‘A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY’
The original inhabitants of Jerusalem were Phoenician Canaanites, their culture is believed to have pioneered the Mediterranean system of agriculture, intensive horticulture, grain growing and commercial olive cultivation. Old Testament scripture states that the land is named after Canaan, a son of Ham, son of Noah, the ancestor of the Canaanite people. The Canaanites of the southern Levante worshipped a panoply of gods; the first known mention of the city of Jerusalem was in c. 2,000 BCE.
PHILISTIA (present day Gaza on the Mediterranean coast of Israel) was the name of a region between Egypt and Canaan believed to be founded c 2,100BC. The Old Testament states that the inhabitants were Philistines. In Hebrew, Philistine literally means ‘of Palestine’ (Phillistia). The name Jerusalem is of Canaanite origin, meaning “Founded by Shalem”: Originally ‘Urushalim’ or ‘Urushalem’ the prefix uru means ‘founded by’, and the suffix salem or Shalem refers to the Canaanite ‘god of dusk, of the setting sun and of health and perfection’. The Sumero-Akkadian name for Jerusalem (1330 BCE) uru-salim, means “foundation of [or by] the god ‘Shalim‘ from Hebrew/Semitic meaning ‘to found, to lay a cornerstone’.
Though not a part of Canaan and never conquered by the Israelites, Phillistia was in the area said to have been promised to the Israelites by their God. The two nations were initially on peaceful terms but eventually warred for centuries. Goliath the giant was the Philistine from Gath, killed by David the shepherd boy (later King of Israel) with a slingshot stone. Under the later Roman occupation of Judea, Phillistia was renamed Palaestina, the name Palestine and the Arab word Filistin originate from the Romanised Palaestina
According to the Old Testament Abraham, the patriarch of Judaism, was born in 1,813 BCE, he was a native of Ur of the Chaldeans, in Mesopotamia, now south eastern Iraq. Led by God Abraham settled in Haran, The Jewish Torah traces his lineage through his twelve sons who became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel and his grandson Jacob.
The name Israel comes from the renaming of Jacob by the Hebrew god of the bible, following a heroic struggle when he wrestled with an angel. The Hebrew bible states the name is derived from ‘yisra’ meaning ‘to prevail over’ and ‘el ‘referring to ‘God, the divine’. Joseph the son of Jacob was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers but rose to prominence when he interpreted the dream of the pharaoh which predicted a famine in Egypt. Following the famine Jacob’s descendants, the Hebrews migrated to Egypt and under the patronage of Joseph, established a thriving community. After Joseph’s death the Hebrews were viewed as a threat to the indigenous population and were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years.
Directed by God, Moses led the Hebrew slaves to freedom through the Sinai Peninsula to Canaan, the ‘land flowing with milk and honey’ as promised to them by their God. Canaan had an indigenous population of both settled and nomadic groups; the Israelites were commanded by their god to conquer Canaan. The conquest occurred under Joshua in c.1,406BC. The Book of Joshua states that Canaanites are included in a list of nations to exterminate and later described as a group which the Israelites had annihilated. (Today this has been equated with genocide.) The land was divided between the 12 tribes, the sons of Jacob but the tribes were divided and warred against each other for centuries.
According to the Bible, the Israelite history of the city of Jerusalem began c.1,000 BCE when the city was sacked by King David (a descendant of the tribe of Judah) who later united the 12 tribes of Israel. Solomon, his son, built the Temple of Jerusalem, after the death of Solomon the kingdom became fragmented and was split into two parts, 10 tribes of Israel and 2 of Judah. The city of Jerusalem was located in Judah.
In the Assyrian conquest (740 BCE) the tribes of Israel were taken captive and exiled. They never returned to their homeland and are referred to as ‘the Ten lost tribes of Israel’ who became scattered over centuries in the global diaspora. The tribes of Judah (Jews) were exiled in the Babylonian conquest (587/6 BCE). After the Fall of Babylon to the Persians in 539BCE Cyrus the Great issued a decree allowing the right of return of the Jewish tribes to Israel to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. Some 50,000 returned in 4 waves, the temple was dedicated in 516 BCE. Many of the exiles did not return to their homeland, most remained in Babylon or travelled westward and northward settling in what is now northern Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
The land which would in time become Israel was for centuries part of the Turkish-ruled Ottoman Empire. After World War One and the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the territory known as Palestine was assigned by the victorious allied powers to Britain to administer under Mandate. This included land west of the River Jordan known by the Jews as the land of Israel. The terms of the mandate entrusted Britain with establishing “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine so long as doing so did not prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities there. In 1947 the United Nations, proposed partitioning Palestine into two states – one Jewish, one Arab – with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area to become an international city. A few days before the British mandate was due to expire in 1948 the World Zionist Organization declared the Establishment of the State of Israel.
BALFOUR DECLARATION – ‘Freedom is never gained by the oppression of others’