The first, and crucial stage in Saul’s war against his most formidable enemy, the Philistines, was his expulsion of their oppressive military presence in the central hill country.
Saul’s first trial as a military leader was the rescue of the beleaguered residents of Jabesh-gilead (1 Sam 11:1–11). Nahash, king of the sons of Ammon, laid siege to their town and had demanded cruel and humiliating terms of surrender.
The dichotomy between the Israelites of tribal origin and the urban Canaanites was a social and geographical reality of the united monarchy.
The Book of Judges ends with the story of the fraternal war between Benjamin and the other Israelite tribes, following the ravishing of the concubine of a Levite at the hands of the people of Gibeah in Benjamin.
The narrative about the migration of the patriarchal ancestor of the Israelite nation emphasizes their origin in Mesopotamia and their subsequent association with Egypt, the two great riverine cultures of the ancient Near East. Ur of the Chaldees was the venerable city of the moon god Sin in southern Mesopotamia, Sumer.
The Bible records two major conflicts between the Israelite tribes and the Canaanites of the cities in Galilee: the battle of the waters of Merom (Josh 11:1–15) and the battle of Deborah (Judg 4 and 5). In both accounts, the leader of the Canaanite league is Jabin, king of Hazor.
Three chapters in the Book of Judges (6–8) are devoted to the career of a hero – Gideon – from the central hills of Ephraim, from the clan of Abiezer, a branch of the tribe of Manasseh.
Attention is focused on Transjordan with the legend of Jephthah (Judg 10:6–12:7), a hero whose life reflects a number of themes from this type of literature, not only in the Levant but in the eastern Mediterranean in general.
The result of the Greek migrations, 1200 to 900 B.C.
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