's love. The Bible states that Jewish people are descendants of Isaac, the child of Abraham and Sarah. The Koran (the main holy book of Islam) states that Arabs are descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham (then Abram) and the Egyptian woman Hagar. The Old Testament teaches that Abraham offered to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, while Islam teaches that Abraham's sacrifice was of his son Ishmael. Islam teaches that Ishmael helped Abraham build a mosque in Mecca (the venerated Kaaba). Ishmael went a different way from the rest of Abraham's family, and there have been hard feelings by Ishmael's descendants ever since. Note that the Bible's version of this was written first, preceding the Koran by over a thousand years.


The dates given below are estimates, and the homework encourages you to improve on them:



Saul, David and Solomon

Inevitably a Hebrew warrior, Saul, took power around 1000 B.C. and defeated the Philistines and Canaanites. The priest Samuel anointed Saul as King, but many Hebrews declined to obey him. David, a shrewd fighter who had trained as a mercenary with the Philistines, became famous as a teenager for defeating the Philistine giant Goliath as described in the Bible. David next built an empire for Israel that extended from Damascus, then a thriving city in the Fertile Crescent, all the way south past what is now the Gaza Strip. For its capital he built a hill city called Jerusalem, and encapsulated it within a wall. II Samuel 9-20 describes this period.

David's son was Solomon, who ruled for forty years (965-925 B.C.) and constructed the great temple of Jerusalem. He was known for his wisdom and justice. He created two states: Israel in the north, with a capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with a capital at Jerusalem. But Solomon also taxed the Hebrews heavily and, after he died, the empire fell into decline. The Kingdom of Israel split after the death of Solomon. See I Kings 12.

Judah in the south survived longer than Israel in the north. The southern Kingdom of Judah consisted of two of the twelve Hebrew tribes, while the northern Kingdom of Israel had the other ten Hebrew tribes. But due to its northern location, the Kingdom of Israel had to contend with Assyria, which was a cruel and extremely powerful kingdom of northern Mesopotamia. It was located in present-day northern Iraq and at times controlled the northern part of present-day Syria. Assyria became an independent state in the 14th century B.C., expanded in the 9th century B.C. and, under powerful kings like Sargon II, united most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf under Assyrian rule. It was finally destroyed by a Chaldean-Median coalition in 612-609 B.C.

Assyrian Empire

The Assyrians defeated the Kingdom of Israel in 772 B.C, and then scattered and dispersed the ten Hebrew tribes throughout the Assyrian Kingdom. The Assyrian empire was powerful because it used iron weapons and battering rams, and did not hesitate even to tunnel under enemies' walls. The Assyrians also enslaved the peoples it captured, taking them away from their homeland. The scattering of the Hebrews by the Assyrians was the first of several "diaspora" (pronounced deye-AS-puh-ruh), which means the scattering of the Jewish people away from their homeland. In Judah, however, a young ruler known as Joshua ultimately rose to power in 640 B.C. and overthrew the Assyrian influence, which was in a state of decline then. But Joshua himself ran into the merciless power of the Chaldean empire.

The Chaldean empire defeated both the Hebrews and the Assyrians. Chaldea was the region in southern Babylonia, covering what is now southern Iraq. This land borders the coast of the Persian Gulf between the Euphrates delta and the Arabian desert.

As Assyrian power began to decline, a ruler named Nabopolassar was able to establish a Chaldean dynasty, beginning in 625 B.C. and extending until the Persians conquered the territory by invading in 539 B.C. from present-day Iran. In that brief span of time an important ruler commanded the Chaldean dynasty and all of Babylonian empire: Nebuchadnezzar II (NEB-uh-kuhd-NEZ-ur), who reigned from 605 to 562 B.C.

Chaldean Empire

Nebuchadnezzar II was a military genius who demonstrated his prowess with a massive conquest of the Egyptian army in 606 or 605 B.C., thereby gaining control of all of Syria. After his father's death, he obtained the submission of Judah and spent the next few years expanding the Babylonian empire into Palestine. Although Nebuchadnezzar suffered many losses, he persisted and ultimately captured Jerusalem on March 16, 597, and then later again in 586, when the Chaldeans also destroyed Solomon's temple. Nebuchadnezzar kidnapped and deported prominent Hebrews back to Babylonia, as recounted in the Bible and known as the Babylonian Exile. Nebuchadnezzar was a godless military commander who suffered from seven years of madness, but at times he protected key prophets like Jeremiah. Daniel described the period of madness by Nebuchadnezzar, but the Babylonian people did not dare criticize their own ruler, as told in the Book of Daniel 4:34-37.

Babylon was a culture that did not have the good moral values of the Hebrews, and Babylonians did not accept God. The Babylonians were constantly raiding, kidnapping, killing or converting the Hebrews into slaves. Much of the Old Testament is about how the Hebrews would gain or lose favor with the Lord, and the Babylonians would prevail against the Hebrews as they lost favor with the Lord. "Babylon" is mentioned 246 times in the Old Testament!

Because he captured and exiled the Hebrews, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament. As mentioned above, it was during his second invasion of Jerusalem, the city that had been previously established as the Hebrew center by David in 1000 B.C., that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the holy Temple built by King Solomon ("Solomon's Temple"). Nebuchadnezzar then captured the Jewish people and took them back to Babylon in what is known as the Babylonian Exile or Captivity, which lasted from 597 to 538 B.C. (beginning with his first invasion of Jerusalem). "But because our ancestors had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia." Ezra 5:12.

Israel[edit | edit source]

Persian Empire

The death of Nebuchadnezzar II signaled the end of the Babylonian empire, which then fell into decline. It was inevitable that Babylon itself would be conquered. Cyrus the Great was the King of Persia (the ancient name for Iran) (539-530 B.C.), who conquered Asia Minor for the Persians, including the territories of Assyria, Babylonia, Palestine and Syria. His kingdom was known as the Achaemenid (ə-kē'mə-nĭd) (or Persian) empire. He freed the Hebrews and ended the Babylonian Exile, allowing the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple. The tomb of Cyrus the Great still exists at Pasargadae, the town that was the capital of his empire but which is now in ruins in present-day Iran.

More than a thousand years later, during the Islamic conquest of Iran, the Muslims planned to destroy this tomb because it is contrary to their religion. However, the possibility that the tomb was somehow built to honor the mother of King Solomon, a respected prophet in Islam, justified preserving the tomb to this day, and it is inscribed today with the following verse of the Qur'an (Koran): "Qabr-e Madar-e Sulaiman" which means the tomb of the mother of Solomon.

In summary[edit | edit source]

For what do we owe the ancient Hebrews? The concept of monotheism: one and only one God. The Hebrews established the covenant of loyalty between God and His chosen ones. Part of the covenant was the promise of a future Messiah to save the people from their sins, and Jewish people debate today whether the Messiah was supposed to establish a kingdom on earth. Later some Jewish people accepted Jesus as the Messiah, while some did not. The moral code by which the Hebrew people strove to live was set forth in the Ten Commandments, which were carved in stone and kept in the sacred Ark of the Covenant as described repeatedly in the Bible (see, e.g., Exodus 25:9-10). Highly specific requirements of daily life are also set forth in the Torah (the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament). The authorities on Jewish law are known as "rabbis", but there is no single, centralized religious authority on Judaism like a pope. Next to the Bible, the most authoritative Jewish work is the Talmud, which is a collection of writings by rabbis.

  1. This is based on the "early date" estimate for Exodus. See http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a027.html
  2. Another estimated date for Moses and Exodus is 1270 B.C.
  3. Another estimated date for entering the Promised Land is 1230 B.C.
  4. There are two books of Samuel because the work was longer than what could fit within the length of the ancient scroll!
  5. 1250 B.C. is known as the "late date" or estimate for the time of the Exodus; the "early date" or estimate for the Exodus is 1447 B.C.