Authors: Israel Finkelstein,Neil Asher Silberman
Along with the extraordinary social transformation in the late eighth century
BCE
came an intense religious struggle that had a direct connection to the emergence of the Bible as we know it today. Before the crystallization of the kingdom of Judah as a fully bureaucratic state, religious ideas were diverse and dispersed. Thus, as we have mentioned, there was the royal cult in the Jerusalem Temple, there were the countless fertility and ancestor
cults in the countryside, and there was the widespread mixing of the worship of YHWH with that of other gods. As far as we are able to tell from the archaeological evidence of the northern kingdom, there was a similar diversity of religious practice in Israel. Aside from memories of the strident preaching of figures like Elijah and Elisha, the anti-Omride puritanism of Jehu, and the harsh words of prophets like Amos and Hosea, there was never any concerted or long-lasting effort by the Israelite government to sanction the worship of YHWH alone.
But after the fall of Samaria, with the increasing centralization of the kingdom of Judah, a new, more focused attitude toward religious law and practice began to catch hold. Jerusalem’s influence—demographic, economic, and political—was now enormous and it was linked to a new political and territorial agenda: the unification of all Israel. And the determination of its priestly and prophetic establishment to define the “proper” methods of worship for all the people of Judah—and indeed for those Israelites living under Assyrian rule in the north—rose accordingly. These dramatic changes in religious leadership have prompted biblical scholars such as Baruch Halpern to suggest that in a period of no more than a few decades in the late eighth and early seventh century
BCE
, the monotheistic tradition of Judeo-Christian civilization was born.
That is a big claim—to be able to pinpoint the birth of the modern religious consciousness, especially when its central scripture, the Bible, places the birth of monotheism hundreds of years earlier. But in this case too the Bible offers a retrospective interpretation rather than an accurate description of the past. Indeed, the social developments going on in Judah in the decades after the fall of Samaria offer a new perspective on how the traditional tales of wandering patriarchs and of a great national liberation from Egypt served the cause of religious innovation—the emergence of monotheistic ideas—within the newly crystallized Judahite state.
Sometime in the late eighth century
BCE
there arose an increasingly vocal school of thought that insisted that the cults of the countryside were sinful—and that YHWH alone should be worshiped. We cannot be sure where the idea originated. It is expressed in the cycle of stories of Elijah and Elisha (set down in writing long after the fall of the Omrides) and, more important, in the works of the prophets Amos and Hosea, both of whom
were active in the eighth century in the north. As a result, some biblical scholars have suggested that this movement originated among dissident priests and prophets in the last days of the northern kingdom who were aghast at the idolatry and social injustice of the Assyrian period. After the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, they fled southward to promulgate their ideas. Other scholars have pointed to circles connected with the Temple of Jerusalem intent on exercising religious and economic control over the increasingly developed countryside. Perhaps both factors played a part in the close-packed atmosphere of Jerusalem after the fall of Samaria, when refugees from the north and Judahite priests and royal officials worked together.
Whatever its makeup, the new religious movement (dubbed the “YHWH-alone movement” by the iconoclastic historian Morton Smith) waged a bitter and continuing conflict with the supporters of the older, more traditional Judahite religious customs and rituals. It is difficult to assess their relative strength within the kingdom of Judah. Even though they seem to have been initially a small minority, they were the ones who later produced or influenced much of the biblical historiography that has survived. The moment was fortuitous for this; with the expansion of bureaucratic administration came a spread in literacy. For the first time the authority of written texts, rather than recited epics or ballads, had an enormous effect.
As should be abundantly clear by now, the passages in the books of Kings about the righteousness and sinfulness of the earlier kings of Judah reflects the ideology of the YHWH-alone movement. Had the supporters of the traditional modes of syncretistic worship won out in the end, we might have possessed an entirely different scripture—or perhaps none at all. For it was the intention of the YHWH-alone movement to create an unquestioned orthodoxy of worship—and a single, Jerusalem-centered national history. And it succeeded brilliantly in the crafting of what would become the laws of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History.
1
Biblical scholars have usually emphasized the strictly religious aspects of
the struggle between the Jerusalem factions, but there is no doubt that their positions encompassed strong views on domestic and foreign policy as well. In the ancient world, as today, the sphere of religion could never be separated from the spheres of economics, politics, and culture. The ideas of the “YHWH-alone” groups had a territorial aspect—the quest for the “restoration” of the Davidic dynasty over all Israel, including the territories of the vanquished northern kingdom, where, as we have seen, many Israelites continued to live after the fall of Samaria. This would bring about the unification of all Israel under one king ruling from Jerusalem, the destruction of the cult centers in the north, and the centralization of the Israelite cult in Jerusalem.
It is easy to see why the biblical authors were so upset by idolatry. It was a symbol of chaotic social diversity; the leaders of the clans in the outlying areas conducted their own systems of economics, politics, and social relations—without administration or control by the court in Jerusalem. That countryside independence, however time-honored by the people of Judah, came to be condemned as a “reversion” to the barbarity of the pre-Israelite period. Thus, ironically, what was most genuinely Judahite was labeled as Canaanite heresy. In the arena of religious debate and polemic, what was old was suddenly seen as foreign and what was new was suddenly seen as true. And in what can only be called an extraordinary outpouring of retrospective theology, the new, centralized kingdom of Judah and the Jerusalem-centered worship of YHWH was read back into Israelite history as the way things should always have been.
It is difficult to know when the new, exclusivist theology first had a practical impact on the conduct of affairs in Judah; various reforms in the direction of YHWH-alone worship are mentioned in the books of Kings as early as the time of King Asa in the early ninth century
BCE
. But their historical reliability is questionable. One thing seems to be fairly clear: the accession of King Hezekiah to the throne of Judah in the late eighth century
BCE
was remembered by the authors of the books of Kings as an event without precedent.
As described in
2
Kings
18
:
3
–
7
, the ultimate goal of Hezekiah’s reform
was the establishment of the exclusive worship of YHWH, in the only legitimate place for that worship—the Temple of Jerusalem. But Hezekiah’s religious reforms are difficult to detect in the archaeological record. The evidence found for them, especially at two sites in the south—Arad and Beersheba—is disputed.
2
Baruch Halpern has therefore proposed that Hezekiah banned countryside worship but did not close the state temples in the kingdom’s administrative centers. Yet there is no question that by the reign of King Hezekiah, a profound change had come over the land of Judah. Judah was now the center of the people of Israel. Jerusalem was the center of the worship of YHWH. And the members of the Davidic dynasty were the only legitimate representatives and agents of YHWH’s rule on earth. The unpredictable course of history had elected Judah to a special status at a particularly crucial moment.
The most dramatic events were yet to come. In
705
BCE
, the venerable Assyrian king Sargon II died, leaving his largely untested son Sennacherib to inherit his throne. Troubles in the east of the empire ensued, and the once invincible façade of Assyria seemed in danger of toppling. For many in Jerusalem, it must have seemed that YHWH had miraculously readied Judah—just in the nick of time—to fulfill its historic destiny.
King Hezekiah’s decision to rebel against the Assyrian empire was surely one of the most fateful decisions taken in the kingdom of Judah. To declare independence from the region’s brutal imperial overlord—which had just two decades before violently dismantled the kingdom of Israel—required the political power and state organization to make far-reaching economic and military preparations. It also required a clear religious reassurance that despite the awesome might of the Assyrian empire, YHWH would ensure Judah’s eventual military success. According to the Bible all of the terrible misfortunes of the kingdom of Israel were ascribed to the idolatrous ways of its people. Now, a purification of the cult of YHWH was the only way to ensure the victory of Judah and save its people from the fate of destruction and exile that had befallen the people of the sinful north.
And so, after the death of Sargon in
705
BCE
, when the ability of the empire to control its faraway territories looked questionable, Judah entered an anti-Assyrian coalition, which was backed by Egypt (
2
Kings
18
:
21
;
19
:
9
), and raised the banner of rebellion—with far-reaching, unanticipated effects. Four years later, in
701
BCE
, the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib, came to Judah with a formidable army. The books of Kings put a brave face on the outcome: Hezekiah was a great hero, an ideal king comparable only to David. He followed in the footsteps of Moses and
cleansed Judah from all the transgressions of the past. Thanks to his piety, the Assyrians retreated from Judah without being able to conquer Jerusalem. As we will see, that is not the whole story, nor is the entire story provided in the Bible’s subsequent account of the fifty-five-year reign of Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son. In contrast to the ideal King Hezekiah, the books of Kings make Manasseh out to be the ultimate apostate, who spends his long career on the throne bringing back all the terrible abominations of the past.
Had we only the biblical materials to depend on, we would have no reason to question this black-and-white picture of Hezekiah’s righteousness and Manasseh’s apostasy. However, contemporary Assyrian sources and modern archaeology show that the Bible’s theological interpretation of Judah’s rebellion against Assyria hides quite a different historical reality.
The second book of Kings narrates the story of Hezekiah’s great gamble in a set-piece drama in which a small cast of characters declaims formalized speeches on readily recognizable theological themes. This style of soliloquies performed for the benefit of the biblical reader is one of the hallmarks of the Deuteronomistic history. The use of religious rhetoric is transparent: the point of the biblical story is to show how the mere force of arms or balance of power has no effect on the outcome of nations at war. Behind it all is the guiding force of YHWH, who uses armies and battles to reward those who jealously and exclusively worship him—and to punish those who do not.
After the description of Hezekiah’s religious behavior, the second book of Kings inserts a brief digression, in fact a repetition, on the fall of the northern kingdom and the deportation of its people because of their sins. It is meant to remind the reader of the contrast between the fates of sinful Israel and of righteous Judah. The situations are similar, the results are the opposite: Israel rebelled, Shalmaneser V laid siege to Samaria, the northern kingdom was destroyed, and its people deported; because of their sins, YHWH was not there to help them. Judah also rebelled, Sennacherib laid siege to Jerusalem, but Hezekiah was a righteous king, so Jerusalem was delivered and Sennacherib’s army destroyed. The moral is clear even when the
fearsome Assyrian forces invade the kingdom and conquer all its outlying fortified cities. Reliance on the power of YHWH is the only key to salvation.
The Assyrian commanders laying siege to Jerusalem challenged the bewildered defenders on the walls of the city, taunting the citizens and trying to break their spirit by questioning the wisdom of King Hezekiah and ridiculing his faith:
“Hear the word of the great king, king of Assyria! Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. Do not let Hezekiah make you to rely on the L
ORD
by saying, The L
ORD
will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me; then every one of you will eat of his own vine, and every one of his own fig tree, and every one of you will drink the water of his own cistern; until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, The L
ORD
will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of the countries have delivered their countries out of my hand, that the L
ORD
should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ”
(2
K
INGS
18
:
28
–
35
)